Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical RomanceDibdin, Thomas Frognall
History
Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance
Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
Bibliography; Bibliomania; Book collecting; Books -- Prices
antiquity of signatures, catchwords, and numerals; and is
enriched with a number of plates of watermarks of the paper
in ancient books. This catalogue, which is rarely seen in
our own country, is well worth a place in any library. It is
a pity the typographical execution of it is so very
indifferent. For the credit of a bibliographical taste, I
hope there were a few copies struck off upon LARGE
PAPER.----SION COLLEGE. _Catalogus universalis librorum
omnium in Bibliotheca Collegii Sionii apud Londinenses_;
Londini, 1650, 4to. _Ejusdem Collegii librorum Catalogus,
&c., Cura Reading_, Lond., 1724, fol. As the first of these
catalogues (of a collection which contains some very curious
and generally unknown volumes) was published before the
great fire of London happened, there will be found some
books in it which were afterwards consumed, and therefore
not described in the subsequent impression of 1724. This
latter, which Tom Osborne, the bookseller, would have called
a "pompous volume," is absolutely requisite to the
bibliographer: but both impressions should be procured, if
possible. The folio edition is common and cheap.----SMITH
[CONSUL]. _Bibliotheca Smithiana, seu Catalogus Librorum
D.J. Smithii Angli, per cognomina Authorum dispositus._
Venetiis, 1755, 4to. _A Catalogue of the curious, elegant,
and very valuable library of Joseph Smith, Esq., His
Britannic Majesty's Consul at Venice, lately deceased_,
1773, 8vo. These are the catalogues of the collections of
books occasionally formed at Venice, by Mr. Joseph Smith,
during his consulship there. The quarto impression contains
a description of the books which were purchased "en masse"
by his present majesty. It is singularly well executed by
Paschali, comprehending, by way of an appendix, the prefaces
to those volumes in the collection which were printed in the
fifteenth century. I possess a brochure of 71 pages,
containing a catalogue of books printed in the fifteenth
century, which has Consul Smith's arms at the beginning,
and, at the end, this subscription, "Pretiosissima haec
librorum collectio, cujusvis magni principis Bibliotheca
dignissima, constat voluminibus ccxlviii." The title-page
has no date. I suspect it to be the same catalogue of books
which is noticed at p. 77, ante, and which probably the
Consul bought: forming the greater part of his own library
of early printed books. See too the _Bibliogr. Miscellany_,
vol. ii., 72. The collection of 1773 was sold by auction,
for Mr. Robson, by Messrs. Baker and Leigh--and a fine one
it was. Among these books, the Spira Virgil of 1470, printed
UPON VELLUM, was purchased for _only twenty-five guineas_!
Excidat ille dies aevo--ne postera credant
Saecula--!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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