The Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle. in the Collection of Lt.-Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham. Vol 1-[18) + 3. Total 21 volumes

Book Description

(NY: William Edwin Rudge, 1929-1934). . 21 volumes. Folio, 4to, & 8vo. Printed in Baskerville types on handmade paper; numerous aquatone facsimiles tipped in. Glazed red boards (vols 1-4), red cloth spine with glazed boards (vols. 5-18) all in red board slipcases with printed labels. Six vols. bear the bookseller's ticket "The Hill Bookstall, Syracuse, NY." Slipcase spines are slightly faded & worn, with some cracking, some labels chipped. The books are near fine; the 3 tallest volumes (4, 6, & 7) have lightly sunned & slightly soiled spines. These volumes were obviously shelved apart from thhe others. Four volumes have a mildly bumped corner. Contents unopened and as new. A near fine set in very good slipcases. A great literary discovery in a great format. The discovery and acquisition of Boswell's journals, diaries, letters, and other mss in Scotland and Ireland is one of the great 20th c. sagas of bookcollecting. The story of the books' production is hardly less dramatic; and a copy of Ken Auchincloss' "Magnificent Obsession" included.Each volume in this set is numbered 262. Although 570 sets were planned, the Great Depression and publications delays probably reduced that number. By 1931, ninety subscribers had dropped out. Fredrick Pottle's 1931 "Catalogue" of the papers was limited to 415 copies. When the Rudge firm went into bankruptcy and Melvin Loos took an inventory of "the disappointingly large number of unsold copies," he discovered volumes (some damaged, soiled, and lacking slipcases) scattered throughout the Mount Vernon building; worse, 412 miscellaneous volumes had been discarded by a janitor.The life-like facsimiles, printed in the same size of the originals, dictated the variations in size of each volume.

Not sure what some of these terms mean? Look it up in our glossary.