[ANTIQUARIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY]. [MANUSCRIPT]. Preface to his "Catalogue de livres rares et précieux, éditions elzéviriennes [...] de M. M*** [Millot]" -- WITH: [Manuscript]. Notes on Pere Louis Jacob's "Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques [...] publié en 1644" -- WITH: priced copy of the printed "Catalogue

Paris, 1846. Together two manuscript items (altogether 7 pp. on 5 leaves), folio and octavo. Manuscript (partly autograph) by Bibliophile Jacob. Edges of the Preface darkened and partly frayed, affecting some words (see images). The "Traicte" MS in very good condition. -- ADDED: printed copy of the sale Catalogue: 344 pp., with 1,523 lots described, all priced in MS by a contemporary hand. Original printed wrappers (wrappers worn and somewhat soiled, spine partially defective; internally very good). Manuscript copy of Bibliophile Jacob's "Preface" to his 1846 Millot sale catalogue of Elzevirs, partly in his autograph -- together with a priced copy of the sale catalogue itself. The sale contained Elzevirs printed on vellum, other 17th-century Dutch imprints, "livres a figures," tracts from the French Revolution, heraldry, numismatics, and bindings by Derome, Padeloup, Thouvenin, Muller, Purgold, Bauzonnet, and Lebrun. Lacroix's text contained much useful bibliographic information, particularly concerning provenance. "M. Millot" has not been identified with certainty. However, after dispersing this first collection, in 1846, he formed a second which was sold after his death (ca. 1861), the sale catalogue specifically naming him "A.M. Millot." Concerning details of the case, see the Histoire-Bibliophilie blog: "Monsieur Millot, mystérieux elzéviriomane, victime d'une attribution désinvolte" (11 Jan. 2013), reminding us that Claude Francois Xavier Millot (d. 1785) is an impossibility. TOGETHER WITH: notes by J.-P. Lacroix (4 pp.), partially autograph, on Pere Louis Jacob's 1644 "Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques" (1644). Here the Bibliophile Jacob gives a list of some of the most important French libraries in Jacob's famous treatise, naturally beginning with the Bibliotheque royale, followed by the Louvre, Gaston d'Orleans, Richelieu, Mazarin, and proceeding alphabetically from Angouleme to Victor, and including a number of institutional collections. The sizes of many of the libraries are given in volume numbers. The bibliographer clearly made the notes for his own scholarly use: the original 1644 edition has a Table with the information in the present MS, but the French libraries are not segregated, nor is there concise details on their respective sizes. J.-P. Lacroix (1806-1884) was curator of the Bibliotheque Arsenal, and wrote innumerable library catalogues (auction and otherwise) and scholarly articles. He continues to be respected for his accuracy and erudition. Manuscripts of the "Bibliophile Jacob" are scarce. See the long entry on Millot's 1846 sale in Brunet's Dictionnaire de bibliologie catholique (1860) cols. 493-4.