TACITUS; J.N. LALLEMAND, editor.
Quae exstant opera.
Paris, J. Barbou for Desaint & Saillant, 1760.
Three vols, 12mo, with copper-engraved frontispieces by Lempereur after Eisen; bound without half-titles; woodcut ‘non solus’ device to titles, copper-engraved vignette head-pieces, woodcut ornaments; a very fresh set in contemporary French red morocco, spine richly gilt à travers with gilt green morocco lettering-pieces, edges gilt, star-and-spot gilt brocade endpapers with partially visible imprints of Johann Michael Munck of Augsburg; very lightly rubbed at extremities, but an excellent set; twentieth-century booklabel of Viscount Mersey to front pastedowns.
A handsomely bound set, with striking gilt brocade endpapers preserving the name of the Augsburg manufacturer, elegantly ‘printed by Barbou and called by Harwood “one of the most beautiful and correct of all his classics.” The text is from Ernesti’s first edition, but it contains the readings of some MSS. in the royal library of France, especially of those which coincide with the editio princeps’ (Dibdin).
‘The House of Barbou had recognized the full importance of beautifully printed books in small format. Some of the prettiest of these editions have already been mentioned in connection with the discussion of book illustration, such as the Martial of 1754, the Plautus of 1759, the Tacitus of 1760. Barbou not only found the approval of the wider public with this, but also that of the specialist press, and his works were praised in the Mercure and the Journal des Savants’ (Fürstenberg, trans.).
Provenance:
Charles Clive Bigham, second Viscount Mersey (1872–1956), of Bignor Park, British politician, author, collector, bibliophile, and member of the Roxburghe Club. Mersey built an extensive library of classics in Latin, Greek, English, French, and Italian, many beautifully bound although his interest was primarily textual: ‘Binding for themselves I never sought for – so many poor books are magnificently bound – but a good book in a good contemporary binding is always worth getting’ (Journals and Memories, p. 189). He was the son of John Charles Bigham, first Viscount Mersey (1840–1929), the barrister and later judge known for heading the official Board of Trade inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic.
Brunet (1864) V, col. 636; Cohen 972; Dibdin, Classics (1827) II, p. 455; Fürstenberg 91 and 194; Moss II, 645.
