Bibliographie Instructive, ou Notice de quelques Livres rares, singuliers & difficile à trouver, avec des Notes historiques, pour connoitre & distinguer les différentes Editions, & leur valeur dans le Commerce.. by LOS RIOS, Jean François de

Fine mezzotint port. of Los Rios. xvi, 207 pp. 8vo, cont. half-sheep & paste-paper boards (spine & corners a trifle worn, minor foxing), flat spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Avignon: F. Seguin; Lyon: l'Auteur, 1777. First edition of an interesting bookseller's catalogue, classed by subject, priced, and with an author index. "According to the 'Avertissement,' this classified list of 800 titles was written to preserve the notes that De los Rios had made in the course of his business as a bookseller...The Bibliothèque [sic] is a unique or almost unique instance of a classified catalogue of rare books...Being a list of books already sold, the Bibliothèque is a very strange variety of catalogue of which I can cite very few examples. Frank Karslake's Notes from Sotheby's...is such a work. And E.P. Goldschmidt's Catalogue 100 is another."- Taylor, Catalogues of Rare Books, pp. 28-29-(incorrectly citing the title). Los Rios (1728-1820), was one of the most knowledgeable and colorful booksellers of his time. He handled many of the greatest books which, for the most part, came from the libraries of the Jesuits at Lyon, Tournon, and Macon and from the private libraries of the abbés Piole and Gindre. He worked as a bookseller's clerk in Paris and Rome, visited England and the Low Countries, and finally established himself as a bookseller at Lyon in 1766. Our copy contains the handsome mezzotint portrait of Los Rios which, according to Taylor, is present in only a few copies. Nice copy. ❧ Varille, La Vie facétieuse de M. de Los Rios, libraire lyonnais (Lyon: 1928).