LOST LIBRARIES: THE DESTRUCTION OF GREAT BOOK COLLECTIONS SINCE ANTIQUITY; ED. BY JAMES RAVEN

This Volume Of Essays Explores The Destruction Of Great Libraries Since Ancient Times And Examines The Intellectual, Political And Cultural Consequences Of Loss. The Resonances Of Loss / James Raven -- Lost Libraries Of Ancient Mesopotamia / Jeremy Black -- Aristotle's 'peripatetic' Library / T. Keith Dix -- Text To Trophy: Shifting Representations Of Regiomontanus's Library / Richard L. Kremer -- The Corvina Library And The Lost Royal Hungarian Archive / Martyn Rady -- Habits Of Manuscript-collecting: The Dispersals Of The Library Of Humfrey, Duke Of Gloucester / David Rundle -- 'the Manuscripts Flew About Like Butterflies': The Break-up Of English Libraries In The Sixteenth Century -- Secularization And Monastic Libraries In Austria / Friedrich Buchmayr -- Lost Royal Libraries And Hanoverian Court Culture / Clarissa Campbell Orr -- Revolutionary Seizures And Their Consequences For French Library History / Dominique Varry -- A Plague Of Books: The Dispersal And Disappearance Of The Diocesan Libraries Of The Church Of Ireland / Margaret Connolly -- The Lost Jewish Libraries Of Vilna And The Frankfurt Institut Zur Erforschung Der Judenfrage / Sem C. Sutter -- China's Roosevelt Library / Rui Wang And Yulin Yang -- China's Destruction Of The Libraries Of Tibet / Rebecca J. Knuth -- Burn The Books / Robert J. Fyne. Edited By James Raven. Based On Papers Originally Delivered Sept. 2000 At A Cambridge Project For The Book Trust Conference Held At Magdalene College, Cambridge. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright 3 Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 List of Tables 9 Acknowledgements 10 Notes on the Contributors 11 1 Introduction: The Resonances of Loss 14 2 Lost Libraries of Ancient Mesopotamia 54 3 Aristotle’s ‘Peripatetic’ Library 71 4 Text to Trophy: Shifting Representations of Regiomontanus’s Library 88 5 The Corvina Library and the Lost Royal Hungarian Archive 104 6 Habits of Manuscript-Collecting: The Dispersals of the Library of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester 119 7 ‘The Manuscripts flew about like Butterflies’: The Break-Up of English Libraries in the Sixteenth Century 138 8 Secularization and Monastic Libraries in Austria 158 9 Lost Royal Libraries and Hanoverian Court Culture 176 10 Revolutionary Seizures and their Consequences for French Library History 194 11 A Plague of Books: The Dispersal and Disappearance of the Diocesan Libraries of the Church of Ireland 210 12 The Lost Jewish Libraries of Vilna and the Frankfurt Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage 232 13 China’s Roosevelt Library 249 14 China’s Destruction of the Libraries of Tibet 260 15 Burn the Books 274 Index 288 A 288 B 289 C 291 D 293 E 293 F 294 G 295 H 296 I 297 J 297 K 297 L 298 M 299 N 301 O 302 P 302 Q 303 R 303 S 304 T 305 U 306 V 306 W 307 X 307 Y 307 Z 307 This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of the loss of books. Fourteen original studies, introduced by a re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent pillage and burning in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq. Leading international scholars ask what it means to lose the literary heritage and accumulated knowledge of a nation or people, why the devastation of library buildings and collections have stayed in the imagination, and why certain losses and the myths created about them are often not as simple or even as extensive as might at first seem. This collection represents a fresh appraisal of library history, offering both a highly topical and innovative cultural study in the history of books and knowledge Annotation This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss. Fourteen original contributions, introduced by a major re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent horrifying pillage and burning of books in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq