Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge (London)

(25 cm), iv, 72 pp., [8] leaves of plates (3 folded). 211 lots. Publisher’s yellow printed wrappers. - These books and manuscripts had been collected by the eighth Earl of Pembroke (1655-1733), and were catalogued by Thomas Dampier, Bishop of Ely, in 1776. Nearly every one of the 211 lots is of great rarity and interest. The block book “Apocalypsis Sanctis Johannis” sold for £2120 to Quaritch (for Charles Fairfax Murray; now Pierpont Morgan Library, 21786); the 1459 Rationale divinorum officiorum sold for £1950 (Olschki); the 1486 “Boke of Seynt Albans” realised £1800 (G.D. Smith); a 15th century manuscript of Ptolemy’s Geographia made £1850 (Hiersemann); and the 1472 Jenson Macrobius on vellum sold for £1600 (Quaritch). The sale total was £38,938. A very large number of books – 55 of the 105 lots offered on the first day, alone – was bought the New York bookseller George D. Smith (1870-1920). Smith subsequently sold his Pembroke Library purchases en bloc to Henry E. Huntington, for $115,000. Cf. Donald C. Dickinson, “Mr. Huntington and Mr. Smith” in The Book Collector, volume 37 (1988), pp.367-393. ¶ Unmarked copy.