The Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum holds one of the world's greatest collections of prints, consisting of more than two million items. This book studies the history of the British Museum's collection of prints and drawings from the founding of the Museum in 1753. Ten essays describe the principal gifts, bequests and purchases that now form the core of the Museum's holding and nine appendices with unpublished documents taken from the Museum's archives are included. The book is illustrated with 100 examples of the finest prints from the collections described in the essays.