Deconstruction and ‘Re-Volumization’: The Thomason Collection in the Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

The Thomason Tracts that arrived at the British Museum as the gift of George III were in a rigorous chronological order, which was mirrored by Thomason’s own twelve-volume manuscript catalogue. Though Thomason boasted that by means of the catalogue even a single sheet could be found ‘instantly’, even more important was that the collection and catalogue’s organization encouraged chronological browsing, an immersion into the swirling currents of the day. Early readers, having only the manuscript catalogue and the chronology-based numbering of volumes, understood this well. Foremost among the mid-nineteenth century readers and publicists of the collection was Thomas Carlyle, whose correct intuitions about the collection were matched by his frightful manners. Carlyle provoked a mighty conflict with the Museum’s great librarian and cataloguer Antonio Panizzi. Panizzi’s priorities as cataloguer, custodian, and reading room supervisor clashed violently with Carlyle’s - especially in Panizzi’s fortunately aborted design to disbind the collection, whose chronological organization Panizzi never appreciated. The chronological browsing fostered by the collection served readers well from William Godwin, Carlyle, and S. R. Gardiner to the many who read the tracts in the old North Library, and, later, in the microfilm edition. Early English Books Online (EEBO), however, by its very design effectively disbinds the collection. Newer students unfamiliar with the now-buried Thomason volumes have little or no understanding of collection’s value as a chronological collection. But there are research techniques to mitigate the harm - ‘re-volumization’ - and restore the full brilliance of Thomason’s achievement.

Keywords

• thomason tracts
• george thomason