Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula by Lord Peter Wimsey

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Title: Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula 

Author: Lord Peter Wimsey

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers 

Lord Peter Wimsey is well-know for collecting first editions and incunabula and has written this little book about his hobby. I had never come across incunabula before I read a Lord Peter book. Or perhaps it was when I saw the Ian Carmichael BBC TV dramatisations in the 1970s that I first heard of incunabula. At any rate, I think it’s hard to be well-known for collecting something that a lot of people may never have heard of.

And what are incunabula? Early printed books. Especially if they were printed before 1501 apparently. I imagine you have to be pretty rich to collect incunabula, or to know they even exist. Or how to pronounce the word. And to give you an idea of how rare such books must be; William Caxton set up the first printing press in England in 1476. 

It sounds fairly amazing to have a collection of such old books - not hand written, but printed. I don’t know if I have actually seen a book that old. In fact I must have done, because I’ve visited very old libraries in universities and stately homes, but never in a private collection. So I guess we get an idea of the extent of Lord Peter’s private wealth.

When Lord Peter stays by chance with Theodore Venables, the Rector of Fenchurch St Paul, Mr Venables  says enthusiastically that he has read Lord Peter’s book, and is sorry that he has nothing of interest to offer him beyond a gospel of Nicodemus. Lord Peter’s visit is absolutely packed with incident (you need to read The Nine Tailors) and he may not have had the leisure to inspect the Rector’s interesting sounding text.

Lord Peter is also the author of The Murderer’s Vade Mecum (a handbook or guide). Although in Unnatural Death he talks about publishing his epoch making work: The Murder’s Vade Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death. The notes for this wide ranging book flowed all over the library of Lord Peter’s flat and threatened to engulf poor Bunter, whose task it was to file and cross-reference and generally to produce order from chaos.

Thanks to Britannica