Item #409519 Fifty Years' Recollection of an Old Bookseller; Consisting of Anecdotes, Characteristic Sketches, and Original Traits and Eccentricities, of Authors, Artists, Actors, Books, Booksellers, and of the Periodical Press for the Last Half Century. William WEST.
Fifty Years' Recollection of an Old Bookseller; Consisting of Anecdotes, Characteristic Sketches, and Original Traits and Eccentricities, of Authors, Artists, Actors, Books, Booksellers, and of the Periodical Press for the Last Half Century...

Fifty Years' Recollection of an Old Bookseller; Consisting of Anecdotes, Characteristic Sketches, and Original Traits and Eccentricities, of Authors, Artists, Actors, Books, Booksellers, and of the Periodical Press for the Last Half Century...

Cork: Printed by and for the Author, 1835. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 8vo. vii, 76 pages. 5 engraved plates. 19th-century red quarter roan, marbled boards (front cover detached, a bit closely trimmed at bottom but without loss). First edition. Item #409519

WITH: A copy of the expanded second edition. London: Printed for the Author, 1837. 8vo. 200 pages, sectional title for Three hundred fifty years retrospection of an old bookseller (Cork, 1835) between page 100 and 101. 10 plates, illustrations in text. Later brown half morocco, marbled boards, top edges gilt, others untrimmed, by Blackwell.

The first edition is quite uncommon. Bigmore & Wyman, Bibliography of Printing, p. 77: "It is curious to see a bookseller adopt the absurd plan of noting the contents of the second half of his book by a fresh title. It is an extremely curious and amusing work, and deserves more attention than it has received." Together, 2 volumes.

Price: $500.00