JAMES

See also:

• JAMES GRANGER (1723-1776)

GRANGER (1723-1776)  , English clergyman and print-collector, was born in Dorset in 1723 . He went to Oxford, and then entered holy orders, becoming vicar of Shiplake; but apart from his hobby of portrait-collecting, which resulted in the principal work associated with his name, and the publication of some sermons, his life was uneventful . Yet a new word was added to the language—" to grangerize "—on account of him . In 1769 he published in two quarto volumes a Biographical History of England " consisting of characters dispersed in different classes, and adapted to a methodical catalogue of engraved British heads "; this was " intended as an essay towards reducing our biography to a system, and a help to the knowledge of portraits." The work was supplemented in later editions by Granger, and still further editions were brought out by the Rev . Mark Noble, with additions from Granger's materials . Blank leaves were left for the filling in of engraved portraits for extra illustration of the text, and it became a favourite pursuit to discover such illustrations and insert them in a Granger, so that " grangerizing " became a term for such an extra-illustration of any work, especially with cuts taken from other books . The immediate result of the appearance of Granger's own work was the rise in value of books containing portraits, which were cut out and inserted in collector's copies .