Scribleriana Transferred: Manuscripts and Books at Auction and in Dealer’s Catalogues, 2002–2003

Abstract

172 Mr. Bennett’s learning can be garnered from the discussion of the enterprise of the Noble brothers, whose circulating libraries of novels and other popular literature were a primary provincial outlet for such works in the period between 1740 and 1780. There are also discussions of Scottish, Irish, and continental bindings, and a concluding chapter on ‘‘deluxe bindings,’’ once again tending toward the primary argument: not even these expensive bindings were uniformly ‘‘bespoke’’; many were bound prior to sale, and offered as gift books—books designed, one can assume, to ornament many a tea table. One would perhaps have liked some discussion of books printed with subscription lists, whether bindings for subscribers were given any special consideration by printers or book-sellers, separately designed or simply cast with the general sale. That is, however, the only question that came to mind as still unanswered; when a modern work of scholarship can satisfy all but one question , it is a book worthy of purchase. Melvyn New University of Florida SCRIBLERIANA TRANSFERRED: MANUSCRIPTS AND BOOKS AT AUCTION AND IN DEALER’S CATALOGUES, 2002–2003 by James E. May • Sotheby’s on 10 July 2003 offered ‘‘a complete set of the ‘Great Books’ of Lady Anne Clifford,’’ containing family histories with transcripts of wills and other documents from the 1200s onward as well as her autobiography; three large folios of c. 890 pp. (well illustrated by Sotheby’s). ThebooksweresoldprivatelytotheCumbriaRecord Office, Kendal. Most noteworthy are c. 70 pp. with ‘‘autograph corrections or annotations by Lady Anne Clifford herself,’’ especially to her autobiography—thus Sotheby ’s calls this ‘‘an authoritative text of the earliest known female autobiography in English,’’ dating the fair copy 1649–1652, ‘‘with additions up to 1675 in Lady Anne’s lifetime and subsequent additions up to 1734.’’ • Still available from Edwards’s 25 is an autograph receipt signed by Sir Godfrey Kneller: ‘‘ye 20 of June 1689. Receved for Madam Allintons picture and Gild fraem 14 pds in full by me G Kneller,’’ 20 June 1689, in pencil on an oblong sheet. Edwards thinks the sitter was Diana, Lady Allington (d. 1701), daughter of the first Duke of Bedford and wife of Lord Allington of Killard. • Christie’s sale of the 17th Earl of Perth’s library on 20 November 2003, important for Scottish and Jacobean tracts and MSS, included many books bound for royalty. Among the last was Rider’s British Merlin for the Year . . . 1762 in red morocco gilt, with royal ciphers, including ‘‘G. R.’’ bosses on the cover. In the copy is the endearing inscription from King George III to Jane Moore, housekeeper at St. JamesPalace:‘‘This almanac was given you on Wednesday the 17th of Feb. as a small token of the sincere love & friendship I bear you. Yours till death, G. R.’’ • On 17 May 2002 Sotheby’s sold to a private buyer for £5975 a MS of Handel’s Chandos anthem (‘‘I will magnifie thee O God’’), c. 1760, 80 pp. 4to, in the hand of an early English scribe, witheditorialannotationsandremarkstotheprinterbyFriedrich Chrysander for his German Handel Society edition. 173 • On 6 Dec. 2002, Sotheby’s also sold Handel’s full scores of four Coronation Anthems for George II in 1727 (‘‘Let thy Hand be Strengthened,’’ ‘‘Zadock the Priest,’’ ‘‘The King shall rejoyce,’’and ‘‘My heart is inditing,’’HWV 258–61), in a scribalhand, 150 pp., folio (£21,000). The catalogue calls this ‘‘one of the earliest surviving manuscripts . . . probably transcribed from Handel’s conducting score.’’ It is not recorded in the Handel-Handbuch. • From Quaritch’s Spring 2002 English list,MagdaleneCollege,Cambridge,acquired Henry Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus, Books I (1698), Wing P4218, and II (1702), a posthumous collection of vocal music, bound together with Dryden’s An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell . . . the Words by Mr. Dryden, and sett to Musick by Dr. Blow (1696), Wing D2321, folios, with W. A. Foyle’s booklabel. Dryden’s ode is found in Vol. I of Purcell with a note referring to the third item here, which might ‘‘be bound up with this Collection.’’ • Vassar was given a two-volume 4to nonce collection of Dryden, with Of Dramatick Poesie(1669), 1st ed., andalltwentyplaysthatDrydenpublished1668...