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EARLY LITHOGRAPHY LIBRARY CATALOGUE

DARLING, James. Catalogue of books belonging to Sir William Heathcote, baronet, at Hursley Park, in the county of southampton.

James Darling, Bookseller, 22 little Queen Stret. Lincolns Inn Fields, 1834. First edition.
Quarto. viii, 154pp, [2]. With terminal blank. Original publisher's blind-tooled green textured cloth, titled in gilt to spine. Rubbed, with spine panel lacking the top half, and the remainder split from lower joint, bumping to corners and slightly, slightly marked. Ink-staining to fore- edge. Presentation copy, inscribed to 'The Honble. Mr Justice Coleridge' at Hursley in 1839, by William Heathcote to verso of FFEP.
One of the earliest examples of a library catalogue completed in manuscript (by Edinburgh born bookseller and bibliographer James Darling (1797-1862)) and then reproduced entirely in lithography. Divided into headings and then ordered alphabetically, it also lists the press and shelf marks where the volumes were to be found. No printed edition of the catalogue existed until 1865.

The country house library from which this catalogue was compiled, owned by Sir William Heathcote at Hursley Park, is of a scale and variety sufficient to haunt the waking dreams of every antiquarian bookseller. Included amongst the thousands of volumes listed are a first edition of Newton's Principia (1687), a third Folio (1663 - 'this copy is in fine preservation, superbly bound, and possesses the scarce title containing the portrait of Shakespeare'), and Ogilby's America (1671), alongside contemporary publications such as the first collected edition of Jane Austen's works (1833).

OCLC and locate seven copies worldwide (BL, Cambridge, Columbia, Folger, Grolier Club, Virginia and the Dutch Royal Library); COPAC adds four more (Canterbury Cathedral, NT, Oxford and Winchester College).
£ 950.00 Antiquates Ref: 24960