Details

SMITH, Harry Bache (1860-1936). A Sentimental Library, Comprising Books Formerly Owned by Famous Writers, Presentation Copies, Manuscripts, and Drawings Collected and Described by Harry B. Smith. N.p.: Privately Printed [at the De Vinne Press], 1914.

4o (280 x 182 mm). Frontispiece, 55 facsimile plates of inscriptions, autograph manuscripts, drawings, and bindings, some colored and/or mounted. Original quarter vellum, t.e.g., others uncut; printed dust-jacket (split along spine with some loss of text).

Smith, a librettist of musical comedies, collected presentation copies, principally of nineteenth century English writers. He formed his "Sentimental Library" when the market for this kind of material was still low, and accumulated items of great quality, such as autograph letters and presentation copies from Dickens, Shelley, Keats, Lamb and Rossetti. The catalogue, by Smith himself, was described by A. Edward Newton as "the only completely readable catalogue ever compiled." The collection was bought en bloc by A.S.W. Rosenbach for $79,000.00 in 1914.