Eliot-Phelips Collection

The Eliot-Phelips Collection comprises approximately 3500 books, pamphlets, and official documents, supplemented by smaller numbers of maps, manuscripts, and prints, printed in or relating to Spain was formed by W. R. Phelips and his son E. F. Phelips. It consists almost entirely of Spanish imprints or works in Spanish from the early sixteenth to the early twentieth century, with well ver fifty per cent of the printed material from the hand-press period (i.e., printed before 1830).. There are a number of items representing early printing and notable presses in Spain. A large part of the collection relates to the social history of Madrid, including an extensive set of ‘manuales’ and ‘guias de forasteros’ of the eighteenth century. The collection is particularly noteworthy for the evidence it contains of the remarkable range of printed books available in Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, from treatises on accounting, astronomy, handwriting, and cookery, to books of chivalric romances and love poetry, dictionaries of the Castilian language, and collections of emblems, riddles, and humorous anecdotes.

• History of the Eliot Phelips Collection
• Contents of the Eliot-Phelips Collection
• Event and exhibition

 

 

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