BOOK REVIEW: NUMISMATIC LIBRARY OF SARAH BANKS

Noted numismatist and collector extraordinaire, Sarah Sophia Banks (1744-1818), lived in London from 1780 with her brother, Sir Joseph Banks, a renowned botanist, and his wife, Dorothea. Sarah collected books, coins, tokens, ephemera, and other objects of interest. Her library, primarily assembled from the mid-1780s to 1818, is a rare surviving library from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and its volumes cover three centuries. Following Banks' passing, most of her books went to the British Museum (now British Library), but Dorothea, her beneficiary, donated her numismatic library to the Royal Mint. In 1816, her extensive collection of other numismatic items was also sent to the Mint. (Besly, The Numismatic Library of Sarah Sophia Banks, pp. 8-9.)

Banks' numismatic works form the catalogue of Besly's book on this historic figure. Besly's catalogue assemblage was aided by referring to four extant lists of Banks's numismatic library: two produced by Banks, one by her librarian, Jonas Dryander, and a fourth constructed by an unknown writer. Besly opted to focus on the Dryander list to create a new catalogue of Banks's library, because it serves as a window into Dryander's working methods and contemporary ‘best practice[.]' (Besly, The Numismatic Library, p. 10). In addition, Dryander's list has more bibliographic detail and extensive commentary than Banks's own lists.

Sarah obtained the first acquisition for her library, Jernigan's Lottery, at the age of ten, and signed her full name in the volume. (Besly, The Numismatic Library, p. 11). Banks built up her library through secondhand sources such as auction sales and the purchase of numismatic reference books from personal libraries, including some put together by her friends. The vast majority of the Banks's library is annotated. She chose not to emphasize literature on ancient coins, even though books and catalogues in this area of specialization would have been available to her in abundance. Instead, her library's strengths include the medieval period as well as contemporary European coinage from her era. In stark contrast, she included few books or pamphlets on the Islamic world or East Asia such as China or Japan. By the time of her passing, Sarah's library contained approximately 302 titles relating to coins, tokens and medals bound in 331 volumes. (Hugh Pagan, Sarah Sophia Banks: creation of a specialist numismatic library, in The Numismatic Library, pp. 15, 18, 19).

As a conder token afficionado, I was delighted to find works by Thomas Spence and James Conder in the catalogue. (pp. 153 and 155). The latter figure gifted some of his works to Lady Banks.

This beautifully illustrated work provides readers with an inside view of a numismatic specialist and bibliophile, conducting transactions for her coins and books. For example, you can learn about her book annotations on the metal contents of specific coins (p. 98), manuscript number order (p. 119), correspondence about trial pieces made at the Royal Mint (p. 134), and Lambeth tokens acquired from a friend (p. 150). Appendix 3 (pp. 172-173) lists previous owners of Miss Banks's books. However, the author and title index (pp. 174-179) is in Lilliputian-size print which is difficult to read. This reference book is a significant contribution to British numismatic scholarship.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW BOOK: NUMISMATIC LIBRARY OF SARAH SOPHIA BANKS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n26a03.html)

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