We took a tour of St. John’s College Library. St. John’s has a long history, having been founded in 1555, and today it is reported to be the wealthiest college at Oxford. The Old Library was built in 1596-98, and was the first to feature seats and desks between the cases (an arrangement common to other Oxford libraries). The library contains about 370 manuscripts dating from the 10th century to the present; many of them are Oriental and Greek manuscripts. There are also significant holdings of early printed books, and we were able to see several examples in a special exhibit prepared for us. On the morning of our visit, I happened to read William Roper’s “The Life of Sir Thomas More,” which was written around 1556, and published in 1626. It was an amazing coincidence that in the exhibit I saw William Roper’s own copy of “The Works of Sir Thomas More Knyght,” printed in London in 1557.
