Abstract
We may believe that books should be bought to be read and studied, but there is plentiful evidence, through human history, of people being mocked for owning books more for display and self-image. This chapter looks seriously and systematically at motivations for book ownership in the seventeenth century, recognizing that there is a range of attitudes between textual utility and the valuing of books for their aesthetic or luxurious qualities. Bookbindings, bookplates, heraldic markings, wills, and other kinds of evidence are drawn on, through various case studies, to show that for most people a mixture of approaches was probably involved—that we should think more in terms of a matrix than a linear spectrum. Book historians may define the history of reading as the key interface to be explored between books and people, but this is too narrow a focus if we really want to understand why people owned books.
Published Version
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