William Dunn Macray’s Annals of the Bodleian Library chronicles the history of Oxford’s celebrated library from its refounding by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1598 down to 1867, with a preliminary notice of the earlier medieval library. Drawing on records and benefactions, Macray traces the steady growth of one of the great libraries of the world.
The book records the gifts, acquisitions, librarians, and policies that built the Bodleian into a treasure-house of manuscripts and printed books. Macray, himself a sublibrarian, writes with intimate knowledge of his subject and a scholar’s attention to detail. For anyone interested in the history of libraries, book collecting, or the University of Oxford, it offers an authoritative and richly documented account.