The aldine press: Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy collection of books by or relating to the press in the library of the University of California, Los Angeles, incorporating works recorded elsewhere

The history of Aldine collecting reaches back to the time of the press itself. In that period, most readers interested themselves less in the form of the publications than in their contents, especially in the new Greek texts which Aldus was energetically publishing. But bibliophilic attention occurred almost from the first. Jean Grolier, for example, acquired over two hundred of the press's publications, often having the books elegantly bound and handsomely illuminated. Still, active and general Aldine collecting began only at the close of the seventeenth century, when noble families, in developing their libraries, purposefully included Aldine publications for display on their shelves. The massive collection of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, for example, included two hundred and eighty Aldines; and, notably in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, extensive collections became common among the wealthy middle classes. Throughout Europe, bibliophiles formed libraries whose cases and cabinets devoted space to Aldines. In England alone, Anthony Askew owned over two hundred Aldines; Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, more than three hundred; Richard Heber and Sir John Hayford Thorold, each about seven hundred; and Samuel Butler, over twenty-one hundred Aldine and Aldine-related publications.