Rare 15th century books donated to Australian library

A collection of rare books dating back to the 15th century was donated to the State Library of Victoria, Australia.

The books were donated to the library by the family of Melbourne barrister John Emmerson on Thursday, ABC reported.

Valued at about 8 million Australian dollars (about $6 million), the collection also contains early editions of noted British writers, including Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.

The collection also includes books owned by King Charles I of England, a Nuremberg bible dating back to 1485, and pamphlets that had daily news about the impeding execution of Charles I.

Emmerson began collecting books in the 1960s when he was studying nuclear physics at Oxford University. He continued buying books even after he returned home to Melbourne in the 1970s.

He passed away in August last year.

The library's head of rare books Des Cowley said the collection's centrepiece was the huge array of extremely rare tracts and pamphlets printed during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century.

"This would be the single greatest bequest of rare books in the State Library of Victoria's 160-year history," Cowley said.

"We are quite stunned and we are only just starting to really get a sense of the richness and depth of this collection," he added.