A HOUSE COPY
FRY, Theodore.
A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.
[London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.
8vo, pp. [3]-74, [2], with portrait vignettes (albumen prints with tissue guards) of Fry, his mother, his father, and his residence, Tower House at Cotham (2), two silhouettes of ancestors, and a facsimile plate of the Tyndale New Testament; erratum slip at page 44; a very good copy in the original brown grained cloth, lettered in gilt on the front cover. This appears to be a house copy, with a large pencilled inscription on the front free endpaper ‘To be returned to Frank Post / J.S. Fry & Sons Ltd. / Bristol'.
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A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.
First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, then in Bristol Baptist College (acquired by the British Library in 1994), until recently believed to be unique (1862); A Description of the Great Bible, 1539 illustrated with original leaves to supplement the plates (1865); and The Bible by Coverdale, MDXXXV (1867). In 1890 some 1200 volumes of his collection of the Scriptures in English, together with editions in Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, and Anglo-Saxon, were acquired by the British and Foreign Bible Society for £6000 and forms one of the cornerstones of their library.
This Memoir by his son is a principal source for the family history of the Frys of Bristol, for Francis’s local activities (as a director of the waterworks, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, and special constable in the Bristol riots of 1831), and for his travels to libraries at home and abroad for the study of printing history.
