The work and influence of Sir Hans Sloane, whose collections resulted in the founding of the British Museum, has started to be taken seriously in recent years. Although not exactly ignored in the past (two short biographies were published in the 1950s, at the time of the museum’s bicentenary), the appearance in 1994 of the volume edited by Arthur MacGregor (MacGregor Reference MacGregor1994) signalled a more rigorous treatment of Sloane’s contribution to collecting and scholarship. The book under review is remarkably distinct from this earlier work, which described the collection systematically as opposed to considering issues which arose from it. The nineteen studies here are based on papers given at a conference held in June 2010 at the British Library to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Sloane’s birth. Also included is an introduction by Michael Hunter and a transcript of the Revd Thomas Birch’s mid-1750s manuscript text, ‘Memoirs Relating to the Life of Hans Sloane’, surprisingly published in its entirety here for the first time.

The first chapter, by James Delbourgo, includes the rather startling comment that Sloane’s collections have been ‘much documented but rarely analysed’. On consideration he is right; he points out that they mainly consisted of an enormous paper and botanical museum, together with large quantities of animal specimens, coins and medals. Antiquities, which are what we mainly think of when we conjure up a vision of the present British Museum, were relatively few. Another surprise is the state of chaos in which Sloane kept his collections. Carl Linnaeus referred to their ‘complete disorder’ after visiting him in August 1736 and it was the tireless work of James Empson, Sloane’s erstwhile curator, who organised the transfer to, and ordering of, the collections in Montagu House, allowing sense to be made of them. Marjorie Caygill, in her chapter ‘Sloane’s Catalogues and the Arrangement of his Collections’, points to another surprise, writing that his collection ‘may have largely disappeared – consumed by moths, burned, sold off, separated from its labels’. How does that tie in with the first fundamental principle formulated by the original Trustees ‘from which [they] do not think they can in Honor or Conscience depart’, namely ‘That the collection be preserved intire without the least diminution or separation’? This is a sentiment reflected in the British Museum Act of 1753, which followed. The contradiction probably arises from parts of the natural history collection having decayed beyond usefulness, and also that the de-accessioning of duplicate specimens was permitted. Caygill points out that Sloane’s collection is best defined by the forty-four catalogues which survive in manuscript, even though it is known there are volumes missing from the group which remains. Her careful analysis will prove to be greatly helpful to future scholars.

Strangely, Sloane was not much of an antiquary, if that soubriquet is defined by those who publish studies of material objects. Other contemporaries were far more active, though Sloane was undoubtedly scholarly, with William Stukeley recording ‘his love for natural learning, & the pains he takes to promote it’. This quality is clearly seen in his substantial two-volume Voyage to Jamaica …, published in 1707 and 1725, and discussed by James Robertson in his chapter ‘Knowledgeable Readers. Jamaican Critiques of Sloane’s Botany’. Early in his career Sloane was appointed physician to the Governor of Jamaica, the Duke of Albemarle, but just over one year later his employer died and Sloane had the melancholy task of accompanying the body back to England. Yet in those few months he was able to amass a remarkable quantity of data concerning the flora and fauna of Jamaica, as well as making notes concerning aspects of the cultural activities of African slaves working on the plantations. Another reason for his slim publishing record was the weight of his responsibilities in the running of the Royal Society, as Secretary (and as editor of the Philosophical Transactions) from 1694 to 1713, and as President from Sir Isaac Newton’s death in 1727 until his own retirement in 1741 (when he was more than eighty years of age).

The volume under review must be seen in the context of the British Library’s ‘Sloane Printed Books Project’, which has been seeking to identify and locate Sloane’s library of approximately 40,000 books (duplicate copies from which were dispersed between 1769 and 1832). In fact, Sloane’s book collection is an area not well covered in this volume (though the subject was previously considered in Nickson Reference Nickson1994). However, there is a chapter in Books to Bezoars on Sloane’s incunabula by John Goldfinch. Sloane did not see his fifteenth-century books as distinct from those printed in the succeeding 250 years. It has not been a straightforward task to identify the incunabula, but the British Library collection can be compared with entries in Sloane’s catalogue and as a result, around 500 have been associated with him. The collection of manuscripts is considered by Arnold Hunt, described by him as ‘the best known and least understood parts of Sir Hans Sloane’s vast collection’. This is because their eclectic nature makes it difficult to see them as a rationally created group. Hunt suggests Sloane was interested in everything and turned nothing away. This is frequently the case for collectors who operate on a very large scale, and it should be no surprise that some of the acquisitions attracted only his most cursory attention. The final chapter, interesting enough, but perhaps a little out of place, ‘Sloane, Slavery and Science. Perspectives from the Public Programmes at the Natural History Museum’ by Tracy-Ann Smith and Katherine Hann, indicates the potential of the collection for non-specialist education projects.

From Books to Bezoars is a dense, scholarly and well-illustrated book which indicates the potential for further Sloaneian studies. Every chapter offers significant new material and there are lively issues still to be debated. It is surely unlikely that we shall have to wait for a further sixteen years before its successor emerges.