John Ratcliffe (book collector)
British book collector
John Ratcliffe (1707–1776) was an English book-collector.
Life
Ratcliffe kept a chandler's shop in the borough of Southwark, and he started to collect books brought him as wrapping paper. He spent days in the warehouses of the booksellers, and every Thursday morning the major print and book collectors, including Anthony Askew, Croft, Topham Beauclerk, and James West, came to his house; after providing them with coffee and chocolate, he produced his latest purchases. His books were kept at his house in East Lane, Rotherhithe. He died in 1776, after spending thirty years in book collecting.
Library sale
His library was sold by Christie in Pall Mall, London, the sale beginning on 27 March 1776, and lasting for nine working days. A priced copy of the catalogue (Bibliotheca Ratcliffiana) is in the British Museum; the collection comprised many old English black-letter books, thirty Caxtons, and some manuscripts. There were only 1,675 lots, but many consisted of numerous volumes. Four lots (10 to 13) comprised 155 plays. The last article but one was 'Mr.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Ratcliffe (book collector)” as british book collector. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as british book collector. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6254280. VIAF identifies the subject as 17025230. The Library of Congress control number is no2008024081. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1707 and 1776.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Ratcliffe (book collector)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.