This year’s spring double issue of the journal Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum (Vol. 66, 2021/1–2) focuses on the research into book provenances. To some extent, it thus follows the issues published in 2013 and 2014. The articles Administrative Mechanisms of the Transfer of Book Collections in 1918–1954: A Springboard for Research on Book Provenance and Provenance Research into the Jílové Castle Library look at the research into book provenances from various angles, the first one on a more general level and the second one on the level of the analysis of the provenances of a very specific historical collection, the Jílové Castle library.
A completely different subject is discussed in the study Prague in the 1930s through the Eyes of a 16-Year-Old French Girl by J. Kašparová. It thoroughly acquaints the reader with several extant letters from Jacqueline Mazon, where she describes in detail her experiences and impressions of her stay in Prague, which she visited with her father, André Mazon, a prominent French Slavist, in 1934. Thematically, the article partly builds on the study by the same author Between Prague and Paris. Unknown and Little-Known ‘Heroines’ of the Czech-French Cultural World of the First Half of the 20th Century, which was published in the last double issue of our journal.
The four studies mentioned above are complemented by the material article The Libraries at Konopiště Castle by P. Mašek. In the Miscellanea section, A. Jaško in his text Ossolineum – a Literary Treasure of the Polish Nation and Its Czech Trace deals with Czech-Polish cultural relations during the early existence of the National Museum Library.
The spring double issue also contains five reviews. I would like to draw your attention to two separate reviews of Petr Voit’s latest publication Vzácné knižní vazby Strahovské knihovny v Praze: od gotiky na práh baroka [Rare Book Bindings from the Strahov Library in Prague: From the Gothic to the Threshold of the Baroque], which offer, based on the professional focus of their authors, different views of the issues discussed by Voit, and to P. Stankovska’s text evaluating the book Staročeské biblické předmluvy [Old Czech Biblical Prologues], another of the very valuable publications issued by Scriptorium.
The section The News from the National Museum Library provides information about the very topical exhibition Korona v Muzeu! [Corona in the Museum!], which has been prepared by the staff of the Book Culture Department of the National Museum Library.