MORGAN, John Pierpont (1837-1913) -- Alfred W. POLLARD (1859-1944), general editor. Catalogue of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Libraries of William Morris, Richard Bennett, Bertram Fourth Earl of Ashburnham, and Other Sources Now Forming Portion of the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan. London: Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1906-07.

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MORGAN, John Pierpont (1837-1913) -- Alfred W. POLLARD (1859-1944), general editor. Catalogue of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Libraries of William Morris, Richard Bennett, Bertram Fourth Earl of Ashburnham, and Other Sources Now Forming Portion of the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan. London: Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1906-07.

4 volumes, 2o (377 x 285 mm). 50 chromolithographed plates, many embossed and partly printed in gold, one monochrome plate, facsimiles in text. Vol. I in green morocco gilt, vols. II-IV in red morocco gilt, t.e.g., others uncut, all by Riviere (vol. I spine slightly faded). Provenance: Mark Lansburgh (bookplates).

LIMITED EDITION, Vol. I number 2 of 120 copies on paper from an edition of 125; Vols. II-IV number 14 of 170 copies on paper from an edition of 175. "Probably the most elaborate [catalogue] ever made of a private collection" (Needham). The manuscripts were described in the first volume by M.R. James, and the xylographica and printed books in the remaining 3 volumes by E. Gordon Duff, Stephen Aldrich, Robert Proctor and A.W. Pollard. In his preface, Pollard writes that the collection is "admirably and concisely representative of fifteenth century typography." The catalogue employs Proctor's method of type measurement, making it in some ways a prototype for the British Museum Catalogue of Books printed in the XVth Century, which commenced publication in 1908. Hobson, Great Libraries, pp. 288-291; Kristeller, Latin Manuscript Books, p.164; Needham, William Morris and the Art of the Book, pp.46 and 100. (4)

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