Abstract
A private library is a unique and random set of books and periodicals usually accumulated by a single person whose relation to the collection, or to a specific item, may be characterised either as the role of an owner of an object or the role of a reader. What is dominant in the first case is an emotional bond of the owner to a book concerning its material nature (a value for collectors, a bibliophile edition of a printed book), or the interpersonal context that it represents (a donation, loan).
In the second case, the owner appreciates the content of the volume, specialised text or a work of art; for the owner, the book is a medium for entertainment, study, first of all a source of information. It is not the point to divide private libraries strictly into bibliophile collections and practical handbooks, because most libraries contain books of both types – those that the owner has kept for purely personal reasons as well as those with which the owner commonly worked; one should consider each unique collection both in terms of its value in general as cultural heritage, as an object commemorating a certain significant figure, and in terms of the document, providing information on the broader cultural-historical context of the time in which it was created.
The article deals with the library collection of Josef Václav Frič (1829–1890) and focuses chiefly on that part of the collection that belonged exclusively to Frič, i.e. the items which Frič commonly worked with, which he frequently read and studied and in which he made his notes, critical observations, outlines and versions of his own poems, additional corrections and professional symbols. The photographs were made by the author of the article as part of the research of book proveniences.