Engraved bookplate of the Stourbridge Library.

£150 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A very handsome unused bookplate for the provincial public library at Stourbridge in Worcestershire (established 1790) which shows a woman reading in the fine interior of a classical library. Most likely designed to try and attract new female readers to the library. The woman depicted here is show reading a book with other books piled around her and with a globe on the table near her. In the background is a classical temple on a hill. A notice in the local Worcestershire Chronicle in March 1864 gives a sense of the founding of the library and the problems it faced in recent years: “The library it appears was established before the commencement of the present century, and at the time it was started almost every respectable inhabitant of the town and neighbourhood became a member. Down to 1845 the library proceeded with tolerable success, and was found extremely useful. Book societies of various kinds were then established in the locality, which reduced the number of subscribers, and the library then fell into debt. In consequence of the booksellers lending Mudie’s books, many persons who had subscribed to the library, left it. There are nearly 6,000 volumes on the shelves of the library, and these had cost the town and neighbourhood something like 3,000l., comprising every variety of literature; and members having the opportunity of reading those books in common with the books issued by Mudie…” At a meeting to decided the fate of the library it was decided: “that an additional

• Binding: Hardcover

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