John Dee's Library Catalogue

John Dee (1527-1609) has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the intellectual history of Tudor England.

He was best known among his contemporaries as a mathematician, but his other major interests included navigation, astrology, alchemy and medicine.

He was one of the first scholars to advocate the collection of manuscripts from the dissolved monastic libraries, and his own library, perhaps the largest assembled in England by one man before 1600, supported all his own interests and those of his pupils and heirs.

This study, which includes a facsimile of the detailed catalogue of 1583, narrates the growth of his library and its dispersal after Dee's death.

A large proportion of the manuscripts he owned have been located and described, together with the survivors (about a tenth) of his printed books.