The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World’s Greatest Library by Edward Wilson-Lee (PDF)

Description

“Like a Renaissance wonder cabinet, full of surprises and opening up into a lost world.” —Stephen Greenblatt “A captivating adventure…For lovers of history, Wilson-Lee offers a thrill on almost every page…Magnificent.” —The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by: * Financial Times * New Statesman * History Today * The Spectator * The impeccably researched and vividly rendered account of the quest by Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son to create the greatest library in the world—“a perfectly pitched poetic drama” (Financial Times) and an amazing tour through sixteenth-century Europe.In this innovative work of history, Edward Wilson-Lee tells the extraordinary story of Hernando Colón, a singular visionary of the printing press-age who also happened to be Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son. At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando traveled with Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus’s death in 1506, the eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father’s campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues, the first ever search engine for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe. Hernando restlessly and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include “all books, in all languages and on all subjects,” even material often dismissed as ephemeral trash: song sheets, erotica, newsletters, popular images, romances, fables. The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522—documented in his poignant Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books—set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection. Edward Wilson-Lee’s account of Hernando’s life is a testimony to the beautiful madness of booklovers, a plunge into sixteenth-century Europe’s information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own attempts to bring order to the world today.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A captivating adventure…For lovers of history, Wilson-Lee offers a thrill on almost every page…The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is an intellectual biography, but its beating heart is the tangled love of a son for his father…Magnificent.”—The New York Times Book Review “Superb…an intriguing glimpse into the Renaissance mind and its rage for order, as well as a beguiling preview of the modern library and, very possibly, what lies beyond.” —The Wall Street Journal “Absorbing, adventure-packed.” —Washington Post“Read this transporting book. Take it to the beach, to the countryside wherever – and thank you Edward Wilson-Lee for writing it, and with such a sense of vital grace.” —Simon Schama“Edward Wilson-Lee’s fascinating and beautifully written account of how Hernando conceived and assembled his library is set within a highly original biography of the compiler. It’s a work of imagination restrained by respect for evidence, of brilliance suitably alloyed by erudition, and of scholarship enlivened by sensitivity and acuity.” —Felipe Fernández-Armesto, The Literary Review “Superbly researched and remarkably well-written… Colon was obviously a man ahead of his time; his story is expansive, and in Wilson-Lee’s hands, absolutely compelling.” —Fine Books & Collections “Thoroughly absorbing…Wilson-Lee’s pioneering study makes Hernando’s life every bit as compelling as his father’s. But that is not all: as we accompany Hernando on his various European journeys of compulsive acquisition, we are not only led through a richly evoked early modern world, but also prompted to reflect on our own data-saturated age.” —The Times Literary Supplement“Hernando Columbus deserves to be as famous as his father, Christopher. …Wilson-Lee’s greatest strength is the subtlety with which Hernando’s public life as a courtier and his private life as a collector are interwoven. Unless you like libraries a lot then the most important thing about Hernando is not the most interesting. But in these elegantly handled parallels, Wilson-Lee leads us almost by stealth to an understanding of his subject’s greatest achievement.” —The Spectator“A wonderful book, not least in the literal sense of an epic unfolding in a nonstop procession of marvels, ordeals and apparitions… The true measure of Wilson-Lee’s accomplishment, delivered in a simile-studded prose that is seldom less than elegant and often quite beautiful, is to make Hernando’s epic, measured in library shelves, not nautical miles, every bit as thrilling as his father’s story.” —Financial Times“Wilson-Lee’s book – the first modern biography of Hernando written in English – is far more than just a straight account of a life, albeit a rich one… moving… Wilson-Lee does a fine job of capturing the intellectual excitement of a moment in European history.” —The New Statesman “Lively and evocative…A fresh postimperialist perspective on the age of European exploration, the emergence of modern printing, modern libraries, and the concept of a global world.” —AudioFile“An elegantly written, absorbing portrait of a visionary man and his age.” —Kirkus, starred review“Astonishing for both its geographic and intellectual breadth… A potent reminder that a great library originates as a bold adventure.” —Booklist, starred review“[Edward Wilson-Lee] has created a cabinet of wonders with this book… Wilson-Lee’s fascinating account brings back to wholeness ‘the largest private library of the day’ while revealing the son of a renowned man as, among other things, a master librarian.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“At once an adventure tale and a history of ideas that continue to resonate…Wilson-Lee’s insightful and entertaining work refreshes the memory of Colón’s sweeping vision.” —BookPage, starred review About the Author Edward Wilson-Lee is a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he teaches medieval and Renaissance literature. His research focuses on books, libraries, and travel, which during this project has involved journeys to and through Spain, Italy, India, and the Caribbean. He is the author of Shakespeare in Swahililand and The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐From this distance, it’s hard to know what made this man so nice to his legit brother despite being kicked in the teeth by him more than a couple of times; and though never stated anywhere in the book, you’re left with the impression it’s because he was a really nice guy [as opposed to an enabling idiot]. So, Mr. Colon started out to put together a library of every book known to the western world and eventually a library to house them – he was well on his way at the time he died, and on his way, he had incredible and fantastic adventures, much like we would if we had a dad like CC, and a life full of misery and setbacks, much as we would if we were dependent on royal patronage and court intrigue. As Mr. Lee takes us on this voyage, we learn a lot of things: his library had shelves [book collections usually stopped when a] the chests they were kept in got full, and b] exceeded the collectors ability to remember what she had]. Wait, what? No shelves? Anyway, you learn a lot about a lost world and get to be entertained too. A little long in spots, but still and all, a great great read about a really sweet guy.

⭐This book tells the story of Hernando Colon’s life and works, a remarkable man who created a code for locating items in his extensive library of 50,000 printed books, music, artwork, and pamphlets–a code that quickly identified the author, title, and place and time of purchase. With the help of numerous employees, Hernando composed a summary of each book, and compiled those in catalogs by broad general topic. This was in the early and mid-1500s, less than a hundred years after the printing press was invented and hundreds of years before the Dewey Decimal System was created, let alone the Internet! Edward Wilson-Lee artfully weaves Hernando’s life story within the historical, cultural, and political events of his time, adding maps of his journey to the New World at age 13 with his father Cristobal Colon and those he took as an adult on book-buying sprees all over Europe. Beautifully written; a rewarding read!

⭐If you like books and an historical adventure then please read this book.It’s a story you wont find easyto believe.It needs to be read by book lovers and adventure lovers alike.It wont be disappointing!

⭐Many years ago I took a university course on the History of Spain and Portugal. Some bit returned as I read this scholarly and , for me, exciting book. What effort the author put into his research to pull this footnote of history successfully into the light. Hernando Colon was truly a Renaissance man. And those books…. Karen Charbonneau, Author, The Wolf’s Sun

⭐One easily forgets what happened during the late Renaissance or sixteenth century. So many things were happening in Western Europe and the Americas and this book brings them together, beautifully. Not only did Columbus make his voyages to America but St. Peter’s was being built and the Sistine Chapel ceiling was being painted by Michelangelo. Luther Nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Witternberg Cathedral and the recently invented printing press was turning out books and pamphlets galore. In the midst of this time, Hernando Colon, Christopher’s illegitimate son, was living and travelling in the midst of these things and collecting thousands of books which were eventually brought to Sevilla for his library.This was truly the first information age and Hernando attempted to “googlize” it.Also interesting to me is how many of the names of the first families of Spain have continued for the last 500 years..

⭐This is one of those stories that you had no idea you needed to read. A truly remarkable story that gives a different look at the life of Columbus through the eyes of his son Hernando. I never knew of Hernando before reading this book and am glad that I found it. Wilson also ties in the great thinkers of the times and the event that shaped Hernando’s thinking and I found this especially engrossing and enjoyable. I understand some might not like these tangential topics but for me it really brought the book to life with vibrant detail.

⭐The life and accomplishments of Columbus’ son is fascinating, and his life, and therefore the book, touch on European history in a very exciting period. The writer’s sentence style can be awkward and convoluted, requiring careful reading and occasional rereading to decipher.

⭐I’m just 60 pages in, but so far Edward Wilson-Lee’s biography of Columbus’s crazy-ambitious son Hernando and his obsessive quest to build a universal library is a complete knockout. Because Amazon seems not to have a “look in this book” feature for this book, here’s a sample paragraph from an early page describing the library, and the amazing combination of super-innovative and super-bonkers that seems to have been Hernando’s hallmark. If this book keeps being as good, it will be right in the same league as Andrea Wulf’s biography

⭐.Will try to remember to report on the rest of the book.Added way later: Of course I forgot to report on the rest of the book. It’s just as good as the beginning. I very much enjoyed it.

⭐Bought it with great expectations…..not sure it delivered.Early chapters dealing with Columbus senior were very enjoyable, with information and insights new for me but I found that the middle portion of the book lost its way somewhat in heavy detailed descriptions of diverse royal families, alliegiances and treaties.As for the catalogue or library itself and it’s compilation, the odd illustrative graphic interspersed with some pictures of books mentioned might have rewarded and aided this slightly jaded and bewildered reader.

⭐A fascinating, thoroughly researched and well written book that summarises the era of discovery and conquest initiated by Christopher Columbus’ extraordinary character and feats to provide the context for his son’s determination to both collate and categorise all existing knowledge through establishing a unique library plus ensure his father gained appropriate recogniton (and reward) for his astonishing achievements. It also explores the nature and categorisation of knowledge and compares Hernando’s library to the internet as a source of knowledge.

⭐Wilson-Lee writes about Hernando Colon’s quest to create a universal library. Full of trials and tribulations.

⭐This is a brilliant book that I would enjoy finishing if only not so many pages were not missing from the Kindle version.

⭐Thank you very much for sending. Very interesting book with original themes

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