Library Catalogue | A Catalogue of all the Books [...] at Ashburne Hall, Collected by Sir William Boothby, 1715

Sir William Boothby--Brooke Boothby

A Catalogue of all the Books in the Inner Library at Ashburne-Hall collected by S^r. Will:^m Boothby K:^t and Baronet And by his Will left to Brooke Boothby his youngest Son [...] 1715

manuscript library catalogue, recording each book with author, title, publication date, index letter ("alphabet") and location by case ("Pilaster" or "Class") and shelf, the library divided into categories as follows: History, including a subsection of English History (19 pages); English History (6 pages); Poetry (13 page); Gardening, Husbandry, Angling, Musick, Cookery, &c. (5 pages); Lives including a subsection of English Lives (8 pages); Politicks (10 pages); Astronomy & Astrology (1 page); Mathematicks (3 pages); Letters (3 pages); Geography, Voyages, &c (10 pages); Miscellany (9 pages); Antiquities (6 pages); Memoirs (3 pages); Essays (4 pages); Old Testament &c (1 page); altogether 113 pages including pages laid out but with no entries; with a list of loans ("Bookes Lent out of the library and when returned to be crossed out") on the front endpapers, some notes and doodles on the rear endpapers; with letter by A. Tipping to Brooke Boothby loosely inserted, early 18th century; contemporary panelled speckled calf, folio (325 x 215mm), c.1715, rebacked, marks to upper cover, wear at corners, two leaves torn without loss

'My company is gone, so that now I hope to enjoy my selfe and books againe, which are the true pleasures of my life, all else is but vanity and noyse'... (Sir William Boothby, 18 May 1685)

Sir William Boothby (1637-1707) was a wealthy landowner whose life at Ashbourne Hall, Derbyshire, was quiet and unremarkable - except for his bibliophilia. He spent decades assembling an exceptional and wide-ranging library, as is recorded in a series of four letterbooks containing his correspondence from 1676 to 1689 (BL, Add. MSS 71689-71692), which were the subject of an article by Peter Beal ('My Books are the Great Joy of my Life': Sir William Boothby, 17th century bibliophile', The Book Collector, 46 (1997), 350-78). Along with requests for the latest editions, newsletters and pamphlets, and exacting demands over binding, Boothby's correspondence is characterised by a litany of complaints about bad service, overpricing, neglect and error against the bookdealers with whom he nevertheless maintained a loyal custom, most notably Richard Chiswell of St Paul's Churchyard and Michael Johnson of Lichfield (father of Samuel Johnson). Boothby's passion for books was such a marked feature of his life that it is even referenced in his memorial, which still stands in St Oswald's Church, Ashbourne: 

"Sir William was a true Son of the Established Church of England, eminent for Piety, Sobriety & disinterested Loyalty; a Lover of Learning, evident by his Collection of near Six Thousand Books, now regularly placed in a Convenient graceful Library in Ashbourn Hall[.]"

The Ashbourne Hall library was dispersed before 1776 so the current catalogue provides a unique record of one of the great provincial libraries of its age. Boothby's library largely comprised books in English published during his own lifetime. It is a remarkably careful catalogue and reveals the library to have been extremely well organised. There are treasures including first editions of Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) and Newton's Principia (1687); beautiful books such as Newcastle's Methode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux (1658) and a Mercator Atlas (1633); works of the Elizabethan stage - including a Fourth Folio - and a very extensive collection of seventeenth century poetry; works of political controversy that mark the tumults of the age; and books that have a personal connection such as The Universal Angler (1676), which has contributions by Boothby's friend Charles Cotton. The catalogue is a remarkable record of the intellectual history of England in the second half of the seventeenth century, and a testament to the sheer range of vernacular works which the English book trade put within reach of their well-heeled customers. Nor is it a complete record of Boothby's library: the catalogue is specifically of the "inner library" and there are notable absences in areas in which Boothby actively collected, especially Bibles, Theology, and newsletters. Although the existence of this catalogue has been noted by scholars, it appears to be unpublished and largely unstudied.