Lot 1180: [BERNARD, Edward (1638-1696)]. Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum

[BERNARD, Edward (1638-1696)]. Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti cum indice alphabetico. Oxford: Theatro Sheldoniano, 1697 [Epistola dated Sept. 1698].

2 volumes in one, 2 o (385 x 242 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Bodley, with inset portraits of the Earl of Pembroke, Archbishop Laud, Sir Kenelm Digby and John Selden, engraved vignette on title-page of the Bodleian. (Lacking half-title, some browning and spotting.) Contemporary English mottled panelled calf, red morocco lettering piece (lettering piece chipped, worn).

FIRST EDITION of Bernard's great catalogue of manuscripts in British libraries. This is "one of the most notable achievements of early English bibliographers...When G. Haenel, in 1830, printed his 'Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum,' he thought so much of Bernard's work that he endeavoured to supplement him rather than to duplicate his lists" (De Ricci, p. 9). Part I contains a life of Bodley, a description of the Bodleian, lists of various collections of manuscripts contained in it, such as those of Pembroke, Cromwell, Digby, Laud, Junius, Hyde and Ashmole. Part II lists the manuscripts in Oxford College; Part III those in Cambridge Colleges. Part I of vol. 2 contains the manuscripts in public, cathedral, and school libraries and in some fifty private collections, including those of Evelyn Hobbes, Brotherton, Sloane, Lord Derby, Leneve, and Isaac Vossius. All parts have general indices. Wing C-1253.