This two-volume work covers the period 1570–1870, and is one of several written on book collections by Edward Edwards (1812–1886), whose three-volume Memoirs of Libraries is also reissued in this series. Volume 2 looks at some of the early donors of books to the Museum. A chapter is then devoted to the Royal Library of King George III. Finally, Edwards concentrates on the period 1829–1870, giving a general view of the growth of the British Museum under a series of chief librarians, including his own contemporary, Sir Anthony Panizzi. Later chapters look at the donors of items in the ever-growing collection of antiquities, and give an account of the Grenville Library of over 20,000 books, bequeathed to the Museum in 1846 by one of its Trustees.