The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is a wonderful book, not least in the literal sense of an epic unfolding in a nonstop procession of marvels, ordeals and apparitions ... The true measure of Wilson-Lee’s accomplishment, delivered in a simile-studded prose that is seldom less than elegant and often quite beautiful, is to make Hernando’s epic, measured in library shelves, not nautical miles, every bit as thrilling as his father’s story ... The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is also a work that speaks to our own information-engorged time ... Hernando was a one-man receiving station for the plenitude of the world. The same could be said for Edward Wilson-Lee ... A list of Wilson-Lee’s lists would consume this review but many are revelatory ... But, the quality of writing aside (which in its strongest passages bears serious comparison with the sensuous descriptiveness of Marguerite Yourcenar), The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books, is most compelling as a meditation on the response to an explosive expansion of knowledge.
...superb ... Mr. Wilson-Lee’s smartly written book takes in almost the whole of the Renaissance ... Mr. Wilson-Lee reminds us that a library is not merely an accumulation of books but the enlightened and often maddeningly complex systems that make the knowledge they preserve useful. The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books affords an intriguing glimpse into the Renaissance mind and its rage for order, as well as a beguiling preview of the modern library and, very possibly, what lies beyond.
...rather like Hernando’s Life and Deeds of his father, Wilson-Lee’s book – the first modern biography of Hernando written in English – is far more than just a straight account of a life, albeit a rich one ... Wilson-Lee, however, manages to recapture something of the father through the son as he dissects Hernando’s accounts of their relationship and adventures ... Hernando’s was the first universal library, an attempt to collate and systemise all known knowledge, and Wilson-Lee revels in enumerating and sometimes getting lost in its contents ... not everything succeeds in this book ... What is particularly odd in a book that celebrates Hernando’s library is that its actual classification, organisation and display is only cursorily described in the penultimate chapter ... Nevertheless, Wilson-Lee does a fine job of capturing the intellectual excitement of a moment in European history when universal aspirations in the fields of learning and travel seemed boundless.
...he chronicles the remarkable life of its bibliophile librarian. It is a Renaissance life, astonishing for both its geographic and intellectual breadth ... A potent reminder that a great library originates as a bold adventure.
...engaging ... at once an adventure tale and a history of ideas that continue to resonate ... Happily, Wilson-Lee’s insightful and entertaining work refreshes the memory of Colón’s sweeping vision.
...fascinating and beautifully written ... It’s a work of imagination restrained by respect for evidence, of brilliance suitably alloyed by erudition, and of scholarship enlivened by sensitivity and acuity ... Wilson-Lee describes it with verve ... his mastery of the texts enables him to prove the long-disputed authenticity of Hernando’s biography of his father by linking passages to works we know the author read ... There are some imperfections. Wilson-Lee sometimes supplements deficient evidence with speculations about what Hernando ‘might have’ done ... The slips, however, are small and few for so ambitious a book.
...drawing on rich historical and archival sources—including Hernando’s writings—[Wilson-Lee] creates a thrilling narrative of the perils of 16th-century exploration ... An elegantly written, absorbing portrait of a visionary man and his age.
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...drawing on rich historical and archival sources—including Hernando’s writings—[Wilson-Lee] creates a thrilling narrative of the perils of 16th-century exploration ... An elegantly written, absorbing portrait of a visionary man and his age.
...a cabinet of wonders ... Wilson-Lee also brings to rich life the cultural milieu of the age ... Wilson-Lee’s fascinating account brings back to wholeness 'the largest private library of the day' while revealing the son of a renowned man as, among other things, a master librarian.
