Michaelmas Term 2024

A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany
by the Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin

A new term and a new academic year mean the end of the summer holiday season – and what better way to spend your holiday than as the Revd Dr Dibdin did, travelling around Europe looking at beautiful libraries and buying rare and valuable books for rich patrons? (You may not agree, of course.)

Thomas Frognall Dibdin was born in Calcutta in 1776, the son of an English sea captain in the East India service. His parents both died in 1780, on their way back to England, and he was brought up by his mother’s younger brother, William Compton. After studying at St John’s College here in Oxford, his first intention, inspired by the erudition and eloquence of the speeches he heard made by the great barristers of his day, was to take up the law as a profession. But he found the mechanical nature of day-to-day legal work dull, and decided instead to enter the church, being ordained priest in 1805. His stated wish was to excel as a preacher, employing erudition and eloquence in the far greater matter of saving souls, but he is better known as an author and bibliographer.

His first commercially published book, in 1802, was An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, a listing of and guide to the various printed editions of the classical authors. This was favourably reviewed and sold well, and brought Dibdin to the attention of George John, second Earl Spencer, whose library at Althorp was one of the most valuable private libraries in the country. Dibdin became his chief cataloguer, and in 1814 he published Bibliotheca Spenceriana; or A Descriptive Catalogue of the Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century, and of Many Valuable First Editions, in the Library of George John Earl Spencer, in four volumes. These were very handsomely produced but, according to H. R. Luard in the 1888 Dictionary of National Biography, “his descriptions are so full of errors that it may be doubted if a single one is really accurate.” However, he adds, the descriptions were taken directly from the books themselves, rather than copied from previous catalogues and bibliographies, establishing an important bibliographical principle.

In 1818 Dibdin, accompanied by the artist George Lewis, spent nine months touring libraries on the Continent, seeking to purchase rare books on behalf of Earl Spencer and others. Many monastic and aristocratic libraries in Europe were being dissolved, and thousands of early printed books were being sold off, for which collectors would pay huge sums. He recounts the trip in the three-volume A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (1821). In this, says Luard, “he gives an amusing account of his travels … But the style is flippant … and the book abounds with follies and errors.” Its inaccuracies aroused particular ire among French librarians and bibliophiles, and when Théodore Licquet and Georges A. Crapelet published a French translation in 1825, they added numerous footnotes attacking the original. In 1829 Dibdin published a second edition, in which he made some corrections and added a Preface answering some of the criticisms, but the criticisms made of the descriptions of the books at Rouen were so damning that he left this section out entirely. The second edition was also less lavishly illustrated than the first, the plates for which had reportedly cost £5,000. It is this second edition of which Somerville has a copy, and which is displayed above.

As the 1820s progressed, Dibdin concentrated more on his duties as a clergyman, publishing sermons rather than bibliographical works. He was also much troubled by financial difficulties. After suffering a stroke near the end of 1845, he became a complete invalid, and died on 18 November 1847. The great book collection at Althorp was sold in 1892 to Enriqueta Rylands, who was setting up a library in memory of her late husband; the John Rylands Library today is part of the University of Manchester, and a major research library.

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