The Library of Drummond of Hawthornden

Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, first edition, 1971. Cloth, 4to, 29 cm,. xii, 245 pp, 18 plates. The main part of this book is a catalogue of a private library collected in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and as such gives not only a picture of William Drummond as a man of cultivation, a good classical scholar and an unusually able linguist, but also a valuable insight into the literary taste of the period of Shakespeare and Jonson ; for Orummond cannot be regarded as eccentric or especially scholarly-indeed it is his position as being representative of the educated man of his day that makes the study of his books particularly valuable. Dr MacDonald has prefaced his catalogue, the result of acute deductive work in respect of the books which no longer exist, with a lengthy and pertinent discussion of Drummond's life and interests, and of the book-reading and book-buying habits of the educated society of the time as revealed in this important collection. Very Good in price-clipped dustwrapper which is a little worn at the foot of the spine-panel.