WAKEMAN, William F. Archaeologia Hibernica. A Hand-Book of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian.

Especially of such as are easy of access from the Irish Metropolis. Second edition. With numerous illustrations. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and London: Simpkin, 1891. Crown octavo. pp. xx, 322, [7] (Publisher’s List). Original green cloth over bevelled boards, Celtic Cross in gilt on upper cover, title in gilt on spine. Decorative bookplate of Randolph Berens and ticket of Galwey Bookbinders on front pastedown. A near fine copy.
Wakeman’s Archaeologica Hibernica was written when he was only twenty-five, in his preface Wakeman declared that his aim and the aim of Archaeologica Hibernica was to open the eyes of the Irish to the richness of their own past, while berating travelled gentlemen of Ireland for knowing “more about the Rhine than that of the Shannon; with the windings of the Thames than with those of the Boyne.” The 91 illustrations were much admired at the time and the woodcuts picture many of Ireland’s best known archaeological treasures. The work is divided into a number of sections: Pagan Antiquities; Early Christian Antiquities; Anglo-Irish Remains; Miscellaneous Notices of Bridges and Causeways, Crannogs, Ecclesiastical Furniture and Remains, etc.
Provenance: From the library of Randolph Berens. The design is framed by a double ruled border enclosing a pastoral landscape: a low range of hills beneath a radiant sun, partially veiled by drifting clouds, and overhung by a flowering, fruit-bearing branch that curves protectively across the upper margin. At the head, within a ribboned cartouche, appears the owner’s name, Randolph Berens. Below the image, a second scroll bears the motto: “Books, like the sun, illuminate all the world.”
Berens was an English clergyman, scholar, a cultivated private book collector, evidently one who saw books not merely as possessions but as instruments of intellectual and moral illumination. He was born Randolph McLaughlin, and assumed the surname Berens on his marriage in 1877 to Eleanor Frances Berens. Retiring from clerical life in 1881, he devoted himself to collecting and scholarship. His notable collection of Egyptian antiquities was sold at Sotheby’s in 1923, with further material acquired by the British Museum in 1925. His bookplate reflects a cultivated humanist and serious bibliophile.

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