DIPLOMATS AS BOOK PROCURERS IN THE AGE OF WALPOLE.

The article discusses the role of diplomats in the international book trade of the first half of the eighteenth century, which has received very little attention. For most diplomats, purchasing books for correspondents in their home country was only a part of what today might strike modern diplomats as rather ancillary occupations. Diplomats were also privileged procurers for their masters. Several diplomats were involved in the purchase of books. Horace Walpole, British envoy to Paris in the 1720s, returned to Britain in 1730 with a noble collection of books, which he had collected at Paris, France.