Walter Scott once referred to the subject of his friend Douce’s researches as ‘the community of fable’. This chapter proposes to broaden that assessment to consider Douce’s collections as resulting from his inquiries into the community of images. The collections are introduced as a vast repository of ‘images’ (both visual and literary) that reflect cultural transmission. They originated in Douce’s interest in the common ground that he identified in objects pertaining to different cultures and periods. Douce’s collecting practices were also influenced by his perception of the loss of popular traditions and of the past due to the modernisation of London. Moreover, Douce was responding to the destruction and dispersion brought upon by the French Revolution and its aftermath. The original setting and afterlife of the collections are discussed with regard to the idea of the ‘Romantic interior’. The collection thus displayed functioned as an ecology, in which the meanings of the images gathered by Douce were influenced and modified by their connection.