2 Only once does her name occur in the Term Catalogues,
when in February, 1673, the prints George Buchanan'
Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica, which told for two
shillings a copy. Samuel Gellibrand was not a printer but a
bookseller, with a shop "at the Ball in St. Paul's
Churchyard."
On comparing the first page of the text of his purchase with the same
page of an acknowledged London issue of the "Isle of Pines" [7]in the
John Carter Brown Library,{1} the bookseller concluded that the two were
entirely different publications.
An expert cataloguer connected with one of the large auction firms of
New York then took up the subject. After a study of the tract he
became assured that it could only have been printed by Samuel Green,
of Cambridge, and he brought forward facts and comparisons which seemed
conclusive and for which he deserves much credit. It was a clever bit of
bibliographical work. With such an endorsement as to rarity and
quality the pamphlet was again put to the test of the auction room. The
cataloguer stated his case in sufficient fulness of detail and the
first page of the text was reproduced.{2} Naturally the discovery sent
a little thrill through the mad-house of bibliography. The tract was
knocked down for $400 to a bookseller from Hartford, Connecticut,
presumably for some local collection. The incident would have passed
from memory had it not been for one of those accidents to which even the
amateur bibliographer is liable.