[Rarebooks] fa: JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL (Book Thief) re. CAMDEN SOCIETY 1839 - INSCRIBED

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 14. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y5h3jodx

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

James Orchard Halliwell: Letter the the Right Honourable Lord Francis Egerton, President of the Camden Society, on the Propriety of Confining the Efforts of that Body to the Illustration of a Strictly Early Period of History and Literature. London: James Bohn, 1839. Stitch-bound pamphlet, 8vo (22 cm), 14 + [2] pp. Toning and wear to the top edge of the leaves, else clean and sound.

Presentation copy, with a signed inscription by Halliwell: "To the Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, Portugal, with the kind regard of the author." James Orchard Halliwell (1820-1889) was a noted antiquarian, Shakespeare scholar, and collector of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. He is perhaps best remembered, however, as a book thief. Though never prosecuted, he was widely suspected of having stolen valuable manuscripts from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a 1603 Hamlet quarto from the collection of his patron, the famous bibliomaniac Sir Thomas Phillipps. For this, he was banned from the British Museum, and Phillipps, with whose daughter Halliwell had eloped, refused to ever see him (or his daughter) again. Halliwell was also notorious for cutting up old books and pasting his favorite bits into scrapbooks. "During his life he destroyed eight hundred books and made thirty-six hundred scraps" (Wikipedia). The Camden Society was dedicated to the study and promulgation of early historical and literary material. It was merged into the Royal Historical Society in 1897.