Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire, the ancestral home of the Massingberd family, housed an interesting library, of which, remarkably, many hundreds still survive in situ. The books are not grand, but collectively, as a social document, they are of great interest, representing the taste of a middling family of sometimes impoverished country gentry. Matthew Smith's book, perhaps the earliest English autobiography of a spy, is now happily reunited with its fellows on Gunby's shelves.
Item Provenance
Blackwell's Rare Books