Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Book Sales of 1902: With Tabulated Price
Johnson is claimed as the first, an error copied in Allibone. Since the days of Homer the world has not seen a more art ful epic fable thus said Dr. Beattie of Tom Jones, No. 75, a dictum against which we may set that of Dr. Johnson, Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's than in all tomjones. By reason of its success, Fielding, two years later, received for Amelia. The Palis of Honoure, N o. 76 - which, like the Ashburnham copy, lacks the blank leaf - may, from an ethical point of view, be linked with The Pilgrim's Progress, No. 80. Each aims to prove that by virtue only, constant and undeviating, can we hope to gain the Palace of Honour. Whereas, however, the Bishop of Dunkeld's book has but quadrupled in value during the last ninety years, the Bunyan, had a copy oc curred for sale, might have brought no more than sixpence at the Roxburghe dispersal. The Kelmscott Chaucer, N o. 78, marks the highest sum yet paid for, from the printer's standpoint, the most wonderful book of the 1 9th century butin December the price fell back to £84 108. {i Several works come under the head of Americana. If none of these shows a rise in money-worth comparable with that of Denton's New York - the perfect unbound Ashburton copy fetched £400 in 1900 as against 18s. Paid for the N assau example in 1824 - the figures are significant. Had Nos. 83, 1 1 1, 125, 145, 149,151, and 161 occurred, for in stance, in the library of Thomas Caldecott, Bencher of the Middle Temple, dispersed in the Wellington Street sale-rooms of Messrs. Sotheby in December, 1833, as did H amor's Virginia, No. 70, and many other now highly-prized pieces, they would have fetched perhaps £10, instead of £425. Cato Major, N o. 84, translated ten years before publication by Chief Justice Logan, is the outstanding product of Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphian press. It will be recalled that for some time he worked as a printer in London, and, with Meredith.
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