[ANTIQUARIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY / LIBRARY SALE CATALOGUE]. Catalogue des Livres et Estampes de la Bibliotheque de feu Monsieur Perrot, Maitre des Comptes. Dispose dans un ordre different de celui observe jusqu'a ce jour. Avec une table des auteurs

Paris: (Jean-Baptiste) Gogue & (Jean-François) Nee de La Rochelle, 1776. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Dates: 22 January and following. 8vo. iv, 8 [Ordre des livres], xxxii [Avertissement + Table systematique], 382 pp., 4542 lots [livres] + 51 lots [estampes], of which 3059 lots are PRICED in a contemporary hand. French calf (ca. 1830), worn, triple gilt fillet around sides, rebacked with original smooth spine laid down, two red leather labels ("Catalogue Perrot" and "1776"), blue sprinkled edges, blue marbled pastedowns and endleaves. Old stamp of the Archief der Provincie Antwerpen on title-page and final page ("Afgevoerd" i.e. withdrawn). ¶ The Perrot sale catalogue was a milestone in the classification of knowledge, "remarkable because it adopted a new system of bibliography which, with good reason, had no imitators" (G. Brunet, who wrongly attributed the catalogue to Gogue). R. Blum, "Bibliographia," 1980, correctly attributes the cataloguing and classification to Nee. "His catalogue of the Perrot Library attracted attention because of its organization of the five classes, with some sections differing from the "Systeme des Libraires de Paris": Theology, Sciences, Art, History, Jurisprudence. [However] the modified system was not successful. In it Nee had placed bibliography together with polygraphy under the heading "Prolegomenes" at the beginning of the second class of sciences immediately behind theology, since it indicated the sources for the fields of learning."

¶ Perrot's was a vast library by any description, containing not less than 20,000 volumes. See Taylor, Book Catalogues. Pollard & Ehrman 294; North 243; Brunet, Dict. Bibliologie Catholique, col. 509. Not in Blogie.