"Commonplace books" are collections of quotations, anecdotes, proverbs, and various other types of text extracts. They and the theories informing their compilation were the progenitors of reference works that are now taken quite for granted: encyclopedias, concordances, and books of quotations. Commonplace Books is a stand-alone historical survey of manuscript and printed books relating to the complex and extremely influential genre of the commonplace book from classical antiquity to the present day. Comprised of a series of long historical essays followed by short hand-lists of exhibited items, this volume is the first comprehensive, introductory survey to cover the entire commonplace book tradition, from its origin in ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical theory and philosphy, to the end of the twentieth century.