Beyond Bibliophilia: Contextualizing Private Libraries in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Our view of private book ownership in the nineteenth century is biased by our preconceptions. The changes in taste and approach that take place in the late eighteenth century, the move from acquiring books primarily for their content to collecting them as objects, and the attendant bibliomania, have come to dominate discussion of private libraries in the period. This article describes a major but little-known private library amassed by Charles Winn (1795–1874) at Nostell Priory. It argues that, in characterizing such libraries as merely bibliophilic or bibliomaniacal, we oversimplify the complicated relationships that exist between owners and their books. Using Nostell as a case study, this paper details the underlying complexity of the library, the influences upon its development, and how it was used. It adopts an approach which views bibliomania not as a defining characteristic, but instead as one facet of a more nuanced landscape of book acquisition, ownership, and use.