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London: Printed for Thomas Macklin, by Thomas Bensley, 1800. 8 volumes, 19 inches tall in original box. A magnificent set of this 'sumptuous edition' (Herbert) bound by Lovejoy in superb full morocco. With double gilt raised bands, delicate gilt tooling to the panels and a series of wonderful rolls framing the boards. Gilt dentelles and all edges. Sewn leather joints. The Box measures 25 x 18 x 22 inches. With the binder's ticket of John Lovejoy, one of the great binders of the period, celebrated almost exclusively for his masonic bindings, this example being a rare and spectacular exception. Embellished with 76 full page engravings by the great artists of the time including Henry Fuseli, P.J. de Loutherbourg, James Northcote, Benjamin West, William Hamilton, Thomas Stothard, Richard Cosway, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman. A further 111 ornate vignettes are present.
The condition is excellent with no splitting or loss, even all 16 sewn leather joints are present and correct, a feature found in only the finest bindings. There is some minor rubbing, scuffing and scratching and the margins of one leaf have been expertly repaired with no loss.
The subscribers list is found in volume 1 and includes The King, The Queen, The Prince of Wales et al..
One of the rarest and most impressive features of our extraordinary set is that it is in 8 volumes, all with their respective title pages. Originally intended to be printed in 3 volumes, it was actually published in 6. The Apocrypha (Published in 1816) is occasionally found with the set, making 7 volumes. We can only find record of one other set in 8 volumes (in a much poorer condition) where, as here, the New Testament is bound in 2 volumes, each with a title page, making a spectacular 8 volume set.
The box dates from around the date of publication and no doubt explains the remarkable condition of this huge and impressive set.
Macklin announced plans for his great folio Bible in 1789 to promote 'the glory of the English school of painting and engraving and the interests of our Holy Religion'. New type (cut by Joseph Jackson and Vincent Figgins) and new paper were created for the venture, and the historic paintings were to be 'finished in a style of elegance (and magnificence in Paper, Printing, and engraving) of which there is not in Europe or the world any example'. Macklin's project was costly and ambitious. He paid Reynolds £500 for his Holy Family and William Sharp £700 for its engraving. The average cost for 45 of the Bible's other engravings was £220 and the total cost of the publication was an estimated £30000, a truly vast sum at the time.

In black: London: Eyre & Strahan, 1813; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1816; London: Company of Stationers, 1810; London: Bent, (1818). In Red: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1823; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1820; London: Company of Stationers, 1825; London: Rivington et al, 1827. 8 volumes, 6.25 inches - 13.5 inches tall. A magnificent and unique collection of devotional works belonging to Nicholas Robinson, Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1828-1829.
On his becoming the Bailiff of Liverpool in 1818 he had the 4 great devotional works bound in uniform full black morocco with gilt raised bands, superb gilt tooling to the panel and boards, dentelles and all edges.
On becoming Lord Mayor he had another set of the 4 works bound in even more sumptuous uniform full red morocco. These have gilt raised bands, extra gilt panels, glorious gilt flourishes to the boards, gilt dentelles and all edges. These volumes also have watered silk doublures and free endpapers.
All 8 volumes have his autographed armorial bookplates and his gilt embossed inscriptions on the upper boards.
There is minor rubbing and scuffing, otherwise all the volumes are in superb condition. An extraordinary collection.

Paris: Lacombe, then Bureau, 1775-84. 69 volumes, 6.5 inches tall. The run is lacking 2 volumes, those for Feb/Mar 1776 and Apr 1776. The first 9 volumes have a densely gilt spine with repeated floral flourishes. The remaining volumes have gilt bands and floral gilt tooling to the panels. All have a single label covering 2 panels. Speckled edges. There are a few ancient worm holes and some superficial loss of surface of the paper boards to said long gone wildlife. A charming variety of different ink washed papers were used to cover the boards. Woodcut ornaments. A splendid collection of this influential literary journal published from 1775-1789 which owed much to the medieval adaptations of the Comte de Tressan. It was influential in shaping the Gothic taste in French literature. From the library of Madame de Simiane at the Chateau de Cirey. Madame de Simiane's husband, Charles-Francois de Simiane had served with Lafayette in America. The Chateau had previously served as a refuge for Voltaire.

Bruxelles: Van Buggenhoudt, 1861. Full morocco, 9.5 inches tall. A fabulous copy bound for 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and 3rd Earl of Armagh. With gilt raised bands, dense gilt tooling to the panels and boards. Gilt dentelles and all edges with watered silk doublures and free endpapers. The spectacular wide gilt border and stars frame the coronated black letter initial on both boards. There is very minor rubbing and two small ink stains near the tail of the lower board. On the reverse of the title page there is the stamp of the Library of Ernst Augustus, the Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and 3rd Duke of Armagh. Ernst August was the last Hanoverian monarch to hold a British Royal title and the Order of the Garter. The work itself is very scarce with only 1 copy listed on Library Hub Discover and consists, in French, of a careful analysis of the finances of the Netherlands and her colonies in the middle of the 19th century.

London: William Pickering, 1836. 4 volume set, 9 inches tall. A stunning full morocco by J(ohn) Mackenzie of Westminster, Bookbinder to their late Majesties King George IVth & King William IVth. With raised bands and dense extra gilt panels, dentelles and all edges. The hard grain of the boards is framed within gilt fillets and a wide gilt roll. There is the ticket of Bain, Bookseller of 1, Haymarket. Engraved frontispieces. There is a neat ink inscription, dated 1842 on the first blank. Very slight rubbing and a slight dent to the volume panel on Volume IV. Thomas Browne was a hugely influential English 17th century writer who coined an extraordinary number of words now in common usage including 'ambidextrous', 'antediluvian', 'analogous', 'approximate', 'ascetic', 'anomalous', 'carnivorous', 'coexistence', 'coma', 'compensate', 'computer', 'cryptography', 'cylindrical', 'disruption', 'ergotisms', 'electricity', 'exhaustion', 'ferocious', 'follicle', 'generator', 'gymnastic', 'hallucination', 'herbaceous', 'holocaust', 'insecurity', 'indigenous', 'jocularity', 'literary', 'locomotion', 'medical', 'migrant', 'mucous', 'prairie', 'prostate', 'polarity', 'precocious', 'pubescent', 'therapeutic', 'suicide', 'ulterior', 'ultimate' and 'veterinarian'. (Denny Hilton (8 August 2012). "Sir Thomas Browne and the Oxford English Dictionary"). A splendid set of the first edition of Thomas Browne's Works.