Chetham's Library

Animal, vegetable or mineral?

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000Z

Despite its sheep-like appearance, our latest ‘monstrum’ is a member of the vegetable family. This 18th-century engraving shows Polypodium barometz, a fern native to China, whose animal-like appearance and distant location caused much wonder and excitement among European travellers returning from the East, who reported stories of a fantastical plant/animal hybrid.

The Bodleian counted among its treasure a coat supposedly made from the skins of such wonderful creatures, known as vegetable lambs of Tartary or Scythian lambs. These reports caused much debate among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century botanists. Sir John Sloan wrote a definitive memoir about it for the Royal Society in 1699, firmly relgating the fern to the plant kingdom.

Our engraving is from another work written for the Royal Society, Terra: a philosophical discourse of Earth, by the noted diarist John Evelyn. This 1825 London printing of the York fifth edition also includes Silva, Evelyn’s discourse of forest-trees, and includes notes on both works by Alexander Hunter. Hunter expands on Evelyn’s passing reference to the ‘Scythian lamb’ as one of a number of plants which ‘destroy the vegetable virtue where they grow'. He is at pains to point out that the image shown here, taken from Mrs Blackwell’s Herbal, was chosen because others have “too much the appearance of fancy”. The Natural History Museum Picture Library includes several of the more fanciful images of this plant as well as a startlingly lamb-like photograph.

Criminal Manchester: Experiences of a Special Correspondent

2012-01-13T15:26:00.006Z

This slim volume, published in Manchester in the 1880s, comprises ten chapters reprinted from the Manchester Evening News exploring Manchester's underworld. In each chapter, our man from the Evening News, having struck up an association with 'one who has returned but recently from penal servitude', explores various districts of the city under the cover of darkness.

Beginning his adventures not far from the Library gates on Long Millgate, our correspondent enters a world previously unknown to him, although judging from some of the chapter headings, things may not be much changed over a century later: 'Deansgate: Scenes on a Saturday night' describes the crowds 'spending Saturday night in the most approved English fashion - that is to say, they were recklessly getting rid of all their spare cash, and receiving in return various forms of drink'.

The scene soon darkens, however, describing 'criminality that can scarcely be touched upon', including dog-fighting, thieving, violence, prostitution, poverty, squalor and misery, and a cast of characters with unforgettable names that nowadays, sadly, would probably be unpublishable: Ginger Liz, Cockney Jim, Dirty Alf, Big Jack and Fat Ann.

To read more, view the pdf on the website.

Manchester of Today

2012-01-13T15:11:00.002Z

As part of our ongoing digitisation work, we are pleased to make available Manchester of Today: an epitome of results and its sister volume Liverpool of Today, both dating from 1888.

Subtitled 'Business men and commercial interests, wealth and growth: historical, statistical, biographical' and illustrated with a series of particularly attractive engravings, these two volumes provide an introduction to the history, cultural attractions and commercial enterprise of Manchester and Liverpool, together with an indexed directory of manufacturers and tradesmen.

The work has been done for us by Charlotte Wells, an MA student on MMU's Library and Information Management course who is currently on placement with us. Our thanks to Charlotte and to the generosity of the Manchester Statistical Society whose Campion Fund grant has enabled us to purchase a specialist book scanner.

Conservation Grants

2012-01-11T16:42:00.000Z

We are delighted to announce that the Library has recently been awarded two significant grants, which will enable the preservation of some of our most important and valuable books.

Restoring these works will have a significant impact on scholarship by making a number of exceptional works on the history of theology, science, medicine, literature and history usable once more. In addition, by concentrating on multi-volume sets, it will also have an enormous impact on the visual appearance of the Library, allowing us, for example, to remove the tape which helps keeps boards attached to the text, restoring them to the condition in which they were purchased three hundred years ago.

A window into the past

2012-01-11T12:19:00.002Z

In the 1740s and 1750s two men named Russel Casson and John Berry produced a series of exquisitely illustrated maps of Manchester and Salford. This series has become one of the most important resources for studying the growth and development of our great cities, and remains in constant use by scholars. To find out more about the maps, visit our 101 Treasures page on the Library website.

Chetham's in the news

2012-01-11T10:04:00.003Z

We are delighted to have been featured over at Mancunian Matters on this week's £10 Challenge, a weekly series devoted to getting the most of your money in the city centre.

The Library also gets a mention in Jonathan Schofield's piece for Manchester Confidential mourning the loss of Manchester Art Gallery's display on the history of Manchester.

Let us know if you mention Chetham's on your blog or publication!

Calling all industrial archaeologists!

2012-01-04T15:20:00.003Z

The Library has a fantastic collection of resources for anybody interested in the industrial archaeology of the region, including photographs, reports, papers and surveys, as well as a wealth of printed matter. This photograph of Barton Bridge is taken from the Mullineux Collection. Find out what's available here.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T11:23:00.002Z

We are starting 2012 as we mean to go on here at the Library with the thirty-fifth of our 101 Treasures, which makes us over a third of the way through! Hope you are enjoying the series as much as we are.

This week its the turn of the Cologne Chronicle, a majestic tome with delightful handcoloured woodcuts and some interesting local colour to boot. Have a look here.

Christmas closing times

2011-12-14T14:40:00.002Z

The Library will be closed to readers and visitors from noon on Wednesday 21 December until 9 a.m. on Tuesday 3 January 2011.

We would like to wish all our friends and supporters a very Merry Christmas!

Christians Awake!

2011-12-14T14:37:00.003Z

Find out more about the history of this much-loved Christmas carol, written by the Manchester poet John Byrom, on our 101 Treasures page this week.

Gorton Parish Library

2011-12-07T10:19:00.002Z

Have a look at our 101 Treasures page this week to find out why a library of books intended for the Parish Church of St James in Gorton has found a home at Chetham's and become one of our biggest visitor attractions.

Rocque of ages ago

2011-11-30T15:10:00.003Z

John Rocque's exquisite 1746 map of London is quite simply a national treasure. Chetham's Library copy has obviously seen plenty of use but remains a thing of enormous beauty which holds many secrets to eighteenth-century London, from its grand squares and elegant avenues to its orchards, wharves and vinegar yards . This week on the 101 Treasures page we take a closer look at this cartographical masterpiece.

Woe to the fattest

2011-11-28T09:00:00.001Z

In Friday's post we looked at Edward Carpenter's political tract England's Ideal, part of a bound collection of thirty miscellaneous pamphlets we recently acquired from Modern First Editions of Ilkley.

Sadly, few of the other authors represented in this volume are anything like as perceptive or relevant as Carpenter. Most of the works consist of the usual anti-Roman Catholic polemics ("Protestantism v Popery: a catechism"), interminable pieces attacking other churchmen ("What is it all about?, or an inquiry into the statements of the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon") and almost certainly some of the worst poetry ever written, of which J.F. Sparke's 1865 offering is a prime example. His seasonal verse entitled 'A Merry Christmas' somehow fails quite spectacularly to get you in the Christmas mood:

"Woe to the fattest and the best,
Struck by the annual "rinderpest." [Cattle Plague]
And great and wide-spread thus you see
The quadruped mortality.
The poultry too, are sure to die,
They are too ponderous to fly,
And after eating corn - some pecks,
The knife is pushed right through their necks.
So let it be, may every sinner,
On Christmas-day enjoy his dinner."

Rotten to the core

2011-11-25T09:00:00.002Z

You might rightly assume that a library with a list of past users including Karl Marx, Daniel Defoe and John Wesley would not be short on works of penetrating social analysis, but for incisive commentary on the evils of the 1% you could do worse than consult the works of Edward Carpenter, whose pamphlet England's Ideal: A Tract (1885) has recently been acquired by the Library.

Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a gay activist, poet and radical socialist who pioneered an alternative lifestyle before the concept had even been thought of. In a world of aspidistra and antimacassars, Carpenter gathered around himself a band of sexually liberated free-thinkers and set up a commune near Sheffield where they wore sandals, ate vegetarian food and enjoyed plenty of fresh air. He was passionately in favour of women's rights and equality for all, and in this passage from England's Ideal he offers his thoughts on the class system with a characteristic frankness:

The feeling seems to be spreading that England stands to-day on the verge of a dangerous precipice. And so I believe she does; at any moment the door may open for her on a crisis more serious than any in her whole history. Rotten to the core, penetrated with falsehood from head to foot, her aristocracy emasculated of all manly life, her capitalist classes wrapped in selfishness, luxury and self-satisfied philanthropy, her Government offices – army, navy and the rest – utterly effete, plethoric, gorged (in snake-like coma) with red tape, her Church sleeping profoundly-snoring aloud, her trading classes steeped in deception and money greed, her labourers stupefied with overwork and beer, her poorest stupefied with despair, there is not a pain which will bear examination, not a wheel in the whole machine which will not give way under pressure.

But the disease from which the nation is suffering is dishonesty; the more you look into it the clearer you will perceive: that this is the source of all England’s present weakness corruption and misery; and honesty and honesty alone will save, her, or give her a chance of salvation. Let us confess it. What we have all been trying to do is to live at the expense people’s labour, without giving an equivalent of our labour in return. Some succeed, others only try; but it comes to much the same thing...

If for every man who consumes more than he creates there must of necessity be another man who has to consume less than he creates, what must be the state of affairs in that nation where a vast class – and ever vaster becoming – is living in the height of unproductive wastefulness? Obviously another vast class – and ever vaster becoming – must be sinking down into the abyss of toil, penury and degradation. Look at Brighton and Scarborough and Hastings and the huge West End of London, and the polite villa residences which like unwholesome toadstools dot and disfigure the whole of this great land ...

As far as the palaces of the rich stretch through Mayfair and Belgravia and South Kensington, so far (and farther) must the hovels of the poor inevitably stretch in the opposite direction. There is no escape. It is useless to talk about better housing of these unfortunates unless you strike at the root of their poverty; arid if you want to see the origin and explanation of an East London rookery, you must open the door and walk in upon some fashionable dinner party at the West End; where elegance, wealth, ease, good grammar, politeness, and literary and sentimental conversation only serve to cover up and conceal a heartless mockery – the lie that it is a fine thing to live upon the labour of others. You may abolish the rookery, but if you do not abolish the other thing, the poor will only find some other place to die in; and one room, in a sanitary and respectable neighbourhood will serve a family for that purpose, as well as a whole house in a dirtier locality.

For further reading, we can do no better than recommend Sheila Rowbotham's biography Edward Carpenter: A life of liberty and love.

Another view of the Library

2011-11-24T11:33:00.002Z

Paul Capewell visited the Library last week with colleagues from CILIP North West and wrote about his experiences on his blog. Do go over and have a read...

Roll up, roll up

2011-11-24T10:12:00.005Z

There's a real treat for lovers of all things medieval over on the 101 Treasures pages this week. This beautiful paper volvelle forms part of Astrologica, a work of astrology and astronomy dating from the mid-fifteenth century. To find out more, and to follow links to the digitised version of the work, visit the website.

Mancuniensis in the Evening News

2011-11-16T13:54:00.002Z

The Manchester Evening News have run a piece today on our recent digitisation of Richard Hollingworth's Mancuniensis, the earliest history of the city: have a look at the article here.

Hello Boys!

2011-11-16T11:36:00.003Z

This alluring threesome may be found on the pages of Theodor de Bry's Emblemata nobilitati et vulgo scitu digna which is showcased this week on our 101 Treasures page. The wonderfully detailed and hand-coloured miniature marvel is currently on show in our 'Curios and Curiosities' exhibition here at the Library, although it should be pointed out that the image above is almost certainly the raciest page in the work, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

Philip's bird

2011-11-14T09:00:00.000Z

Those of you who enjoyed meeting Philip the Monster may be interested to make the acquaintance of this magnificent creature known as Avis Philippensis - or Philip's bird. She makes an appearance on a previous plate in James Petiver's Catalogus classicus & topicus of 1711, for more details of which see last Friday's post.

Introducing Philip the Monster

2011-11-11T15:04:00.007Z

This splendid fellow goes by the name of Monstrum Philip, and is to be found surrounded by some of his favourite things in James Petiver's Catalogus classicus & topicus of 1711:

James Petiver (1663/4-1718) was an apothecary, botanist and entomologist and Fellow of the Royal Society who owned an extensive herbarium estimated to contain between 5000 and 6000 specimens. He published many works detailing his collection as well as a popular periodical, the Monthly Miscellany.

Petiver was frequently sent objects and specimens from his many friends and colleagues who travelled the world although he himself does not appear to have ventured further than the Midlands to visit his married sister. In 1709 he was appointed demonstrator to the Society of Apothecaries, but was alleged to have exploited his position by removing specimens from their Chelsea Physic Garden 'to enrich his personal herbarium' (DNB).

On his death in 1718 his collection was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, physician and collector, who also acted as pallbearer at his funeral.

Text describing Monstrum Philip

A sudden and terrible raine

2011-11-09T14:15:00.003Z

The infamous Manchester weather has been a preoccupation for local residents for well over three hundred and fifty years, according to the earliest surviving history of the town.

Richard Hollingworth's Mancuniensis, or an History of the Towne of Manchester, contains several references to the region's tendency to rain heavily and repeatedly on both the just and the unjust. In July 1648, for example, 'there was a sudden & terrible raine on the Lords day wch in twoo houres space filled the sellers in the market place hanging ditch & three channels ran downe the stretes like great rivers'. Perhaps next time an unexpected downpour catches us without an umbrella we should bite our tongues and be thankful for modern drainage.

The manuscript of Mancuniensis has recently been digitised in its entirety and is now available to view online as a pdf. Other manuscripts and printed works are due to follow, thanks to a generous grant from the Manchester Statistical Society.

This week's 101 Treasures post takes a closer look at Hollingworth's manuscript. Click here to find out more.

Glass slide collection

2011-11-04T10:00:00.002Z

The Library has a large and varied collection of glass slides, mostly collected by the antiquarian J.J. Phelps in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Read more about them on our 101 Treasures page this week...

A bewitching sight

2011-10-31T10:03:00.003Z

A Happy Halloween to all our readers! May you ward off all the ghoulies and ghosties who beat a path to your door and enjoy a trouble-free time in the months ahead.

These young ladies certainly present a frightening sight, although their clean white aprons and neatly brushed hair give a suggestion that things may not be quite as ghoulishly repulsive as they would have us believe. The six friends are taking part in the Worsley Pageant of 1914, held in the grounds of Worsley Hall.

Alain Chartier

2011-10-28T13:02:00.002+01:00

An exquisite manuscript of the poetry of Alain Chartier is this week's offering in our 101 Treasures series. For a closer look at the extraordinarily beautiful and imaginative decorative motifs, follow the link to read more.

The Glamour of Manchester

2011-10-26T11:10:00.001+01:00

Can there be any more unlikely title?

This little book published by the National Labour Press in 1920 makes a sterling effort to romanticise the history of the city, with gloriously cryptic chapter headings ranging from 'Dickens is inspired on oysters and champagne' and 'Ralph Waldo Emerson gives a party at Lower Broughton', to 'At Rochdale Lord Byron is very bored' and 'Charlotte Bronte has days of misery by Oxford Road'.

The book pulls no punches in the foreword, informing us brightly that 'In the winter mostly it will be raining ... [and] in summer the sun will shine with a frightful irony'. Warming to the theme, it asserts that 'with its Hulme and Ancoats and the clotted horror of Salford it will hold one as a dead man's eye...'

Not much of a start. But the author's obvious love for the city coupled with his dry wit proves surprisingly diverting, and as he sums up on the final page: 'I have written down my Manchester as I saw it. And seeing is often worse than believing'.

Online exhibition now live!

2011-10-21T15:51:00.002+01:00

We're very excited about our new online exhibition which goes live today! Don't worry if you couldn't make it to the Library to see our popular exhibition 'Who do you think they were: The story of a Manchester family' last year, because it's now on the website in its entirety and is well worth a look.

The Leech family of Manchester and Ashton wrote diaries and collected material about themselves and their family lives for nearly two hundred years. The extraordinary archive resulting from this activity is now held at the Library, and the exhibition introduces the main characters and offers a look at some of the highlights of the collection. Check it out here.

Now you see it...

2011-10-19T11:24:00.002+01:00

...now you don't. Discover the hidden secret of this apparently unassuming little book on our 101 Treasures page this week.

What on earth was he on about?

2011-10-12T15:42:00.004+01:00

A close-up of the writing of Richard Kuerden (1623-90?) from his manuscript notes for A History of Lancashire, surely a strong contender for the worst handwriting ever... Read more about the manuscript on the 101 Treasures pages here.

Karl Marx at Chetham's

2011-10-06T15:17:00.003+01:00

Visitors to the Library frequently ask to see the famous desk in the Reading Room where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels studied together, and you can find out more about this hallowed spot on this week's 101 Treasures page.

Little Lamb who ate thee?

2011-10-03T11:12:00.002+01:00

If you have any interest at all in the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, vegetarianism, the history of the Salford Bible Christians, or amusing hymns about roast lamb, then make your way immediately to the newly created Carcanet Blog, where Librarian Michael Powell has guest-written a post about this very subject...

"I am treasuring these last few days of peace..."

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000+01:00

Exactly seventy-three years ago this week, a young Iris Murdoch sat down and wrote a letter to her friend Ann Leech. Believing the country to be on the brink of war with Germany, she wrote with honesty and clarity about her feelings in those politically volatile times. The four-page letter is full of her characteristic zest and humour which she not infrequently turns against herself, declaring her words 'melodramatic rot'.

Of course, the Munich Agreement deferred the outbreak of war for another year, but for Iris Murdoch, aged nineteen and about to go up to Oxford, there was an inspiring and slightly anarchic energy about the uncertainties faced by her generation. She writes:

"I too believe that the worst will happen - but I don't feel at all afraid yet - only sad and strangely amused. I don't want to leave London - I love the city, and if it's going to be smashed up, I want to be there.

I can see nothing beyond Saturday - and so I am treasuring these last few days of peace, and perhaps of life - reading poetry, and enjoying pictures and music...

Singularly enough I feel happier now, despite my sadness, than I have ever felt for years. This isn't real you know, whether we are blown to pieces or not - I am very close to reality now - something infinitely calm and still and beautiful."

The letter from Iris to Ann is part of the Leech Archive and we have sent copies to the Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies at Kingston University. To read more, click on the pages, continued below, which will enlarge.

The mystery of Humphrey Chetham

2011-09-21T14:58:00.002+01:00

Take a look at our 101 Treasures page this week to find out more about the portrait of Humphrey Chetham which hangs in the Reading Room. Who painted it and why? We're not sure... but there's plenty more to discover here...

The Grey Lady of Chetham's

2011-09-16T14:46:00.005+01:00

Does Chetham's have a ghost?

That's often the question that people ask when they enter the medieval building through the dark stone cloister, ring the ancient bell on the heavy oak door and climb the winding staircase to the Library with its towering book-lined wooden presses. Certainly, rumours abound of a mysterious 'grey lady' who hovers in the passages connecting the Library reading room with the secret stairwell leading to the Minstrel's Gallery.

Evidently, the search for this particular truth has exercised many over the years, as this 'untouched' photograph of 1927, taken by local photographer R. Walker Berry, indicates. In a letter to the editor of 'Our Journal', he relates: 'knowing the camera's aversion to "terminological inexactitudes" I exposed a plate on the entrance to the Minstrel's Gallery, and the enclosed print shows the result'.

What do you think? Why not come along to the Library and see if you can see anything unusual?

Manchester Weekender 2011

2011-09-14T15:01:00.002+01:00

Come along to Chetham's on Sunday 16th October for a family friendly guided tour of the Library and the Curios and Curiosities exhibition, as well as the chance to hear poet and song writer Simon Rennie performing the 1830s ballad 'Johnny Green's Wedding'.

The event is part of the Manchester Weekender festival, a three-day celebration of all things cultural and cool in the city. Tours of the Library will take place at 2pm and 3pm and are free to all, but places are limited and must be reserved beforehand. To book, please email the Librarian.

Elegance and Decadence

2011-09-14T14:45:00.002+01:00

Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted Chetham's Library in scenes from the final episode of the BBC4 programme Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency last night. In this third part, 'The Many and the Few - A Divided Decade', presenter Lucy Worsley looked at the ways that radical thinking and public opinion began to challenge the excesses of the Prince Regent. Peterloo expert Robert Poole was interviewed on the programme, which showed the Library interior and some of the Library's Peterloo holdings.

If you missed the programme, it can be seen on BBC iPlayer, together with the first and second episodes, for another week or so.

Curios and Curiosities: A Very Peculiar Assortment of Treasures

2011-09-02T10:50:00.002+01:00

Our new exhibition is now open! Come and see a celtic stone head, a death mask and a nineteenth-century sex manual, as well as a book of spells with instructions for finding hidden treasure. Over the years Chetham's has accumulated many strange and unusual items that you might be surprised to see in a library, as well as rare and fascinating bindings and manuscripts to pore over.

The exhibition is in the Priest's Wing and is available to view during normal opening hours.

Saxton's Atlas of England and Wales

2011-09-02T10:02:00.003+01:00

Find out more about Christopher Saxton's great achievement in this week's feature in the 101 Treasures of Chetham's series. The beautiful sixteenth-century map shows all the counties of England and Wales and was the first national atlas of any country.

A right royal read

2011-08-26T15:21:00.002+01:00

This week in the 101 Treasures series we take a look at a very special copy of the works of Prosper of Aquitaine. Have a look on the website to find out who was the famous owner of this beautifully bound book.

You're under arrest!

2011-08-24T13:50:00.003+01:00

The Librarian recently returned from a Scottish holiday to the Moray Firth, where he spotted this rather alarming sign on the A98 at Portsoy. Knowledge, clearly, is no guarantee against the threat of riots and unrest...

Birds and their nests

2011-08-19T15:47:00.002+01:00

This week's feature in the 101 Treasures of Chetham's series explores the exquisite work of James Bolton in his Harmonia Ruralis, a two-volume work describing and illlustrating the birds of Britain. Find out more about the author and his passion for natural history on the website.

Minutes of the Albert Memorial

2011-08-12T12:10:00.002+01:00

Another of the Library's treasures to have a look at over on the website.

Many thanks for all your concern over the Library's safety during this week's events in the city centre. Happily we can report that no damage was done and everything is as it should be. Work on the Reading Room is now complete and we will be open again on Monday as usual.

Sex, sermons and wig-making

2011-08-05T13:47:00.001+01:00

The diary of Edmund Harrold is a closely-written journal full of early eighteenth-century books, religion, sex and wig-making. Read more about this remarkable survival on the 101 Treasures page.

Treading the boards

2011-08-03T13:20:00.002+01:00

Just a quick snap to show the reason for the Library's current two-week closure... not too much reading going on in here at the moment.

We'll be closed until Monday 15th August while structural engineers carry out investigations into the strength of the medieval floor joists. The operation is being overseen by English Heritage.

Unlocking the code

2011-07-29T12:10:00.002+01:00

If you've been inspired by Marcus du Sautoy's BBC2 series on nature's mathematical code, you may be interested in our web feature on Newton's Principia.

Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, is widely recognised as one of the most significant works of science ever published. Chetham's Library has a first edition, and you can read more about it here.

John Dee Special!

2011-07-20T10:12:00.003+01:00

Our 101 Treasures of Chetham's series this week features material relating to the sixteenth-century scholar and warden of the College, John Dee. The success of the opera Doctor Dee at the recent Manchester International Festival has created enormous interest in the life and work of this extraordinary man, who spent a decade in Manchester in the last years of his life. Read more on the website.

Attic Nights

2011-07-15T11:54:00.001+01:00

Our 101 Treasures of Chetham's series looks this week at the Noctes Atticae, or Attic Nights, of Aulus Gellius, a commonplace book which was later owned by Matthias Corvinus (1443-1490) and bound in Buda by his own bindery in a stunning red goatskin. Learn more here.

Chetham's Library on The Culture Show

2011-07-13T13:04:00.003+01:00

Damon Albarn's opera Doctor Dee has now reached the end of its run as part of the Manchester International Festival and has received almost universal acclaim, not least from members of Library staff, some of whom enthusiastically attended more than once. The opera is an extraordinarily beautiful and mesmerising visual spectacle brought to life by an outstanding musical score, and you can read reviews of the production here and here. The show is due to launch the London 2012 Festival, so if you didn't manage to see it this time round, we strongly recommend that you get down to the London Coliseum next June.

Chetham's Library is one of the stars on tonight's (Wednesday 13th June) Culture Show on BBC2 at 7pm, which is broadcast from the Manchester Festival and includes an interview with Damon Albarn, filmed at the Library. If you miss it, don't forget you can watch it again on BBC iPlayer.

A short video on the BBC website can be found here, featuring Damon Albarn and Rufus Norris discussing the work of John Dee, and Chetham's Librarian Michael Powell makes an appearance on a Guardian video about Doctor Dee which can be found here.

Designation's what you need...

2011-07-01T13:35:00.002+01:00

We're really proud to have been awarded Designation Status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The award is for the entire holdings, which distinguishes them as a collection of national and international importance, and reflects good working practice and excellent service. You can read more about the award on the website.

Busy busy busy

2011-06-29T14:55:00.003+01:00

It's all go at the Library today as the Manchester International Festival prepares to swing into action on Friday. Considerable interest has been generated by Damon Albarn's opera Doctor Dee, and the Librarian is in constant demand from television and radio crews to talk about everyone's favourite Renaissance polymath. All the excitement has meant that the Library has been obliged to close its doors to the public this afternoon to accommodate the lengths of cable, lighting rigs and photography equipment.

At the same time as this, the dress rehearsal for another MIF production has been taking place in the Baronial Hall. Violinist Alina Ibragimova is performing a programme of musically connected works in several different parts of the medieval building, in a production that features a newly commissioned stop-motion animated film by the Quay brothers. The show runs from 1-17 July and tickets can be obtained at the MIF website.

All we need now is a visit from Snoop Dogg...

A happy coincidence

2011-06-24T09:56:00.003+01:00

Another visit this week from the Library's new favourite musician, Damon Albarn, who is currently in Manchester preparing for the premiere of his opera Doctor Dee. By remarkable coincidence, the Librarian's daughter Kate and her friend George 'happened' to be visiting the Library at the same time, and are pictured here with the great man.

The purpose of his visit was to meet the Guardian journalist John Harris, whose article about Damon and his fascination with John Dee can be found here. Doctor Dee opens at the Palace theatre, Manchester, on Friday 1st July, and tickets are available here.

Thomas Barritt's sketchbook

2011-06-22T10:28:00.002+01:00

This week in our 101 Treasures of Chetham's series, it's the turn of Thomas Barritt and his remarkable C18th sketchbook. In it, he recorded people and places from Manchester and the wider region before the wholesale industrialisation that took place in the city in the nineteenth century. Have a look at his extraordinary sketches here.

Sights of Britain

2011-06-15T09:00:00.003+01:00

A cigarette card from the 'Sights of Britain' series, showing the boys from Chetham's Hospital taking part in the Founder's Day procession in their traditional Blue Coat uniforms.

The card is from the collection of Mr Lawrence Boardman, whose father took many of the original photographs for the series in the mid-twentieth century. Together with his grandson, George Boardman Lee, Mr Boardman is currently involved in a project to retrace his father's footsteps and re-photograph the many different locations from a contemporary viewpoint. We wish them all the best with this not insignificant undertaking and look forward to seeing the fruits of their labours.

Patrizia Wiesner

2011-06-13T09:00:00.003+01:00

The beautiful seventeenth-century Library interior with its gated oak presses attracts a great deal of attention from photographers and film-makers, who frequently have a natural affinity for its atmospheric environment.

It is always fascinating to view their creative responses to the medieval building, and we were most interested to see this latest set of images taken by professional photographer Patrizia Wiener, who as well as having a most impressive photography CV, also studied philosophy at the University of Vienna.

The photographs can be viewed on Patrizia's website.

Doctor Dee

2011-06-08T11:07:00.004+01:00

One of Chetham's most famous residents has provided the inspiration for a new musical work by Damon Albarn, which is being premiered in July as part of the Manchester International Festival.

The modern opera Doctor Dee explores the life and work of this most remarkable of renaissance men, who was warden of the Collegiate Church - now the Cathedral - from 1595 until his death in 1609. John Dee was a mysterious character, who developed a reputation as an astrologer, alchemist and occultist but was also an important renaissance scientist who believed mathematics was central to human progress and learning, and became a trusted advisor to Queen Elizabeth I.

Members of the creative team behind the work, including Damon Albarn and theatre director Rufus Norris, visited the Library to see the place where he lived and worked in the final years of his life. They looked at a selection of material including letters and books belonging to John Dee, as well as the famous oval burn mark on the Audit Room table which is said to be the hoof print of the devil, conjured up one dark Manchester night by Dee's magic arts.

You can read more about the opera and the man behind it here, including part of a short interview with Librarian Michael Powell. An article on John Dee can be found on the BBC website here.

Doctor Dee runs from 1-3 and 5-9 July at the Palace Theatre. Tickets can be obtained from the MIF website.

Yeo Ho Ho!

2011-06-03T13:39:00.003+01:00

We are very pleased to announce the recent publication of Matthew Yeo's The Acquisition of Books by Chetham's Library, 1655-1700, part of Brill's Library of the Written Word series. It began life as a thesis submitted by Matthew for his AHRC Collaborative Doctorate at Chetham's Library and the University of Manchester, which he undertook from 2006-2009.

Matthew's eminently well-written and readable work examines the motivation and method behind the Library's earliest acquisitions and their significance for the study of provincial intellectual culture and the early modern book trade.

Matthew studied Modern History at Oxford and Princeton Universities, and now teaches History at Charterhouse School. We all enjoyed his spell with us at Chetham's enormously, and miss his scholarly ways, his cheerful countenance and his enthusiasm and talent for tea-making very much indeed. We wish him all the best for the future, not least in respect of his recent marriage to Ellie.

Matthew in action at the Library

Oh brave new world!

2011-05-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

The Library has recently acquired a set of around two hundred 35mm slides taken by Prestwich resident Margaret Openshaw Newbold (1905-1998). These form part of a collection donated by Ian Pringle of Prestwich, and are largely concerned with the wholesale demolition of Victorian buildings in Manchester city centre that occurred in the 1960s and 70s, and the subsequent redevelopment.

The image below shows two of Margaret's photographs of the Ramada Hotel site taken during the demolition of the Deansgate Hotel building and after the 'improvements':

Here are the foundations being put in once all the demolition is complete:

Round the corner on Victoria Street, these passers-by are stopping to take in the scale of the destruction:

And here is the site of the glorious Arndale Centre:

Margaret's shot of the billboard advertisement heralding the changes:

It is staggering to see the extent of the demolition of high-quality Victorian and Edwardian brick and stone buildings for which society has now developed much more of an appreciation. Demolition on a scale like this would now be perceived as indiscriminate vandalism. It is also interesting to note that many of the new concrete buildings erected as replacements have themselves been demolished and replaced as part of the rebuilding programme of the last ten years, provoking the inevitable question of whether buildings of such beauty and quality will ever be constructed in our cities again.

A very Victorian mutilation

2011-05-23T10:37:00.000+01:00

Jacob Rueff (1500-1558) worked mainly as a surgeon in Zurich but also had responsibility for training midwives. His book De conceptu et generatione hominis (1554), written essentially as a manual for midwives, is important for its emphasis and also its illustrations of anatomy in relation to obstetrics. Divided into six sections, the book covers the entire cycle of pregnancy, starting with conception and ending with causes and remedies for sterility. The work is full of remarkable woodcuts, including anatomical drawings, obstetrical instruments and the various positions of the fetus within the uterus as well as pictures of deformed infants.

The Library’s copy of De conceptu has several unusual features, including what appears to be the original C16th calf binding, complete with C15th manuscript pastedown. In addition, the book has the signature and also annotations in the hand of Thomas Newton (1544/5-1607), an English physician, clergyman, poet, author and translator. Newton was born in Cheshire and educated at Macclesfield Grammar School, and between 1569 and 1596 he published perhaps twenty books on a wide range of subjects, including an edition of Seneca’s Tragedies and a work on physick and physicians.

Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the savage mutilation that the book has undergone. Many of the illustrations, particularly of deformed infants, have been cut out altogether, often very crudely. By way of explanation, a letter has been attached at the front of the book. Dating from 1878, it is in the hand of J. Frederick Becon of Beaumaris, offering the work to the Cheshire historian J. P. Earwaker. He writes:

"I have much pleasure in asking you to accept the book containing the Newton autograph. I cut out some of the most disgusting of the monstrosities, without (I think) much impairing the letter-press. Should you not like to retain the book, it might perhaps be an acceptable addition to the medical books at the Chetham Library."

Evidently Earwaker declined to accept the book, making his loss the the Library's gain, despite Becon's savagery. As an example of censorship, it is remarkable for the extent and sheer barbarism of his cutting. A very beautiful and important work, which remained a key text for midwives for over a hundred years, has been reduced to little more than a series of scraps.

Boo!

2011-05-20T10:02:00.002+01:00

Librarian Michael Powell was interviewed by journalist and blue badge guide Jonathan Schofield of the Creative Tourist website. The resulting audioBoo can be heard here.

Joshua's hens

2011-05-18T10:03:00.003+01:00

Writing notes and family trees in Bibles is a very common activity, but it is rare to come across examples of sketches and drawings, especially when they appear to have nothing to do with the accompanying text.

This page of lively pen-and-ink hen sketches appears in an English Bible of 1577 opposite the first page of the book of Joshua. The Bible appears to have been owned by members of the Taylor and Fitton families, various members of which mark their ownership at intervals throughout the book. In a separate inscription on the New Testament title page, one Samuel Taylor writes: "God give him gra[ce] on ito looke that he may run A happay race and heaven may be his dwelling place".

The little hens seem most likely to have been the work of Robert Taylor, probably a young son of John Taylor who owned the book in the 1660s. Sharp-eyed readers may also be able to spot the image of a tiny leaping horse which appears in the top left hand corner of the opposite page (by clicking on each image you may view a larger version).

Observations on volcanoes

2011-05-11T10:30:00.002+01:00

Head over to the 101 Treasures of Chetham's series on our website for a closer look at this beautiful illustrated work showing Sir William Hamilton's meticulous observations of the behaviour of volcanoes, published in Naples in 1776.

The Manchester Man

2011-05-04T10:03:00.002+01:00

This week in our new series 101 Treasures of Chetham's, we take a closer look at the original handwritten manuscript of The Manchester Man by Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks. Head over to the website to find out more.

It's all in the stars

2011-04-27T11:29:00.002+01:00

The Library's copy of A Book of Knowledge in three parts... by Samuel Strangehopes was published in London in 1685. Parts the Second and Third are devoted to anatomy, disease and good husbandry, and contain many enlightening and useful tips that may well appear on these pages in weeks to come, but it is with Part the First that we shall concern ourselves today, being as it is 'a brief introduction to astrology, shewing the nature, qualitie, and effects of the twelve signs, and seven planets; their dominion over bodies, with the fortunes of those calculated, who are born under them, also a delightful wheel of fortune'.

Astrology is of course, as Strangehopes himself declares, 'an art both useful and lawful, and one of the most noble and profitable arts studied and practiced by mortals'. Where better to begin than with his learned summary of the nature and character of those born under its twelve signs:

Aries is fiery, hot and dry, having a voyce furious, if a woman, few children, sickly, vicious, wanting members, very wrathful, and loving to be commanding, and they are usually in their middle age gross and strong, and most commenly ends lean and weak, it betokens black eyebrows, thick shouldered, a dark complexion, a swarthy countenance, one of a dry body and a middle stature.

Taurus, it doth commonly speak a man born under that sign, one given much to melancholy, of a cold and dry constitution, luxurious, having a loud voice, yet sickly, much commanding, honest, and very religious, very chast, in women it represents one short, but of a strong, well-set nature, and to have a high fore-head, wide nostrils, great mouth, a short and fat neck, black hair, big buttocks, short legs, very slow to anger, but if once angered, hardly ever after friends.

Gemini is hot and moist, sanguine complexion, of a very fair, pleasant and sweet behaviour, in young years lean and weak, ending gross and strong, it represents one of a tall, straight, and well-set body, brown hair, bright and quick eyes, long arms, hands, and legs, a very large breast, well fraught with wisdom and learning, and accompanied with good speech, and excellent language, and profitable discourse.

Cancer is a watry sign which causes those born under it to be cold and moist, and flegmatick, something sickly, if a woman, she shall have many children, it represents commonly one of a low stature bigger in the upper parts, a great belly, but blackish hair.

Leo is fiery hot and dry, and those born under it are usually very cholerick, high voyce, barren, very strong, and exceeding vicious, wrathful, commanding, exceeding cunning but honest: if a woman, religious, and chast, one of a middle stature, lusty body, great head, and eyes, very couragious, broad shouldered, a yellowish or flaxen hair, a person of a generous disposition.

Virgo is cold and dry, melancholy, very fair, but very civil, and sharp, of an equal and good proportion, the body spare, of a brown or dark complexion, great eyes, much hair, and that of a black colour, and they are most commonly all for their own ends.

Libra is airy, hot and moist, of a sanguine complexion, loud voice: if women, few children, fair, obedient, of a good proportion, a well framed body, very straight, a round visage, wel-favoured, light brown hair, very cheerful, and well spoken, red cheeks, a lovely countenance, inclining to tallness and slenderness.

Scorpio is a watry, cold, and moist sign, flegmatick, sickly, but fruitful, vicious, indifferent fair, wrathful, many times crooked, it represents one of a small stature, the body full, and pretty well composed, sad hair, a dark and solid complexion, and countenance, a short neck, men very much reserved in thoughts, words, and actions, very false and deceitful.

Sagittarius is hot, dry, and cholerick, very great, double bodied, the upper part fair, the other beastial, a loud voice; if women, few children, and weak, very ingenious, but exceeding crafty and obedient; it represents a wel-proportioned body, strongly compacted, of stature tall, a hard favoured visage, brown hair, which will be almost off before forty years of age.

Capricornus is earthly, cold and dry, melancholly, sharp and cruel: if women, few children, luxurious, sickly and vicious, crooked body, seldom fair, it represents a body but of little stature, dry and lean, the face also lean and thin, much hair, and that black, the colour wan and pale, small breast and a long neck, disproportioned body and very hard favoured

Aquarius is hot and moist, of a sanguine complexion, a high voyce, sweet conditioned, very loving, and lovely: if women few children, but very fair, obedient, sweet behaviour'd, religious, and honest, chast, yet pleasant, one of a well-shapen body, a middle stature, a fair visage and complexion, bright hair, a clear and amiable colour, a handsome body, lovely and vertuous, and contented in any condition.

Pisces is cold, watry and moist, phlegmatick, vicious, and foul, of a deformed and crooked body, wanting members, meanly fair, obedient, of a body diversly proportioned, also one of a short stature, ill-composed in body and mind; a great face, a pale and wan complexion, thick shouldered, fat and plump in body, short neck'd, and stooping in body and shoulders.

Sir Henry Knyvett's 'Defence of this Realm'

2011-04-20T10:51:00.004+01:00

This week our 101 Treasures series throws the spotlight on Sir Henry Knyvett's proposals for the defence of the realm, written in 1596 for Queen Elizabeth I and bound in her favourite red velvet. Read more on the website.

101 Treasures of Chetham's

2011-04-06T14:51:00.002+01:00

This week on the website we begin a new series highlighting some of the jewels in the Library's crown, which as well as rare books and manuscripts will include furniture, paintings, and objects from the museum collection. All the weekly features will be archived and together will build up a unique perspective of the Library's holdings. We begin today with the works of Augustine, the first work to be acquired by the Library in 1655.

Visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury

2011-03-23T10:57:00.002Z

We were very pleased to welcome the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to the Library at the end of last month. As part of his four-day visit to Manchester, accompanied by the Archbishop of York, he spent the best part of an hour in the Library where he was shown some of the treasures of the collection.

The Archbishop can be seen above with the Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, examining Bomberg's Biblia Rabbinica, which contains marginal annotations by the translators of the King James version of the Bible. Below, Librarian Michael Powell shows the visitors the Earl of Ellesmere's Manchester Scrapbook.

Star of the small screen

2011-03-15T14:00:00.006Z

Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that Chetham's Library was credited on two recent documentaries marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. BBC Religion borrowed the Library's earliest copy of the King James Bible and filmed a series of rostrum shots in BBC studios. These were cut into the two programmes, presented by Melvyn Bragg and Adam Nicolson, to show how the King James Bible actually appears.

The Library's copy of the King James Bible is a curious hybrid of the 1611 and 1613 editions. Like many early printed Bibles, parts of it are missing and other parts have been bound in the wrong order. The title page of the New Testament, for example, appears at the front of the whole Bible.

The book is bound in a contemporary full calf binding over thick wooden boards, complete with a series of brass bosses and clasps. Presumably it was intended to be used in a church but evidently soon fell into private ownership, as evidenced by two handwritten notes on the front flyleaves which read:

'Direct for Mary Orritt to bee last att mis Overs att mis Hanks in Ould Boon Street in Saint James London'

and

'Nouember the 15th 1718: in the morning about 3 oclock in the morning died Dorothy my deerly beloued wife shee liued desired and died lamented she liued in the fear of the Lord and I haue good reson to hope shee is in heven'.

Another interesting feature of the Chetham's Bible, which weighs nearly 19lbs, is that manuscript waste from fragments of a 13th/14th century parchment of Corinthians in black, red and green ink has been used in the binding.

Monochrome daze

2011-03-09T15:09:00.004Z

This image of pit brow women and the one below of children playing in the street are part of a collection associated with the antiquarian J.J. Phelps (1855-1928), who recorded many aspects of northern life in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

We do not know for sure where these hardworking women were photographed but we guess perhaps at one of the coalmines in Wigan. Likewise, the exact location of this hilly street remains a mystery. We would be delighted to hear from any of our readers who might be able to shed some light on these forgotten locations.

New images of Chetham's Library

2011-02-16T11:17:00.002Z

This unusual view of the Library is one of a new collection taken by award-winning photographer Christopher Furlong, senior photographer with Getty Images. Christopher's imaginative shots offer a refreshing new perspective on the medieval building and its seventeenth-century interior, and can be seen in full here. Some of the images were used in a recent article in the Mail Online, which can be viewed here.

Baroness Bakewell on whether libraries matter

2011-02-07T11:51:00.006Z

As libraries everywhere come under yet more threat from visigoths, polymath, author and now Baroness Joan Bakewell has proved that she is still the reading man's crumpet. As the Guardian reports, Baroness Bakewell's spirited defence of public libraries emphasised the vital role free libraries play in forming lives. She alluded to Chetham's Library in her speech:

"My grandfather, an iron turner in a Salford factory, died at the age of 33 and my father was sent to Chetham's Hospital, then an orphanage for poor boys in Manchester and now a world-famous music school. Chetham's had, and still has, one of the finest 17th-century libraries in the country. My father grew up loving books. The importance of libraries in the life of a child should not be underestimated."

We salute her.

Parent's Hope

2011-01-28T11:51:00.003Z

Enrolment certificate for the Juvenile Order of Rechabites dated 1874, belonging to Thomas Jones.

The International Order of Rechabites were a temperance friendly society founded in 1835. Friendly societies were intended to provide mutual support to groups of individuals with a common interest or employment, but meetings were generally held in public houses, a practice which made it difficult for supporters of the temperance movement to attend. Temperance friendly societies were therefore set up to allow teetotallers access to the benefits of mutual association.

The Rechabites took their name from a Biblical tribe who were commanded to 'drink no wine', and named their branches 'tents', the first of which was set up in Salford. In common with many enthusiastic nineteenth-century societies, a junior section was established to capture the early interest of children and young people.

The Order modelled their ritual and structure on Biblical practice, attaching great importance to insignia, regalia, ceremony and hierarchy, all of which was intended to give each member a sense of identity and progression, as well as to distinguish their order from other organisations and socieities.

Four legs are better than one

2011-01-26T13:40:00.006Z

This friendly zebra gazes out from the pages of Ulyssis Aldrovandi's De Quadrupedibus solipedibus, published in Bologna in 1649. This important zoological work illustrates and describes several important hoofed quadrupeds, including rhinos, elephants and many different horses, some with the face or limbs of a human, and those magnificent rarities the centaur and unicorn.

Ulyssis Aldrovandi (1522-1605) was a popular and successful lecturer and researcher at the University of Bologna where he became professor of philosophy and, two years later, professor of natural sciences. Chetham's Library owns all of his twelve published works of natural history, which were bought on 21 May 1656 from the London bookseller Robert Littlebury for the grand total of £19.10s.

'The drollest concern I think I ever met with'

2011-01-14T10:55:00.003Z

This image from John Rocque's 1746 Plan of the cities of London and Westminster shows the church of St Mary's Whitechapel, where in 1817 John Leech was a guest at a rather unconventional marriage service. He describes the humorous proceedings in a letter to his brother Thomas:

"I went to the wedding of James Tebbut; he was married at White Chapel Church. My wife & an acquaintance of J.T.s were there and afterwards all went to the fair. It was the drollest concern I think I ever met with. When he was asked by the Parson if he would have Kitty for his wedded wife he answered in very loud terms, 'Yes I will'. He was then asked if he would take her for better or for worse his answer was he would take her for better but not for worse. She was afterwards asked similar questions and on coming to the word obey (owing I suppose to his behaviour), she faltered in speech. Jim said, 'Say obey Kitty, why not say obey?', & many other ridiculous things which ultimately caused the Parson to reprimand him in strong terms, only for J.T. to tell him to go on with his business. After the ceremony was over the Revd Divine gave him his blessing but Jim told him he might keep it for himself for he did not want it. It was all of a piece throughout the day."

Rocque's beautiful engraved map of London was the first detailed large-scale plan of the city to be published. There are twenty-four sheets showing the city at a scale of 26 inches to the mile, which when laid edge to edge measure an impressive 13' x 6.75'.

You can find out more about Thomas Leech at our current exhibition of material from the Leech family archive during normal Library opening hours.

Voices

2011-01-07T14:46:00.005Z

Chetham's is proud to have developed strong links with Bolton University's MA Photography course, led by a good friend of the Library, Ian Beesley. For the last couple of years, the students have spent part of their studies at Chetham's, looking at early book illustration and the use of narrative. As part of their final presentation, the students are required to produce a photobook of their work, and the best is chosen by the Library to receive a special award. The judging process is currently underway, and in no particular order this year's shortlist is displayed below. The award will be presented at the launch of Voices, the exhibition of students' work to be shown at the People's History Museum from January 15th.

Exactly: A Week in the Life of 90 Minutes by Stephen Bingham

Yan, Tyan, Tethera: Life on a Cumbrian Hill Farm by Neal Andrews

Production by Sandra Snoddy

Dad Matters by Richard Gaskill and Salford Young Fathers Project

The Colour Purple: Caring for the Elderly in a Multicultural UK by Sangita Mistry

Transformation by Anna White

Clouds of Glory by Percy Dean

First Impressions by Mathew Davenport

Nightworkers by Karen Hope

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-21T09:00:00.000Z

We would like to wish all our readers both real and virtual a very Merry Christmas and great strides towards success in 2011! This simple folded card is one of our favourites - open it up and the gentleman's leg stretches out comically to an enormous length. The back is inscribed 'from Harry to Frank' - two friends or perhaps relations who obviously also enjoyed a good joke.

The Library will be closed from 22 December until 4 January and the blog will be taking a rest of similar duration. Until then, enjoy the pleasures of the season and keep warm!

A terrible night for Manchester

2010-12-15T10:07:00.003Z

Next week is the 70th anniversary of the Manchester and Salford Blitz in 1940, when the two cities experienced the heaviest bombing of WW2, killing nearly a thousand people.

Recent research for the Leech family exhibition has brought to light a new and unpublished eyewitness account of the bombing, which appears in a diary belonging to Ernest Bosdin Leech (1875-1950), Honorary Physician at Manchester Infirmary and resident of Victoria Park. His account reads as follows:

"It has been a terrible night for Manchester, and it is only just come to us what has been done. The Free Trade hall is a shell, and the big warehouse behind it across Windmill Street is the same. It was smoking as I passed it and they were pouring water into it. The Royal Exchange has also gone; I am told also the Victoria Hotel and parts of the Cathedral. Deansgate is badly hit, I'm told. The building between Lewis's and the Piccadilly garden is also a shell; also a big warehouse in Portland Street near Princes Street (left side looking down). The building across Mosley Street from the Art gallery, that was the place one paid taxes is also burnt out. Lots of the streets have water pipes along them. So much for the town. The big bang last night was an explosion at the Longsight entrance of the Park, some 250 yards away, which knocked down about half the large house on the left near the entrance. The part behind is desolation and the street, Plymouth Grove, full of debris. They are demolishing the big house just to the left along Plymouth Grove. About half the windows in Stockport Road are broken and, all along, there are heaps of broken glass. In lots of places main roads are blocked and one has to go by devious ways. Oxford Road and Stockport Road are both blocked ... It's hard to think it's not a dream; our Free Trade Hall, our Royal Exchange, and our Cathedral. Pray God we may win this war."

The following day, Leech drove through the town surveying the damage. The round trip from Victoria Park to Victoria Station took over three hours:

"My chief view was of broken windows, occasional burnt out shops and heaps, for I had to keep my eyes on the preceding car and on the glass in the road. The whole way along it was the same; but what glimpses I did get of the bigger buildings was sad; huge buildings all burnt out, some of them still smouldering and occasionally flames rising out of them. I saw the Cathedral which has been knocked about, but I could not see the damage, the outline was not so bad..."

After the war the Cathedral was rebuilt and the statue of Chetham was moved from its place at the east end of the north aisle of the choir to its new home in the North West corner. Though some repairs were carried out to the damaged statute, it still shows the marks of the blitz, notably a sizeable hole to Chetham’s left knee, and serves as an obscure yet permanent memorial and reminder of the damage that the Cathedral suffered some seventy years ago.

Who do you think they were?

2010-12-13T09:00:00.000Z

The Library's latest exhibition is now open and is entitled 'Who do you think they were? The story of a Manchester family'. The Leech family archive is one of the most remarkable collections at Chetham's Library, and through the use of diaries, photographs and personal ephemera, the exhibition chronicles the story of a middle-class Manchester family over two hundred years.

In recent years, members of the Leech family of Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne have presented the Library with a large and diverse collection of personal and business memorabilia stretching over two centuries. The family papers comprise many hundreds of letters, business and household accounts, cashbooks, photographs and sketches, as well as an enormous amount of carefully hoarded ephemera, juvenalia, genealogical research, travel documents, souvenirs and postcards.

This extraordinary family kept diaries throughout their lives and the collection numbers over two hundred bound volumes. Included in the exhibition are an eyewitness account of the days leading up to Peterloo, over five hundred love letters written during WW1, photographs and letters of Iris Murdoch and a clutch of diaries written whilst working at Bletchley Park, as well as a first-hand account of the WW2 Blitz in December 1940. It is a truly absorbing insight into life in Manchester in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and certainly not to be missed.

The exhibition is open now and can be seen in the Priest's Wing during usual opening hours: 9am-12.30 and 1.30pm-4.30.

Anyone for chess?

2010-12-08T10:48:00.006Z

As the magic of the season begins to fall, we are reminded of the importance of enchantment, deception and curiosities in the making of holidays and special occasions. In this post-modern age, it is difficult to be truly amazed or mystified but in times past, oddities and magical events were part of everyday life. Everything seemed new and exciting and often quite unexplainable, leading the observer to assume magic or divine intervention.

Even someone as apparently worldly wise as Benjamin Franklin, it seems, was able be fooled once in a while. On a visit to Paris in the late nineteenth century he was unable to resist the opportunity to challenge the remarkable mechanical curiosity known as Kempelen’s Chess-Playing Turk. Underneath an 'imposing turban that added to both his high stature and his mystique', an automated man sat behind a cabinet with doors that stood open before each match to disprove any scepticism about its contents. The appearance of the Turk caused enormous excitement wherever it went, as people attempted to beat the oddity at a game of chess. What they didn’t know, of course, was that Kempelen had hidden a short and very astute chess player to sit in the cabinet for hours on end to move the pieces about with a magnet. Predictably, Franklin lost the match.

The obsession with Kempelen's Turk began at the court of Empress Maria Theresa in 1769 and lasted for many years, even crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Kempelen made his fortune, which he used to develop a machine that could replicate human speech, and sold the Turk.

Over the years, many people had a go at owning and displaying the Turk, but mostly people made one-off replicas of it and began to travel with those. None of the replicas were as famous as the original, but the copied concept kept the chess-playing Turk’s novelty fresh and exciting even after the original burned in 1853.

An original broadside advertisment for Kempelen’s Turk in Manchester can currently be seen at the Library as part of the Central Library collection, which includes many others with similarly obscure content. One of our favourites is the Learned Pig, which became so popular that it was duplicated many times over, sometimes with more than one pig in the same performance. The Learned Pig routine captured the attention of audiences for even longer than the Turk, and the epithet 'smart swine' is still sometimes used.
Hopefully you’ll find some magic this holiday season. But if you need a bit of inspiration, the library is always a good place to start. The Turk itself inspired quite a following including P.T. Barnum, the Reverend Edmund Cartwright, who went on to invent the powerloom, and Joseph Faber whose Euphonia was able to sing God Save the Queen.

We are grateful to Tonya Albert for researching and writing this post. Tonya is currently doing a postgraduate placement at the Library and has been working on the Central Library collection.

Two gentlemen of Manchester

2010-11-10T09:51:00.005Z

These two well-dressed gents are taken from the Manchester Scrapbook, a remarkable compilation of sketches, prints, maps and topographical views put together in the early years of the nineteenth century by Francis Egerton, the 1st Earl of Ellesmere.

Ellesmere was widely travelled, and an enthusiastic patron of literature and the arts as well as being a politician and writer. The Manchester Scrapbook is one of several early nineteenth-century attempts to record the town in the face of the rapid changes that catapaulted Manchester from a market town to the world's first industrial city. It includes prints and sketches of significant figures as well as recording some of the smaller buildings and public spaces that disappeared to make way for the huge cotton mills that now define the city.

Desert Island Poems

2010-10-27T10:26:00.002+01:00

It's been all go here at the Library recently, and on Friday night the beautiful Baronial Hall again provided the setting for an absorbing literary event. The poet Michael Schmidt OBE, founder of Carcanet Press and the Library's only Mexican governor, shared his 'Desert Island Poems' in the company of the poet John McAuliffe and an enthusiastic audience.

The Library was open for visiting at the end of the event and many people took the opportunity to see the historic interior in the romance of an evening setting. Several of these were first-time visitors and we look forward greatly to welcoming them back in daylight hours.

The event was part of the very successful Manchester Literature Festival which has now come to the end of its run but promises to be back next year with more fascinating literary occasions. You can visit their website for a review of this year's highlights.

Michael Schmidt is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, founder and editorial director of PN Review, and Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow. John McAuliffe is co-director of the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing and has published two books with The Gallery Press, A Better Life and Next Door.

Manchester Fourteen Miles

2010-10-08T10:59:00.002+01:00

Margaret Penn's classic title Manchester Fourteen Miles was published in this Guild Books edition in 1950. The cover illustration beautifully reflects the popular style of graphic art of the early 1950s, with its modernist, almost constructivist representation of a glamorous gown on the right of the picture. The semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a young girl growing up in the countryside surrounding Manchester in the early part of the twentieth century.

An evening's entertainment

2010-10-06T10:21:00.007+01:00

Chetham's Library had fun hosting a splendid concert given by Laetitia Sadier on Sunday. The event was part of the Abandon Normal Devices Festival and Laetitia was introduced by Phil Collins (no, not that one, the artist and film-maker), who recently collaborated with Laetitia on the short film 'marxism today (prologue)'.

The event was organised by Cornerhouse staff, to whom much thanks is due, and quickly sold out. We and Laetitia's avid fans greatly enjoyed the evening and all doubtless would have wished for more than the single encore that time allowed. Find out more about Laetitia's music here, and about Stereolab, with whom she has had a long musical partnership, here.

The film-maker Phil Collins introduces Laetitia Sadier to an enthusiastic audience.

"I have thought of the days of old and the years that are past"

2010-10-01T11:30:00.004+01:00

This hand-tinted engraved self-portrait by Thomas Barritt (1743-1820) is to be found pasted into the front of one of his small scrapbooks, of which the Library holds several. Barritt, a saddler by trade, was an enthusiastic local historian and one of the pioneering antiquarians of the Manchester region. His scrapbooks contain page after page of genealogical notes, drawings of coats of arms, memorial inscriptions and people and places in Manchester and Lancashire. The motto above the likeness reads 'profert antiqua in apricum', that is, 'he brings ancient things to light'.

One of the more unusual items is this scrap of Chinese paper weaving, an exquisitely detailed piece of hand-coloured construction:

A later page displays this delicate pen and ink representation of the dance of death:

We continue to examine the manuscript notebooks of Thomas Barritt with the hope of 'bringing to light' more of his fascinating and valuable observations.

Laetitia Sadier

2010-09-29T11:45:00.003+01:00

We are pleased to be hosting an exclusive performance by legendary musician Laetitia Sadier at the Library on Sunday evening. Laetitia, a founder member of the post-rock outfit Stereolab, recently created an inspired and evocative soundtrack to the short film 'marxism today (prologue)', showing at Manchester's Cornerhouse until November 28th. Renowned for audacious formal experiments in a wide range of musical styles and for the socio-political concerns which permeate their lyrics, Stereolab have historically been termed ‘Marxist pop.’ Since 2003 Sadier has been recording and releasing music with her side-project Monade.

The concert is taking place as part of the Abandon Normal Devices Festival and will be held this Sunday 3rd October at 8pm for a 9pm start, with complimentary drinks included in the ticket price of £10.50/£8.50. Advanced booking is essential.

A book of emblems

2010-09-24T11:29:00.006+01:00

More madness from the shelves at Chetham's Library, this week in the form of these delightful engravings from Francis Quarle's Emblems. The idea is to represent Christian truths using verse and imagery but to the twenty-first century eye it is not always crystal clear exactly what is going on. We especially liked the apparently random inclusion of various regional towns and villages in the image above, probably places known to Quarle himself.

Below, a rather strange game of tennis seems to have ended badly...

An unusual game of celestial bar billiards is taking place in this plate...

Some of the images are simply to be enjoyed for their composition and quality of line...

Still confused? Perhaps the concept of the emblem is best expressed by Quarle himself in his note to the reader:

"An embleme is but a silent Parable. Let not the tender Eye check, to see the allusion to our blessed Saviour figued in these Types. In holy Scripture, he is sometimes called a Sower; sometimes, a Fisher; sometimes a Physician: And why not presented so as well to the eye as to the ear? Before the knowledge of letters God was known by Hieroglyphicks: And indeed, what are the Heavens, the Earth, nay every Creature, but Hieroglyphicks and Emblemes of His Glory? I have no more to say, I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in writing. Farewel Reader."

As usual, please click on any of the images to see a larger size.

We shall be pleased to accept the polecat

2010-09-10T13:26:00.002+01:00

We are still adding to our collection of material about Belle Vue Zoo and Pleasure Gardens. Until this remarkable and well-loved establishment closed in the 1970s, it was Manchester's principal centre of entertainment, attracting numerous stars of screen and vinyl as well as new recruits to the Zoological Gardens, as this letter from 1930 shows. Quite what Miss A.T. Davies of The Bungalow was doing with a polecat we shall perhaps never know, but it is reassuring to know that he or she went to a good home.

We are always interested in receiving additional items relating to Belle Vue or the Jennison family, so do please get in touch if you have anything that, like the polecat, could do with some 'care and attention'.

Wife in a bag

2010-09-01T10:45:00.007+01:00

This wonderfully mad illustration is taken from The Economy of Beauty, 'a series of fables addressed to the ladies', which is one of the books we are currently minding for Manchester Central Library while they undergo building works. Over the past fortnight, a good number of these have been catalogued by Alexandra Tyler, a third year English student at New College Oxford, who has kindly given up a part of her summer vacation to help out here at the Library. Before she left she was good enough not only to leave us a large box of delicious chocolates, but also to jot down a few words for our blog readers. Alexandra writes:

"Several months ago, the combination of a looming (and excessively long) university vacation and a love of all things book-related led to my getting in touch with Chetham's Library, in the hope that they could find me something useful and interesting to do during the summer. Undeterred by Michael's dire warnings about the future of librarianship, I arrived at the library ready and eager to make a hopefully quite significant dent in the rather intimidating task that was cataloguing the mountain of Central Library tracts, currently taking refuge at Chetham's during the former's three-year facelift.

The tracts, which range from the literary to the scientific, form part of a large body of uncatalogued works within the library's collection; my job was to identify the pre-1800 tracts and add them to the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), thus establishing their presence at the library for those who might have need of them.

After two weeks there remains plenty to be done, perhaps partly because of the distracting nature of the writings themselves - brimming with the charming and the downright wacky - but it's definitely a start!"

Thanks very much to Alexandra and all good wishes for her future studies.

We all particularly enjoyed this work from a collection of tracts relating to the Poor Laws. The word 'care' in the title, however, does not perhaps represent quite the sort of care we might wish to offer today, as a glance at the second image will reveal...

On the radio

2010-09-01T10:17:00.002+01:00

Chetham's Library features on the BBC Radio 4 programme What's the Point of... the Public Library, broadcast yesterday but available on BBC iPlayer until Tuesday 7th September and well worth a listen.

In the programme, Quentin Letts looks at how public libraries have changed since their earliest beginnings, asks whether they carry any validity in today's society and comes to some surprising conclusions.

Twittered!

2010-08-25T12:10:00.003+01:00

Chetham's Library has been included in the Guardian's latest TwiTrip! In this series, Guardian journalist Benji Lanyado journeys around England, guided by tweeted suggestions from Twitter followers, and live-blogging about his experiences.

Although we were delighted that Benji stopped to say hello, we were not too sure about his description of our books as 'dusty'... A lot more vacuuming goes on here than you might think Benji, honest.

A pressing situation

2010-08-23T13:00:00.001+01:00

The wooden hand printing press which has stood for many years at the top of the Library stairs was this week dismantled and removed to Alan May's workshop in Stone, Staffordshire.

Years of use as a working press and demonstration model coupled with poor quality nineteenth-century alterations mean that the press is extremely unstable and not safe for use. Alan, who was seen last year creating a working replica of the Gutenberg Press on BBC Four with Stephen Fry, will restore the press to working order, allowing printing processes to be demonstrated to Library visitors.
The press is believed to date from the early seventeenth century, and was donated to Chetham’s in 1900 by George Falkner and Sons, printers of Deansgate, Manchester, along with some additional equipment including a type-casting mould, printing ink balls, a number of typecases in an old random, and a compositor’s stick. The press is one of only five seventeenth-century presses in England, and the only specimen in the North West. Fewer than seventy survive globally, and there are no surviving examples of presses produced before the seventeenth century.

The wooden hand press, which is also known as the common press, is operated by a heavy iron screw held in a wooden frame. It was first developed in the fifteenth century and continued with only slight variations until the nineteenth century when wooden presses were gradually replaced by metal ones. The Chetham’s press is of special interest to the Library since all the books housed in the part of the library where the press and equipment are displayed were made on wooden hand presses of similar construction. It is believed to have been in actual use in Manchester until the nineteenth century.

Fountains galore!

2010-08-20T14:00:00.010+01:00

Among the library's early printed German books can be found the Nova architectura curiosa or Bau und Wasser-Kunst by Georg Andreas Boeckler, printed in Nuremberg in 1704.

This lengthy work on palace and monumental architecture pays particular attention to the construction of every possible kind of fountain.

Numerous engravings illustrate the patterns and designs for many hundreds of public fountains, more than enough to keep a race of water engineers busy for many decades.

Norman wisdom

2010-08-18T12:08:00.001+01:00

The BBC's excellent Norman Season continues to explore ways in which the Normans influenced our civilisation, beginning of course with the invasion of William of Normandy and his subsequent coronation as King of England, pictured here by Matthew Paris in his Flores Historiarum.

The Flores Historiarum is an epitome of Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora and was intended to provide lighter reading. The printed edition, however, still extends to three thick volumes in royal octavo. Chetham's Library copy of the Flores is that which was written in part in Matthew Paris's own hand in the Benedictine house of St Albans in the mid-13th century. The volume was presented to Westminster Abbey as part of the commemoration of the rebuilding of its church to house a new shrine to King Edward the Confessor. It contains continuations of the history written by Westminster monks that take the narrative until the fall of Edward II.

Some unusual bindings

2010-08-13T09:00:00.002+01:00

These two illustrations are examples of the ingenious ways in which books have often been bound.

The first is often known as a dos-à-dos binding (from the French meaning 'back-to-back') but is more properly termed tête-bêche (from the French meaning 'head-to-toe'). Here two separate books, a 1633 New Testament and a 1629 Book of Common Prayer, have been bound together with the text of one text rotated 180° relative to the other, so that one text runs head-to-tail, the other runs tail-to-head. Technically this volume doesn’t have a back cover but rather has two front covers. When a reader reaches the end of the text of one book, the next page is the last (upside down) page of the other. The two works have been bound in red morocco. Both boards have a gilt floral stem border and a gilt floral centrepiece stamp, with all edges gilt.

The second example consists of a single work, a Bible of 1756, which has been separated into two equal parts part way through the Book of Psalms. These have then been bound side by side, so that the second part opens back-to-front. The effect is of two separate books, bound fore-edge to fore-edge, on a common lower board, with separate spines. The front cover opens in two halves from the centre, rather like a cupboard. The left-hand label reads: 'Oracula sacra William Freemantle's 1765'. The right-hand label reads 'Si quis loquitur, loquatur ut eloquia dei I. Peter. 4. II.' The join on the upper board(s) is fastened by two metal clasps, with heart-shaped clasps and catches. The binding is 18th-century English black goat, with a red morocco label in the centre of each half of the upper board, lettered lengthwise in gold.

Make do and mend

2010-08-09T09:00:00.001+01:00

We sometimes tend to equate early printed books with ‘fine printing’, but often books printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhibit all the flaws of a handcraft practised carelessly, whether from inexperience, rushing to finish a job, or even the need to save money - paper, ink and time all being expensive commodities.

Pierre Chouët was an established printer in Geneva in 1675, the year he produced the first edition of Pierre Mussard’s Historia deorum fatidicorum, vatum, sibyllarum, phoebadum…, the first edition of a book which argued that Roman Catholic customs were derived from paganism. The book includes fifty engravings showing portraits of gods and hermetic writers including Apollo, Jupiter, Pythagoras, Hermes Trismegistus, Iamblichus, and the sibyls.

But combining letterpress and engraving is no easy task, and even in the most experienced of print shops things can go awry. The plate on page 48 looks like all the others, but unlike the others it has not been printed directly on the page but has been printed separately, and then pasted onto the page. Why wasthis print treated differently? Holding the page to the light reveals the answer: underneath the plate, another image of Trophonius - this time upside down! Paper was too valuable to waste, and this was a rather clever way to fix a mis-fed sheet.

It was easy enough to repair that mistake, but unfortunately pages 232 and 237 show working practices that were less easy to hide. These sheets display what printers sometimes call set-off, when the still-wet ink from a printed sheet transfers onto another sheet producing a reverse image of the printed page. Again, perhaps, to save paper, the letterpress text was simply printed over the set off, and the page then treated as good.

Mistakes like these help to explain the practicality of how printing was done. It is clear from these errors that the engravings were printed before the letterpress, and that rather noticeable errors were not necessarily a cause for waste.

De monstrorum caussis, natura, et differentiis

2010-08-05T12:01:00.000+01:00

Among interesting works catalogued this week is this remarkable work on monsters published in Padua in 1634 by Paulus Frambottus.

The author Fortunius Licetus, a physiologus or medical researcher, offers to tell the reader about such deviations from the natural order as women becoming men, a sow who gave birth to a human head, hermaphrodites, the remarkable fertility of castrated persons, a boy who turned to stone and 'many other remarkable things'.

The return of Matthew

2010-08-04T14:35:00.002+01:00

Long-term readers of the Library website will remember TV's Matthew Yeo, who spent three years at Chetham's working towards his PhD, as well as taking time out to appear as captain of last year's winning University Challenge team. For a limited time only, Matthew has returned to the Library to prepare his thesis for publication, and already the quality and frequency of the tea has improved enormously.

Matthew's book, The acquisition of books by Chetham's Library, 1655-1700 is to be published by Brill and will shortly be available to pre-order.

A flying visit

2010-07-28T15:05:00.009+01:00

The RAF dropped in on us at lunchtime today, but not to return their library books - Chetham's Library is reference only. They landed their beautiful and very noisy helicopter on the school tennis court for no apparent reason other than to see if it could be done - and threw up enough grit and dust to treat the little crowd of onlookers to a free facial dermo-abrasion into the bargain. After having a chat with the crew and even being allowed to climb up and sit in the front seat, we were pleased to show the pilot and his friends round the Library and the ancient school buildings before we waved them goodbye again.

You can see a short film of the helicopter taking off again on YouTube

Health beckons from every pie

2010-07-09T11:28:00.007+01:00

Being, as it is, very much the home of the pie, Chetham's Library seems the perfect resting place for this delightful little pamphlet from the 1920s advertising the benefits and delights of Wilks Pies from Bolton.

A recent acquisition, the sixteen delicately illustrated pages make a strong case for pie-eating at virtually every meal of the day, due to their fine flavour, purity and health-giving qualities.

A light supper after the theatre? Wilks Pies provide the perfect solution:

Or perhaps guests have popped round unexpectedly? No problem if your larder is well stocked with pies:

Eating between meals is sometimes frowned upon nowadays, but when the nutritious snack in question is a Wilks Pie, surely an exception can be made?

But perhaps our favourite are these 'one dish' pies. The only question being, of course, whether to go to all the bother of adding a salad...

Rude Britannia

2010-07-05T09:00:00.001+01:00

The Tate Gallery's current exhibition on British comic art, Rude Britannia, has prompted Library staff to look out some of their own favourite rude images. Chetham's Library holds works by many of the artists featured in the Tate exhibition, several of them quite possibly even ruder than those on show in London.

The exhibition looks at British comic art from the seventeenth century to the present day in the forms of allegory, caricature, social satire, political lampoon and the grotesque, and we present here a selection of examples of the genre from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries from the Chetham's collection.

Intemperance and Ridicule from Human Passions Delineated (1773) by the Lancashire dialect poet John Collier under the pseudonym of Tim Bobbin.

William Hogarth (1697-1764): The Punishment Inflicted on Lemuel Gulliver, etching and engraving on paper, 1726

George Cruikshank (1792-1878): Caricature of George IV, handcoloured print.

Strawberry Hill forever...

2010-07-02T10:03:00.005+01:00

Click on the image for an enlarged view

The recent exhibition at the V&A, Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill, reminds us that one of the Library's most important manuscripts is concerned with the building of Walpole's magnificent house in Twickenham, Surrey. The modest 17th-century house was transformed by Horace Walpole (1717–97), youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister, into what he called 'a little Gothic Castle'. The house provided an atmospheric setting for Walpole's unique collections and quickly became a popular tourist attraction. It remains Britain's finest example of Georgian Gothic Revival architecture.

The manuscript is a set of accounts, written on twenty pages, contained in a vellum-bound pocket book, measuring 15 x 10 cm. Written in Walpole's hand, the book consists of a continuous record of expenditure on the building and furnishing of the house, and on the layout of the grounds, for nearly fifty years from 1747 to the end of 1795. It covers payments for tradesmen: plasterers, glaziers, bricklayers, joiners and gardeners, as well as expenditure on fittings and furniture. Some items are recorded in detail, such as the Welsh chairs bought at Mr Bateman's, a yellow bed for the beauty room, and a Blue Indian damask for the Beauclerk closet, whilst others are imprecise - pedestals, new walls, painted glass.

The accounts also record expenditure on Walpole's printing house which he built in the grounds in 1757. Over £180 was spent on this, the country's first private press, known as the Officina Arbuteana or Strawberry Hill Press. His first book, an edition of the Odes of Thomas Gray, was brought out in 1757 and a copy of this is also in Chetham's.

Walpole described himself as a woeful mathematician, and his accounts are full of faults and miscalculations. Even simple sums such as the addition of 75 and 50 or the subtraction of 125 from 750 had to be written down. The grand total spent on Strawberry Hill was £21,410, a figure which differs by over a thousand pounds from that recorded in Walpole's accounts.

After Walpole's death, the house passed to his cousin's daughter Anne Daumier, and in 1842 the contents were dispersed in a famous auction that was held over twenty-four days. Now the house is being restored and is expected to open later this year.

The Strawberry Hill accounts were given to Chetham's in 1924 and were published three years later by the Clarendon Press.

Ex Libris: Bookplates at Chetham's

2010-06-18T09:17:00.022+01:00

Bookplate collecting is a serious business. There is a plethora of collections and collectors lurking in private and in the public domain and, it seems, an entire world devoted to the discussion and documentation of this pursuit through societies and international journals. Chetham's Library currently houses a collection of over 20,000 bookplates. The Heraldry Society's W. W. Porteous Collection and Marshall Pierson Bookplate Collection show us excellent specimens ranging from armorial and heraldic to naval and military examples. However, the collections also branch out into the more weird and wonderful, containing unusual pictorial bookplates from around the world.

A notable and delightful part of this quaint collection comprises bookplates made for two avid collectors, Mrs. Irene D. Andrews Pace and Mary Alice Ercolini during the mid 20th Century. Pace travelled widely around the world due to her husband's military career and during this time she collected and commissioned bookplates from artists and engravers at the places they visited, building up a personal library of over 150,000 items. A large proportion of this collection is held at Yale University, but a selection also resides permanently at Chetham's Library. The Chetham's collection shows examples of fine printing and engraving which illustrate the life of a well-travelled collector.

Less is known about American enthusiast Mary Alice Ercolini, but it seems that she too was an avid collector of books and bookplates. She was also a well known member of the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers and an author of their yearbook. Her pastime as represented in the Library's bookplate collection is similarly charming; her plates depicting cats, of which she seems to have been particularly enamoured, are especially so.

Although the plates made and collected by Pace and by Ercolini form only a small (if notable) part of the collection, they are good examples of the variety to be found and of the popularity of bookplate collecting we can see among bibliophiles when we examine this collection. There are many more curious snippets to be found, including volumes that sample library and university plates, and a wide mix of religious, mythological and in some cases phantasmagorical examples according to the collectors' different predilections.