FIRST FOLIOS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1923, Page 3

FIRST FOLIOS

SPLENDOURS OF BINTING

LORD CARYSFORT'S BIBLES AND

CAXTONS.

One of the holy wonders of the world is assuredly the printing from movable metal Gothic types of the first Latin Vulgate Bible, issued from Gutenberg's press at Mentz between 1453 and 1455, and on 2nd July, at Sotheby's, the last but one of tho perfect copies of this Father of Bibles remaining in private hands in this country was to be publicly sold, says a recent file of the "Daily Telegraph." The collecting eagles of the world are already beginning to assemble; Mr. Philip Rosenbach having arrived frcm New York in anticipation of the thrilling event. We can still visualise the scene at Sotheby's in 1911 when the late Alfred Quaritch (spurred on by the presence of his old schoolmaster) won the Huth perfect copy contra, mundiun at £5800. According to the_ simple Sibylline plan, we shall see this sum exceeded when tho late Lord Carysfort's Bible is offered. Very few book collectors to-day will be able to recall this Irish peer, who was "behind Quaritch" (then old Bernard) in the Crawford sale, 1887, and when then bought the great Crawford Bible for £2650. Before this, Lord Cjiwford had given £695 plus commission tor it, about 1857, in the sale of the library of Bishop Daly, of Cashel, who in turn "had acquired it in tho Duke of Sussex's sale, 1844. The Duk e had bought the Bible in the sale of books belonging to the proprietor of the Morning Chronicle," Mr Perry who had been able to buy it from a collector roving among the forgotten books of a monastery abroad. When Lord Carysfort died in 1909 seme wondered what would become of this Bible and other literary prizes. Now it is settled, by order of the owner, Colonel D. J. P, o by, and with the consent of the trustees "and of the Court." Ihe nineteen trophies to be offered are amazing I'hoy comprise a vellum copy ■n ,-nt^ c^ ion of the Bible with a printed date— 1462-Gutenberg's 1453-55 pioneer being undated. This Lord Carysfort bought m the famous Ashburnham sale lwo examples of this first dated Bible were also in the Huth sale already mentioned. As the Devonshire* copy probably accompanied the rest oi (W~Mi BWorth b uOoks to America, this Oarjsfort copy shares with one in the I library of the Marquis of Lothian he !distinction of being the only example r"mainmg in private possession. S?e kte °bject f" Co!!ectin S to 6cloner "Valerius Maxims" of 1471 PeWal, IOT at th k" A?tWerP dis" £600 tk • • Price of fon?ai/thVl432 a™£ g, SfW C^ that spLdfd *& ffrTktnh": I^B "Ryall Book," the largest cfpy known 2 thaU" thePi4ont Morgan eSlection. This was another Buccleuch pme, and we saw the Bedford C% 1902 6 C°P- V "Dg £222S Marc".

The earliest known examples of col"Boo P l-mnF nyn F, n, gknd,-are in the 14g6 Book of St. Albans," issued by the Schoolmaster Printer in that ancient city, and of th ? Carysfort rarities are an early undated Rouen "Missale," the very scarce 1509 Wynkyn de Worde first edition of "The York Manual," the only other copies being in the Bodleian and the Pepysian Library at Cambridge ; a Rouen, 1516, second edition of this Manual, and a 1517 Rouen Book of Hours, all acquired in the Crauford sale, 1887. One of (he rarest things in books is a perfect copy of the first edition of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," 1563. The Carysfort example contains a note by I Lord Ashburnham that "this is a complete copy." Shakespeare and Burns appropriately close this Carysfort list of treasures. In this First Folio tercentenary year it is fitting that a great example in pristine condition should emerge, although probably destined to follow m the wake of the £8600 Bur-dett-Coutts copy last year. This Carysfort copy is identified as that beloneinoto Frederic Ouvry, F.S.A., whose boast it was to own "the entire works of the Bard of Avon," however printed. As we write, a catalogue of the 1882.Ouvry sale lies before us, and it is seen that Quaritch won the First Folio at £420. Six years later it passed to Lord Carysfort apparently, and as a. perfect specimen in a sound and uurestored condition it will beckon to America, With it are the Second Folio, 1632, the Third Folio, 1664, and the Fourth Folio, 1685 But the First is the Simon Pure. As for the first Kilmarnock "Burns's Poems," 1876, Lord Carysfort bought it two years before he died in the Van Antwerp sale, when it caused a sensation by bringing £700. It was originally 'Frederick Locker Lampson's prized posj session, and, like one in America and the cherished copy m the Burns Cottage Museum,- is m an "uncut" state.