Essay Review: “A World of Wonders in One Closet Shut”: Elias Ashmole 1617–1692: The Founder of the Ashmolean Museum and His World,Tradescant's Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean Museum 1683 with a Catalogue of the Surviving Early Collections,the Ashmolean Museum and Oxford Science 1683–1983

Musaeum Tradescantianum or a Collection of Rarities Present at South-Lambeth near London (London, 1656).

Josten C. H. , Elias Ashmole (1617–1692): His autobiographical and historical notes, his correspondence and other contemporary sources relating to his life and work (5 vols, Oxford, 1966). Gunther R. T. , Early British botanists and their gardens … (Oxford, 1922); idem, Early science in Oxford, iii (Oxford, 1925), 280–332 and 391–454; Allan Mea , The Tradescants, the plants, gardens and museum (London, 1964).

The later history of the Museum is recounted rather more fully by MacGregor A. and Turner A. J. , “The Ashmolean Museum” in Sutherland L. M. and Mitchell L. G. (eds), The history of the University of Oxford: The eighteenth century (Oxford, in press), 639–58.

For an account of Cole, his collections and negotiations with the University see Turner A. J. , “A forgotten naturalist of the seventeenth century: William Cole of Bristol and his collections”, Annals of natural history, xi (1982), 27–41.

Evelyn MS , lb no. 329, cited from Hunter M. , Science and society in Restoration England (Cambridge, 1981), 146–7.

Chamberlayne Edward , Anglia Notitia…. The Second Part of the Present State of England…, 12th edition (London, 1684), 325–8.

In 1677, although it is possible that there was an earlier issue in 1676. See MacGregor and Turner op. cit. (ref. 3), 640, note 2.

“We have set forth the Philosophical History of Oxfordshire, and are now on a design of erecting a Lecture for Philosophicall History to be read by the author of that booke; to which end, as soon as we are agreed on the ground, we shall build a school on purpose for it with a laboratory next and severall other roomes for other uses, wherof one is to hold John Tradeskins raritys, which Elias Ashmole, in whose hands they are, hath promised to give to the University as soon as we have built a place to receive them.” Camden Society, n.s., xv (1875), 60–61; Josten , op. cit. (ref. 2), iv, 1482–3.

10 April 1683, Lister MS 35 f. 94.

Welch Martin , “The foundation of the Ashmolean Museum”, in MacGregor A. (ed.), Tradescant's rarities, 40–58, p. 48.