Prices of Books: An Inquiry into the Changes in the Price of Books which have occurred in England at different PeriodsWheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
History
Prices of Books: An Inquiry into the Changes in the Price of Books which have occurred in England at different Periods
Wheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
Books -- Prices -- History
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]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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