Provenance: The front fly-leaf bears an inked inscription reading “From this Book our 4 Dear Children were Babtized [sic] by the Rev. S. Good, Rector of St. Anns Blk. Friars, And afterwards Christened by their Dear Uncle the Rev. Charles Brown, Rector of Whitestone, near Exeter, Devon.” The children's baptismal dates range from 1806 through 1814.

•  ESTC T93069; Griffiths, Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer, 1791/7. Binding as above, leather slightly worn over joints and extremities. Front fly-leaf with collector's small bookplate, reverse with inscription as above, title-page with owner's name and date (1806) inked in upper margin. Pages clean.

•  Publisher's cream paper–covered sides, spine with title stamped in black; ex-library with covers stained and front one bearing an inked numeral (though all strong). Front pastedown with institutional bookplate; title-page pressure-stamped; first text page with rubber-stamped numeral in lower margin; back pastedown with pocket; upper edges rubber-stamped, front fly-leaf with paper adhesion. Yet, all that said, pages clean and the project a loving one.  (23609)

•  Brunet, II, 1119; Darlow & Moule 4560. Recent period-style full morocco, framed and panelled in blind rolls with blind-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments (signed by Grace Bindings in blind at inner area of rear cover, lower turn-in). Lower margin of title-page with a defunct library’s old presentation rubber-stamp. A few instances of light foxing, most pages clean and the margins beautifully wide.

The complete Oxford editions are generally seen bound as seven volumes, but the work appears here as one very large volume, in an attractive contemporary binding.

•  NSTC 2H39552. Contemporary diced dark blue/black calf, covers framed in blind rolls and single gilt fillet, gilt spine extra; slight wear to corners and extremities, joints just starting at top and bottom. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate and with institutional bookplate. Pages clean. All edges marbled. Handsome!

Binding:  Vellum over paste boards; covers ruled in deep blue and stamped with gilt coat of arms of the Earl of Aylesford (motto: “Aperto vivere voto”), spines with gracefully gilt-stamped blue leather title-labels. Marbled endpapers. Blue silk placemarkers.

•  Brunet, II, 1097; Dibdin, I, 532–33; Graesse, II, 519; Schweiger, I, 115.   Bindings as above, moderate soiling to vellum, joints unobtrusively strengthened with cloth from the inside. Signs of card pockets once present and shadows of pencilled numerals on title-pages; Aylesford bookplates as above; three volumes only, of four (see above), with Greek portion complete. An attractive, even luxurious example of “Clarendon Press Greek.”  (23262)

•  ESTC T22250; Foxon E519; NCBEL, II, 547. Recent marbled-paper wrappers, front wrapper with paper label. One page stamped by a now-defunct institution. Some early inked marginalia, one page with first few letters of each line hand-supplied where the printer erred. First and last pages with extremely light foxing.

Norris was a fellow of All-Souls college in Oxford, and an engraved vignette of the Sheldonian Theatre graces this title-page.

Evidence of readership: Pages 175–87 display inked-in marks of emphasis and chapter-verse citations for Norris's Biblical quotations. Unfortunately the contemporary title-page ownership inscriptions have been obliterated, so we cannot readily guess whose these might have been!

•  Wing (rev. ed.) N1248; ESTC R14992.   Contemporary calf binding, entirely plain spine and decorative blind corner-devices to covers. Leather pulled at spine extremities, with loss; joints cracked and chipped; boards a little rubbed and corners bumped. Ex-library with bookplate, rubber-stamp, and pencilled notations. Inked ownership inscription on title-page inked out of old and another inscription scratched out in two places entirely through the paper — paper carefully restored afterward. Pages 183–89 are cancels. An occasional small old wormhole; some age-toning to paper. A good complete copy. (21265)

The text is written in one column of 50 lines on the recto and 51 lines on the verso. The leaf is faintly ruled in lead on the verso only, the impression of the ruling showing on the recto, the top line of text being above the top line of ruling; on the right edge of the page are double rules enclosing the first letter of each line. On the outer edge are prickings for the ruling. The left edge of the recto has directions to the rubricator, the explicits of each section being done in darker ink in a different hand. One line on the verso has been crossed out with a single thin line of ink. At the bottom of the verso is the quire number VIII and remnants of a catchword can just be seen at right on the bottom edge. English manuscripts from this period are rare.

Provenance: Ex–Zion Research Foundation (later known as the Endowment for Biblical Research); very likely to Zion from Ege.

•  Judith, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular, 18, f. 9. A small hole in the lower margin. Parchment a little soiled, especially on the hair side, as is not unusual with English vellum. Traces of adhesive from mounting on the corners of the verso.

•  Contemporary blue morocco, covers framed in single gilt fillet, spine with gilt-stamped author, title, and date; spine slightly darkened, with minor rubbing to the front joint. Wide turn-ins, gilt-ruled, and all edges gilt.

Single-click the image, for an enlargement.

The volume’s engraved title-page shows Ancients in a library and the main title-page has a vignette engraving of the Sheldonian Theatre. The text is printed in roman, italic, and Anglo-Saxon type, in double-column format.

•  Alston, III, 9; ESTC T101265. Not in O’Neill. Contemporary calf, modestly tooled in blind on covers and spine plain (without label); abraded of old, binding now well refurbished and with joints strengthened. Endpapers gone and early/late blank leaves with off-setting/tattering from exposed leather of turn-ins. Pages a little darkened top and bottom; the odd spot or stain; a nice old book.

The term I (DMS) use to characterize the printing of this edition is “glorious.” It offers good paper, excellent type, fine page composition. The text of Theocritus is in Greek with the notes in Greek and Latin and the Life is in Latin with Greek passages. It is a pleasure in the hand and to the eye.

Binding:  18th-century armorial binding of the Earls of Aylesford. Vellum over paste boards; covers ruled in deep sea blue with gilt armorial supra-libros. Spines bear fine title-labels of the same deep blue, created by gilt-ruling the vellum with Greek key and other rolls, then filling those frames with the color and gilt-lettering the author, editor, and volume number upon the resultant field. Marbled endpapers. Pink silk placemarkers.

Provenance:  Bookplates of the Earl of Aylesford (likely Charles Wightwick Finch, the eighth Earl) on verso of each front free endpaper.

•  Dibdin,II, 488–92; Schweiger I, 311.   Binding as above; joints split sometime ago and now strengthened with linen cloth from below. Once in a library, with remnants of card pockets on rear free endpaper rectos and signs of a pencilled shelf-mark erased from title-pages; no stamps or other abuse. A very handsome duet of books.  (21564)

•  This ed. not in NSTC. Removed from a nonce volume. Pages age-toned; one leaf with outer margin cropped closely. (16768)

•  Garrison B15. Publisher’s printed paper–covered boards, darkened, most notably over spine. Front free endpaper with pencilled owner’s name. Pages slightly age-toned.

Oxford

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 39807; Smith, Americans Abroad, W66. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spines with printed paper labels; darkened and worn, vol. I with covers detached and paper cracked over spine, vol. II with front joint open though presently holding Front pastedowns with bookplates of the Salem Library Company; vol. I with early inked inscriptions to endpapers and half-title. Light to moderate foxing, no other stains.