[Rarebooks] fa: (BOOKS ON BOOKS) Factotum: Newsletter of the 18th-Century STC - 37 Issues 1978-95

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 25. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y6juu7vd

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Factotum. Newsletter of the XVIIIth Century STC. London: British Library Reference Division, 1978-1995. Thirty-seven issues, small folio (33 cm; 11 3/4 in), mostly in wraps; illustrated. Comprising nos. 1-14, 16-18, 20, 21, 23, 24-30, 31-33, 35, 36, 38, 39, plus 3 indexes. Housed in a stiff paper slipcase with typed paper spine label.

An incomplete run of the first thirty-nine numbers, or issues, of the newsletter. Seven of the first eight numbers are loose leaves stapled together (as issued?), the first number being mimeographed; the rest are in printed and illustrated wraps. Some spines and a couple of the covers a little sunned/toned, penciled shelving numbers to the margins of the front covers, very occasional markings to the leaves, else clean and sound, most of the issues appear to be unread.

A lively, scholarly, witty and well-illustrated monthly "designed to give news of the activities and progress of the British Library team  which is cataloguing the XVIIIth century books in the library [later known as the E.S.T.C.]. It is intended for circulation to all those who are interested in the project, and more particularly those librarians who are giving practical assistance by contributing catalogue entries for the books in their own libraries."

A fascinating resource for anyone interested in eighteenth-century book culture, with articles on authors, illustrators, printers and publishers, provincial presses, libraries, book auctions, book collectors, booksellers and the book trade, points of issue, attributions of authorship, false imprints and piracies, fingerprints, ballads and broadsides, pamphlets, ephemera, manuscripts, marginalia, etc., etc. Profusely illustrated with reproductions of title pages, printers' devices, broadsides, satirical cartoons, advertisements, ornaments, engravings, etc.