Background
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was born on April 25, 1880, in London, United Kingdom. He was a son of James Kennedy Esdaile, magistrate, and Florence Crawshay.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile, bibliographer, editor, essayist, librarian, writer, poet, author, scholar.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society.
In 1944-1946, Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile served as chairman of the English Association.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was a member of the Bibliographical Society.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was honored as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952.
College, Lancing BN15 0RW, United Kingdom
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile graduated from Lancing College.
Magdalene St, Cambridge CB3 0AG, United Kingdom
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile earned a Master of Arts from Magdalene College.
Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L69 7ZX, United Kingdom
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile received a Doctor of Literature from the University of Liverpool.
bibliographer editor essayist Librarian writer author scholars poet
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was born on April 25, 1880, in London, United Kingdom. He was a son of James Kennedy Esdaile, magistrate, and Florence Crawshay.
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile graduated from Lancing College near the Sussex coast and earned a Master of Arts from Magdalene College. In 1939, he received a Doctor of Literature from the University of Liverpool.
In October 1903, Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was hired as a second-class assistant in the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum. He was assigned to help in the admissions office and the reading rooms. Soon after he started, however, the man who had been working on the Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum passed away, and the task of compiling the first four volumes of the bibliography (1908-1916), which covered early German and Italian printing, fell to Esdaile.
Esdaile edited several literary works and was involved in numerous other bibliographical projects. For example, he undertook a survey of literature on Shakespeare that was published in the journal The Library in 1906. He also completed both the Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of George Meredith and A Chronological List of George Meredith's Publications, 1849-1911. He would take on the task of editing a volume containing Samuel Daniel’s Delia and Michael Drayton's Idea. They were published together as Daniel's Delia and Drayton's Idea in 1908. During his early years at the British Museum, he compiled A List of English Tales and Prose Romances Printed before 1740, which was published in 1912. In 1913, he became a first-class assistant.
After World War I, Esdaile helped found the first British school of librarianship at University College, London. He contributed to the development of the curriculum and, in 1919, became a part-time lecturer in bibliography, a position he held for two decades. His lectures were published as A Student's Manual of Bibliography, one of the earliest guidebooks in a series published for people studying for the Library Association exam. However, it was written as an aid not only for library students but also for book collectors and conservators. The manual delves into the history of printing and publishing and describes bookmaking processes, including binding and illustration.
In 1926, Esdaile was appointed to the distinguished Sandars Readership in Bibliography at Cambridge. In 1928, his lectures, which were designed to help inexperienced students use bibliographic resources, were published by the Cambridge University Press in The Sources of English Literature: A Guide for Students.
Appointed a secretary of the British Museum in 1926, Esdaile represented the organization at conferences throughout the world. He collected information from the global contacts he made and wrote National Libraries of the World: Their History, Administration and Public Services. It explores the operations of about thirty prominent institutions.
In preparation for a sequel, Esdaile gathered information on other famous libraries, but poor health forced him to turn over the project to Margaret Burton, his assistant. With an introduction by Esdaile, Burton's Famous Libraries of the World: Their History, Collections, and Administrations was published as the second volume in a series called "The World's Great Libraries Surveyed by Arundell Esdaile."
Poor health also forced Esdaile to cut down on the scope of the history of the British Museum he wrote after he retired in 1940. In the preface to The British Museum Library: A Short History and Survey, he wrote that his goal was to provide only "a summary account, historical and descriptive, which shall be full enough to be useful for reference and information, and at the same time to bring out the true significance of the collections and of the tale of their gathering - in a word, to be readable." Although he finished the history in 1943, wartime shortages of paper prevented publication until 1946. During retirement, Esdaile also wrote several articles for professional and bibliographic journals.
Esdaile wrote poetry meant mostly for his own pleasure, and he printed many poems privately. A few were published commercially, however, including Poems and Translations, Autolycus' Pack, and other Light Wares: Being Essays, Addresses and Verses, Wise Men from the West, and Other Poems, and Scala Sancta Amoris.
(A description of the history and holdings of the British ...)
1916
British Library Association , United Kingdom
1919 - 1945
Malone Society , United Kingdom
1907 - 1924
English Association , United Kingdom
1944 - 1946
Bibliographical Society , United Kingdom
Sussex Archaeological Society , United Kingdom
Johnson Society of Lichfield , United Kingdom
Johnson Club , United Kingdom
1925 - 1926
Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile married Katharine Ada McDowall in 1902. The Esdailes had three children: James Edmund Kennedy Esdaile (1910-1994), Emmeline Eleanor Esdaile (1913-1994), known as Eleanor Esdaile, and later Eleanor Wood, and Martin Kennedy Esdaile (1919-1987).