Annotated and Augmented by the Co-Author
HORSFIELD, Thomas Walker.
The History, Antiquities, and Topography of the County of Sussex. Lewes, John Baxter, and London, Nichols and Son, 1835.
Two vols, folio, pp. I: [4], viii, 592, xv, [1], II: [iv], 274, 90, xv, [1], viii (subscribers), with 56 engraved plates (including 2 frontispieces) and 2 folding maps; wood engravings in the text throughout; occasional light foxing, a few very minor tears and losses; else an excellent, uncut copy in later nineteenth-century green crushed morocco by Riviere (stamped to foot of front free endpapers), panelled in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, top-edge gilt, purple marbled endpapers; a few light scuffs; armorial bookplate of William Durrant Cooper (Franks 6800/6801) to front pastedowns, his ownership inscription to front flyleaves, his annotations to c. 400 pp., and interleaved with c. 150 ff. of his manuscript notes, printed matter, and other ephemera, collation note of Francis Capper Brooke dated 15 March 1876 to front free endpaper of vol. I, two cards (the first dated 4 March 1876) addressed to Brooke from Nattali & Bond loosely inserted.
First edition, a handsome set extensively annotated and extra-illustrated by the antiquary William Durrant Cooper, co-compiler of this history, likely in preparation for a revised edition.
This milestone of Sussex antiquarianism, the first to cover each of the county’s parishes, was the initiative of the Lewes printer and publisher John Baxter (1781–1858). In compiling it the author Horsfield (1792–1837) engaged the help of his fellow Sussex antiquary William Durrant Cooper (1812–1875), an active member of the Society of Antiquaries, the Camden Society, and the Sussex Archaeological Society and a prolific contributor to their respective journals. As Horsfield acknowledges in the preface, for the History Cooper ‘kindly offered to furnish for the Appendix a Parliamentary History of the County; to arrange the numerous coats of arms with which the work is adorned; to supply the information relating to parish registers; and to compile the Statistical Tables’ as well as several accounts of persons and places (including the sketch of Shelley).
Our set was annotated by Cooper on some four hundred pages, with a further c. 150 leaves of his manuscript notes, cuttings from books and newspapers, and extra-illustrations bound in. His manuscript marginalia correct many errors and add a vast amount of detail, citing a wide range of sources and transcribing original documents. Bound in is a collection of unrecorded or exceedingly rare printed works: an unknown, annotated Hastings-printed handbill on a gathering of octo- and septuagenarians at nearby Bexhill to commemorate the eighty-first birthday of George III (A remarkable Instance of Longevity; Hastings, [Arthur] Ransom, [1819]; not in OCLC or Library Hub); a presentation copy to Cooper of Samuel Holland’s To the Visitors of Poynings Church (S.l., s.n., [1844]; CUL only in OCLC and Library Hub); and two privately printed pamphlets, the Memorial Notice of the Rev. Henry Cooper, B. D., 27 Years Vicar of Rye, Sussex (S.l., printed for Cooper’s friends, 1862; BL and Bodley only) and a presentation copy of Charles Bridger’s Extracts from the early Parish Register of Warminghurst, in Sussex (S.l., printed for the author, [1853]; Society of Antiquaries and Godfrey Memorial Library only). Also present is Cooper’s hand-corrected copy of his paper on ‘The Bonvilles of Halnaker’, printed in Sussex Archaeological Collections XV, correspondence between him and other antiquaries, and countless cuttings from contemporary books and local newspapers.
Provenance:
1. Cooper’s sale, Sotheby, Catalogue of the Library of the late W. Durrant Cooper … , 7 March 1876, lot 231, £5 17s 6d to Nattali & Bond on behalf of:
2. Francis Capper Brooke (1810–1886), cricketer and bibliophile, with his collation note and correspondence addressed to him from Nattali & Bond about this set (‘a great number of MS. additions written at the margins’). Brooke’s library of some 20,000 volumes remained in the family’s possession at Ufford Place House until bought by Quaritch in 1974 and thereafter dispersed. Brooke also owned a copy extra-illustrated and augmented by the antiquary and numismatist William Boyne (1814–1893), bought by Quaritch at Boyne’s sale, Sotheby, 26 November 1868, and last sold at Sotheby, 30 April 2015, lot 113, £3000.
Lowndes II, p. 1122.