| StorageSite | UCL Special Collections |
| Level | Series |
| Reference Number | MS OGDEN/7 |
| Title | Bacon-Tottel Collection |
| Date | c1590-c1660 |
| Description | Commonplace books, manuscripts, and copies of printed works, c1590-c1680, including notes on various writers, particularly classical authors and Renaissance humanists, among them Dutch and Italian as well as English humanists, and including Francis Bacon, Machiavelli, and many others. The subjects extend across politics, the law, history, philosophy, and religion. |
| Extent | 54 volumes |
| AdminHistory | The Bacon-Tottel collection is so-called because in 1943 the bookseller Alan Keen asserted that the collection had been compiled for Francis Bacon by his clerk William Tottel (or Tothill), but this has been disputed and it appears that the manuscripts were actually compiled by or for Sir William Drake and others. See notes on further reading, below.
The chronology of the manuscripts is hard to establish, and their contents are sometimes very various, but they comprise three groups identified by Stuart Clark in 1976 (see Clark, Stuart: "Wisdom Literature of the 17th Century: A Guide to the Contents of the 'Bacon-Tottel' Commonplace Books. Part I", Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 6, no. 5, 1976, pp. 291305). Group 1 consists of 15 commonplace books in a uniform hand ascribed to William Drake; Group 2 consists of 22 commonplace books, dating largely from the 1650s and in a hand not attributed to William Drake but possibly compiled for him by a secretary; Group 3 consists of 17 other volumes, comprising five printed works (some with annotations), two notebooks, and ten other miscellaneous volumes. The items are not physically arranged according to these groups, they follow the numerical order given to them by Allen Keen in 1943. |
| CustodialHistory | Forty-seven of the manuscripts were 'discovered' by Alan Keen at Shardeloes, and with a further seven volumes they were bought by the linguist Charles Kay Ogden (1889-1957) and incorporated into his library. Ogden was a linguistic psychologist, founder of the Orthological Institute and originator of the language system Basic English. His interests in education, reading and language systems are reflected in the subject matter of his library, which comprised individual manuscripts and manuscript collections dating from the 14th to the 20th century. |
| Acquisition | Part of the C K Ogden Library acquired by UCL in 1953. |
| Arrangement | Arranged according to Alen Keen's original list. |
| AccessStatus | Certain restrictions apply |
| AccessConditions | Some items are currently undergoing conservation treatment and are not available for consultation. Please enquire for further details. |
| Related Material | University College London Special Collections, C K Ogden Library, contains 'Resuscitatio or Bringing Into Public Light Several Pieces of the Work ... of the Rt Hon Francis Bacon' (1657) and other printed works possibly annotated by Sir William Drake.
The House of Lords Record Office, London, holds a commonplace book of Sir William Drake, c1632 (Ref: Historical Collections MS 49). Buckinghamshire Record Office holds leaves from a notebook ascribed to Drake (Ref: D/DR/10/56). The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, USA, holds a commonplace book ascribed to Drake, c1645 (Ref: Folger MS v a 263). Huntington Library, San Marino, California, holds his journal, 1631-1642. |
| FindingAids | Detailed description and catalogue of the collection by Stuart Clark in 'Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society', vi (1976) and vii (1977), of which a copy is held in University College London Special Collections. |
| PublnNote | Kevin Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: the Politics of Reading in Early Modern England (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000), includes a detailed examination of Sir William Drake, his commonplace books and his reading.
See also Stuart Clark, Wisdom Literature of the Seventeenth Century: A Guide to the Contents of the Bacon-Tottel Commonplace Books, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 6, Part 5 (1976), 291-305; and vol. 7, Part 1 (1977), 46-73.
For Alan Keen's original guide and postulated history of the collection see: "The Private Manuscript Library of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, and of his Law-clerk and Servant William Tottel; being the astonishing history of forty-seven Commonplace and other written books, preserved in an old country house originally owned by Tottel, and now discovered . . . . to provide new and un-tilled fields of research, not only in the life and work of Francis Bacon himself, but in Jacobean History and Letters . . . . the whole outlined by Alan Keen and offered for sale by private treaty from his Gate House at Clifford's Inn, London MCMXLIII" |