Our Archive

Quaritch maintains an extensive archive at its premises in Lower John Street. Documenting in detail the firm’s activities since 1847, the archive also constitutes a resource of considerable importance for the wider history of the antiquarian book trade and of collecting in general, in Britain and throughout the world. The archive includes a substantial collection of sale catalogues, the majority annotated with prices and buyers’ names, as well as correspondence with such figures as the famous American collector J. Pierpont Morgan and the writer, publisher and collector William Morris. Portions of the archive were deposited at the British Library in the late twentieth century and can be found in the Department of Manuscripts, Add. MSS 64132–64415. Our archive is private but may be consulted for purposes of scholarly research strictly by appointment only. Contact Katherine Spears .

A number of items from our archive are illustrated below; others appear elsewhere on this site.

For more than a century Quaritch has been prominent in the American market. In 1890 Bernard Quaritch’s son, Bernard Alfred, visited America with fourteen crates of rare books and manuscripts, among them a tenth-century Gospel Book written in gold script on purple vellum (once owned by Henry VIII and now in the Pierpont Morgan Library), a ninth-century Cicero, the twelfth-century ‘Huntingfield Psalter’, Gower and Wycliffe in Middle English, a number of Caxtons and a variety of Shakespeare quartos and all the folios. These and many other treasures were listed in a special catalogue in which there was a Latin dedication to the American people and an introduction by the elder Quaritch.

A privately printed edition of Bernard Quaritch’s Letter to General Starring, 1880, in which he defended himself against charges of customs irregularities in sending consignments of books to the United States. A letter in our archive from Quaritch to the publisher Archibald Constable reports the result of the case against Quaritch: ‘I was declared not guilty and my books were given up to me’.

Left: In 1891 Bernard Quaritch offered for sale the only known example of the original edition of Columbus’s Letter to Luis de Sant’Angel, printed at Barcelona in April 1493. He published a
facsimile of it, with a learned introduction by his chief cataloguer Michael Kerney.
It was sold to the Lenox Library in New York (now part of the New York Public Library).
Right: This is the Notary Public’s certification that the letter had been packed
in his presence and addressed to the trustees of the library in New York.

The first page from Bernard Quaritch’s account-book.
At the top left he has annotated: ‘According to this calculation I am insolvent.’ B.Q. Dec. 27 ’63’.

Our archive includes a bound volume of correspondence between William Morris and Bernard Quaritch concerning Morris not only as a publisher but also as a collector of medieval manuscripts and early books.

Bernard Quaritch’s copy of the auction catalogue of the Sunderland Library from Blenheim Palace (sold 1881–83), which was famed especially for its early printed books. The sale totalled £56,581, of which about £33,000 was bought by Quaritch, paying, in Seymour de Ricci’s words, ‘the highest prices for the finest books and gathering into his stores practically everything that was worth having’.

Bernard Quaritch’s copy of the auction catalogue of the library of William Beckford, sold by his son-in-law, the 10th duke of Hamilton, 1882–84. Quaritch bought extensively at this sale, which totalled £86,444, and those books purchased by Quaritch were adorned by him with a specially-engraved bookplate.

Quaritch’s breakdown of his purchases at the Hamilton Palace sale.

Our marked copy of the sale catalogue of the Huth Library, sold between 1911 and 1920 and described by Seymour de Ricci as ‘one of the most striking events in the history of the English salerooms’. Among the collectors represented by Quaritch at this sale was Henry E. Huntington, the biggest single buyer.