His Most Important Prospectus

DIBDIN, Thomas Frognall.

Book Rarities; or a Descriptive Catalogue of some of the most Curious, Rare, and Valuable Books of Early Date; chiefly in the Collection of the Right Honourable George John Earl Spencer, K.G. &c. &c. &c.

Three facsimile illus. in the text. iv, 34 pp. 8vo, cont. red half-morocco & brown drab boards, sides ruled in blind, spine lettered in gilt, a.e.g. London: Printed by W. Bulmer, 1811.

First edition, limited to 36 copies only (so printed on the half-title), and a presentation copy, inscribed on the free front endpaper “With the Author’s respectful Compts.” This is the very rare specimen of what was to ultimately become the great catalogue of the Spencer Collection, published as the Bibliotheca Spenceriana (1814-15) in four volumes with three volumes of supplements appearing in 1822-23. In the rather charming “Address” which serves as the introduction, Dibdin asks for corrections to be pointed out to him “over a home-cook’d beaf-steak, lightly sprinkled with snow-white horse-radish, and flanked with the best lettuce my garden can bestow.”

A fine and lovely copy. Armorial bookplate, apparently of the Eliot family (their motto: “Credunt quod vident”), and the leather bookplate of Howard Lehman Goodhart, one of Dr. Rosenbach’s good clients and father of Phyllis Goodhart Gordan.

❧ Windle & Pippin A17–“It may not be exaggerating to add that this was the most important prospectus of the many ‘fliers’ that Dibdin put abroad in his long career.” Jackson 28.

Price: $17,500.00

Item ID: 5282