In 1583 the scholar and occult philosopher John Dee left England for the Continent. During his absence his remarkable Mortlake library was neglected and partly dispersed. The episode shows the vulnerability of private scholarly collections in an age before stable public libraries.

Dee's library connected mathematics, magic, navigation, antiquarianism and poetry. Its dispersal symbolises how fragile intellectual networks could be, even when they fed major literary imaginations such as Spenser's world of empire and enchantment.