Editing Althorp (section)

=====Library=====
[[File:The Long Library at Althorp House 1822.jpg|thumb|left|250px|The Library in 1822]]

The ceiling of the original library at Althorp collapsed in 1773, and at the same time a new floor was put down in the Picture Gallery.{{Sfn|Spencer|1998|p=60}} Ionic columns and an Adam style ceiling were added.<ref name="Listed Althorp"/> George John's fascination in literature began at a young age and there is a Reynolds portrait in the house of him at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]] holding a book By his later life, George John's collecting habit had become something of an obsession and he attempted to collect every volume ever published in Britain.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=72}} 
[[File:Thomas Frognall Dibdin.jpg|thumb|[[Thomas Frognall Dibdin]], who became chief librarian of Althorp]]
The books were kept in five apartments in Althorp in the west wing, which, combined, formed the "Long Library" with books from the floor to the ceiling along much of its approximately {{convert|200|x|20|feet}} length. He not only collected British works but imported Greek and Latin classics, and in 1790, he acquired the collection of Count [[Charles de Revicksky]], paying an initial £1000, and then £500 annually until the count's death, only three years later.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=70}} George often paid great fees for rare books, including a woodcut of St Christopher dated to 1423, believed at that time to be the oldest work in ink with a date on it, the Papal Indulgence Letters of 1452, the Mazarin Bible of 1455, the Mentz Psalter of 1457, and some of the earliest works form the printing presses of [[Augsburg]] and [[Nuremberg]] such as ''Bonaventurae'' and ''Comestiorum Vitiorum''.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=72}} In 1812, George John was involved in an intense bidding war with his cousin, The Duke of Marlborough, for a copy of [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccaccio]]'s ''[[The Decameron]]'' of 1471, one of only three known copies. Marlborough won the auction with a bid of £2,260 – an amount described by Charles Spencer as "ludicrous" for that time – but he later sold it to George for £750.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=73}}

In 1802, George hired Reverend [[Thomas Frognall Dibdin]] as an official librarian to look after the collection and the library contains his many catalogues entitled ''Aedes Althorpianæ'', documenting the books of the library. The collection became so enormous that the massive library became inadequate to hold the contents, and books began being stored along the long picture gallery on the first floor above it.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=72}} By the time of George John's death in 1834, he had amassed one of the largest private collections in Europe of some 110,000 volumes.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=72}} Alcoves were added to the ends of the library during the Holland restoration, creating extra room for the growing collection.{{sfn|Spencer|1998|p=69}}