Attingham Park

The addition of the National Trust library catalogues to COPAC has enabled me to track down copies of Pamela in stately homes, dotted across the countryside. I have arranged to visit a few of these properties to catalogue their Pamelas, combining business with pleasure and a little bit of adventure.

On one of those golden, early autumn days when you can feel the chill in the air, but cannot imagine the impending winter gloom, I went up to Attingham Park, an eighteenth-century mansion tucked in Shropshire. The property was bustling with tourists, happily crunching through the autumn leaves, wandering through the orchards, and tromping through the house on entertaining tours. I was led straight to the Inner Library, an opulent crimson-walled and mahogany-furnitured affair, where I pulled a four-volume, calf and gilt bound Pamela off the shelf. It was a twelfth edition Pamela and there was nothing particularly remarkable about the contents, but the binding was in keeping with the ornate, gilt theme of the library. Richardson's other two works, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison were also present and uniformly bound. These beautiful bindings indicate that Richardson's works were intended for display in the library and that they received the same treatment as works of a more serious nature. In the photo, you can see how the rows of books dazzle the visitor - a harmony of gilt and calf.

 In the eighteenth century books were often sold unbound, in blue paper, so that the buyer could bind them according to his or her tastes. There was growing trend for stately houses to have domestic libraries and books went from being stored in trunks to being displayed on shelves. But, if the books were bound before sale by the printers, who often doubled as booksellers, they were in a very plain brown calf binding.

 You can find Pamelas in both types of binding, which reflects the variety of readership. Pamela was originally intended as a conduct book for servant girls, but became an overnight bestseller, loved by the middling and upper-classes. The binding is often a strong indicator of provenance and also reveals how the owner viewed the book as a physical object. Some treated the novel as a cheap, ephemeral object, others as a guilty pleasure, and some as a beautiful object to enhance a library collection.

While I sat in the Inner Library, collating and cataloguing, the tour groups that passed through took in the rich oil paintings, stately furniture, and shimmering book bindings; they were impressed with a sense of graceful elegance and gentle wealth. I placed Pamela back on the dusty top shelf and locked the grated bookcase. In my study of the treatment of books as physical objects, Attingham Park's Pamela fell into the category of books as furniture. I joined the tour group as they moved into the next room, and cast one last glance into the library. In the soft and dusky light that trickled in through the windows, the library was a satisfactory symphony of red and gold, gilt and gloss.