10. Augustus De Morgan’s Library Revisited

Abstract

Even during his lifetime Augustus De Morgan was well known for his library of nearly 4,000 titles on mathematics and its history published between 1474 and 1870, in which landmarks of mathematical and astronomical literature jostled with multiple editions of popular textbooks and obscure rare works. This library was coveted after his death and continued in the twentieth century to be praised in superlative terms, for example as ‘one of the finest accumulations of books on the history of mathematics in the country’ (1996). It is particularly remarkable because, according to studies of book-collecting, mathematics was not a major collecting area. Yet De Morgan was neither the first, nor the sole, mathematical collector. His library is known largely because it was one of few mathematical libraries amassed by Victorians to remain intact after the owner’s death, when it was acquired by the University of London. Because De Morgan’s library has not yet been studied within the context of contemporary collecting, this chapter looks at the mathematical libraries, intact and dispersed, of De Morgan and some of his contemporaries to contextualise and reassess his library in comparison to other Victorian mathematical collections. We also discuss how the library fared after De Morgan’s death and why it continues to stand out.