Displaying 1 of 1 2019 Format: Book Author: Wilson-Lee, Edward, author Title: The catalogue of shipwrecked books : Christopher Columbus, his son, and the quest to build the world's greatest library / Edward Wilson-Lee. Publisher, Date: New York : Scribner, [2019]. ©2018 Description: 401 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm. Subjects: Colón, Fernando, 1488-1539 Biblioteca Colombina Book collectors -- Spain -- Biography Historians -- Spain -- Biography Bibliographers -- Spain -- Biography Geographers -- Spain -- Biography Genre: Biographies Other Title: Catalog of shipwrecked books. Notes: "Originally published in Great Britain in 2018 by Williams Collins."--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 9781982111397 (hardcover) System Availability: 7 Current Holds: 0 # Local items: 7 Control Number: 1728047 Call Number: 010.92 Course Reserves: 0 # Local items in: 5 # System items in: 5 Place Request Please select and request a specific volume by clicking one of the icons in the 'Where is it?' section below. Add to My List Share Expand All | Collapse All Where is it? Summary "Like a Renaissance wonder cabinet, full of surprises and opening up into a lost world." --Stephen Greenblatt "A captivating adventure...For lovers of history, Wilson-Lee offers a thrill on almost every page...Magnificent." -- The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by: * Financial Times * New Statesman * History Today * The Spectator * The impeccably researched and vividly rendered account of the quest by Christopher Columbus's illegitimate son to create the greatest library in the world--"a perfectly pitched poetic drama" ( Financial Times ) and an amazing tour through sixteenth-century Europe. In this innovative work of history, Edward Wilson-Lee tells the extraordinary story of Hernando Colón, a singular visionary of the printing press-age who also happened to be Christopher Columbus's illegitimate son. At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando traveled with Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus's death in 1506, the eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue--and surpass--his father's campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues, the first ever search engine for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe. Hernando restlessly and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include "all books, in all languages and on all subjects," even material often dismissed as ephemeral trash: song sheets, erotica, newsletters, popular images, romances, fables. The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522--documented in his poignant Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books --set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection. Edward Wilson-Lee's account of Hernando's life is a testimony to the beautiful madness of booklovers, a plunge into sixteenth-century Europe's information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own attempts to bring order to the world today. Suggestions and more Trade Reviews Booklist Review*Starred Review* In the 238 books brought to Hispaniola in four chests by Hernando Colón, son of Christobal Colón (Christopher Columbus), Wilson-Lee recognizes the first library in the Americas. And in recounting how that library grew to more than 15,000 volumes, he chronicles the remarkable life of its bibliophile librarian. It is a Renaissance life, astonishing for both its geographic and intellectual breadth. As the son of the world's most famous explorer, Hernando repeatedly sails to the New World, the first time with his father, whose books he gives a place of honor in his burgeoning library and about whom he himself penned a glowing biography. Still, readers will quickly realize that as much as he wanted to retrace his idolized father's voyages across uncharted seas, Hernando yearned even more to carve new routes through the sixteenth century's exploding world of print. In Hernando's obsession with gathering books, maps, pictures, music, and pamphlets, and then systematically cataloguing them even the volumes lost through shipwreck Wilson-Lee discerns a prescient anticipation of twenty-first-century cyber search engines. Though much of Hernando's singular library disintegrated after his death, he emerges from this narrative as an archival pioneer, ceaselessly in pursuit of universal knowledge. A potent reminder that a great library originates as a bold adventure.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2019 Booklist Map It First Chapter or Excerpt Fiction/Biography Profile Large Cover Image Librarian's View Displaying 1 of 1
