Richard Heber

Richard Heber (5 January 1773 – 4 October 1833) was an English book-collector. Biography He was born in Westminster, as the eldest son of Reginald Heber, who succeeded his eldest brother as lord of the manors of Marton in Yorkshire and Hodnet in Shropshire, and of Mary Baylie, his first wife. He attended Brasenose College, Oxford. At 19 he edited the works of Silius Italicus (2 vols. 12mo, 1792), and a year later prepared for the press an edition of Claudiani Carmina (2 vols., 1793). A taste for book collecting was developed in him in childhood, and as an undergraduate he began to collect a purely classical library. His taste broadening, he became interested in early English drama and literature, and began his collection of rare books in these departments. Succeeding on the death of his father in 1804 to large estates in Yorkshire and Shropshire, which he considerably augmented, he forthwith devoted himself to the purchase of rare books. Heber was one of the 18 founders in 1812 of the Roxburghe Club of bibliophiles. He possessed extensive landed property in Shropshire and Yorkshire, and was High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1821, was Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford University from 1821 to 1826, and in 1822 was made a D.C.L. of that University. He was one of the founders of the Athenaeum Club, London.