A Catalogue of the Library of the Late John Duke of Roxburghe... Which will be Sold by Auction... on Monday 18th May, 1812, and the Forty-one Following Days... by Robert H. Evans... [With:] Supplement... [including the scarce extra leaf of "Articles found in Closets since this Supplementary Catalogue was printed"]... will be Sold... on Monday 13th July.. by ROXBURGHE (John, Duke of)

London: Printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1812. 8vo (210 x 130 mm), 17, [4], xxii-xxiv, 284, [1]; iv, 20, [2]pp., priced throughout in a neat cont. hand, cont. half calf, marbled boards, rebacked, spine tooled in gilt and blind, red morocco label. A complete set of this iconic English book auctions. "A new era in British book-collecting may be said to start with the Roxburghe sale... The sale was a most sensational affair and the total of £23,341 was an extraordinary one for the time. Dibdin has scribbled reams of enthusiastic literature on the smallest incident of each daily session. The success of the auction, as we see it now, was obviously due to the competition of three wealthy buyers, Lord Spencer, the Marquess of Blandford and the Duke of Devonshire... the greatest event of all was the purchase by the Marquess of Blandford, of the celebrated "Valdarfer Boccaccio" (1471) for £2260, a record price which remained unequalled until the sale of the Syston Park 1459 Psalter, in 1884. The Roxburghe Club was inaugurated in commemoration of the sale of this famous volume."—De Ricci. Evans, the renowned Pall Mall bookseller, began his long career (30 years) as an auctioneer with this sale. 10,120 lots in total. Provenance: Inscribed to verso of title "Presented by Mr Savile, 1820", early fait stamp of the Devon & Exeter Institution. De Ricci, pp.71-72.