Prance Collection

The Prance Collection contains 975 books, the most significant group relating to the essayist and poet Charles Lamb and his circle. Also 250 books by or relating to the poet Edward Thomas, and a small number of titles on English natural history, belles lettres, book collecting and bookplates.

Literature and writing

Key items in the collection

Highlights from this collection demonstrate its historical significance and variety.

The Claude Prance Collection comprises 975 items. The largest and most significant group are books relating to the essayist and poet Charles Lamb (1775–1834) and his circle. There are also 250 books by or relating to the poet Edward Thomas (1878–1917), and:

a small number of titles on English natural history
belles lettres (a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing)
book collecting
bookplates.

The Lamb Collection includes books by Charles Lamb and his contemporaries:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Clare
George Dyer
Leigh Hunt
Thomas Hood
Robert Southey
William Hone
Bernard Barton
William Hazlitt
Samuel Rogers
Thomas De Quincey
JG Lockhart.

Of special note are:

a first edition of Lamb's The Last Essays of Elia (1833)
a second edition of Coleridge's Poems (1797)

with:

additional poems by Lamb
an annotated copy of George Dyer's Poems (1801)
Sara Coleridge's Phantasmion (1837)
a limited edition of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-eater (1885)
a complete set of the London Magazine (1820–1824).

The collection also includes:

several editions of poems and essays by Edward Thomas
several works published by the Beaumont Press
works by:
- Edmund Blunden
- Walter de la Mare
- Richard Garnett.

About Claude Prance

Claude Prance (1906–2002) was born in Portsmouth, England, and was educated at the Philological School and St John's College at Southsea.

Service and emigration

Prance joined the Midland Bank in 1923 and served at various branches in southern England.

Prance joined the Charles Lamb Society in 1936, the year after it was founded, and was vice-president for many years.

He enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1941 and saw service in North Africa and the Middle East. In 1945 he returned to the Midland Bank and held various managerial posts at its head office in London until his retirement in 1966.

On retirement at the age of 60, Prance and his wife went to live on the Maltese island of Gozo.

In 1980 they emigrated to Australia and settled in Canberra.

Interest in English literature

As a young man, Prance had a strong interest in English literature, particularly the literature of the early 19th century. He contributed essays and articles to various literary magazines in Britain and the United States and published a selection of them in his first book, Peppercorn Papers (1965).

In retirement, Prance wrote several books including:

The Laughing Philosopher (1976)
Companion to Charles Lamb (1983)
Essays of a Book Collector (1989)
The Characters in the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock (1992).

Prance was an enthusiastic book collector, with a library of over 8,000 volumes, and was a member of various book-collecting organisations. His collection was mainly focused on English literature from the 17th to the 19th centuries, but he also collected books on British theatre, natural history and cricket.