The Four Courts Press, 2018.

Hardback, 272 pages.

This volume explores the world of book collecting in early modern Ireland and Britain. It investigates the modalities of collecting texts, both manuscript and printed, and draws attention to the wider impact of the European book trade on changing reading habits and availability of books. Early modern book collectors bought books for a variety of reasons. By combining case studies of institutional and private book collectors the essays not only demonstrate how individual collections came into being, but also how both private and public collections interacted with each other. Book collecting, far from being a solitary exercise, was dependent on the expanding Republic of Letters. The essays therefore offer vital insights into the communal world of the early modern book trade.

Dr Elizabethanne Boran is the Librarian of the Edward Worth Library in Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin. She is the editor of the three-volumeCorrespondence of James Ussher, 1600–1656, published by the Irish Manuscript Commission in 2015.