Sadleir's analysis suggested to him the following probable sequence: a) the private edition, b) copies of the public edition with p. 236 in the same form as it appears in the private edition, c) copies of the public edition with p. 236 blank; and d) copies of the public edition with the complete new version of the text on p. 236.

However, the remnants of the binding preserved at the back of the present first volume — see note below andtop-right image above — are red moiré silk (as opposed to the brown cloth of the public edition), with the side panels and spine ornately blocked with a gilt design and the title within the gilt frame (the spine is rather worn, but legible). This suggests that only some of the twelve private copies were bound in leather, and others, or at least one, were bound in this special silk cloth, gilt extra.

Barham began writing the short pieces making up this series as contributions to his friend and classmate's Bentley's Miscellany. The subject matter was “at first derived from the legendary lore of the author's ancestral locality in Kent, but soon [was] enriched by satires on the topics of the day and subjects of pure invention, or borrowed from history or the ‘Acta Sanctorum’. . . . The success of the ‘Legends’ was pronounced from the first, and when published collectively in 1840 they at once took the high place in humorous literature which they have ever since retained” (DNB).

Provenance: With R.H.D. Barham’s signature as noted above, and with the armorial bookplate of Sir David Lionel Salomons (1851–1925) in each volume.

•  NCBEL, III, 365; Sadleir 156a; Tinker 216 (public edition); Carter, Binding Variants, p.92. Bindings a bit darkened and slightly discolored at extremities, light rubbing to joints, some foxing to the prelims of the first volume, with an old tide-mark in the lower gutter areas of the plates; a tipped-in bookseller's description in the first volume. A very good, very interesting example of a very rare thing.

Click the image to the left for an enlargement.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7830; not in Rosenbach; not in Welsh. Later 19th-century quarter sheep with paper of covers in imitation of treed sheep. Insect damage to leather of front cover with small loss of leather paper. A little rubbing and tiny holes on spine. Some wear to edges and corners. Minor insect damage to first two leaves and small loss of paper in outer margin of one leaf. Ownership signature on front free endpaper. Foxing. (701)

Binding: Half tan cloth and marbled paper sides; round spines with five gilt-ruled raised bands, compartments gilt extra, oxblood-colored gilt-stamped leather title labels and black gilt-stamped leather volume labels. Endpapers done in same marbled paper as binding sides, with all page edges marbled in the same colors and pattern; red and yellow headbands.

•  NCBEL, II, 1101 (for the first printing of Chalmer’s ed.). Bindings as above, leather showing moderate wear with a few abrasions; upper page edges dust-darkened. Each volume with ownership inscription inked on reverse of front free endpaper. Pages mostly clean with occasional instances of age-toning or light spotting.

Adis was a Free Will Baptist but one who sought to distance himself from radical Baptists.

•  ESTC R20288; Wing (rev. ed.) A577.   Removed from a nonce volume; title-leaf and early and final leaves soiled and with some stains. Age-toning. (20804)

Click either image
for an enlargement.

The title is within a typographic border; text is printed in double-column format, in roman type.

•  Palau 2864. 19th-century half sheep with marbled paper sides; binding shows wear. Lower margin of title-leaf and leaves of the preliminaries with minor worming; repaired with pasted-over paper. Some side- and shouldernotes shaved with loss. Sporadic soiling, not severe.

•  ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels. Boards sprung with front joint of vol. I open and separating from bottom, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early inked owner’s name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page, erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some pages; leaves otherwise clean.

Very uncommon: We traceno copies of this to any U.S. library.

• Medina, Mexico, 9842. Sewn, in original marbled paper wrappers, lacking the rear one. Last few leaves with light waterstains and final page with light dust-soiling and a very few red ink spots.

All 16th-century editions are scarce. Via NUC, OCLC and RLIN we locate only this copy of this edition (now deaccessioned) and that at Princeton.

Binding: Contemporary alum-tawed sheep over wooden boards with partially bevelled edges. Elaborately blind-embossed with a roll and a center panel ornament. Front cover with initials “H. S.” and date “1597” in gilt. Rear cover with gilt putti in the areas where initials and the date appear on the front.

Evidence of readership: Marginalia in the prefatory index; very scattered early underscoring.

•  VD16 A969; Goedeke, II, 8. Binding as above, lacking clasps and with old paper spine label; ex-library with bookplate and call number in old, faded, white numbering on spine. Title-page browned and tipped in; loss of paper to fore- and bottom margins of same. Some age-toning to paper and several leaves with natural paper flaws, repaired with archival tissue; three other leaves also with natural paper flaws repaired at time of binding or shortly after printing. Approximately 12 leaves with inkstains, sometimes obscuring text. One leaf (178) with a hole costing a significant loss of text. A marginally acceptable copy as regards text, in a good binding.

We offer a copy of the last of those variants—the decidedly rare Signers’ Edition. Bound in full morocco, it contains two original Bible leaves, one from the Old and one from the New Testament. (The “Colonial Edition” contains only one leaf, from the Old Testament, and it was bound in quarter leather.)

Single-click either image, for an enlargement.

The Old Testament leaf here is from Isaiah (XXV:9–12, XXVI:1–XXVIII:1) and the N.T. leaf is from I Corinthians (VII:1–VIII:7).

Found only here in the Signers’ Edition are a facsimile of Aitken's printing of the Declaration of Independence and a special frontispiece that presents facsimiles of all of the signatures of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Not content merely to double the ordinary offering of Aitken Bible leaves, the Signers' Edition added a special insert on Benjamin Franklin that was to contain a third original leaf—this, from Franklin's 1745 printing of the Confession of Faith. Unfortunately, that leaf was never tipped into this copy—not present, it yet does not seem to have been removed.

All editions of this fine leaf book end with Edwin Grabhorn’s still-notable essay on typography in America at the time of the Revolution.

•  Full crushed morocco. Without the slipcase, and without the leaf from Franklin’s printing of the 1745 Confession of Faith; with some spots to covers and one to one leaf.   Notwithstanding, quite a good copy.

Allen was a famous lexicographer and was co-editor of the Webster's New International Dictionary; his gastronomical dictionary composes about half the volume, with the other sections also consisting largely if not exclusively of arrays of alphabetical entries.

•  Publisher's olive cloth, front cover stamped in dark green and black, spine with title in black; small area of discoloration to lower portion of outer edges,  (22220)

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This sole edition is ornamented with a woodcut printer’s device and a woodcut headpiece and initial; the text is referenced with sidenotes.

Rare: Only two copies traced in the U.S. via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956.

Provenance: Bookplate of Virtue & Cahill Library (the library of Portsmouth’s Catholic Cathedral) no. 8783, with a large overlaid rubber-stamp thereon starkly, blackly noting the dispersal and eventual sale of the library “following enemy action”—the cathedral having been bombed by the Germans in 1941.

•  On Allix, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, I, 334–35. 19th- or early 20th-century half calf over marbled paper, spine with gilt title; edges of leather with a dog’s tooth roll in blind. Leather rubbed, especially on joints and edges. Some soiling and waterstaining, mostly light and most notable on early leaves, with some small wormholes in the margins; a little fine chipping and some shallow dog-ears. Old inked ownership inscription on title-page, crossed out but still legible.