Chetham’s Library was established well over two centuries before English Literature was considered a subject worthy of academic study. Initial book purchases concentrated on works of theology, Classics and history,...
Although many of the books in Chetham’s Library’s collection were bound for the library, some books came to the library already bound, and these bindings reveal something of their histories...
Readers’ marks are a common phenomenon in the books in Chetham’s Library: particularly in the early modern period between c. 1500 and c. 1700, readers frequently annotated their books, adding...
By the 1570s, John Dee had established at his home of Mortlake what has been described as the largest and most diverse library in Elizabethan England, containing—according to Dee—three thousand...
Chetham’s Library’s copy of the 1664 Third Folio, the subject of a recent blog post, is a handsome complete copy in an eighteenth-century dark blue calfskin binding, with decorative gilt...
One of the most fascinating books in Chetham’s Library’s less well-known literature collection is a copy of Mr William Shakespeare’s comedies, histories and tragedies, published according to the true original copies,...
Maisie, our placement student, recently completed a project to finish cataloguing the Cass Collection, which originally arrived at Chetham’s Library in 2016: Between January and April, I spent 20 days...
