John Strachan Book Collection

Date range: 16th-20th centuries

Medium: Printed

Number of items: 600 items (dispersed)

John Strachan (1862–1907) was one of the greatest Celtologists of the 19th century. He was appointed Hulme Professor of Greek at Owens College in 1885, at the age of twenty-three, and in 1890 he was additionally appointed Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Religion; he held both chairs at Owens (later the University of Manchester) until his death in 1907.

Strachan published extensively on Celtic languages and literature, most significantly the two-volume Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (1901–3), consisting of more than 1,200 pages of Old Irish glosses from manuscripts, which he edited jointly with Whitley Stokes. In 1904, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Celtic scholarship, he was appointed (unpaid) lecturer in Celtic.

After Strachan’s death his personal library was purchased by friends and colleagues and presented to the University Library. The collection was dispersed, with many of the earlier works being transferred to the John Rylands Library after 1972.

It contains a number of rare printed works from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Among those of most interest to Celtic studies are:

• Bedell’s translation of the Old Testament into Irish (London, 1685)
• Connor Begly’s English-Irish Dictionary (Paris, 1732)
• John Davies’s Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Dictionarium Duplex (London, 1632)
• James Johnstone’s Antiquitates Celto-Scandicae (Copenhagen, 1786)
• Edward Lhuyd’s Archaeologica Britannica (Oxford, 1707)
• Francis Molloy’s Lucerna Fidelium (Rome, 1676)
• John O’Brien’s Focalóir Gaoidhilge-SaxBhéarla (Paris, 1768)
• John David Rhys’s Welsh grammar (London, 1592)
• John Smith’s Gaelic Antiquities (Edinburgh, 1780)

However, a very wide range of languages, many decidedly esoteric, is represented in the collection: Albanian, Armenian, Avestic, Breton, Cornish, Early English, French, Greek, Irish, Latin, Lithuanian, Manx, Old Prussian, Oscan, Persian, Sanskrit, Telugu, Thai and Umbrian.

See also:

• John Strachan Papers

Further information:

• Recorded in Library Search.
• See also separate duplicated handlist.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library
• The University of Manchester Main Library, Oxford Rd  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading room in the Main Library