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Bodley, Sir Thomas

Bodley, Sir Thomas, 1545–1613, English scholar and diplomat, organizer of the Bodleian Library at Oxford Univ. He was a Greek scholar and teacher at Oxford, and in 1584 he was elected to Parliament. He spent 11 years (1585–96) abroad on diplomatic missions for Queen Elizabeth I. In 1598 his offer to restore Duke Humphrey's library was accepted by Oxford, and he spent the rest of his life and most of his fortune on it.

See his Letters to Thomas James, First Keeper of the Bodleian Library, ed. by G. W. Wheeler (1926).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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