extensive library of the Duke of Sussex, which occupied sixty-one days
in selling, and consisted of 14,107 lots. The total amount realised was
£19,148. The sale was divided into six parts, as follows:--Part 1, July
1844, theology, twenty-four days, 5551 lots, £8438. Part 2, July and
August 1844, manuscripts, four days, 510 lots, £3126. Part 3, August
1844, history, topography, voyages and travels, six days, 1523 lots,
£2096. Part 4, January and February 1845, Greek classics, foreign
history, &c., eleven days, 2641 lots, £2121. Part 5, April and May 1845,
poetry, drama, polygraphy, Latin classics, belles-lettres, &c., twelve
days, 2956 lots, £2649. Part 6, August 1845, four days, 926 lots, £718.
The library of Mr. B. H. Bright was sold at Sotheby’s in three divisions
in 1845, and the total amount realised was £8997.
In 1849 Messrs. Southgate & Barrett tried the experiment of selling the
library of the Rev. H. F. Lyte and J. W. M. Lyte in the evening, but the
new departure (or rather, revival of an old practice) did not meet with
approval, and the practice was not followed. There were 4368 lots, and
the sale occupied seventeen evenings.
In this same year the world was startled by the dispersion of the Duke
of Buckingham’s property at Stowe House, and Messrs. Sotheby sold the
library during twenty-four days. There were 6211 lots, and the total
amount realised for library and prints was £14,155. The Stowe MSS. were
sold by private contract to the Earl of Ashburnham for £8000.
Since this time the sale of great libraries from the old family mansions
have been so numerous, that little surprise is felt when another is
added to the long list.
Messrs. Sotheby sold in 1851 the library of Granville Penn, during six
days, for £7845; in 1851 the library of E. V. Utterson, during eight
days, for £5494; in 1853 the library of Dawson Turner for £4562, and
that of Baron Taylor for £4087; in 1854 the private library of William
Pickering for £10,700; in 1857 the library of the Earl of Shrewsbury for
£3250.
Between 1859 and 1864 were sold at Sotheby’s the various portions of the
library of Mons. Gulielmo Libri. The 1176 lots of manuscripts were sold
in eight days of March and April 1859, and realised £6783. The “choicer
portion” of the library was sold in August of the same year, thirteen
days, 2824 lots, £8822.
In 1861 the mathematical and general library was sold. Part 1, A to L,
twelve days, 4335 lots, £1349. Part 2, M to Z, eight days, lots 4336 to
7268, £877.
The “reserved portion” was sold in July 1862, during four days. The
number of lots was 713, and these sold for the immense sum of £10,328,
or an average of over £14 per lot.
The library of Miss Richardson Currer was sold at Sotheby’s in 1862,
during ten days, for £5984.
In July 1864 was sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge the extremely
interesting library of George Daniel, which was specially rich in old
English literature, and remarkable for the superb collection of
Shakespeare folios and quartos. The sale occupied ten days, and realised
£15,865.
At the same auction rooms were sold in 1865 the library of J. B.
Nicholl, in two parts, for £6175; in 1867 the library of Sir Charles
Price for £5858; and in 1868 the library of Macready, the actor, for
£1216.
In 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1873 were sold at Sotheby’s eight
portions of the unique poetical library of the Rev. T. Corser, which
realised £19,781.
The library, engravings, and autographs of John Dillon were sold by the
same firm in 1869, during twelve days, for £8700.
The library of Lord Selsey was sold in 1872 for £4757.
The sale in 1873 by Messrs. Gadsden, Ellis & Co., at Hanworth Park, of
the grand library of Henry Perkins created a sensation. The late owner
had been a purchaser at the time of the bibliomaniacal fever after the
Roxburghe sale, and for years the library was practically forgotten, so
that the opportunity afforded to book-collectors of purchasing its
choice rarities came as a surprise. The four days’ sale realised
£25,954.
In 1874 the choice library of Sir William Tite was sold at Sotheby’s,
during sixteen days, for £19,943.
The same firm sold the library of the Rev. C. H. Crauford, during five
days, in July 1876 for £6229.
In 1878 Messrs. Sotheby sold the very choice collection of books and
miniatures formed by Mr. J. T. Payne, of the firm of Payne & Foss, which
realised £2843, or about £16 per lot, the day’s sale consisting of only
117 lots.
In 1879, 1880, and 1881 the fine library of Dr. David Laing, of the
Signet Library, Edinburgh, was sold at Sotheby’s in four portions, which
realised a total of £16,536, the first part alone making £13,288.
A portion of the library of Cecil Dunn Gardner was sold in June 1880 at
Sotheby’s, during six days, for £4734. The same firm sold in 1881 a
portion of the Earl of Clare’s library for £2130, a portion of Lord
Hampton’s library for £3539, and a portion of the library of G. L. Way
for £2324; Daniel Gurney’s library, four days, £1687; library of a
collector (Mr. Gulston), £1173.
Never before has there been, and probably never again will there be, two
such remarkable sales as those of the Sunderland and Beckford libraries
at the same time. The Sunderland library, the sale of which was
commenced by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson in December 1881, was formed by
Charles, third Earl of Sunderland, who died on 19th April 1722, and was
transferred from the Earl’s house in Piccadilly in 1733, when Charles,
fifth Earl of Sunderland, became Duke of Marlborough. Successive Dukes
of Marlborough added a few books to the library, but it is noteworthy,
as we turn over page after page of the catalogue, how seldom we come
upon a book published since 1722. On the 1st of December a large company
was gathered in the famous auction-room in Leicester Square, to watch
the progress of what promised to be one of the most remarkable sales of
modern times. Some of those who formed this company were to become
duellists in the fight over the treasures arranged upon the shelves
round the room, for the fight for the chief lots always resolved itself
into a duel in the end. Those who expected the books to make a
distinguished external appearance were disappointed, for more than a
century’s occupation of the great library at Blenheim, with a scorching
sun beating down upon the backs of the books from the huge windows, had
destroyed a large proportion of the bindings. When the sale opened it
was seen that prices would rule high; but at the same time, the
character of the library, which contained many books now hopelessly out
of fashion, was marked by the sudden drop in the prices from hundreds of
pounds to a shilling or so, soon again to rise to hundreds of pounds.
Mr. Quaritch was the hero of the sale, and after him the chief
combatants were Mr. F. S. Ellis and M. Techener, while Mr. Henry
Stevens, Mr. Pearson, Messrs. Pickering, Messrs. Morgand and Fatout, and
some others made a good fight for the lots they required. As the bids of
£10 and upwards went on rapidly till £1000--in some cases more--were
reached, the excited faces of those around formed a sight worth seeing,
for few could resist the excitement, which found vent in applause, when
the lot was knocked down.
Part 1, December 1881, realised £19,373. Part 2, April 1882, £9376. Part
3, July, £7792. Part 4, November, £10,129. Each of these parts consisted
of ten days’ sale. Part 5 (and last), March 1883, contained eleven days’
sale, and realised £9908. The lots were numbered throughout the parts,
and amounted to 13,858. The total amount realised by the sale was
£56,581, 6s.
When the sale was concluded Mr. Quaritch made a short speech appropriate
to the occasion, and said that “This was the most wonderful library that
had been sold by auction in the present century. Fine as the Hamilton
library was he could form another like it to-morrow, but nothing like
the Sunderland library would be seen again as a private collection. He
held its founder in the highest respect and gratitude.”
On the 30th of June 1882 the sale of the beautiful library of William
Beckford was commenced at Sotheby’s by Mr. Hodge. The books were in the
finest condition, and in consequence they fetched very high prices. Mr.
Henry Bohn, writing to _The Times_ at the commencement of this sale,
said that Beckford was the greatest book enthusiast he ever knew. He was
a great collector of “Aldines and other early books bearing the insignia
of celebrities, such as Francis I., Henri et Diane, and De Thou, and
especially of choice old morocco bindings by Deseuil, Pasdeloup, and
Derome.” Mr. Bohn further said that after Beckford’s death, and while
the books were still at Bath, the Duke of Hamilton, Beckford’s
son-in-law, wished to sell the whole library. Mr. Bohn offered £30,000,
payable within a week; but although the Duke would willingly have
accepted the offer, the Duchess would not agree to the sale of her
father’s books. Mr. Bohn estimated that the library was now worth
£50,000. It actually sold for £73,551. Part 1, June and July 1882,
consisted of twelve days’ sale and 3197 lots, which realised £31,516.
Part 2, December, twelve days, 2732 lots, £22,340. Part 3, July 1883,
twelve days, 2781 lots, £12,852. Part 4 (and last), November, four days,
1127 lots, £6843. The total number of lots in the forty days’ sale was
9837.
The library collected by the Duke of Hamilton (when Marquis of Douglas)
at the same time as Beckford was adding to his own, was sold by Messrs.
Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge during eight days of May 1884. There were
2136 lots, which realised £12,892. The most valuable portion of the
Hamilton library was the collection of matchless manuscripts, which were
kept distinct from the printed books, and sold to the German Government.
During the years that the Blenheim and Hamilton Palace libraries were
selling many valuable sales took place, and since then there have been a
great number of fine libraries dispersed. We have only space to mention
shortly a few of these; but with respect to the last ten years there is
the less need for a full list, in that a valuable record of sales is
given in the annual volumes of Slater’s “Book Prices Current,” and
Temple Scott’s “Book Sales.”
The important topographical library of James Comerford was sold by
Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge in 1881. There were 4318 lots, in thirteen
days’ sale, which realised £8327.
In 1882 the library of Frederic Ouvry, P.S.A., which consisted of 1628
lots, in a six days’ sale, was sold at Sotheby’s for £6169; and the
choice library of a gentleman, £3366.
In March 1882 was sold a portion of the Right Hon. A. J. B.
Beresford-Hope’s library (two days, £2316), and further portions were
sold in 1892.
The Stourhead heirlooms (Sir Richard Colt Hoare) were sold at Sotheby’s
in July 1883, eight days, 1971 lots, £10,028.
The Towneley Hall library, consisting of 2815 lots, in an eight days’
sale, realising £4616, and the Towneley Hall manuscripts (two days, 235
lots, £4054) were both sold in June 1883 at Sotheby’s, as was also the
Drake library (four days, £3276).
In 1884 were sold at Sotheby’s the library of Francis Bedford,
bookbinder (five days, 1551 lots), for £4867, and the Syston Park
library of Sir John Hayford Thorold, Bart. (eight days, 2110 lots),
£28,001.
The Earl of Gosford’s library was sold by Puttick and Simpson in 1884,
eleven days, 3363 lots, £11,318.
It is curious to compare the sale of a library such as Beckford’s with
one like James Crossley. Both were great collectors, and possessed many
dainties; but whilst the former was particular as to condition, with the
consequence that his books fetched high prices, the latter was
regardless of this, and necessarily his sold for small sums.
One portion of Crossley’s library was sold at Manchester by F. Thompson
& Son (seven days, 2682 lots), but other two parts were dispersed in
London by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. Part 1 (1884), seven days, 2824
lots. Part 2 (1885), nine days, 3119 lots, £4095.
The fine library of the Earl of Jersey at Osterley Park was sold by
Sotheby’s in May 1885 for £13,007; where also was sold, in the following
month, the library of the Rev. J. F. Russell for £8682.
In 1885 the sale of the miscellaneous but valuable library of Leonard
Lawrie Hartley was commenced by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson. Part 1 (1885)
consisted of 2475 lots, occupying ten days in the selling, which
realised £9636. Part 2 (1886), ten days’ sale of 2582 lots, £5258. Part
3 (1887), eight days’ sale of 2937 lots, £1635.
In January 1886 was sold the library of Mr. Wodhull, £11,972; and in
November of the same year Edward Solly’s, F.R.S., £1544.
A selection from the magnificent library of the Earl of Crawford was
sold at Sotheby’s in 1887 and 1889. Portion 1 (1887), ten days, 2146
lots, realised £19,073. Portion 2 (1889), four days, 1105 lots, £9324.
Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge in 1887 and 1888 sold the almost
equally fine library of Mr. James T. Gibson-Craig. First portion (1887),
ten days, 2927 lots, realised £6803. Second portion (1888), fifteen
days, 5364 lots, £7907. Third portion (1888), three days, £809. The
total amount realised for the three portions was £15,509.
A choice portion of Baron Seillière’s library was sold in February 1887
(1440 lots, £14,944). A second portion was afterwards sold in Paris.
In 1888 Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods sold the library of the Earl of
Aylesford (£10,574); and the Wimpole library, which formerly belonged
to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke (£3244).
In the same year the beautiful library of Mr. R. S. Turner was sold at
Sotheby’s. Part 1, June 1888, twelve days, 2999 lots, £13,370. Part 2,
November 1888, fourteen days, £2874. The total amount realised for the
whole library was £16,244.
Mr. Turner sold in Paris in 1878 a previous collection of books in 774
lots, which realised the large sum of 319,100 francs (£12,764).
In February 1889 were sold at Sotheby’s the Earl of Hopetoun’s library
of 1263 lots for £6117, and that of R. D. Dyneley, £3084. At the same
auction rooms, and in the same year, were sold the library of John
Mansfield Mackenzie of Edinburgh, remarkable for a large number of
illustrated editions of modern authors, 2168 lots, in an eight days’
sale, £7072; and that of J. O. Halliwell Phillipps, four days, 1291
lots, £2298.
Also at Sotheby’s in 1889 were sold the libraries of Frederick Perkins
(2086 lots, £8222); the Duke of Buccleuch (selection), 1012 lots, £3705;
W. D. Salmond, £2557.
In the following year Thomas Gaisford’s library was sold at Sotheby’s
(eight days, 2218 lots, £9236); also that of Frederick William Cosens
(twelve days, 4995 lots, £5571); that of Sir Edward Sullivan (choicer
portion), £11,002; that of Frank Marshall (six days, 1937 lots, £2187);
that of Alexander Young, £2238; and that of T. H. Southby, £2241.
In 1891 were sold the libraries of Cornelius Paine (£3677); Edward
Hailstone of Walton Hall:--Part 1, ten days, 2728 lots, £4738. Part 2,
eight days, 2904 lots, £4252 (total, £8991); W. H. Crawford of
Lakelands, county Cork, twelve days, 3428 lots, £21,255; J. Anderson
Rose, £2450; and Lord Brabourne, four days, 1149 lots, £2042.
The remainder of Lord Brabourne’s library was sold by Messrs. Puttick &
Simpson in 1893 (three days, 995 lots, £1058).
In 1892 were sold the libraries of John Wingfield Larking (three days,
946 lots, £3925); of Edwin Henry Lawrence (four days, 860 lots, £7409);
of Joshua H. Hutchinson (832 lots, £2377); of Count Louis Apponyi,
£3363; and of “a gentleman deceased” (418 lots, £2411)--all at
Sotheby’s.
In 1893 were sold at Sotheby’s the Bateman heirlooms (W. & T. Bateman),
six days’ sale, 1840 lots, £7296; of Howard Wills, £8204; and of H. G.
Reid, £3466; of Fred Burgess (dramatic library), £1558; also selected
portion of the Auchinleck library, £2525. At the same rooms the sale of
the Rev. W. E. Buckley’s library was commenced. Part 1, ten days, 3552
lots, £4669. The second part was sold in April 1893, twelve days, 4266
lots, £4751. The total amount realised by the two sales was £9420.
A choice collection of books was sold by Sotheby in 1894, viz., the
library of Birket Foster, 1361 lots, £5198.
In 1895 were sold at Sotheby’s the libraries of Mons. John Gennadius,
eleven days, 3222 lots, £5466; of Baron Larpent, £2630; of T. B. F.
Hildyard, £4165; of the Earl of Orford, two days, 340 lots, £2609; of
the Rev. W. J. Blew (liturgical), £2220; and of Dr. Hyde Clarke, £2598.
The library of the Rev. W. Bentinck L. Hawkins, F.R.S., was sold at
Christie’s in the same year. First portion, three days, 747 lots, £1176.
Second portion, two days, 471 lots, £833. Third and final portion, one
day, 252 lots, £894. At the same rooms the library of William Stuart,
215 lots, £4296.
The sales at Sotheby’s in 1896 which realised £2000 and upwards were
those of John Tudor Frere, £3747; Sir W. Pole, £4343; Adrian Hope,
£3551; Lord Coleridge, £2845; Sir Thomas Phillipps (MSS.), £6988; Sir E.
H. Bunbury, £2965, Lord Bateman, £2151; Alfred Crampton, £2492; fine
bindings of a collector, £3613; books and MSS. from various collections,
£8554.
The chief sales at Sotheby’s in 1897 have been as follows:--Sir Charles
Stewart Forbes and others, five days, £5146; Beresford R. Heaton and
others, three days, £4054; Sir Cecil Domville and others, four days,
£5289.
The great sales, however, of 1897 were those of the first and second
portions of the library of the Earl of Ashburnham. In the first part
1683 lots were sold for £30,151, and in the second part 1208 lots for
£18,649.
LIST OF BOOK SALES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WHICH HAVE REALISED OVER
£10,000.
1812. Duke of Roxburghe £23,397
1813. Ralph Willett (Merly) 13,508
1818-21. James Brindley _over_ 17,522
1819. John North 12,806
1825. Sir Mark Masterman Sykes 18,729
1827. John Dent 15,040
1828-35. Earl of Guilford 12,175
1833-34. P. A. Hanrott 22,409
1834-36. Richard Heber 56,774
1844-45. Duke of Sussex 19,148
1849. Duke of Buckingham (Stowe) 14,155
1853. W. Pickering (private library) 10,700
1859-64. Gulielmo Libri 28,159
1864. George Daniel 15,865
1868-73. Rev. T. Corser 19,781
1873. Henry Perkins 25,954
1874. Sir William Tite 19,943
1878. R. S. Turner (Paris) 12,764
1879-81. David Laing 16,536
1881-83. Sunderland (Blenheim) 56,581
1882-83. William Beckford 73,551
1884. Duke of Hamilton 12,892
1883. Stourhead (Hoare) 10,028
1884. Earl of Gosford 11,318
1884. Sir J. H. Thorold (Syston Park) 28,000
1885. Earl of Jersey (Osterley Park) 13,007
1885-87. L. L. Hartley 16,529
1886. F. C. Severne, M.P. (Michael Wodhull) 11,972
1887. Baron Seillière 14,944
1887-89. Earl of Crawford 26,397
1887-88. J. T. Gibson-Craig 15,519
1888. Earl of Aylesford 10,574
1888. R. S. Turner 16,244
1889. MSS. from the Duke of Hamilton’s
collection (bought privately
by the Berlin Government) 15,189
1890. Sir Edward Sullivan 11,002
1891. W. H. Crawford (Lakelands) 21,255
1897. Earl of Ashburnham. Part 1 30,151
1897. Earl of Ashburnham. Part 2 18,649
It is worthy of notice in the above list that the amounts realised for
the Heber and Sunderland sales were almost identical, while the totals
of the Hamilton Palace libraries were larger than those for any other
English sale, viz., £86,543 (Beckford, £73,551; Duke of Hamilton,
£12,892).
In these totals the sales of booksellers’ stocks have not been recorded,
because they do not sell so well as private libraries, owing to a rather
absurd impression in the minds of buyers that the rarer books would have
sold out at the shops had they been of special value; but it may be
noted here that the stock of Messrs. Payne & Foss was sold in three
portions in 1850 for £8645 (certainly much less than its worth) by
Sotheby, who sold in 1868-70-72 Mr. Henry G. Bonn’s stock, in three
parts, for £13,333, and Mr. Lilly’s in 1871 and 1873, in five parts, for
£13,080. In 1873 Mr. T. H. Lacy’s stock of theatrical portraits and
books were sold at Sotheby’s for £5157.
Mr. F. S. Ellis’s stock was sold in November 1885 for £15,996, and Mr.
Toovey’s in February 1893 for £7090. The latter’s sporting books
realised £1031.
It is very much the fashion now to average the amounts realised at
auctions, and to point out that at such a sale the amount obtained was
about £10 or more per lot. This is a useful generalisation so far as it
goes, but further information is required to enable the reader to obtain
a correct idea of value. The generalisation is useful in regard to a
mass of sales; thus we may say broadly, that in the last century the
ordinary large and good libraries averaged about £1 per lot, while in
the present century they average at least £2 per lot.
A small and select library will naturally average a much higher amount
than a large library, in which many commonplace books must be included.
These averages, however, will not help us very much to understand the
relative value of libraries.
For instance, at the Sunderland sale some lots sold for enormous sums,
while a large number fell for a few shillings; but at the Hamilton
Palace sales (William Beckford and the Duke of Hamilton) nearly every
lot was of value, and although individual lots did not reach the sums
realised at the Sunderland sale, the total was much larger. As an
instance of what is meant, we may quote from the notice of the
Ashburnham sale in the _Times_--
“The 1683 lots realised a grand total of £30,151, 10s., which works
out at an average of as nearly as possible £18 per lot. Hitherto the
highest average was obtained by the disposal in 1884 of the Syston
Park library, where 2110 lots brought £28,000, or £13, 5s. per lot,
the next highest average being that of the Seillière library, sold
in 1887, 1140 lots realising £14,944, or about £13, 2s. per lot. It
is scarcely fair, however, to compare the Ashburnham collection with
either of these two libraries, as the Seillière was admittedly only
the choice portion of the assemblage of the baron, whilst nearly
every lot in the Syston Park library was of importance. Eliminating
from the Ashburnham collection the hundreds of lots which realised
less than £1 each, the average would be nearer £40 than £18.”
This is all very well in its way, but one lot fetched £4000, and such an
amount would demoralise any average. Let us therefore see what are the
particular points worthy of notice in the sums making up this large
total of £30,151. We find that five lots realised £1000 and over each,
and including these five lots, forty-two were over £100 each. Now the
total for these forty-two lots is £20,348, which, if we deduct from the
grand total, leaves 1641 lots for £9803, bringing our average down
considerably.
This is not perhaps a quite fair system of striking an average, but it
shows better how the prices of the books are distributed.
FOOTNOTE:
[53] Dibdin’s “Reminiscences,” vol. i. p. 369 (note).
CHAPTER VIII
PRICES OF EARLY PRINTED BOOKS
It is impossible in the following chapters to do more than select some
of the chief classes of valuable books in order to indicate the changes
that have taken place in the prices. It will be noticed that the great
enhancement of prices which is so marked a feature of the present age
commenced about the beginning of the present century.
Bibliomania can scarcely be said to have existed in the seventeenth
century, but it commenced in the middle of the next century, when the
Mead library was sold. Still it attracted little attention until the
sale of the Roxburghe library in 1812, when it had become a power. In
the middle of the present century there was a dull time, but during the
last quarter the succession of sales realising one, two, and three
thousand pounds have been continuous, with occasional sales realising
much larger amounts. Great changes have occurred at different times in
the taste of collectors for certain classes of books.
We may obtain a good idea of the public taste in books by analysing a
list of the highest prices obtained at three such representative sales
as the Sunderland, the Hamilton Palace, and the Ashburnham libraries.
At the first of these the largest prices were obtained for the first
editions of Bibles, classics, Italian poets, &c.; at the second, fine
bindings took the lead; and at the third, Bibles and Caxtons, and other
early literature occupied the first place.
All these classes are dealt with in the following chapters. In the
present one, the most important among the early Bibles, the first
editions of the classics, and early Italian literature are recorded.
These are among the chief of those books which have been steadily rising
for years, and now stand at enormous prices.
It is not safe to prophesy, but there is no reason to doubt that if
riches continue to increase these prices will also advance. As these
books are placed in great libraries they naturally become scarcer each
year. We must, however, always bear in mind that the number of libraries
and individuals who can afford to spend thousands of pounds on single
books are few, and if they are reduced, those who remain in the field
are likely to get books cheaper.
While the first editions of the classics will probably always keep up
their price, later editions have experienced a fall from which they are
never likely to recover. Scholarship and knowledge of manuscripts have
so greatly advanced, that many of the old high-priced editions are now
hopelessly out of date, and good German texts, which can be obtained at
a few shillings, are naturally preferred.
The Delphin and Oxford classics, which were once so much sought after,
have now sunk to a comparatively low price. The large paper copy of Dr.
Samuel Clarke’s edition of “Cæsar” (2 vols. imp. folio, 1712), of which
only twenty-five copies were printed, was once a high priced book. The
Duke of Grafton’s copy fetched £64, and Topham Beauclerk’s £44. There is
a story connected with the latter, which should be noted. Beauclerk gave
four guineas for his copy to the mother of a deceased officer, the sum
she asked, but when he was afterwards told by his bookseller that it was
worth seventeen guineas, he sent the additional thirteen guineas to the
lady. Certainly the Sunderland copy fetched £101 in 1881, but this was a
special case, owing to the connection of the great Duke of Marlborough
with the book. The Duke of Hamilton’s copy, which had belonged to Louis
XIV., sold in 1884 for £36; but Beckford’s copy, bound in red morocco,
only brought £6.
Block books are of such excessive rarity that they have always been high
priced, but like the earliest books printed from movable types, they
have greatly increased in value of late years. This is seen in the case
of the copy of the second edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, which
fetched £1050 at the Earl of Ashburnham’s sale. This same copy brought
£257 at Willett’s sale, but at Hanrott’s the price fell to the small
amount of £36, 15s.
The following are some of the prices that those magnificent books--the
Mazarin Bible and the first Bible with a date--have realised:--
Biblia Sacra Latina (Moguntiæ, Gutenberg et Fust, circa 1450-55):--
_On vellum_--G. & W. Nicols, 1825, £504 (Messrs. Arch for H.
Perkins). H. Perkins, 1873, £3400. Earl of Ashburnham, 1897,
£4000.
_On paper_--Sykes, 1824, £199, 10s. (H. Perkins). Hibbert, 1829,
£215. Bishop of Cashel, 1858, £595. H. Perkins, 1873, £2690.
Thorold (Syston Park), £3900. Earl of Gosford, 1884 (vol. i.
in original binding), £500. Earl of Crawford, 1887, £2650.
Earl of Hopetoun, 1889 (one leaf injured, and slightly
wormed), £2000.
Biblia Sacra Latina (Moguntiæ, Fust et Schoeffer, 1462) [first
Latin Bible with a date]:--
_On vellum_--
Duc de la Valliere, 4085 francs. }
Count MacCarthy, 4750 francs. }
Watson Taylor, 1823, £215. } Same copy.
Dent, 1827, £173. }
H. Perkins, 1873, £780. }
Earl of Crawford, 1887, £1025. }
The Lamoignon copy, bought by Mr. Cracherode for 250 guineas, is
now in the British Museum. Sunderland, 1881, £1600. Thorold,
£1000.
The Latin Version of the Psalms, in its second edition, by Fust and
Schoeffer, 1459 (printed on vellum), sold at Sykes’s sale for
£136, 10s. At the Syston Park sale (Thorold) it brought £4950,
a greater price even than has been given for the Mazarin Bible.
It has been erroneously stated that this was the MacCarthy
copy, which was sold in 1815 for 3350 francs. The MacCarthy
copy was bought by Hibbert, and at his sale in 1829 it became
the property of Baron Westreenen.[54]
Biblia Latina, folio Venetiis (N. Jenson), 1476, printed on vellum,
capital letters illuminated, in red morocco, sold at the Merly
sale for £168. Beckford copy (supposed to be the same copy)
sold in 1882 for £330. H. Perkins, 1873, £290.
The first edition of the Bible in English (translated by Coverdale),
1535 (with some leaves mended), was sold at the Earl of
Ashburnham’s sale for £820. Dent’s copy £89 in 1827 (title and
two leaves in facsimile). Freeling’s copy, £34, 10s. in 1836.
Dunn Gardner’s, 1854 (with title and one leaf in facsimile),
£365. H. Perkins, 1873 (title and two leaves in facsimile),
£400. Earl of Crawford’s (imperfect), £226.
The first edition of Tyndale’s New Testament (1526) sold in Richard
Smith’s sale, 1682, for 6s. Ames bought the Harleian copy for
15s. This was sold at Ames’s sale, 1760, to John White for £15,
14s. 6d. It was sold by White to the Rev. Dr. Gifford for twenty
guineas, and bequeathed by Gifford, with the rest of his
library, to the Baptists’ library at Bristol.
The Complutensian Polyglot (6 vols. folio, 1514-17) is said to have
cost Cardinal Ximenes £40,000. Six hundred copies were printed.
The following prices have been paid for the one vellum copy in
the market, and for some paper copies:--
_Three on vellum_--(1) Royal Library, Madrid; (2) Royal Library,
Turin; (3) supposed to have been reserved for the Cardinal.
Pinelli, 1789, £483, bought by MacCarthy. MacCarthy, 1817
£676 (16,000 francs), bought by Hibbert. Hibbert, 1829, £525.
_On paper_--Harleian copy, sold by Osborne for £42. Maittaire’s
imperfect copy sold for 50s. Sunderland, £195. Earl of
Crawford, 1887 (general title wanting), £56. Beresford Hope,
1882, £166. W. H. Crawford (Lakelands), 1891, £100.
The vellum copy sold in the Pinelli sale was, according to Dibdin,
taken to Dr. Gosset when on a bed of sickness, in the hopes
that the sight might work a cure on that ardent book-lover.[55]
John Brocario, son of Arnoldus Brocario, the printer of this
polyglot, when a lad, was deputed to take the last sheets to the
Cardinal. He dressed himself in his best clothes, and delivered
his charge into Ximenes’ hand, who exclaimed, “I render thanks
to Thee, O God, that Thou hast protracted my life to the
completion of these biblical labours.” He told his friends that
the surmounting of the various difficulties of his political
situation did not afford him half the solace which arose from
the finishing of his Polyglot.[56] A few weeks after the noble
enthusiast died.
Plantin Polyglot Bible, 1569-72, 5 vols. Five hundred copies
printed; greater part lost at sea.
Earl of Ashburnham, 1897, on vellum (wanting the “Apparatus”), £79.
Walton’s Polyglot Bible, 6 vols. folio, 1657 (with Castell’s
Lexicon), does not keep up its price.
Seaman, 1676, £8, 2s. Bernard, 1698, £10. Duke of Grafton (without
Castell), £38, 13s. Edwards, £61. Heath, £73, 10s. (bought by
the Earl of Essex). H. Perkins, 1873, £19, 15s. At the Wimpole
library sale (Lord Chancellor Hardwicke), 1888, a copy of Walton
without Castell fetched £9, 5s. The Ashburnham copy, which had
belonged to Henry, Duke of Gloucester, fourth son of Charles I.,
with his name on the binding, which was in blue morocco, sold in
1897 for £28.
EDITIONES PRINCIPES OF THE CLASSICS
ÆSOPUS. Fabulæ Latine et Italice. Neapoli, 1485; first edition of
Æsop with the Italian version. Hibbert’s, £17; Libri, 480
francs; Earl of Ashburnham, £203.
ANACREON. Lutetiæ, 1554, on vellum. Sunderland, 1881, £221.
ARISTOTELES. Opera varia. Venetiis, 1483, 2 vols. Earl of
Ashburnham, 1897 (printed on vellum), each volume decorated in
the highest style of Italian art of the period, fifty-nine
beautiful historical and ornamental initials, £800.
CICERO. Opera Omnia _Mediolani_, per Alex. Minutianum et Gulielmos
fratres, 1498-99 [first edition of the collected works], four
vols. in two, folio, old yellow morocco. Sunderland, £30, 10s.
---- Epistolæ ad familiares. Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), 1467,
folio, the first edition and the first book printed in Rome and
in Roman letters. Sunderland, £295.
---- Epistolæ. Venetiis, a Nicolao Jenson, 1471, folio. Mead, £3,
3s.; Askew, £11, 16s.; Sunderland, £12.
---- Orationes. Adam de Ambergau, 1472, folio. Askew gave £3, 5s.
for his copy, which was bought by Dr. Hunter at his sale for
£12. It is now at Glasgow University. Sunderland, £18.
CLAUDIANUS. Opera. Venetiæ, 1482, first edition. Mead, £2, 2s.;
Askew, £7, 15s.; Pinelli, £9, 9s.; Sunderland (broken binding),
£4.
GELLIUS (AULUS). Noctes Atticæ. Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), 1469,
folio, first edition. Pinelli, £58, 16s. (printed on vellum);
Sunderland, £790.
---- Noctes. Venetiis, per Nicolaum Jenson, 1472, folio. Mead, £2,
12s. 6d.; Askew, £11, 10s.; Sunderland, £13, 10s.
HOMERUS. Opera Omnia. Florentiæ sumpt. Bern. et Nerii Nerliorum,
1488, two vols. folio, first edition. The British Museum copy
was purchased for £17; Wodhull, £200; Sunderland, £48.
---- Homeri Odyssea Græce. Florentiæ, 1488, first edition. Duke of
Hamilton, 1884, very large and fine copy, red morocco, by Clarke
& Bedford, £25.
---- On vellum (one of the four known to exist). Dent, part 1, 1827,
£142, 16s.
HORATIUS. Opera. 1470, small folio, first edition, with a date.
Sunderland, £29. The Naples edition of 1474 is called by Dibdin
“the rarest classical volume in the world,” and it was chiefly
to possess this book that Earl Spencer bought the famous library
of the Duke of Cassano.
JUSTINUS. Venetiis, per Nicolaum Jenson, 1470, small folio, first
edition. Mead, £3, 3s.; Askew, £13, 13s. (sold to the British
Museum); Pinelli, £18, 7s. 6d.; Sunderland, £15.
JUVENALIS ET PERSIUS. Editio Princeps. Dr. Askew gave £3 for his
copy; at his sale it was purchased by the British Museum for
thirteen guineas.
LIVIUS. The first edition, printed at Rome by Sweynheym and
Pannartz, as is supposed, in 1469. The only copy printed on
vellum which is known to exist is now in the Grenville Library
(British Museum). It was for years in the possession of the
Benedictine Library at Milan. It was bought by Sykes at J.
Edwards’s sale (1815) for £903. At Sykes’s sale (1824) it was
bought by Payne and Foss for £472, 10s. These booksellers sold
it to Dent, and at Dent’s sale (1827) bought it again for
Grenville for £262, 10s., a remarkable instance of depreciation
in price of a unique book.
The editor of this series contributed an article on this copy to
_The Library_ (vol. i. p. 106). The arms of the Borgia family
are beautifully painted on the first page of the text, and it
has usually been supposed that Cardinal Roderigo Borgia
(afterwards Pope Alexander VI.), to whom it belonged, was Abbot
of the monastery of Subiaco (where the first productions of
Sweynheym and Pannartz were executed) at the time the book was
printed. It is proved in the article, however, that the abbey
was not conferred upon Borgia by Sixtus IV. until 1471, so that
the connection is merely a coincidence. This magnificent volume
was probably executed for Borgia, whose character, as delineated
by Raphael Volaterranus, is evidently imitated from Livy’s
character of Hannibal.
---- Venet. Vindelin de Spira, 1470, two vols. folio, printed on
vellum. Sunderland, £520.
LUCANUS. Pharsalia. Romæ (Sweynheym and Pannartz), 1469, folio; fine
edition, of which only 250 copies were printed. Askew gave £6,
16s. 6d. for his copy, which was bought at his sale by De Bure
for £16; Sunderland, £38.
LUCIANUS. Opera. Florentiæ, 1496, folio, first edition. Askew gave
£2, 12s. 6d. for his copy, which was sold at the sale of his
library for £19, 8s. 6d.; Pinelli, £8, 18s. 6d.; copy on vellum
in the Sunderland library, £59.
MARTIALIS Epigrammata. Ferrara, 1471, quarto, first edition of
Martial, and the first book printed at Ferrara. Mead, £4, 14s.
6d.; Askew, £17; Combes, £60, bought for the Bodleian.
OVIDIUS. Opera. First edition. Mead, £2, 12s. 6d.; Askew, £10, 15s.
---- Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), 1471, three vols. folio, probably
second edition. Sunderland, £85.
---- Venet. in ædibus Aldi, 1502-3, three vols. 8vo, first Aldine
edition. Sunderland, £9; copy on vellum (Askew, £63) sold to
Lord Spencer.
PLATO. Omnia Platonis Opera. Venet. in ædibus Aldi, 1513, folio,
first edition. Sunderland, £31. Copy on vellum, Lord Orford gave
£105 for it; Askew purchased it for one-fifth of that price. At
his sale it was bought by Dr. William Hunter for £52, 10s. It is
now in the library at Glasgow University.
PLINIUS. Venetiis, Joannes de Spira, 1469, first edition. The
British Museum copy was purchased in 1775 for £43; Sunderland,
£82; another copy, £70.
---- Venetiis, Nicolaus Jenson, 1472. The British Museum copy was
bought at Askew’s sale for £23; printed on vellum, Sunderland,
£220.
---- Parmæ, 1476. Sunderland, £7, 15s. Douce gave Payne & Foss three
hundred guineas for his copy on vellum. It is now in the
Bodleian Library.
QUINTILIANUS. Institutionum Oratoriarum lib. xii. Romæ, 1470, folio,
printed on vellum. Sunderland, £290.
---- Institutiones Oratoriæ. Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), circa
1470, folio. Paris library, £26, 5s., now in Cracherode library
(British Museum); Sunderland, £26.
SALLUSTIUS. Venetiis, Vindelin de Spira, 1470, quarto or folio.
Mead, £5, 17s.; Askew, £14, 3s. 6d.; Sunderland, £19, 10s.
SILIUS ITALICUS. Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), 1471, folio, first
edition. Askew gave three guineas for his copy, which was bought
for the British Museum at his sale for £13, 2s. 6d.; Pinelli,
£48; Sunderland, £20, 10s.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Moguntinæ, per Petrum Schoyffer de Gernsheim,
1471, folio, first edition, with a date. Askew gave £4, 14s. 6d.
for his copy, which sold at his sale for £26; Sunderland, £32.
---- Another copy, printed on vellum, sold at the Sunderland sale
for £194.
VIRGILIUS. Romæ (Sweynheym et Pannartz), 1469 (?). Most valuable of
all the first editions. Hopetoun House, 1889, slightly damaged
and slightly wormed, £2000. The previous occasion on which a
copy was sold was at the La Vallière sale, 1784, when an
imperfect copy fetched 4101 francs.
---- Venet. Vindelin de Spira, 1470, folio, first edition with a
date, printed on vellum. A copy sold for twenty-five guineas at
Consul Smith’s sale, 1773; Sunderland, £810. A copy on paper was
sold in 1889. Hopetoun, £590.
---- Venet. in ædibus Aldi, 1501, 8vo, first Aldine edition, and
the first book printed with the italic type invented by Aldus.
Sunderland, £65; copy printed on vellum (Askew, £74, 11s.) now
in the Althorpe library.
ITALIAN CLASSICS
ARIOSTO. Orlando Furioso. Ferrara, 1516, with William Cecil’s (Lord
Burghley) autograph. Sunderland, 1881, £300.
BOCCACCIO. In the catalogue of the Sunderland library (1881) eight
pages are devoted to the description of various editions of his
works. One of these, “De la Ruine des Nobles Hommes et Femmes,”
Bruges Colard Mansion, 1476, realised £920. An imperfect copy of
the celebrated first edition of the “Decameron” (C. Valdarfer,
1471) fetched £585. This was the copy possessed by Lord
Blandford when he bought the complete Roxburghe copy. The
imperfect copy was afterwards sold in the Lakelands sale (W. H.
Crawford) for £230, and is now in the British Museum.
The latter book will always hold a high position in the annals of
bibliography, from the fact that when a perfect copy in the
Roxburghe library was sold in 1812, it was bought by the Marquis
of Blandford after a hard struggle with Earl Spencer for £2260,
the highest price ever paid for a book up to that date, and for
many years afterwards. It had originally been added to the
Roxburghe library at a cost of one hundred guineas. Seven years
afterwards Messrs. Longman bought this same book at the White
Knights sale for £918 for Lord Spencer.
DANTE. First edition of Landino’s Commentary, Firenze, 1481; very
large copy, with twenty rare engravings, purple morocco, by
Lewis. Duke of Hamilton, 1884, £380.
W. H. Crawford, 1891, with the engravings by Bacio Baldini from
designs of Botticelli, £360.
PETRARCA. I Triumphi. Venetia, per Bernardino da Novara, 1488, with
two sets of six illustrations, one on metal and one on wood.
Sunderland, 1882, £1950.
---- Second Aldine edition, printed on vellum, 1514. Hanrott, £73;
Beckford, 1883, £66.
POLIPHILI Hypnerotomachia. Venetiis (Aldus), 1499. Sykes, part 2,
beautiful copy, in yellow morocco by Roger Payne, £21; Watson
Taylor (on vellum), £82, 19s.; Sir C. Price, £53, 10s.; Howell
Wills, £30; Luke Price, £49; Beckford, 1883 (Crozat’s copy, red
morocco, richly tooled), £130; Duke of Hamilton, 1884, £80; Earl
of Crawford, 1887, £86; W. H. Crawford (Lakelands), 1891 (some
of the woodcuts partially coloured, wanting leaf with imprint),
£19; Earl of Ashburnham, 1897 (Emperor Charles V.’s copy, in
stamped calf, with his figure in medallion), £151.
---- Hypnerotomachie, 1561. [French translation.] F. Hockley, 1887,
£8; W. H. Crawford (Lakelands), 1891, £6, 10s.; Earl of
Ashburnham, 1897, £15.
A copy bound with “Le Roy, De la Vicissitude des Choses,” 1577,
in blue morocco, magnificently tooled by Nicolas Eve for Louise
de Lorraine, realised £220 at the Beckford sale, 1897.
An English translation of the first book by R. D. was published
in 1592, which is excessively scarce. Mr. Andrew Lang reprinted
this in Mr. Nutt’s Tudor Library, 1890, from the copy in the
Bodleian Library. There is no copy in the British Museum, and in
the introduction to his reprint Lang tells a story against
himself. He bought at Toovey’s a poor copy of this book for £1,
but shortly afterwards he found that it wanted the last five
pages, and exchanged it for “Les Mémoires de la Reine
Marguerite,” Paris, 1661, in yellow morocco. He regretted his
exchange when he discovered its great rarity. M. Claude Popelin,
who had long been lying in wait for this book, bought this copy
at a London sale-room “à un de ces prix qu’on n’avoue pas à sa
ménagère.”
VIGILLES des Mors. Paris, par A. Verard, printed on vellum, with
thirty miniatures finely illuminated in gold and colours, blue
morocco by De Rome. This copy sold for 150 francs in the La
Vallière sale, for 220 francs in the MacCarthy, and for £20 in
Hibbert’s. In the fourth portion of the Beckford library Mr.
Quaritch bought it for £345.
TRISTAN. Chevalier de la Table Ronde. Two parts in one. Second
edition, by Verard. Fine copy, with rough leaves, morocco super
extra by Thouvenin. Duriez, 560 francs; same copy, Prince of
Essling, 505 francs; same copy, Duke of Hamilton, 1884, £108.
AUGUSTINUS. De Civitate Dei. Venet. Nic. Jenson, on vellum, first
page elaborately painted, and illuminated initials. Sunderland,
1881, £1000--bought by Mr. Quaritch amid shouts of applause.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] F. Norgate, in _The Library_, vol. iii. p. 329.
[55] Dibdin’s “Reminiscences,” vol. i. p. 206 (note).
[56] _Gomecius (Gomez) de rebus gestis a Francisco Ximinis Cisnerio_,
1569, quoted in Dibdin’s “Reminiscences,” vol. i. p. 211.
CHAPTER IX
PRICES OF EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE
No class of books has advanced in value of late years to so great an
extent as the chief examples of old English literature, and of this
class the books printed by our earliest printer, Caxton, stand in a
foremost position. It is proposed in this chapter to give a general idea
of the variations in price of all the books printed by Caxton which have
been sold by public auction. The number attached to each entry is that
given by Mr. Blades in his great work, and it is hoped that few sales of
these books have been left unmentioned.[57]
We learn from Mr. Blades that there was no fixed published price for
these books, but the sellers obtained the best price they could for
them. In 1496 the churchwardens of St. Margaret, Westminster, were
possessed of fifteen copies of “The Golden Legend,” bequeathed by
Caxton. Ten of these took five years to sell. In 1496 one copy was sold
for 6s. 8d., and in 1500 the price had gone down to 5s. In 1510 R.
Johnson, M.D., bought five Caxtons (“Godefroy of Boleyn,” “Eneydos,”
“Faytes of Arms,” “Chastising,” and “Book of Fame”) for a total
expenditure of 6s. 8d. These are now in the University Library,
Cambridge. In the sale of 1678, to which the name of Voetius is
attached, three Caxtons sold for 7s. 10d. At the sale of Secondary
Richard Smith’s library (1682) eleven Caxtons realised £3, 4s. 2d.; at
Dr. Francis Bernard’s sale (1697), ten for £1, 15s. 4d. There were a
considerable number of Caxtons in the Harleian Library, and several of
these were duplicates. They do not appear to have sold very readily, and
they occur in several of Osborne’s catalogues at a fairly uniform price
of one guinea for the folios and 15s. for the quartos. At the Hon. Bryan
Fairfax’s sale (1756) nine Caxtons sold for £33, 4s. At James West’s
sale (1773) the price had considerably advanced, and thirty-four Caxtons
realised £361, 4s. 6d. John Ratcliffe’s forty-eight Caxtons brought
£236, 5s. 6d. At Dr. Richard Farmer’s sale (1798) five sold for £19,
11s. 6d. An astonishing advance in price is found at the Duke of
Roxburghe’s sale (1812), where fourteen fine Caxtons brought £3002, 1s.
At the sale of Stanesby Alchorne’s library in 1813 nine fetched £666,
15s. Ralph Willett’s seven brought in 1813 £1319, 16s. John Towneley’s
nine sold in 1814 for £1127. The Marquis of Blandford’s (White Knights)
eighteen Caxtons brought in 1819 £1316, 12s. 6d. At Watson Taylor’s sale
in 1823 nine brought £319, 14s. 6d.; John Inglis (1826), thirteen for
£431, 15s. 6d.; John Dent (1827), four for £162, 16s. 6d.; George
Hibbert (1829), five for £339, 13s. 6d.; P. A. Hanrott (1833), six for
£180, 16s.; R. Heber (1834), six for £219, 16s.; Thomas Jolley
(1843-51), six for £325, 15s.; E. V. Utterson (1852), three for £116; J.
D. Gardner (1854), seven for £739.
It will be seen from these totals that the present high prices did not
rule at the sales in the middle of the present century.
In 1897 the total for the ten Caxtons in the first portion of the
Ashburnham library reached £5622, and the six in the second portion
fetched £4264.
The following list contains particulars of the sale prices of some of
the chief issues of Caxton’s press:--
_The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_ (1).
Dr. Bernard (1698), 3s.; Bryan Fairfax (1756), £8, 8s. This
perfect copy was bought by Francis Child, and at the sale of
the Earl of Jersey’s library in 1885 it was sold to Mr.
Quaritch for £1820.
J. West’s imperfect copy was sold in 1773 to George III. for
£32, 11s., and it was perfected afterwards.
J. Lloyd of Wygfair (1816), £126. This copy was bought by G.
Hibbert, and at his sale in 1829 J. Wilks bought it for £157,
10s.; at Wilks’s sale in 1847 E. V. Utterson bought it for £165;
at Utterson’s sale in 1852 the Earl of Ashburnham bought it for
£55--not £155, as stated by Blades. This was described in
Hibbert’s and Wilks’s catalogues as having “six whole leaves and
parts of four others supplied in facsimile,” but at Utterson’s
sale it was stated to want no less than forty-seven leaves. At
the Ashburnham sale (part 2), 1897, it was said to want
forty-nine leaves. It fetched £950.
_The Game and Play of the Chess_, first edition (2).
R. Smith (1682), 13s. 2d.; J. West (1773), sold to George III.
for £32, 0s. 6d.; S. Alchorne (1813), £54, 12s.--J. Inglis. J.
Inglis (1826), £31, 10s.--Lord Audley. Lord Audley (1855), £60,
10s.--H. Cunliffe.
White Knights (1819), £36, 15s.--Duke of Devonshire. This copy,
sold for £42, was found on collation after the sale to want
three leaves instead of only two, as stated in the catalogue; it
was therefore returned, and sold for £36, 15s.
Sir H. Mainwaring (1837), £101--J. Holford. This may be the same
copy as R. Smith’s, as it has on a fly-leaf in manuscript, “Ex
dono Thomæ Delves, Baronett, 1682.”
Old Essex library (Lord Petre), 1886, £645--Quaritch (perfect,
excepting only the blanks). Earl of Hardwicke (1888), wanting
the Prologue and three other leaves, £260--Quaritch.
It is necessary to quote from Scott’s “Antiquary” a well-known
passage, because, as Mr. Blades says, “not a single statement is
founded on fact.” The particulars are so circumstantial, that
they have possibly deceived many readers, more especially as
Scott himself vouches for the anecdote as literally true.
“Snuffy Davy bought the ‘Game of Chesse,’ 1474, the first book
ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland for about 2
groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for
£20 and as many books as came to £20 more. Osborne resold this
inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for 60 guineas. At Dr. Askew’s
sale this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its true value,
and was purchased by Royalty itself for one hundred and seventy
pounds.” It may be added that Askew never had a copy.
_Chesse_, second edition (34).
Dr. Bernard’s copy (1698) sold for 1s. 6d.
J. Ratcliffe’s (1776) was bought for £16 by R. Willett; and at
his sale in 1813, the Duke of Devonshire bought it for £173, 5s.
_Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes_ (3).
James (1760), £2, 12s. 6d.--Jacob Bryant. This copy was
presented by Bryant to George III., and made perfect with a few
leaves presented by the Duke of Roxburghe. It was retained by
George IV. when the Kings’ Library was presented to the nation,
and is now at Windsor Castle.
Payne, bookseller (1794), £5, 5s.--sold to the Duke of
Roxburghe, at whose sale in 1812 it fetched £116, 11s. It has
been sold several times since, each time for less money. Among
Lord Spencer’s duplicates (1823), for £73, 10s., to J. Dent; at
Dent’s sale in 1827, for £36, 10s., to P. A. Hanrott; at
Hanrott’s sale in 1833, to the Earl of Ashburnham, for £27.
Second part of Ashburnham sale (1897), £600. Wanting
thirty-three leaves.
G. Watson Taylor (1823), £205, 16s.--Earl Spencer (perfect, and
uncut).
G. Libri (1844), £200 (a perfect and unusually fine copy)--sold
to British Museum.
The copy, slightly imperfect, in the National Library, Paris,
was purchased at Brussels in the early part of the century by M.
de la Serna for 150 francs.
_Les fais du Jason_ (4).
The perfect copy in the National Library, Paris, was purchased
in 1808 by M. de la Serna for 2 louis from a stranger, who had
obtained it for half that sum.
_Propositio Johannis Russell_ (7).
The Althorpe copy formerly belonged to John Brand, and at the
sale of his library the Marquis of Blandford bought it for £2,
5s. At the White Knights sale in 1819 Lord Spencer bought it
for £126. The Earl of Leicester has the only other known copy.
Both copies are perfect.
_Infancia Salvatoris_ (8).
The only existing copy known is in the Royal University
Library, Göttingen. It was from the Harleian Library, and was
purchased from Osborne in 1746 for 15s.
_The History of Jason_ (9).
Richard Smith (1682), 5s. 1d.; Dr. Bernard (1698), 3s. 6d.
J. West’s copy was sold in 1773 for 4 guineas to J. Ratcliffe,
at whose sale in 1776 it fetched £5, 10s.
John Erskine’s copy was bought in 1817 by G. Watson Taylor for
£162, 15s., but at his sale in 1823 it only brought £95, 11s.,
Richard Heber being the purchaser. At Heber’s sale (1834) it was
bought by Payne the bookseller for £87. This uncut copy, which
is the finest known, came afterwards into the possession of the
Earl of Ashburnham. It sold at the second part of the Ashburnham
sale (1897) for £2100.
The White Knights copy (Marquis of Blandford) was sold (1819)
for £85, 1s. At W. S. Higgs’s sale (1831) it was bought by J.
Wilks for £87, 3s., and at his sale (1847) it was bought by J.
Dunn Gardner for £121. This copy was returned as wanting a leaf,
and resold for £105. Gardner bought it afterwards from
Pickering, who had in the meantime supplied the leaf from
another copy. At Gardner’s sale (1854) it was bought for Mr.
Lenox for £105.
_The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers_, first edition (10).
Francis Child bought his imperfect copy at Bryan Fairfax’s sale
(1756) for £6. It was bound with “Moral Proverbs,” and was one
of the copies from the Harleian Library. At the Earl of
Jersey’s sale (1885) it brought £141.
John Ratcliffe’s copy was bought by Ralph Willett in 1776 for 15
guineas, and at his own sale in 1813 it brought £262, 10s.
Sales since the publication of Blades’s book:--Rev. T. Corser
(1868), £100. C. H. Crawford (1876), £87 (Corser’s copy). Duke
of Buccleuch (1889), £650. Earl of Ashburnham, 1897 (one of four
complete copies), £1320--Quaritch.
---- Second edition (28).
James West (1773), £21--George III. John Towneley (1814),
£189--Duke of Devonshire (erroneously described in the
catalogue as “first edition”).
---- Third edition (83).
John Munro (1792), £16, 16s. Dr. Vincent (1816), £99,
15s.--Singer, for Marquis of Blandford. In 1840 some books were
turned out of the Blenheim Library, and sent for sale at
Oxford. The Bodleian Library bought this copy at that sale for
£50. Blades was misled into saying that the Bodleian gave £199,
15s., by the fact, in this copy some irresponsible person has
altered the price it fetched at Vincent’s sale to £199, 15s. by
the addition of the figure 1. Fuller Maitland (1885),
£165--Quaritch (described as a second edition in the catalogue,
three leaves in facsimile).
_Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales_, first edition (12).
J. West (1773), £47, 15s.--George III. J. Ratcliffe (1776), £6.
White Knights supplementary sale (1820), £31, 10s.--T. Payne
(imperfect); not recorded by Blades.
The highest price recorded by Blades is £300, given by Mr. Huth
at Lilly’s sale, 1861. In 1896 two copies (both imperfect) were
sold for over £1000; Mrs. Corbet’s (Barlaston Hall), wanting
nineteen leaves, £1020; R. E. Saunders (wanting only two leaves,
a few wormed, lower margins in Melibeus mended), £1880. Earl of
Ashburnham (1897), £720--Pickering & Chatto (imperfect, also
some leaves from a shorter copy).
---- Second edition (57).
Brand’s imperfect copy (1807) was bought by Heber for 10
guineas; it was sold at his sale in 1834 to the Earl of
Ashburnham for £78, 15s. Lord Ashburnham (1897),
£300--Pickering and Chatto (wanting twenty-eight leaves).
_Boethius de Consolacione Philosophiæ_, translated by Chaucer (25).
B. Worsley (1678), 5s. J. West (1773), £5, 10s.--G. Mason. J.
Ratcliffe (1776), £4, 6s.--George III. S. Alchorne (1813),
bought by the Marquis of Blandford (Spencer duplicate,
imperfect) for £53, 11s.; sold to Watson Taylor, at his sale in
1819, for £22, 11s. 6d.; at Taylor’s sale (£1823) Thorpe bought
it for £13, 5s.
Thorpe bought a copy in old Oxford calf from Browne Willis’s
library, “without the slightest defect or repair,” for £59 in
July 1849, and he sold it in December of the same year for £105.
The Grenville (very fine, clean, and perfect) copy was purchased
for £52, 10s.; Duke of Hamilton (1884), £160 (perfect, stained
and mended); nobleman (Earl of Westmoreland), 1887, £156
(perfect, excepting the blank); Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £510
(two leaves in facsimile).
_Cordyale, or the four last things_ (26).
Osborne (1748), £2, 2s. J. West (1773), £14--W. Hunter.
Stanesby Alchorne bought W. Fletewode’s copy in 1774 for £6,
12s. 6d., and at his sale in 1813 George III. bought it for
£127, 1s. Dr. Valpy’s copy, bought in 1832 by Henry G. Bohn for
£26, 15s. 6d., is not mentioned by Blades; Valpy is said to
have given £87 for it. Earl of Ashburnham (1897),
£760--Pickering & Chatto (wanting eight leaves).
_The Mirrour of the World_, first edition (31).
R. Smith (1682), 5s. F. Child bought Bryan Fairfax’s perfect
copy in 1756 for £3; this was sold to Mr. Quaritch at the Earl
of Jersey’s sale (1885) for £195. J. West had two copies, which
were sold in 1773--a perfect one to George III. for 12 guineas,
and a very imperfect one to Richard Gough for £2, 13s. The
latter sold at Gough’s sale (1810) for £4, 14s. 6d. Mr.
Cracherode’s perfect copy (now in the British Museum) was
bought by him at Ratcliffe’s sale (1776) for £2, 15s. The Duke
of Roxburghe’s fine and perfect copy, for which he gave 9
guineas, was sold at his sale (1812) to the Duke of Devonshire
for £351, 15s.
The following copies (in addition to the Earl of Jersey’s,
mentioned above) have been sold since the publication of Mr.
Blades’s book:--
In 1877 Mr. Quaritch had a copy for sale with a vi, a viii, and
the last leaf in facsimile, which he priced £200.
Sir John Thorold (1884), £335--Quaritch (perfect, excepting the
blanks). Earl of Hardwicke (1888), £60--Quaritch (very
imperfect). W. H. Crawford (1891), £160 (perfect, with the
exception of one blank). Earl of Ashburnham (part 2, 1897), £225
(leaves in facsimile).
_The Mirrour of the World_, second edition (84).
West’s perfect copy was bought by Willett in 1773 for £9, 15s.;
at his sale (1813) it was bought for Lord Spencer for £136,
10s.
A perfect copy, very clean and large, was sold in 1844 with the
library of Calwick Hall, Staffordshire, to Rodd for £41. Thorpe
gave Rodd £94 for it, but sold it to Mr. C. Hurt for £90. At
Hurt’s sale in 1855 Sir William (then Mr.) Tite bought it for
£105. At his sale in 1874 it realised £455.
A perfect copy in the original binding of oak, covered with
stamped leather, and almost uncut, is in the library of the
Baptist College at Bristol, having been presented by A. Gifford,
D.D. It has the following notes on a fly-leaf in Dr. Gifford’s
autograph:--
“Memoranda. Pd. Simco £2 12 6
Another at Mr. Ratcliffe’s
sales to perfect y^s 2 16 0
Repairing and gilding, &c. 0 2 6
------------
5 11 0
Mem. Mr. White gave for another perfect one
at Ratcliffe’s sale £8, 8s.
Mem. 2. No copy of this in Museum.”
The following sales, in addition to Sir William Tite’s,
mentioned above, have taken place since the publication of
Blades’s book:--
Sale at Puttick & Simpson’s (1884)--a very poor copy, wanting
eleven leaves, was sold for £8. Rev. Fuller Russell (1885), £265
(Hibbert’s copy, which sold in 1829 for £36, 4s. 6d.; Hibbert
had given £55, 13s. at the Marquis of Blandford’s sale in 1819).
Hardwicke (Wimpole), 1888, £60 (with “Cicero de Amicitia”). F.
Perkins (1889), £100 (two leaves of Table in MS.). Birket Foster
(1894), £77 (wanting eighteen leaves).
_The History of Reynard the Fox_, first edition (32).
J. Ratcliffe (1776), £5, 10s.--George III. J. Inglis (1826),
£184, 16s.--T. Grenville. J. D. Gardner (1854), £195--Duke of
Newcastle. (All three copies are perfect.)
---- Second edition.
One copy only--that in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge--is
known to exist.
_Tully of Old Age_, etc. (33).
Dr. Bernard (1698), 4s. 2d. Francis Child bought Bryan
Fairfax’s perfect copy in 1756 for 2 guineas. In 1885 this was
sold at the Earl of Jersey’s sale (1885) for £350.
Dr. Askew bought T. Rawlinson’s perfect copy in 1756 for £1,
5s., and at Askew’s sale (1775) Willett gave 13 guineas for it.
At Willett’s sale (1813) it was sold to the Marquis of Blandford
for £210. At the Marquis’s sale (1819) T. Brockett gave £87, 3s.
for it. At Brockett’s sale (1823) Watson Taylor bought it for
£47, 5s. Thorpe bought it at Watson Taylor’s sale (1823) for
£47, 15s. 6d. The “Merly” copy turned up again in 1857, when it
was sold to Mr. F. Huth for £275.
The Duke of Roxburghe’s imperfect copy was bought in 1812 by the
Duke of Devonshire for £115.
Since Blades’s book was published--the Rev. T. Corser (1868),
£96 (“Old Age” only); Mr. Severne (1885), £250 (perfect); Earl
of Crawford (1889), £320 (perfect); Earl of Ashburnham (1897),
£102--Pickering & Chatto (_Declamatio_ only).
_The Chronicles of England_, first edition (39).
R. Smith (1682), 3s. 6d.; Dr. Bernard (1691), 4s.; J. Ratcliffe
(1776), £5, 5s.; S. Alchorne (1813), £63--Duke of Devonshire.
J. Roberts’s copy (1815) was bought for £105 by John Milner, at
whose sale in 1829 W. S. Higgs bought it for £70, 7s.; at
Higgs’s sale (1830) it realised £73, 10s.
The following sales have taken place since the publication of
Blades’s book:--
Mr. Rainy, Bath (1883), £160--British Museum (poor copy, and
imperfect). J. Hirst (1887), £67 (imperfect). Duke of Buccleuch
(1889), £470--Quaritch (perfect, blanks excepted).
_The Chronicles of England_, second edition (43).
Bryan Fairfax’s imperfect copy was sold in 1756 to Francis
Child for £5. In 1885 it sold for £40 at the sale of the Earl
of Jersey’s library.
J. Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy was sold (1776) to George III. for
£4, 5s.
An imperfect copy was bought by the Earl of Ashburnham in 1860
for £180. It was added to the sale after the library of E. A.
Crowninshield, of Boston, U.S., had been brought to England.
This copy, bound in new brown morocco, with “Description of
Britain” (three leaves in facsimile), sold at Lord Ashburnham’s
sale (1897) for £610--Pickering & Chatto.
Mr. Quaritch bought the Duke of Buccleuch’s copy in 1889 for
£45. This was wrongly described in the catalogue as wanting only
“fourteen leaves, of which two are blank,” whereas it not only
wanted the first fourteen printed leaves as well as the two
blanks, but also the last six.
_The Description of Britain_ (40).
J. Towneley’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. in 1814
for £85, 1s.
The Duke of Buccleuch’s copy was bought by Mr. Quaritch in 1889
for £195. It was made up from two imperfect copies, with some
leaves inlaid, but otherwise complete.
_The History of Godfrey of Boloyne_ (42).
R. Smith (1682), 18s. 2d--Earl of Peterborough. Dr. Bernard
(1698), 4s. J. West (1773), £10, 10s.--George III. J. Ratcliffe
(1776), £6, 16s. 6d.--W. Hunter. Dr. Vincent (1816), £215, 5s.,
bought by Singer, but Blades says the Marquis of Blandford;
but Mr. Norgate thinks this is a mistake, as there was no copy
in the White Knights sale. Mr. Holford’s copy and that in the
British Museum were the only known perfect copies until 1884,
when Mr. Quaritch announced in his catalogue (No. 21,842) a
“very fine copy, quite perfect, with all the blanks, and in the
original binding,” priced £1000. Mr. Norgate suggests that this
may be Dr. Vincent’s copy.
_Polycronicon_ (44).
R. Mead (1755), £3, 13s. 6d. Joseph Ames (1760), two copies;
one sold for 7s., and the other for 14s. J. West (1773), £16,
5s. 6d.
There were three copies in Ratcliffe’s sale (1775); one sold for
3s. 3d., another for 2s. 3d., and a third for £5, £5s. 6d.
Heber bought S. Tyssen’s copy in 1801 for £5; at his own sale it
fetched £10, 15s.
The White Knights perfect copy was bought by Payne in 1819 for
£94, 10s. It is now in the Grenville Library. (Blades overlooked
this.)
Dent’s perfect copy was bought by Perkins in 1827 for £103,
19s.; at the latter’s sale (1873) it was bought by Mr. Quaritch
for £365.
Lord Charlemont (1865), £477--Walford (wanting two leaves). This
copy went to New York, and was sold immediately for 6750 dollars
(= about £1380). T. Edwards (1871), wanting seven leaves,
£34--Quaritch. This copy was sold at the Earl of Aylesford’s
sale (1888) for £110, also to Mr. Quaritch. The seven leaves
were supplied in facsimile. Ten were mounted, and a few others
mended.
Sir W. Tite’s copy, with a 2, 3, 4, 8 in facsimile, realised in
1874 £150. Ashburnham copy (1897), wanting forty-six leaves,
£201.
Other copies sold since the publication of Blades’s book were
mere fragments, and only realised small sums.
_The Pilgrimage of the Soul_ (45).
R. Smith (1682), 5s. J. West (1773), £8, 17s. 6d. J. Ratcliffe
(1776), £3, 17s. At the Marquis of Blandford’s sale (1819) Earl
Spencer bought it for £152, 5s. He perfected it with three
leaves from a copy formerly belonging to Heber, and sold it in
1821, when Heber bought it again for £26, 15s. 6d., but at his
sale in 1834 it only realised 18 guineas.
_The Festial_, first edition (47).
J. Ratcliffe had two copies: J. Edwards bought one for £3, 2s.,
and Dr. Farmer the other for £3. In 1796 the latter bought
Herbert’s copy for £2, 2s., and made a perfect copy from the
two. Lord Spencer bought this at Farmer’s sale in 1798 for £5.
---- Second edition (88).
The Duke of Roxburghe’s copy was bought by Earl Spencer for
£105. Only one has occurred for sale since, viz., Rev. E. James
(1854), £27, now in the British Museum.
_Confessio Amantis_ (50).
F. Child bought B. Fairfax’s beautiful and perfect copy for £3
in 1756, and at the Earl of Jersey’s sale in 1885 it realised
£810. It is now in the United States. George III. bought West’s
imperfect and cropped copy for 9 guineas. Topham Beauclerk’s
copy, wanting ten leaves, sold in 1781 for £2, 4s.; in 1881 it
was sold at Mr. G. L. Way’s sale for £77. The Duke of
Roxburghe’s perfect copy was bought by the Duke of Devonshire
for £336.
Willett’s copy has been sold several times, and each time for a
lower price than before. In 1813 the Marquis of Blandford bought
it at Willett’s sale in 1813 for £315. At the White Knights sale
(1819) it was described as “remarkably fine and perfect,” and
was sold to G. Watson Taylor for £205, 16s. On being collated it
was found to want six leaves, and was consequently returned, and
resold to Mr. Watson Taylor for £131, 5s. At his sale in 1823 it
only realised £57, 15s.
W. Haggard (1867), £185 (wanting several leaves). Lord Selsey’s
perfect copy sold in 1872 for £670. H. Perkins (1873), £245 (six
leaves in facsimile). Ashburnham (part 2, 1897), imperfect,
£188.
_The Knight of the Tower_ (51).
R. Smith (1682), 5s. 1d. J. Brand’s perfect copy was bought by
Earl Spencer in 1807 for £111, 6s.
G. Watson Taylor bought the Marquis of Blandford’s perfect copy
(without blanks) in 1819 for £85, 1s. At his sale in 1823 Jolley
bought it for £52, 10s. Rodd bought it for Corser, at Jolley’s
sale in 1843, for £90. At Corser’s sale (1868) Mr. Quaritch
bought it for £560.
_Caton_ (52).
R. Smith (1682),4s. 2d.; Dr. Bernard (1698), 1s. 10d.
The Duke of Devonshire’s fine and perfect copy has the Earl of
Oxford’s autograph--“I bought this book at Edinburgh and paid
for it the price of £3, 3s. to Mr. Alex. Seymmer Bookseller in
the parliament close May 24 1725.” In another hand, “Ex Bib:
Harl: £1, 1s., Feb. 1745.” It was bought from Messrs. Arch for
£105.
The sale of Watson Taylor’s copy (1823) to Barclay for £30, 19s.
6d. is not recorded by Blades.
Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £295--Pickering and Chatto
(imperfect).
_The Golden Legend_, first edition (53).
West’s imperfect copy was bought (1773) by Dr. Hunter for £12,
15s., and is now at Glasgow. Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy was
bought by George III. (1776) for £5, 15s. 6d. The highest price
recorded by Blades at which a copy has sold is £230, bought by
the Duc d’Aumale in 1854 at J. Dunn Gardner’s sale. This copy
wants the last leaf in the Table and Biiij, the latter supplied
in facsimile. Corser’s imperfect copy sold in 1869 for £147. It
is now in the Huth library. W. H. Crawford’s imperfect copy
sold in 1891 for £465.
---- Second edition (66).
There are no records of sales.
---- Third edition (93).
Printed by Wynkyn de Worde.
_The Order of Chivalry_ (56).
J. West (1773), £5, 5s.--G. Mason. J. Ratcliffe (1776), £2,
8s.--George III. (imperfect). Lord Lovat (1852), £55,
10s.--Earl of Ashburnham (imperfect). Lord Ashburnham (1897),
£345--Pickering & Chatto (imperfect).
_Troylus and Creside_ (60).
West’s perfect copy was bought by George III. in 1773 for 10
guineas. Ratcliffe’s large and clean, but imperfect, copy has
been sold several times at very varying prices. Herbert bought
it in 1776 for £2. At Towneley’s sale in 1814 the Marquis of
Blandford bought it for £252, 2s. At the White Knights sale in
1819 Watson Taylor gave £162, 15s. for it. Thomas Grenville
bought it for £66, 3s. at Watson Taylor’s sale in 1823.
_The Life of our Lady_ (61).
Earl Spencer gave £130 for his imperfect copy. The highest sale
price recorded by Blades is £49 for the Duke of Roxburghe’s
copy. The Rev. T. Corser’s imperfect copy, for which he gave
£32 at Utterson’s sale in 1852, sold for £113 in 1868. Sir
William Tite’s very imperfect copy (wanting thirty leaves)
belonged to West, and was bought at his sale by Herbert for £2,
12s. 6d. Tite bought it in 1859 for £41, and at his sale it
sold for £54. The Earl of Devon’s quite perfect copy (with the
blanks) was bought by Mr. Quaritch for £880 in 1883.
_The Noble Histories of King Arthur_ (63).
The only known perfect copy was in the Harleian Library, and
was sold by Osborne in 1748 to Bryan Fairfax for £5. At
Fairfax’s sale in 1756 Francis Child bought it for two guineas
and a half, and in 1885 it was sold at the Earl of Jersey’s
sale to Mr. Quaritch for £1950. It is now in New York.
_The Life of Charles the Great_ (64).
The only known copy which is perfect is now in the King’s
Library, British Museum. Ratcliffe bought it at West’s sale
(1773) for £13, and at Ratcliffe’s sale (1776) George III.
obtained it for 4 guineas.
_The Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne_ (65).
The only known copy, in the King’s Library, is perfect. It was
bought at West’s sale by George III. for £14.
_The Royal Book_ (67).
West’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. for £10.
Gustavus Brander bought Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy in 1777 for
£2, 13s., but at his own sale it only brought 15s. It was sold
in 1864 to Lilly for £62.
The Althorpe perfect and beautiful copy was bought by the
Marquis of Blandford at Louis Goldsmid’s sale (1815) for £85,
1s. At the Marquis’s sale (1819) George Hibbert bought it for
£73, 10s., and at Hibbert’s sale (1829) Lord Spencer obtained it
for £61, 19s.
The Duke of Buccleuch’s copy (wanting a. i, with two very slight
defects, both repaired) is not mentioned by Blades. It was
bought by Mr. Quaritch at the Duke’s sale (1889) for £365.
_Speculum Vitæ Christi_ (70).
West’s copy was bought by Ratcliffe, who had three imperfect
copies; at his sale in 1776 George III. bought one for £3, 3s.,
Dr. Hunter another for the same amount, and the third sold for
£3, 10s. Earl Spencer bought two copies--one at J. Allen’s sale
(1795) for 11 guineas, and the other at the Roxburghe sale for
£45; he completed the latter with two leaves taken from the
former. The duplicate was sold and came into the possession of
Sir Francis Freeling; at his sale in 1836 Mr. Corser bought it
for £25, 10s., and at Corser’s sale (1868) it realised £67.
Two copies are known on vellum---one, in very poor condition, is
in the Royal Library at Windsor; the other, in the British
Museum, was bought in 1864 for £1000.
_The Doctrinal of Sapience_ (71).
The Duke of Devonshire gave £78, 15s. for the Spencer duplicate
(perfect) in Alchorne’s sale (1813). Dawson Turner’s copy
(wanting six leaves) was bought by T. Bateman in 1859 for £28;
at his sale in 1893 it realised £58. Earl of Ashburnham’s copy
(first and last leaf in facsimile), 1897, sold for
£660--Quaritch (for the British Museum). The last Earl gave
£150 for this copy.
_Servitium de Transfiguratione Jhesu Christi_ (73).
The only known copy was bought for the British Museum at a sale
at Puttick’s in 1862 for £200. It was found in a volume of
Theological Tracts presented to the Congregational Library,
Blomfield Street, by Joshua Wilson of Tunbridge Wells in 1831.
_The Fayts of Arms_ (74).
The largest amount paid for a copy at a public sale is £336,
which the Duke of Devonshire gave for the Roxburghe copy (with
a few lines of the last leaf in facsimile).
Bryan Fairfax’s imperfect copy was bought by Francis Child for
£1, 11s. 6d. At the sale of Lord Jersey’s library in 1885 it
sold for £71.
Libri’s perfect, but mended and washed, copy, which he had
bought in very poor condition from Mario the great tenor, was
sold in 1862 to Mr. F. Huth for £255.
Mr. Corser’s perfect copy was bought in 1868 by Mr. Quaritch for
£250.
Sir W. Tite’s copy (with the first two leaves in facsimile) sold
in 1874 for £190. This copy was bought by Tite at the Rev. C.
H. Crauford’s sale in 1854 for £77. Crauford bought it at
Wilks’s sale (1847) for £54.
The Earl of Crawford’s perfect copy, with Table inlaid, sold in
1889 for £235. R. Lindsay, in Philadelphia, had this copy in his
catalogue (June 1893) for £425.
_The History of Blanchardin and Eglantine_ (78).
The only known copy, which is imperfect, is in the Althorpe
library. This copy was bought at Ratcliffe’s sale by G. Mason
for £3, 6s.; at Mason’s sale (1799) the Duke of Roxburghe
bought it for £21. Earl Spencer gave £215, 5s. for it at the
Roxburghe sale.
_Eneydos_ (81).
R. Smith (1682), 3s. Walter Rea (1682), 1s. 6d.
F. Child gave 30s. for B. Fairfax’s perfect copy, which sold at
the Earl of Jersey’s sale (1885) for £235.
Hanrott’s imperfect copy was bought in 1833 by Lord Auckland for
£43, 1s.; at his sale two years afterwards H. Holland bought it
for £24. At Holland’s sale (1860) Mr. H. Huth bought it for £84.
Mr. Quaritch had a copy in 1875 with two leaves in facsimile,
otherwise a fine copy, which he marked £300.
_The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die_ (86).
West’s perfect copy was bought by Ratcliffe for £5, 2s. 6d.; at
Ratcliffe’s sale George III. bought it for 4 guineas.
Mr. C. Tutet’s copy was bought in 1786 by Payne for 2 guineas;
probably this is the perfect copy which Payne sold to the
National Library, Paris, for 10 guineas.
_The Chastising of God’s Children_ (90).
R. Smith (1682). 5s. Dr. Bernard (1698), 1s. 10d. Osborne
(1751), 15s.
The Roxburghe copy (perfect) was bought by Lord Spencer for
£140.
The Earl of Aylesford bought the Marquis of Blandford’s copy
(bound with “Treatise of Love,” No. 91) for £32, 10s., and at
his sale in 1888 it realised £305. F. Perkins (1889), £100.
S. Alchorne’s copy sold in 1813 for £94, 10s.; Valentine’s copy
in 1842 for £5. Blades describes this last in his catalogue list
as Alchorne’s; but this is probably a mistake, as Valentine
bought J. Inglis’s copy (1826) for £17, 10s.
_Sex perelegantissimæ Epistolæ_ (1483).
24 leaves. The only copy known of this tract was discovered in
1874 by Dr. G. Könnecke, archivist of Marburg, in an old volume
of seventeenth-century divinity in the Hecht-Heinean Library at
Halberstadt. The discovery was described by Mr. Blades at the
time in the _Athenæum_ (Feb. 27, 1875). This copy was bought by
the British Museum in 1890 for £250.
Almost as scarce and valuable as Caxtons are the books printed at St.
Albans:--
_The Chronicle of St. Albans_ (circa 1484), the second book printed
at St. Albans, and the first edition of the Chronicle, was sold
at the Earl of Ashburnham’s sale (1897) to Messrs. J. & J.
Leighton for £180. It was imperfect, but no absolutely perfect
copy is known.
In Quaritch’s catalogue, 1884 (No. 355), a copy with five
leaves in facsimile and twenty-two others deficient, was marked
£300.
_The Boke of St. Albans_ (1486), a copy perfected in MS., was sold
at the Roxburghe sale for £147. It was resold at the White
Knights sale for £84. In March 1882 Mr. Quaritch bought it at
Christie’s for 600 guineas. The Grenville copy now in the
British Museum has gone through many vicissitudes, which were
graphically described by Dr. Maitland in 1847. It appears that
at the end of the last century the library of Thonock Hall, in
the parish of Gainsborough, the seat of the Hickman family, was
sorted out by an ignorant person who threw into a condemned
heap all books without covers. A gardener who took an interest
in heraldry begged permission to take home what he liked from
this heap, and he chose among other books _The Book of St.
Albans_. This remained in his cottage till June 1844, when his
son’s widow sold 9 lbs. of books to a pedlar for 9d. The pedlar
sold the lot for 3s. to a chemist in Gainsborough, who was
rather struck by _The Book of St. Albans_, and tried to sell
it, but the neighbours did not wish to buy it. Eventually he
obtained £2, 2s. for it from a man who expected to sell it to
advantage. The purchaser sold it to Stark the bookseller for
£7, 7s. Stark took it to London and sold it to the Right Hon.
Thomas Grenville for seventy or eighty guineas. Mr. Blades
communicated this account to _Notes and Queries_ (3rd Series,
iv. 369).
A copy was sold at the Earl of Ashburnham’s sale (1897), which
was stated to be the Roxburghe copy, completed by the Earl from
another copy. Mr. Quaritch bought this for £385.
Still rarer than this is one of the treatises in a separate form, and
printed in the next century:--
Juliana Barnes’s _Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle_. London:
Wynkyn de Worde (1532). First separate edition, unique.
In the Harleian Library, afterwards in Gulston’s collection,
who sold it to J. Ratcliffe, bought at his sale by White the
bookseller, sold by him to Mr. Haworth, at whose sale it sold
for 19 guineas (unbound). Earl of Ashburnham (1897), green
morocco, £360.
A few prices may now be given of some of the most interesting
publications of the old English press, consisting of the works of poets,
travellers, &c., all of which have greatly increased in value, and will
probably increase still more:--
_King Arthur_, W. Coplande, 1557.
Dent, £20, 9s. 6d., fine copy, in olive morocco by Lewis. H.
Perkins (1873), £120 (same copy).
Bancroft’s (T.) _Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs_, 1639.
_Rare Books and MSS._ (Sotheby, March 1897), fine uncut copy,
£42.
Barnfield’s (Richard) _Encomion of Lady Pecunia_, 1598.
Malone bought Farmer’s copy for 19s. Ouvry (1882), £105.
Bradshaw’s (Henry) _holy lyfe and history of Saynt Werburghe_
(Pynson, 1521, 4^o, pp. 294).
Only three copies known: (1) Gough’s, now in the Bodleian; (2)
Heber’s, sold in 1834 for £19, 5s.; (3) copy in Longman’s
catalogue (Bibl. Anglo-Poetica), 1815, marked £63.
The prices of Caxton’s two editions of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” are
recorded on a previous page of this chapter. Imperfect copies of
Pynson’s first and second editions were marked £25 in Longman’s
catalogue (1815). The first edition (fifty-four leaves inlaid and two
leaves in facsimile) fetched at the Heber sale £60, 18s., and at the
Earl of Ashburnham’s, £233. The second edition (1526) sold at the
Roxburghe sale for £30, 9s., and an imperfect copy at the Ashburnham
sale for £26.
Wynkyn de Worde’s edition is as valuable as a Caxton, and a fine and
perfect copy sold at the Ashburnham sale for £1000.
Cutwode’s (T.) _Caltha Poetarum; or, Bumble Bee_, 1599.
Three copies only known: (1) Malone’s, now in the Bodleian; (2)
Heber’s, from which the Roxburghe Club reprint was made, sold
in 1834 for £3, 18s.; (3) a copy which belonged successively to
Steevens, Caldecott, and Freeling. Steevens’ sale (1800), £2,
12s. 6d.; Freeling (1836), £11, 15s.
According to Ritson, this book “was staid at the press by order
of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London; and such
copies as could be found or were already taken were to be
presently brought to the Bishop of London to be burnt.” Dibdin
gives an amusing account of the Roxburghe Club reprint (1815) in
his “Reminiscences” (vol. i. p. 465, note):--“A bet was laid
(the winner of the bet to give the Roxburghe Club a dinner)
between Sir M. M. Sykes and Mr. Dent whether the anniversary
meeting of 1815 was the third or fourth of the club. Mr. Dent
was the loser, when Mr. Heber promised to present the club with
a reprint of the above poem at the extra dinner in
contemplation. Only nine days intervened, but within that period
the reprint was transcribed, superintended at the press by Mr.
Haslewood (without a single error), bound by Charles Lewis, and
presented to the members on sitting down to dinner. Mr.
Haslewood was reported to have walked in his sleep with a pen in
his hand during the whole period of its preparation.”
Drummond of Hawthornden’s _Forth Feasting_, 1617, bought by Ouvry
at Sotheby’s in 1858 for £8, 15s. (bound in morocco), fetched
£60 at Ouvry’s sale in 1882.
Fabyan’s _Chronicles_ (Pynson, 1516), first edition.
Dr. F. Bernard (1698), 4s. 8d.
Roberts (1815), £84--North. John North (1819), £92. (Perfect.)
Samuel Lysons (1820), £35--Lord Aylesford.
Lord Aylesford (1888), £250--Christie Miller. (Completed by
leaves from another edition.)
Foxe’s _Acts and Monuments_ (John Daye, 1562-63), first edition,
complete.
Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £150.
Frobisher’s _Three Voyages of Discoverie_, 1578, with Keymis’s
_Second Voyage to Guiana_, 1596, in one vol., calf gilt, by
Kalthoeber.
Beckford (1882), £300.
Ouvry’s copy of Frobisher, wanting the maps, sold for £68.
Froissart’s _Cronycles_ (Pynson, 1523-25), two vols. folio.
G. Mason (1798), £36, 15s. Roxburghe (1812), £63. Towneley
(1814), £42 (title of vol. i. a reprint). W. H. Crawford
(Lakelands), 1891, £25.
Hakluyt’s _Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the
English Nation_, 1589, with rare map, fine copy, in pigskin.
Jadis, £26, 5s. Same copy, Duke of Hamilton (1884), £23.
Hariot (T.), _Merveilleux et estrange Rapport_ ... Francofurti,
1590.
Duke of Hamilton (1884), fine copy, in morocco by Lewis, £97.
Linschoten’s _Voyages into the Easte and West Indies_, 1598, maps
and plates from the Dutch edition, title inlaid, and last leaf
mended.
Roxburghe, £10, 15s. Same copy, Beckford (1882), £14. Colonel
Stanley, £22.
Lodge’s (Thomas) _Rosalynde_, 1598.
Longman (1815), £20 (imperfect). Heber, £5, 10s. Ouvry (1882),
£63.
Lok’s (Henry) _Ecclesiastes_ (London: Richard Field, 1597).
Longmans (1815), £28. Sotheby’s (March 1817), £6, 16s. G.
Daniel, £38, 10s.
The first editions of Milton’s works have greatly increased in price.
Not many years ago a copy of the first edition of the “Paradise Lost”
could be obtained for about five pounds, but now a good copy is worth at
least four times as much. The prices vary considerably with the date of
the title-page, of which there are several issues. G. Daniel’s fine copy
sold in 1864 for £28, 10s.
Milton’s _Maske_ (_Comus_), 1637.
Loscombe, £25. G. Daniel, £36.
---- _Poems_, 1645, first edition, with portrait by Marshall.
G. Daniel, £5, 15s. _Rare Books and MSS._ (Sotheby, March
1897), fine uncut copy, £24, 10s.
_Purchas his Pilgrimes_, five vols., 1625-26.
Digby (1680), £3, 5s. 6d. H. Perkins, 1873, fine copy, £86.
Beckford, 1883, fine copy, £63. Earl of Gosford (1884), £82
(crimson morocco). Earl of Crawford (1887), £60.
Rhodes (Hugh), _Boke of Nurture_, 1577.
Steevens (1800), £2, 2s. Longmans (1815), £15.
Ricraft’s _Peculiar Characters of the Oriental Languages_, sm. 4to.
Bindley, £19, 19s. Same copy, bound afterwards in russia extra
by Lewis, who charged £1, 5s. for the binding, sold in Beckford
sale (1883) for £8, 17s. 6d.
Scot’s _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 1584.
Boswell, £3, 3s. Comerford (1881), £25, 10s. (citron morocco).
It is interesting to notice that in the old sales of the seventeenth
century the folios of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson
all sold for about the same price. Those of the first now sell for one
hundred and two hundred times what they brought then, while those of the
second and third do not bring ten times.
Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works, 1647.
Sir Edward Bysshe (1679), 13s. 6d. Smallwood (1684), 8s. A.
Young and others (Puttick’s), 1875, £5. Alfred Crampton (1896),
10 guineas.
Jonson’s (Ben) Works, 1640.
Benj. Worsley (1678), £1, 13s. 6d. Sir Edward Bysshe (1677),
£1, 10s. Lord Bateman (1896), £8, 5s.
Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_, 1590-96, first edition.
Sir Edward Bysshe (1679), 6s. 2d. Lloyd and Raymund (1685), 1s.
Ouvry (1882), £33. Alfred Crampton (1611), 1896, with
additional leaves, £85.
Weever’s _Funeral Monuments_, 1631.
Two copies on large paper in Beckford’s sale, part 4 (1883),
olive morocco, index inlaid, £25; blue morocco, £38.
Wycliffe.
Mr. Addington bought at the Dix sale four unique tracts of
Wycliffe for £400, and expressed his opinion that they would
have been cheap at any price, but at his own sale (1886) they
only realised £133--viz., Crede, &c., £37; Consolation, £27;
Testament of Moyses, £36; Small Prayers to Common People, £33.
_Americana_ is a class of book which has grown enormously in price.
Anything published in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries now fetches a price.
Smith’s _Virginia_, 1624.
Dr. F. Bernard (1698), 4s. 2d. Hunter (1813), £27, 6s.
A large paper copy sold at the Beckford sale (1883) for £605
(dedication copy to the Duchess of Richmond, in old brown
morocco, covered with gold tooling, with the Duchess’s arms
forming the centre ornaments).
Eliot Bible of 1661-63.
Dr. L. Seaman (1676), 19s. Wimpole library (Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke), 1888, £580--Quaritch.
At this Wimpole sale (Christie’s) a volume of twelve tracts of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries relating to America sold
for £555.
A curious incident occurred at Messrs. Sotheby’s in July 1897, during
the sale of the library of Mr. Cyril Dunn Gardner. A volume of Sermons,
which included “A Sermon preached at Plimmoth in New England, Dec. 9,
1621,” was put up, and the biddings, commencing at 5s., were carried on
till £1, 17s. was reached, when the lot was knocked down at that amount.
A dispute arising, it was put up again, and was eventually bought by
Messrs. H. Stevens and Son for £87.
FOOTNOTE:
[57] Mr. Blades has given full particulars of all the sales in his “Life
and Typography of William Caxton” (1863); but there have been many sales
since the publication of his great work, and particulars of these are
given chiefly from two valuable articles, entitled _Caxtoniana_, by Mr.
Frederic Norgate, which were published in _The Library_, Nos. 8 and 9
(August and September 1889). That accurate bibliographer has kindly
allowed the author to see and use his manuscript corrections and
additions to these articles.
CHAPTER X
PRICES OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS
The first edition of Shakespeare’s Plays (folio, 1623) has been rising
in price from the commencement of the nineteenth century; but the
enormous prices now paid do not date further back than 1864, when a
specially fine copy was bought by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts at George
Daniel’s sale for £716, 2s. This amount was paid on account of the
height of the book and of its great beauty, and possibly the
circumstance of the year being the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth
had something to do with it, but this sale had the effect of raising the
price of all copies permanently.
Beloe, writing in 1807 (“Anecdotes,” vol. i. p. 36), said, “Perhaps
there is no book in the English language which has risen so rapidly in
value as the first edition of the works of our great national poet. I
can remember a very fine copy to have been sold for five guineas. I
could once have purchased a superb one for nine guineas.” This statement
can be corroborated; for the Cracherode copy in the British Museum, one
of the few really fine copies, has the price £8, 18s. 6d. marked in it.
Richard Wright’s copy sold in 1787 for £10, Allen’s in 1795 for 18
guineas. Farmer’s copy (wanting title, and with the last leaf in MS.)
sold for £7. Garrick bought his copy from Payne for £1, 16s. Jolley
obtained it at Garrick’s sale in 1823 for £34, 2s. 6d., and at Jolley’s
sale in 1844 it realised £84. Lord Denbigh’s fine copy sold in 1825 for
£89, 5s., and Broadley’s in 1832 for £51; William Combes’s copy (wanting
title-page and all prefatory leaves, but with the text of the Plays
complete) fetched 8 guineas in 1837; Bright’s copy (1845), with title
repaired, verses from another edition, and some leaves inlaid, brought
£31, 10s. The Stowe copy (1849), with verses inlaid, £76; Hawtrey’s
(1853), with some leaves mended, £63. In 1824 Mr. Thorpe the bookseller
advertised a set of the four folios--first, £65; second, 10 guineas;
third, £25; and the fourth, 6 guineas, or the four for £100. About the
same time Mr. Pickering marked a similar set £95.
Copies of the first folio are so constantly sold that one might suppose
it to be a common book, but this may be accounted for by the fact that
they are constantly changing hands. There are only a few copies
absolutely perfect, but others are made up from various copies, or with
pages in facsimile. This makes the most imperfect copies of value,
because they can be used to perfect others.
Dibdin described thirty copies of the first folio in his “Library
Companion,” and these he arranged in three classes. In the first class
he placed three copies, belonging respectively to Mr. Cracherode, the
Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, and Mr. Daniel Moore. The first two are now
in the British Museum, and the third is the Daniel copy, for which
Lilly the bookseller offered £300.
“These have size, condition, and the genuine properties of a true
copy. They are thirteen inches in height, eight and a half in width,
have the true portrait and title-page, with the genuine verses in
the centre of the leaf facing the title-page. They have no spurious
leaves foisted in from other editions.... Of these three copies,
that in the Cracherode collection is the most objectionable, as the
commendatory verses of Ben Jonson, facing the title-page, are,
although genuine, inlaid.”
Mr. Grenville’s copy was bought at Saunders’s sale in 1818 for £121,
16s., which was then thought to be a great sum, and Dibdin makes the
unfortunate prophecy that this was “the highest price ever given, or
likely to be given, for the volume.” Mr. Grenville told Dibdin that an
ancestor of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn possessed an uncut copy of the
first folio. “It was lying on the table in that condition when, in a
luckless moment, a stationer in the neighbourhood of Wynnstay came in.
The book was given to him to be bound, and off went not only the edges,
but half of the margins.” Another piece of vandalism was the inlaying
the leaves of the book and binding them in three volumes. This was
Henderson the actor’s copy, which sold at Reed’s sale for £38. In the
second class were included some very good copies.
“Lord Spencer’s copy had every leaf picked by the experienced hands
of the late George Steevens. The verses opposite are genuine, but
inlaid, and there are many tender leaves throughout. There are also
in the centre of some of the pages a few greasy-looking spots, which
might have originally received the ‘flakes of pie-crust’ in the
servants’ hall, as notified by Steevens.[58] But it is a beautiful
and desirable copy.”
The price mentioned by Steevens is that which the Duke of Roxburghe gave
for his copy in 1790, respecting which Dibdin relates an anecdote that
took his fancy so much, that he tells the story both at the beginning
and at the end of his _Bibliomania_.
“A friend was bidding for him in the sale-room: his Grace had
retired to a distance to view the issue of the contest. Twenty
guineas and more were offered from various quarters for the book: a
slip of paper was handed to the Duke, in which he was requested to
inform his friend whether he was ‘to go on bidding.’ His Grace took
his pencil and wrote underneath, by way of reply--
‘Lay on, Macduff;
And d--d be he who first cries, “Hold, enough!”’
Such a spirit was irresistible, and bore down all opposition. His
Grace retired triumphant, with the book under his arm.”
A rather different version of this story of Nicol’s purchase for the
Duke is given in Martin’s “Privately Printed Books.”
This copy sold at the Roxburghe sale for £100, and is now in the Duke of
Devonshire’s library. Dibdin had a commission from Sir Mark Masterman
Sykes to give £75.
Hibbert’s copy was pronounced by Mr. Amyot to be the best copy he had
seen after those placed in the first class. It belonged to “Dog”
Jennings, and was purchased of Mr. Payne for 70 guineas. At Hibbert’s
sale it fetched 81 guineas, and was resold in 1847 at Wilks’s sale for
£155. It again occurred at Dunn Gardner’s sale (1854), when it was
bought by Mr. H. Huth for £250.
Dent’s copy was a tall copy, identical in measurement with Daniel’s, and
with some rough leaves, but the title and verses were pasted down. It
was bought by H. Perkins for £110, 5s., and at Perkins’s sale it
realised £585, 10s.
John Kemble’s copy was inlaid on large paper, and bound by Mackinlay. It
was purchased by Mr. Boswell for £112, 7s., and at his sale it brought
£105.
In the third class are the following:--
Steevens’s copy was given to him by Jacob Tonson in 1765, and it had
passed through the hands of Theobald and Dr. Johnson, the “latter not
having improved its condition.” It wants the title and portrait, the
latter being supplied by a facsimile drawing by Steevens. The verses are
from the second edition. Dr. Charles Burney bought this at the sale of
Steevens’s library for £22. It is now in the British Museum. Nassau’s
copy was perfect, with the exception that the verses were from the
second edition. It was bought by Mr. Thorpe for £49, 7s.
E. V. Utterson’s copy was fair, with title and portrait mounted, verses
inlaid, and several leaves mended. It sold for £49 in 1852.
Colonel Stanley’s copy was in fair condition, but wanted the original
verses and title-page. It was bought at Stanley’s sale by Mr. North for
£37, 16s., and at North’s sale it realised £39, 18s.
Heber gave 10 guineas for his copy, which wanted verses, list of actors,
&c., title a reprint from the second edition, some leaves stained, and
others mutilated. This sold at Heber’s sale (1834) for £57, 15s.
A copy of the first folio is now looked upon as a necessary addition to
a first-class library, but there was no copy in the libraries of the
Earl of Oxford, Dr. Mead, West, Askew, Crofts, Beauclerk, Heath,
Willett, Bindley, or in the Sunderland or Hamilton Palace libraries.
Mr. Robert Holford is said to have given £250 for his tall copy.
The following is a list of some of the copies which have been sold since
the famous Daniel copy:--
In 1882 Beresford-Hope’s copy, with verses inlaid, title repaired,
in morocco by Clarke, fetched £238; and Ouvry’s sound copy, in red
morocco by Clarke and Bedford, sold for £420.
The Earl of Gosford’s copy, perfect, with title and verses mounted,
and margins of leaves slightly mended, was sold in 1884 for £470.
Hartley’s copy was in poor condition, although very tall (13-3/8 by
8-3/4), title with portrait wanting, page with verses mutilated, and
some leaves mended. It sold in 1887 for £255. Hartley gave £500 for
it to those who had bought it at a knock-out for £75.
The Earl of Aylesford’s copy, wanting title, with verses from second
edition, and five leaves stained, sold in 1888 for £200.
In 1889 F. Perkins’s copy, with title and verses mounted, sold for
£415; and Halliwell Phillipps’s poor copy, with portrait, verses,
preliminary and last leaf in facsimile, for £95.
W. H. Crawford’s imperfect copy, with title, verses, prefatory
matter, and “Cymbeline” reprinted in facsimile, sold in 1891 for
£16, 10s.
In this same year Brayton Ives’s copy, perfect, but rather short,
was sold in New York for 4200 dollars (£840).
Addington’s copy, with verses inlaid, in good condition, but short
(12-5/8 by 8-1/4), fetched £280.
A copy, with title in facsimile, leaf containing verses, last leaf
and a few others mended in the margin, was sold in a sale of Early
English Poetry (Sotheby, 1892) for £208.
Birket Foster’s copy sold in 1894 for £255; and Mr. Toovey’s, with
title and verses in facsimile, for £169.
SECOND FOLIO, 1632.
The most interesting copy of the second folio is in the King’s Library.
It belonged to Dr. Mead, at whose sale it was bought by Askew for £2,
12s. 6d. At Askew’s sale it was bought by Steevens for £5, 10s., an
amount which he styled enormous. At Steevens’s sale this copy was bought
for George III. for eighteen guineas. It formerly belonged to Charles
I., who wrote in it, “Dum spiro spero, C.R.” The King presented it the
night before his execution to Sir Thomas Herbert, who had written, “Ex
dono serenissimi Regis Car. Servo suo Humiliss. T. Herbert.” Steevens
mistook the identity of this Herbert, and wrote, “Sir Thomas Herbert was
Master of the Revels to King Charles the First.” George III. wrote
beneath Steevens’s note, “This is a mistake, he (Sir Thomas Herbert)
having been Groom of the Bed-Chamber to King Charles I., but Sir Henry
Herbert was Master of the Revels.”
Dibdin made the same mistake with respect to this price that he did with
respect to the price of the Grenville first folio. He wrote, “£18,
18s.--the largest sum ever given, or likely to be given, for the book.”
Now in 1895, at the Earl of Orford’s sale, the largest and finest copy
known of the second folio, in the original calf binding, sold for the
enormous sum of £540. This is out of all proportion to the price of the
first folio, and a ridiculous amount to pay for a volume of little
interest by itself, and only of value as one of the four original
editions.
The next largest price realised for a second folio was £148 for Daniel’s
copy, which has some rough leaves, and was bought by Daniel from Thorpe,
who bought it at the Nevill Holt sale for £28, 1s.
The Earl of Aylesford’s copy, with title laid down, and without verses
(13-3/16 in. by 8-3/4 in.) sold in 1888 for £140. Brayton Ives’s perfect
copy was sold in New York in 1891 for 400 dollars (£80). Birket Foster’s
copy sold in 1894 for £56.
It is only lately that such high prices have been obtained for this
edition. The following is a list of some of the prices given at an
earlier date:--
B. Worsley (1678), 16s. Digby (1680), 14s. Richard Wright, M.D.
(1787), £2, 9s. and £1, 6s. Allen (1795), £4, 4s. Stanley (1813),
£13, 2s. 6d. Heber, Part 1, £10, 5s.; Part 4, wanting verses
opposite title-page, and last leaf inlaid, £3, 7s. Valpy (1832),
£18; resold to Broadley (1832), £12, 5s. Stowe (1849), £11, 5s.
_Copies Sold within the Last Twenty-five Years_:--
H. Perkins (1873), £44 (fine copy). Well-known collector
(Sotheby’s), 1880, £12, 15s. (verses from fourth edition printed,
part of title in facsimile reprint). Ouvry (1882), £46.
Beresford-Hope (1882), £35, 10s. (title mended).
Standard English Works (Puttick’s), 1886, £19. F. Perkins (1889),
large copy, but worm-hole through half the volume, £47. W. H.
Crawford (1891), wanting verses, £19, 10s. Smithson and others, 1896
(Puttick’s), £18, 5s. (verses and several pages wanting, and a few
worm-holes). Jack, Halliday, &c. (Sotheby, July 1897), £55 (fine
copy, portrait and verses mended).
Sir Henry Irving gave £100 for Dr. Johnson’s copy of the second
folio, which contains many notes in the margin by Theobald and
Johnson. Osborn the bookseller bought it at Theobald’s death and
presented it to Johnson. Samuel Ireland gave £1 for it at Johnson’s
sale in 1785. It wants title and part of another leaf.[59]
THIRD FOLIO, 1664 (some copies dated 1663).