Repertorium Bibliographicum; or, Some Account of the Most Celebrated British Libraries. Vol. I. [ all published ]

William Clarke, London, first edition, 1819. Contemporary ruled calf, rebacked, leather spine-labels, all edges marbled, top edge darkened, 8vo,. vi, [18], vii-xlviii, [2],138, 133*-138*, 139-178, [2], 179-391, [2], 393-[454], 449*-454*, 455-672 [1] pp, frontispiece and 9 plates, 2 woodcut text ills. . A valuable survey of public and private libraries and their principal contents about the start of the great nineteenth century 'Bibliomania', containing much information unavailable elsewhere . Little is known about the author, William Clarke, but he states his object is 'to assist.. The collector in his pursuit of valuable editions of rare books'. Clarke provides a short survey of the major libraries of Europe, followed by descriptions of the collections which make up the British Museum's library, the great 'public' libraries, including those of Oxford and Cambridge, and the libraries of learned societies. Private libraries are then described, including those of Sir Joseph Banks, William Beckford, and the duke of Marlborough. The final portion of the work describes the highlights of some great library sales (a fuller list of sales having been given earlier in the book), from the seventeenth century to Clarke's own time. The volume also includes - as in some other copies of the Repertorium - two lampoons of Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club, 'A Dialogue in the Shades' and 'Rare Doings at Roxburghe Hall', and the preliminary leaf introducing these, which appear after the advertisement between pp vi and vii. Old slightly chipped booklabel of Royal Society of Literature on front pastedown endpaper, covers quite rubbed, light foxing to frontispiece and some light spotting to plates and occasional minor marks elsewhere, some offsetting from illustrations, otherwise internally Very Good.