PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN RENAISSANCE ENGLAND

Edited by Robert Fehrenbach & Elisabeth Leedham-Green
Volume 1

"PLRE is as much a project of wider scope as a series of published volumes.... In the future it will clearly be the greatest resource of its kind, making available hitherto unpublished records, merging book-lists from other sources, and building book-lists from extant books. Even though its greatest advantages lie in its being at heart a database, with all the flexibility that that medium offers, the published volumes are well-designed and user-friendly and provide a fascinating tour through private libraries of Renaissance England."
Margaret L Ford, Rare Books Newsletter

The first volume in this important series documenting the library contents of Early Modern England describes 1,387 books in four libraries - those of: 

• Bishop Richard Cox - his books at Downham and Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire, at His Death in 1581;
• Sir Edward Stanhope - based on his bequest of Books to Trinity College, Cambridge, 1608;
• Sir Roger Townshend, inventoried in 1625;
• Sir Edward Dering of Kent (1598-1644).

These inventories tell us a great deal about Book History, Renaissance scholarship, and the way in which books were valued.