Bibliotheca Historica. Or, A Catalogue of 5000 Volumes of Books and Manuscripts Relating Chiefly to the History and Literature of North and South America among which is included the Larger Proportion of the Extra Ordinary Library of the Late Henry Stevens Senior of Barnet Vt. . . . Edited and with Introduction and Notes by Henry Stevens.
Boston and Cambridge: H. O. Houghton and Company and the Riverside Press, 1870. Item #792 8vo. 220 x 1540 mm., [8 ¾ x 6 inches]. xvi, 234 pp. Wrappers detached from text block, spine chipped, edges cracked. Housed in a clamshell box. With deaccession stamp of the University of Vermont. Useful as a reference copy only; priced in pencil with a few buyer’s names included. Complete catalogue of this important sale of American, which contains many 16th and 17th century early printed books relating to the New World. The catalogue include Henry Stevens’s descriptions of 2545 lot, many with informative annotations. The “Explanatory” or preface to the catalogue provides a very good overview of the contents of the collection and the reason for its sale. Of the sale McKay writes, “In April, 1870 came the Henry Stevens sale, with its interesting preface by Henry Stevens, Jr. . . George L. Mckay, American Book Auction Catalogues, 1540.
Price: $50.00