DIBDIN, THOMAS FROGNALL (17761847)

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 176 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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DIBDIN, THOMAS FROGNALL (17761847) , English bibliographer, born at Calcutta in 1776, was the son of

Thomas

Dibdin, the sailor brother of Charles Dibdin. His father and mother both died on the way home to England in 178o, and

Thomas

was brought up by a maternal uncle. He was educated at St John's College, Oxford, and studied for a time at Lincoln's Inn. After an unsuccessful attempt to obtain practice as a provincial counsel at Worcester, he was ordained a clergyman at the close of 1804, being appointed to a curacy at Kensington. It was not until 1823 that he received the living of Exning in Sussex. Soon after-wards he was appointed by Lord Liverpool to the rectory of St Mary's, Bryanston Square, which he held until his death on the 18th of November 184 7. The first of his numerous bibliographical works was his Introduction to the Knowledge of Editions of the Classics (18o2), which brought him under the notice of the third

Earl

EARL

Spencer

, to whom he owed much important aid in his bibliographical pursuits. The rich library at Althorp was thrown open to him; he spent much of his time in it, and in 18141815 published his Bibliotheca Spenceriana. As the library was not open to the general public, the information given in the Bibliotheca was found very useful, but since its author was unable even to read the characters in which the books he described were written, the

work

WORK

was marred by the errors which more or less characterize all his productions. This fault of inaccuracy how-ever was less obtrusive in his

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of playful, discursive works in the form of dialogues on his favourite subject, the first of which, Bibliomania (1809), was republished with large additions in 18x1, and was very popular, passing through numerous editions. To the same class belonged the Bibliographical Decameron, a larger

work

WORK

, which appeared in 1817. In 18ro he began the publication of a new and much extended edition of Ames's Typographical Antiquities. The first volume was a

great

GREAT

success, but the publication was checked by the failure of the fourth volume, and was
never completed. In 1818 Dibdin was commissioned by Earl

Spencer

to purchase books for him on the continent, an expedition described in his sumptuous Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (1821). In 1824 he made an ambitious venture in his Library Companion, or the

Young

Man's Guide and Old Man's Comfort in the Choice of a Library, intended to point out the best works in all departments of literature. His culture was not broad enough, however, to render him competent for the task, and the work was severely criticized. For some years Dibdin gave himself up chiefly to religious literature. He returned to bibliography in his Bibliophobia, orRemarks on the Present Depression in the State of Literature and the Book Trade (1832), and the same subject furnishes the main

interest

INTEREST

of his Reminiscences of a Literary Life (1836), and his Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in the Northern Counties of England and Scotland (1838). Dibdin was the originator and vice-president, Lord Spencer being the president, of the Roxburghe Club, founded in 1812, the first of the numerous book clubs which have done such service to literature.

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