Manuscrit

1899 · BIBLIO-30956 — Trustees of the British Museum London first edition 1899. 5 parts bound in 1 volume half-leather and boards gilt spine-titles portfolio style flaps at front folio 45 cm. 150 facsimile plates with accompanying text. Originally published in five yearly issues of thirty facsimiles 1895-1899. Each of the 150 full page reproductions of autograph manuscripts is briefly described and identified with the collection and callnumber for it and a full transcription provided. The facsimile plates are attractively printed on sepia backgrounds. The plates are divided into two classes: 1 those of historical interest comprising "eighty-five letters and documents written or in a few cases merely signed by English kings and queens statesmen soldiers and sailors ecclesiastics and celebrities in general from Henry V. down to about 1900. For a supplement similar autographs are given of six of the greatest of continental monarchs namely the Emperor Charles V. Philip II of Spain Henry IV and Louis XIV of France Frederic the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte" ; and 2 autographs of "English poets and prose writers philosophers and others" comprising 53 examples from Spenser to Tennyson supplemented by six foreign specimens: Michael Angelo; Albert Durer Erasmus; Luther; Voltaire and Rousseau. Each plate is preceded by a textual commentary and often transcription. Library number on spine and label on front pastedown endpaper covers worn with leather scuffed and rubbed and powdering lacking the lower portfolio flap contents Good. Trustees of the British Museum, London, first edition, 1899 hardcover