Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum

Pay with

About Collecting The World: Hans Sloane And The Origins

Louis Gottschalk Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies An Apollo Magazine Book of the Year A Daily Mail Book of the Week A Guardian Book of the Week A Times Book of the WeekIn 1759 the British Museum opened its doors to the general public―the first free national museum in the world. James Delbourgo’s biography of Hans Sloane recounts the story behind its creation, told through the life of a figure with an insatiable ambition to pit universal knowledge against superstition and the means to realize his dream.“There hasn’t been a biography of [Sloane] for more than 60 years. It has been a long wait―but James Delbourgo’s new life of Sloane was certainly worth waiting for…A superb book, enjoyably written, beautifully illustrated, and based on deep knowledge of the sources.”―Noel Malcolm, Daily Telegraph“Delbourgo’s engrossing new biography situates Sloane within the welter of intellectual and political crosscurrents that marked his times.”―Bruce Boucher, New York Times Book Review“Collecting the World is a cultural history as well as an individual story.”―Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books“This is a superb biography―humane, judicious and as passionately curious as Sloane himself.”―Arnold Hunt, Times Literary Supplement