Collecting Pandemonium: John Milton in the Alexander Turnbull Library
The humble origins of a grand collection?
Cover, Milton: Select Poems with notes by The Rev HR Huckin, London, Seeley’s Cheap School Books, General Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: G 821.4M 1883 MIL
The humble origins of a grand collection?
John Milton's poetry was a cornerstone of a good 19th-century education. The Alexander Turnbull Library holds two books that date from its founder's school days.
The first book was awarded to Alexander Turnbull's elder brother, Robert, as a third prize for botany at Wellington College in 1879. Milton books were regularly 'awarded' to New Zealand students in this way through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Alexander Turnbull used this textbook in the early 1880s while a pupil at Dulwich College in London. Purchased for eightpence, it was a cheap and widely published popular edition of Milton's poems. Turnbull's name written on the cover is the first of many marks, doodles and inscriptions that run through the book.
This book provides the first evidence of Turnbull's fascination with Milton. His decision to retain the book also suggests the preservation instincts of the collector. Can we see in this small, cheap textbook the origins of Alexander Turnbull as a major collector of Milton?
Biography of Alexander Turnbull - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website
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