Excerpt from Royal English Bookbindings
Generally speaking, the bindings in the "King"s Library" - the name by which George III."s collection is now known in the British Museum - are modern; but among them are a considerable number of old bindings in good condition, and it is possible that those which were rebound were mostly in a bad state. Unfortunately the crowned monogram of George III. is generally impressed in a prominent place, even on such old bindings as have been otherwise preserved intact; and although valuable as a record it is often a great disfigurement. There is little doubt that George III."s intention was to create a new royal library to remain in the possession of the kings themselves, but there seems to have been some idea that it would eventually become national property, as Dr. Frederick Wendeborn, a German preacher, well known at Court, wrote: "The King"s Private library ... can boast very valuable and magnificent books, which, as it is said, will at one time or another be joined to those of the British Museum." This prediction was fulfilled in 1823, when George IV. presented it to the nation, and the fine room now known as the King"s Library in the British Museum was built for its reception, the removal being completed in 1828.
William IV. does not seem to have been altogether pleased that the royal libraries should have been twice given away, as he added a codicil to his will in 1833, bequeathing to the Crown "all his additions to the libraries in the several royal palaces," with an autograph confirmation dated from Brighton, November 30, 1834, signed and sealed by himself, declaring "that all the books, drawings, and plans collected in all the palaces shall for ever continue heirlooms to the Crown, and on no pretence whatever to be alienated from the Crown."
The royal library at Windsor now contains the greatest number of royal bindings now existing in any one collection, except those at the British Museum, but it possesses very few that belonged to Tudor sovereigns. From the time of James I. it has a very fine collection.
Where I have not specifically mentioned otherwise, the books described in the following pages are in the British Museum. They should be to the English people especially interesting, for not only are they national property, but any of them can be seen with little trouble, and a considerable number are actually exhibited in the binding show-cases in the King"s Library, or in the Grenville Library.
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