[Rarebooks] fa: CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS - OPERA - Birmingham: BASKERVILLE 1772

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 29. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y93zryy8

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Gaius Valerius Catullus; Albius Tibullus; Sextus Propertius:] Catulli, Tibulli, et Propertii : Opera. Birminghamiae [Birmingham]: typis Johannis Baskerville, MDCCLXXII [1772]. First edition. Tall 4to (29.5 cm) in early/period calf, rebacked in later calf with raised bands and gilt lettering, endpapers refreshed, all page edges gilt; [2], 200, 221-372 pp. (as per ESTC, pp. 201-220 are omitted in the pagination but the register is continuous). Gaskell 44; ESTC T6260.

The large quarto edition of the Opera, from the legendary press of English printer and publisher John Baskerville, who also issued a smaller (12mo) edition in the same year. The title-page bears the tidy signature of T. Clifford Allbutt, presumably Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, who has also contributed some equally tidy marginal commentary to several leaves in the first part of the book (Catullus). Allbutt (1836-1925) was a prominent English physician, president of the British Medical Association, co-founder of the History of Medicine Society, Commissioner for Lunacy in England and Wales, and the inventor of the clinical thermometer. Binding with some rubbing and modest scuffing to the original boards; browning to the title-page and the last page of text; contents with a hint of toning to the edges, a few other marginal markings, a very few occasional faint spots and touches of soiling, else quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Front paste-down with the bookplate of noted English bibliophile Charles Benson.