This two-volume work covers the period 1570–1870, and is one of several written on book collections by Edward Edwards (1812–1886), whose three-volume Memoirs of Libraries is also reissued in this series. Volume 1 considers the gatherers of the 'foundation collections' of the British Museum. Among them were Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of James I, Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631), and Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), whose bequest of his collections to George II led directly to the foundation of the Museum by Act of Parliament in 1753. The administrators and early donors to the Museum - archaeologists, travellers and dilettanti such as Sir William Hamilton and the earl of Elgin - are also discussed.