A discussion elsewhere on whether or not the e-book had conquered the book for once and all led me to contemplate this library of not inconsiderable size (around 15,000 volumes) and what it can tell us.
Books are multi-level artifacts. The first level is the information within the book, the actual words as they are written down. The second level is why the book was written and printed in the first place, this is usually bound up in the identity of the author, the edition, and the publisher, is it a reprint, if so why was it reprinted, and so forth. The third level is the history of that particular book: the amount of wear, the marginalia, any personal inscriptions, bookmark, sale history: who are the people buying the book, why did they buy the book, why did they read it or not read it, what did they think of it, why did they keep it. Combined with this and the previous level is the quality of the edition: what is the quality and type of binding, is this a presentation volume or a pocket edition, what other editions of the book are printed at this time; those questions tell us about the wealth of the society, of the buyer, the level of technology, the status of books in the society. Lastly, the fourth level: the book in relation to other books in the library, how is the library organized, what other books on that subject are there, what are the other subjects, other books of that era, are they mostly high quality bindings or standard, well read or not, written in or not? So forth.
Looking at the library as a whole can tell you a great deal. This is more obvious with a private library, but public and even copyright libraries can yield a great deal of information simply by looking at the patterns of acquisition. Esperanza is a case in point: the books greatly inform our understanding of the people. I can identify several sub-collections, for example: Julie’s books are primarily literature of the 1800’s, and primarily of the Victorian morality rather than the more avant-garde of the era (no Mark Twain, but Harriet Beecher Stowe) and has a heavy emphasis on other female authors. Most of these books are heavily used. WWE’s sub-collection is dominated by two sub-groups: well read books on or by poets from the 1800-1930’s, mostly American; and a large number of high quality presentation volumes, most by Century company, not all of those are read, some still have uncut pages. Lucy’s collection: mostly travel, mystery stories, literature. Newman’s collection of science and language. Then there are other sub-collections: travel, art, gardening, history: these subject categories cross over and can be resorted by person, time period, etc. And so forth.
For the historian, it is a good thing that this wasn’t all on ebooks…
Acair Fearann 
rather… but then there are questions like… I know I saw that somewhere, or where does this book go, or most often now where did I leave that book…
But they do endure, which is more than an e-book will. And some are old friends!
See what I ought to do is make a virtual map of the place, tag all the books and then one could find them…er right.
With the consideration that, like trees, libraries can “grow” (or at least change) in both directions: trees – up and down (branches and roots) and libraries in acquisition and dispersal. . . one could also raise questions like: when, and to whom, and under what circumstances, did bits of the acquired Esperanza library disperse to Esperanza descendants (or friends)? I’ve several books or sets of books that came from Esperanza (and that I treasure not only for the book itself but also for its source). For example: a set of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” series in which the “Little Women” book itself has the delightful mistake of having some hundred or so pages bound out of order. And there’s the “Katy Did” series, “The Princess and the Goblin” along with “The Princess and Curdie”. And so forth. Even a few of Julie’s books. I can also remember Eileen bewailing the fact that the series of books by Altschuler (?) much enjoyed by herself and Kennedy, had gone off to Stoney Lonesome and stayed there (and where now, Lucy, do you know?).
Libraries associated with a family and house, like Esperanza’s, are mobile in every way. Not only will Jamie have trouble pinning down a book in the house, someone might have trouble pinning down a book in time and broader space!
As for those uncut books. . . well!
which mobility is why such observations need to be backed up by other patterns. For example, the Little Women books. If one just took the library as sole evidence, Alcott and Twain would both be absent, and that would puzzling indeed. But, when combined with a bit of oral memory about how Julie didn’t like Mark Twain, his absence makes sense; while the absence of Alcott (unsupported by any other reason) has to be put down to the mobility of books, which is in fact precisely what occurred. Or in other words, while one is safe to take the library as evidence that the person liked a type of literature, it isn’t safe to take it alone as evidence that the person did or did not like an author, though it might inform the argument.
The uncut books are rather appalling, especially the massive ten volume complete works and history of Lincoln…but they look Wonderful on the shelf. Nice big red leather books.