Fagel Collection

Purchased for Trinity College in 1802, what is now known as the Fagel Collection was assembled over a period of a century and a half by several generations of the Fagel family, including the senior Dutch politician Hendrik Fagel (1765-1838). Finding himself in difficult circumstances when exiled to England during the Napoleonic Wars, Hendrik Fagel was obliged to sell his family’s magnificent library which was enormously rich in French, Dutch and English works on politics, religion, economics, sciences, natural history and travel, reflective of the professional concerns of the Fagel family.

The collection is estimated to consist of around 20,000 items (as recorded in the auction catalogue), but due to a large number of composite bindings the total number of individual titles is far higher than this. The material ranges in date from 1478 to 1799 with the greater volume of material published in the 18th century and relates to all parts of the world, and to the political and religious turbulence of the Dutch Revolt and 17th century Dutch Republic.

See also the Library's introduction to the Fagel Collection, featuring images and videos from, and about, the Fagel library, and the Library's online exhibition featuring images from the collection.