John Ratcliffe (book collector) facts for kids

John Ratcliffe (1707–1776) was an English man who loved collecting books. He became very famous for his amazing collection of rare and old books.

Life of a Book Collector

John Ratcliffe owned a shop in Southwark, a part of London. He sold candles and soap there. He started his book collection in a very unusual way. Sometimes, old books were used as wrapping paper for items sold in his shop. John would save these books.

He spent many days searching through the big warehouses where booksellers kept their books. Every Thursday morning, important book collectors would visit his home. These collectors included famous people like Anthony Askew and James West. John would offer them coffee and chocolate. Then, he would proudly show off the new books he had found.

John kept his valuable books at his house in East Lane, Rotherhithe. He spent about 30 years collecting books. He passed away in 1776, leaving behind an incredible library.

Selling a Special Library

After John Ratcliffe died, his huge book collection was sold. The sale was handled by Christie's, a very famous auction house in Pall Mall, London. The auction started on March 27, 1776, and lasted for nine days!

A special book called Bibliotheca Ratcliffiana lists all the items sold. You can find a copy of this book at the British Museum. John's collection had many old English books printed in a style called black-letter. This was a very old way of printing letters.

His library also included 30 books printed by William Caxton. Caxton was one of the very first people to print books in England. This made these books extremely rare and valuable. The collection also had some handwritten manuscripts.

There were 1,675 "lots" in the sale. A "lot" means a group of items sold together. Many of these lots contained several books. For example, four lots (numbers 10 to 13) included 155 different plays!

One of the last items sold was John Ratcliffe's own handwritten list of his rare books. This list was in four volumes and sold for £7 15s. The Caxton books were very popular. Each one sold for about £9 on average, which was a lot of money back then!