Reconstructing the Library of a Woman Reader in the Romantic Era
Elizabeth “Eliza” Giffard (1766 – 1842) was a woman whose life spanned one of the most intensive periods of change in the publication, circulation and consumption of books in Great Britain and western Europe since the development of movable type.
Born into a long-established family of the Welsh landed gentry, she became the sole inheritor of the family estate at the end of the 18th century. As an independent woman in control of her own finances, her library is important because it represents proof of an individual woman’s own reading choices – not those dictated by a husband or father.
This site was created to virtually reconstruct her library; to reunite – virtually – as many of the items that have the Giffard provenance, including those that were in the family before her inheritance, those of her sister, Maria Eleanora, and – most importantly – those that Eliza acquired herself during the period following her father’s death in 1798.
Originally housed in Nerquis Hall, the family home until the mid-20th century, her books have since been dispersed across the world, either in institutional and private collections or into the market itself. The serendipitous discovery of one of them at a bookseller’s fair in 2014 was the spark which ignited the idea of rebuilding – in a virtual sense – her collection.
Through the reconstruction of her library, we hope not only to expose the acquisition and reading history of one individual woman, but also the distribution channels of her contemporary era and the life of her books and their circulation after her death.
At the launch of the project, in 2015, the site contained around 126 titles from the Giffard collection. It was presumed that more may have been hidden away, either uncatalogued or otherwise unrecorded, as was proved. As her books continue to slowly make it to the market, or are finally catalogued by the institutions where they reside, the site will continue to be updated. We welcome input from anyone who discovers a Giffard title within their own collections to contact us directly.