13 Volumes bound in five, large 8vo printed on good wove paper, [iv], 388; xii, 363, [1]; [iv], 295, [1]; vii, [iii], 355, [1]; [iv], 257; [iv], 314; [iv], 306; [iv], 170; [iv], 195, [1]; [iv], 117, [1]; [iv], 189, [1]; [iv], 83, [1]; [iv], 82, [2]pp., parts 1-3 in orig. boards, spines chipped, covers loose, orig. printed label on upper covers, uncut, parts 4-7 cont. half calf, rubbed, spine stained and spotted, parts-8-13 cont. quarter morocco, rubbed, foot of spine torn, faint stamp of 'Mercantile Library, Philada.', front hinge shaken, title page to part 8 loose, prices and buyers' names supplied in a cont. hand, a made-up set of the complete English sale catalogues of the library of Richard Heber (the 13th volume is notoriously rare). Heber was a book collector on a monumental scale, De Ricci estimated his library between two and three hundred thousand volumes. The sales took place at a time when the market was absolutely glutted and there were practically no buyers. The total realised was ?65,774, for books which had cost their late owner a good deal over ?100,000. "The Dibdinian age may be aptly said to terminate with the dispersal of the gigantic library accumulated by Richard Heber, a bibliomaniac if there ever was one... From 1800 to 1830, he purchased at every London sale... He thought nothing of securing whole libraries... When he died, his books filled two houses in London, one at Hodnet, one at Oxford, one at Ghent and one at Paris, not to speak of smaller stores at... other Continental cities. The total number of volumes in his library must have been between two and three hundred thousand, and it is doubtful whether any private individual has ever owned so large a library... The London sales produced ?56,744, for books which had cost their late owner over ?100,000. The market was absolutely glutted and there were practically no new buyers... The Heber catalogues, although... arranged in the most inconvenient manner, are daily consulted by every bibliographer... His series of Continental books, early Italian and Spanish works, later Latin poetry, humanistic treatises... were unrivalled... The real strength... was, however, in the field of early English literature... For thirty years he... purchased nearly every item which came on the market".?De Ricci, p.102. Organised according to the residences where Heber kept his libraries, the present catalogues number 1 - 13 and were held in 1834, 1835, 1836 & 1837. Sotheby's managed the sale for parts 1- 3 and 9 - 10; R. H. Evans, for parts 4 and 6 - 8 and 11; B. Wheatley, parts 5 and 12-13.
