Part of the library at Springhill with books covered in brown paper for American troops housed there in the Second World War
The libraries of the National Trust - which runs more than 500 historic properties across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland - constitute one of the nation's most impressive collections of rare books. The charity's marvellous new richly-illustrate book brings together a wide selection of the most intriguing 100 examples from its shelves and archives.
Paring down to 100 from more than 400,000 books in 140 libraries is a frighteningly impossible job, but the authors Tim Pye (National Curator for Libraries at the National Trust), Yvonne Lewis (Assistant National Curator) and Nicola Thwaite (Assistant National Curator) have done a fine job. Remarkably, in the 114 year history of the Trust’s libraries, this is the first book presenting a selection of them to a public readership, apart from two previous exhibition catalogues in 1958 and 1999, the latter to accompany the Treasures from the Libraries of National Trust Country Houses at the Grolier Club in New York.
There are some big hitters here - a KelmscottBeowulf, Ockham’s Work of Ninety Days (1332–4), which was in Henry VIII’s library, the 1482 Ulm edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia - but items have been chosen for the stories they tell as much as for their rarity or commercial value, along similar lines to David Pearson's recent Speaking Volumes.
“Trying to whittle down the Trust’s vast collection to 100 has been difficult," says Pye. "Still largely in their original condition, their undisturbed bindings, bookplates, inscriptions, marginalia and inserts, including locks of hair, show us how books have been used and shared and provide us with an insight into the men, women and children who handled them. We’ve also tried to highlight the diversity of the collections, therefore there are items from five continents and from the full range of properties in the Trust’s care; from country house libraries, to farmhouses, village libraries and urban homes."
The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, inscribed to Dame Agatha Christie
Here then, in chronological order, are inscribed copies, posters, music scores, chapbooks, marked up play scripts (a particular pleasing one of Shakespeare's Henry V from a 1909 production), John Lennon’s 1949 copy of William the Gangster by Richmal Crompton, a specially-bound manuscript of Orlando by Virginia Woolf as present to Vita Sackville-West, and the copy of Kim by Rudyard Kipling which was taken on Captain Scott’s 1910-13 Antarctica expedition.
There is also a copy of The World of Jeeves by P.G.Wodehouse whch includes a handwritten note to Dame Agatha Christie, a collection of children’s books used by evacuees in Newcastle during the Second World War from Wallington, Northumberland, and atmospheric photos of Sackville-West in her Long Library at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and Christie in her library at Greenway, Devon.
It's certainly an international collection. Included here is the country house lending library put together (and bound in brown paper) specially for American servicemen billeted in the country house Springhill in County Londonderry during World War II, an Ethiopian manuscript prayer book from c. 1750-1820, and an early 16th century Spanish Book of Hours.
The production values are high throughout and the compact format and accessible style will make it an attractive present for anybody who likes books and the stories that ownership tells.
100 Books from the Libraries of the National Trust is published April 6. Incidental to the book, but still recommended is the National Trust Libraries group on Facebook.
