Birrell & Garnett Ltd (London)
Pollard ([Henry] Graham), 1903-1976, compiler

(28.5 cm), vii (5), 107 (1) pp., illustrations. Publisher’s light brown printed wrappers. - A faultless copy of the original edition, limited to 1750 copies on ordinary paper and 75 on special paper, printed by Walter Lewis at the University Press in Cambridge. “This is far more than a bookseller’s catalogue. It was and still is a pioneer disquisition on the history of type-specimens and type-design with valuable historical notes on each example listed. A first-rate reference-work” (E.P. Goldschmidt, in his Catalogue 95, p.63 item 371). A reprint was published at Brighton: Tony Appleton, 1972 (edition of 500 copies). ¶ Loosely inserted is a typed letter from Terry Belanger to Robin Halwas, dated 12 May 1981, with appended Ms note by Esther Potter, dated 3 June 1982, the latter writing: “After Birrell & Garnett was wound up Graham was left with a pile of these catalogues and he occasionally sold the odd copy to the trade. When the pile was exhausted, Tony Appleton, with Graham’s permission produced a facsimile edition. And then Graham, to his great embarrassment found an unopened packet of the originals in the attic at Barton”. In Belanger’s letter, he recounts that Michael Turner (Pollard’s literary executor) had given Belanger four such copies, of which this is one.