Catalogue of a Collection of Early French Books in the Library of C. Fairfax Murray. [2 vols in 1]

Martino Publishing, Mansfield Centre, undated reprint c. 1999 of the 1910 first edition, which was limited to 100 copies. 2 vols in 1, cloth, small 4to,. (12), 600, 601-1096, lxix pp, many ills. 696 entries. The catalogue covers French books from 1475 to 1692. The majority of the books were printed in France, with many being productions of the earlier presses at Albi, Avignon, Chambéry, Dijon, Lyons, Paris, Poitiers, Rouen, Toulouse, Valence, Vienne, &c. A few others are included from presses at Louvain, Antwerp, La Haye, Middelburg, and Geneva as most of them are in the French language. Vérard is represented by 44 separate items, Le Noir (M. & P.) by 33, Lotrian 24, Trepperel 25, Nourry 15, Pigouchet & Vostre 23 items. Several items are unique. The main portion of the collection consists of books with woodcuts, which have been chosen as representative of book-illustration in France; exhibiting the progress of graphic art from its first steps at Lyons and Paris to its highest point as exemplified in the multitude of devotional books produced between 1490 and 1525. Fairfax Murray's French collection included volumes from the libraries of Colbert, the chief political advisor to the Sun King Louis XIV, Madame de Pompadour, the Duc de Ia Vallières and Diane de Poitiers. "The two volumes are…bibliographical monuments of lasting importance" - Seymour de Ricci. "Owing to the extremely detailed bibliographical descriptions and critical notes by Davies, successively cataloguer and owner of the London bookselling firm of J. &J. Leighton, from whom many of the books were acquired, the catalogues of the Fairfax Murray Collection of French fifteenth- and sixteenth-century illustrated books (including a few of later date) may be considered selective bibliographies of their subject and belong indeed to the best reference works on it." - Breslauer and Folter. There are four good Indexes: Authors and Persons mentioned; Titles, Subjects and Places; Printers and Publishers; Former Owners. As New.