Bibliographie instructive: ou traité de la connoissance des livres rares et singuliers...Volume de la jurisprudence et des sciences et arts.
Paris.
Chez Guillaume-François de Bure le Jeune, 1764.
First edition.
8vo.
xxviii, 772pp, [2]. Contemporary gilt-tooled mottled calf, contrasting black morocco lettering-pieces, all edges red. Rubbed, early paper shelf-label to foot of spine. Marbled endpapers, internally clean and crisp. From the library - recently dispersed - of the Marquesses of Lothian (who also held the Earldom of Ancram) at Newbattle Abbey; with manuscript shelf-marks to front blank fly-leaf and head of title.
The first edition of the second volume of antiquarian bookseller Guillaume-François Debure's (1731-1782) much-admired monumental bibliography of rare books. De Bure organised his reference work according to the five fundamental categories originally promoted by Prosper Marchand in the pioneering Bigot sale in 1706 (the first book auction conducted in Paris for which a catalogue was printed), theology, jurisprudence, sciences and arts, belles-lettres, and history. Among the many notable features of the Bibliographie instructive, it was the first to identify and describe the Gutenberg Bible (Vol. I, Théologie, 1763).
The primary seven volumes were published between 1763 and 1768. Two further volumes appeared in 1769, both devoted to the auction of library of bibliophile Louis-Jean Gaignat (1697-1768). A tenth and final volume, concerning anonymous authors, was issued in 1782.
A century later Jacques Charles Brunet (1780-1867) wrote: 'une production tout à fait neuve et assez remarkable à l'époque où elle parut: aujourd'hui même elle peut encore être consultée utilement pour plusieurs articles qui n'ont pas été décrits autre part avec autant de détails que là. Ce catalogue donne d'ailleurs une idée exact du goût qui dominait alors parmi des amateurs de livres rare et précieux.'
['A completely new and quite remarkable production at the time it appeared: even today it can still be usefully consulted for several articles which have not been described elsewhere with as much detail as there. This catalogue also gives an exact idea of the taste that then prevailed among lovers of rare and precious books.']
£ 200.00
Antiquates Ref: 27785
The primary seven volumes were published between 1763 and 1768. Two further volumes appeared in 1769, both devoted to the auction of library of bibliophile Louis-Jean Gaignat (1697-1768). A tenth and final volume, concerning anonymous authors, was issued in 1782.
A century later Jacques Charles Brunet (1780-1867) wrote: 'une production tout à fait neuve et assez remarkable à l'époque où elle parut: aujourd'hui même elle peut encore être consultée utilement pour plusieurs articles qui n'ont pas été décrits autre part avec autant de détails que là. Ce catalogue donne d'ailleurs une idée exact du goût qui dominait alors parmi des amateurs de livres rare et précieux.'
['A completely new and quite remarkable production at the time it appeared: even today it can still be usefully consulted for several articles which have not been described elsewhere with as much detail as there. This catalogue also gives an exact idea of the taste that then prevailed among lovers of rare and precious books.']
