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Dots and ellipses.
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THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM CONGREVE
First page of Congreve’s “Bibliotheca,” showing the partiallyobliterated entries by the first hand. Reproduced from the original inthe library of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society by permission of HisGrace the Duke of Leeds.
The Library of
WILLIAM CONGREVE
By JOHN C. HODGES
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
New York
The New York Public Library
1955
Reprinted, with additional illustrations, from the Bulletin ofThe New York Public Library of 1954–1955. Printed at The New YorkPublic Library.
5
The Library of William Congreve
INTRODUCTION
WhenWilliam Congreve died in 1729 he left a collection of books which hisold friend and publisher, Jacob Tonson, described (in a letter preservedat the Bodleian) as “genteel & well chosen.” Tonson thought so wellof the collection that he urged his nephew, then his agent in London, topurchase Congreve’s books. But Congreve had willed them to Henrietta,the young Duchess of Marlborough, who was much concerned with keepingintact (as she wrote in her will) “all Mr. Congreaves Personal Estatethat he left me” in order to pass it along to her youngest daughterMary. This daughter, said by gossip to have been Congreve’s daughteralso, married the fourth Duke of Leeds in 1740, and thus Congreve’sbooks eventually found their way to Hor