The Lyell Readership in Bibliography is an endowed annual lecture series given at the University of Oxford. Instituted in 1952 by a bequest from the solicitor, book collector and bibliographer, James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell.[1] After Lyell's death, Keeper of the Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Richard William Hunt, writing of the Lyell bequest noted, "he was a self-taught bibliophile and scholar of extraordinary enthusiasm and discrimination, and one who deserves to be remembered not only by Oxford but by the whole bibliographical world."[2]
The series has continued down to the present day.[3][4]
1971–1972 Wytze Hellinga: The Bibliography of Early Printing in the Low Countries between 1767 and 1874
1972–1973 André Camille Lucien Masson: Le Catalogue Figuratif: A Pictorial Guide to the Contents of European Libraries from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century [8][9][10]
1994–1995 Henri-Jean Martin: Du Manuscrit au Livre Imprimé: Mise en Page et Mise en Texte des Textes Littéraires Français de la Fin due XVe Siècle au Milieu du XVIIe Siècle
1995–1996 Peter Beal: In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and Their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England [13]
1996–1997 Robert Darnton: Policing Literature in Eighteenth-Century Paris
1998–1999 Malcolm B. Parkes: Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes.[14]
1999–2000 David McKitterick: Set in Print: The Fortunes of an Idea, c.1450–1800
2000–2001 Rodney Malcolm Thomson: Books and Learning in Twelfth-Century England: The Ending of 'Alter Orbis'
2003–2004 Kathleen L. Scott: Suppleatur per Ymaginacionem: Exceptional Images in Later Medieval English Manuscripts
2004–2005 Reinhard Wittmann [de]: Literary Life and Book-Market in Germany under the Swastika 1933–1945
2005–2006 Leslie Howsam: Historical Knowledge and British Publishers, 1850–1950: Discipline and Narrative
2006–2007 Mirella Ferrari: The Scriptorium and Library of Bobbio
2007–2008 Kristian Jensen: Collecting Incunabula: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Market — Rediscovering and Re-Creating the Earliest Printed Books in the Eighteenth Century
^Foot, Mirjam M. "Who Planted the Trees? Pioneers in the Development of Bookbinding History, Part 2: Graham Pollard. The Book Collector 71 no. 4 (Winter 2022):654-662.
^Carter, Harry. A View of Early Typography Up to About 1600. 1969. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^*Masson, André. 1981. The Pictorial Catalogue: Mural Decoration in Libraries. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press.
^McKitterick, David. 1982.Review. “[Rezension Von:] Masson, André: The Pictorial Catalogue: Mural Decoration in Libraries. - Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1981.” The Book Collector 31 (no 3) Autumn 1982: 382-283.
^Thomas, Diane M. The Journal of Library History (1974-1987) 22, no. 3 (1987): 348–49.
^Beal, Peter, and Oxford University Press. 1998. In Praise of Scribes : Manuscripts and Their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press.
^
Graham, Timothy. “Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes.” Speculum. NEW YORK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713410000606.
^Based on his Lyell Lectures: Sharpe, Richard. 2023. Libraries and Books in Medieval England : The Role of Libraries in a Changing Book Economy. Edited by James M. W. Willoughby. Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing.
