catalogue valuable extensive library second (4 Ergebnisse)

Hardcover. Small 4to. Black pebble-grain calf boards with old but neat and strong black cloth tape spine added. 319pp. Very good. Same old but neat and strong black cloth tape to inner hinges; small ownership name inkstamped on title page and circular blind-embossed ownership imprint on "Index of Days of Sale" leaf. Second volume (only) of this three-part auction catalogue, tight and attractive despite homespun spine. Gibson Craig (1799-1886) was a Scottish solicitor but is remembered as a devoted antiquarian who built a substantial book collection. This second portion ran for fifteen sessions, beginning March 23rd and concluding April 16th. The catalogue contains 5,364 items and the original owner of this copy may have attended all fifteen, for a small price has been lightly pencilled alongside all 5,364 items. Tipped to front flyleaf is a 4 3/4" X 7½" publisher's announcement for the deluxe edition of this same catalogue (limited to 100 copies, bound by Zaehnsdorf).

Auction Catalogue. Day of sale 17th October. London, Sotheby 1960. 98 S., 26 Taf., schöner Lederband. Sehr gutes Exemplar.

[ii],72pp., cont. quarter morocco, slightly worn, 953 lots.

Large 8vo (237 x 148 mm), [10], 391, [1]pp., frontispiece of the Abbey (lightly spotted), cont. half black morocco, sometime rebacked with original spine laid-down, upper joint starting, corners rubbed. Mounting debts and shrinking asserts continued to plague Beckford during his final years in residence at Fonthill Abbey. Beckford was finally compelled to sell Fonthill Abbey to John Farquhar for £300,000 in 1822. Farquhar, motivated more by speculation than genuine interest in the valuable contents of the Abbey, put the collection, including books and manuscripts, up for auction the following year. Thus the Beckford collection herein described (3960 lots) was actually sold by Farquhar. The catalogues are paged continuously (391pp.) but the parts are rearranged in binding to follow the chronological order of sales. De Ricci, p.84; Fletcher, p.317-24.