Exhibitions
The Magical Library of Harry Price
19th April – 30th October 2004
This exhibition celebrates the treasures in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature, one of the largest, most well-known and diverse collections in Senate House Library . Recently, major cataloguing and retrospective conversion of the printed books, archives and artefacts has been carried out on the Library, thanks to generous funding from the Vice-Chancellor's Development Fund. Work on this project is well advanced, and this exhibition is mounted to mark the milestone of the completion of cataloguing printed material and to reveal treasures in the Library, many on view for the first time, to new audiences.
The collection of Harry Price (1881-1948), the publicist of psychical research, developed from a childhood collection of conjuring books into a collection of materials for the cultural history of attitudes to the occult that is unique in the United Kingdom . Although its holdings are strong from the early modern period onwards, they are indispensable for the history of psychical research and spiritualism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1937, it contained 4,376 books, 5,343 pamphlets and 725 volumes of periodicals, with extensive holdings comprising ephemera, press cuttings, manuscripts, film, photographs and slides recording the investigative activities of Harry Price and his associates. The printed collection has since been enlarged from a modest endowment and many gifts to approximately 14,000 volumes, and is growing steadily each year. To give an indication of the date range covered by the collection, an estimated 225 books and pamphlets were published between 1600 and 1699 and a further 325 between 1700 and 1799.
The Library's holdings on psychical phenomena, psychical research, spiritualism and hypnotism include the first editions of all the occult works of Daniel Defoe, Oliver Goldsmith's The mystery revealed (1762 containing the first account of a séance), and a large number of scarce British and foreign nineteenth century items. Works on witchcraft include several incunabula and the first edition (1584) of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft . Works by and about prophets and religious eccentrics are also well represented, with particular emphasis on Nostradamus (58 editions from 1533 onwards).
The Library's subject scope attracts considerable cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary use, and is of interest to researchers in fields such as early and modern social history and cultural studies.
The Magical Library of Harry Price" was researched by Karen Attar, Rare Books Librarian; Feona Hamilton, Special Collections Cataloguer/Project Officer; Roy Moxham, Conservation and Preservation Officer; Mike Mulcay, Team Leader, Special Collections; and Christine Wise, Head of Special Collections. Gillian Murphy, formerly Assistant Archivist, also contributed to exhibition planning and research.
The exhibition was mounted by Roy Moxham, Conservation and Preservation Officer, with technical assistance from Alexandra Bruce and Alison Hunter, Preservation. The accompanying promotional materials were prepared by Jacqueline Liburd, Administrative Assistant and John Moore, IT Officer.
We hope that you enjoy this insight into the Magical Library of Harry Price.
