Michael Townsend from the IHR’s Wohl Library highlights some of the titles included in a kind gift from the library of Prof Derek Keene.
Earlier in the year both the Institute and the wider academic community were saddened to learn of the passing of Prof Derek Keene, who had been a major presence in the Institute for decades and in his many fields of historical research. As one of the driving forces in the establishment of the Centre for Metropolitan History in the late 1980s, serving as its founding director until 2002, he furthered research in urban history and provided one of the most vibrant and engaging forums for the discussion this subject in the UK. He was more than CMH director ,however, and would always be a welcoming presence for everyone at the IHR. Even after his retirement in 2008 he was still a regular visitor both at seminars and conferences and in the library.
In May my colleagues and I were contacted by Derek’s wife, Dr Suzanne Keene, to see if there were any parts of his extensive library the IHR library would like for its own collections. We enthusiastically agreed and arranged to visit, together with a colleague from Senate House Library, in early July. ‘Extensive library’ was no misnomer, occupying four floors of their home; he had even fitted rolling stacks in the basement to fit large runs of periodicals as well as hundreds more monographs (As a librarian I felt a sense of admiration for anyone so committed to creating his own library).
As Derek’s research interests aligned so closely with the library’s collection strengths we already had a lot of the material from his collection. That and space constraints meant that we were only able to take a small proportion of the item. However one feature of his collection that soon struck me was the breadth of subjects it included. As expected the collection would be rich in works on British urban history. Yet we also found many works on European and transnational history which, I feel, is testament to his curiosity about the past that extended beyond his primary area of historical interest.
The selections we made attest to his eclectic curiosity. Titles now in the IHR library’s collections include an edition of the fourteenth century French conduct book, Le Mesnagier de Paris, a four volume study on modern Italian migration from the 18th to the 20th century by Ercole Sori, a translation of the Saga of King Sverri as well as a 1903 edition of John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture. We were also very pleased to be offered a sixteen volume set of Tobias Smollett’s The Complete History of England (1758–1765), as our set was incomplete. With the exception of some of the more fragile and older works, such as Smollett’s History, these titles will bear a bookplate acknowledging their provenance from Derek’s collection.
Below is a full list of the titles from Prof Keene’s library, now in the the IHR:
Adams, H. C. Wykehamica: a history of Winchester College and Commoners, from the foundation to the present day (Oxford: James Parker & Co., 1878)
The Asiatic annual register; or, a view of the history of Hindustan and the politics, commerce and literature of Asia…1799, 1802, 1803 (London: J. Debrett, Cadell & Davis, 1800-1804)
Bimbenet-Privat, Michèle (ed.) Écrous de la justice de Saint-Germain-des-Prés au XVIe siècle (Paris: Archives Nationales, 1995)
Blomqvist, Ragnar & Mårtemsson, Anders. Thulegrävningen 1961: en berättelse om vad grävningarna för Thulehuset i Lund avslöjade (Lund: Skånska Centraltryckeriet, 1963)
Brereton, Georgina & Ferrier, Janet M. (eds.) Le mesnagier de Paris (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1994)
Brøndsted, Johannes. The Vikings: an illustrated history…(Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1960)
Brooks, Eric St. John (ed.) Register of the hospital of S. John the Baptist without the New Gate, Dublin (Dublin: The Stationary Office, 1936)
Brunel, Ghislain & Lalou, Élisabeth (eds.) Sources d’histoire médiévale IXe–milieu du XIVe siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1992)
Chevalier, Bernard. Les bonnes villes de France du XIVe au XVIe siècle (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982)
Cumberlege, Geoffrey. The Corporation of London: its origins, constitution, powers and duties (London: Oxford University Press, 1950)
Egbert, Virginia Wylie. On the bridges of mediaeval Paris: a record of early fourteenth-century life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)
Gamberini, Andrea (ed.) A companion to late medieval and early modern Milan: the distinctive features of an Italian state (Leiden: Brill, 2014)
Gee, Joshua. The trade and navigation of Great-Britain (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969)
Gerbaud, Henri & Bimbenet-Privat, Michèle (eds.) Châtelet de Paris: répertoire numérique de la série Y (Paris: Archives Nationales, 1993)
Griffiths, R. A. (ed.) Boroughs of medieval Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978)
Gross, Charles. A bibliography of British municipal history: including gilds and parliamentary representation (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1966)
Home, Gordon. Winchester: a sketch-book (London: A. & C. Black, 1933)
Lorenzen-Schmidt, Klaus-Joachim. Die Sozial- und Wirtschaftsstruktur schleswig-holsteinischer Landesstädte zwischen 1500 und 1550 (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1980)
Magnusson, Magnus & Pálsson, Hermann (trans.) Njal’s saga (London: Penguin Books, 1960)
Mazzaoui, Maureen Fennell. The Italian cotton industry in the later Middle Ages 1100–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)
Michaëlsson, Karl. Études sur les noms de personne français d’après les rôles de taille Parisiens (Uppsala: A. B. Lundequistka, 1927)
Michaëlsson, Karl. Le livre de la taille de Paris: l’an 1296 (Göteborg: Humanistiska Fonden, 1958)
Musset, Lucian. Les peuples scandinaves au Moyen Âge (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951)
Pakucs-Willcocks, Mária. Sibiu-Hermannstadt: oriental trade in sixteenth century Transylvania (Cologne: Böhlau, 2007)
Paul the Deacon. Storia dei Longobardi (Milan: Rizzoli Libri, 2010)
Periaux, Pierre. Dictionnaire indicateur des rues et places de Rouen (Les editions de la Tour Gille, 1995)
Roc’h-Morgère, Martine (ed.) Le temporel du chapitre de Notre-Dame de Paris et de ses filles: S 1a à S 942 (Paris: Archives Nationales, 1990)
Roesdahl, Else…et al. (eds.) The Vikings in England (London: The Anglo-Danish Viking Project, 1981)
Roncayolo, Marcel & Paquot, Thierry (eds.) Villes et civilisation urbaine XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1992)
Round, J. H. Geoffrey de Mandeville: a study of the anarchy (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1892)
Ruskin, John. The seven lamps of architecture (London: George Allen, 1903)
Schadla-Hall, Tim (ed.) Finland and Tallinn (London: The Royal Archaeological Institute, 2006)
Sephton, J. (trans.) The saga of King Sverri of Norway (Sverrisaga) (London: David Nutt, 1899)
Smollett, Tobias. A complete history of England, from the descent of Julius Cæsar, to the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, 1748 (London: James Rivington amd James Fletcher, 1758–1765)
Sori, Ercole (ed.) Le Marche fuori dalle Marche: migrazioni interne ed emigrazione all’estero tra XVIII e XX secolo (Ancona: Proposte e Ricerche, 1998)
Williams, Howard (ed.) Stockholm and environs (London: The Royal Archaeological Institute, 2016)
Woods, Edward S. Theodore, Bishop of Winchester: pastor, prophet, pilgrim: a memoir of Frank Theodore Woods, D.D. 1874–1932 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1933)
We would like to thank Prof Keene’s wife, Dr Suzanne Keene for generously donating these titles and not only making the library collection’s that bit richer but giving us another opportunity to affectionately remember him.