Incunabula at Senate House Library: Growth of a Collection

Abstract

How does a University library established in the late nineteenth century and donation-driven into the twentieth acquire a collection of incunabula? This article examines the growth of the incunabula collection at Senate House Library, University of London (formerly known as the University of London Library) from the twenty-two fifteenth-century books in the foundation collection of Augustus De Morgan, given in 1871, to the twenty-first century. It describes the influx of incunabula through the gifts of various named special collections, looking also at the role that incunabula played within those collections; through purchase; and through the demise of other institutional libraries. The article further details Senate House Library's treatment of its incunabula and shows how exploration of a small collection (134 of the Library's estimated 200,000 early printed books) sheds light on private and institutional library history.