Parentalia is the first full-length biography of Sir Christopher Wren. It was compiled by his son Christopher and brought to publication by his grandson Stephen, who used the Wren family archives. Stephen Wren also had the considerable assistance of Joseph Ames, the learned antiquarian scholar best known for his study of the history of English printing. The Spencer Library’s copy has been augmented with 40 or so engravings beyond those which appear in the standard version of the work. This practice of adding illustrations, known as extra-illustration, was popular in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is also called grangerizing, after James Granger, who published a Biographical History of England in 1769 which contained numerous blank leaves for the addition of portraits and other illustrations.
The work was published by subscription and this copy includes a list of subscribers. Typically a subscriber was offered a discount to place an order for an important book before it was printed and often paid some part of the price ahead of time. Forty-six names are listed, one of whom is James Nelthorpe, of Seacroft, Yorkshire. This copy is the one delivered to Nelthorpe and bears his bookplate on the front pastedown and his signature on the title-page. In addition, the book contains numerous annotations in Nelthorpe’s hand and others. It may well be that Nelthorpe was responsible for the extra-illustrations, all of which are contemporary with the publication date of 1750. However, the book was rebound not too long after publication, perhaps to accommodate the extra-illustrations, at which time the binder inadvertently trimmed away the edge of some of the annotations.
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