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Sale at Puttick & Simpson’s (1884)—a very poor copy, wanting eleven leaves, was sold for £8. Rev. Fuller Russell (1885), £265 (Hibbert’s copy, which sold in 1829 for £36, 4s. 6d.; Hibbert had given £55, 13s. at the Marquis of Blandford’s sale in 1819). Hardwicke (Wimpole), 1888, £60 (with “Cicero de Amicitia”). F. Perkins (1889), £100 (two leaves of Table in MS.). Birket Foster (1894), £77 (wanting eighteen leaves).


The History of Reynard the Fox, first edition (32).

J. Ratcliffe (1776), £5, 10s.—George III. J. Inglis (1826), £184, 16s.—T. Grenville. J. D. Gardner (1854), £195—Duke of Newcastle. (All three copies are perfect.)

–– Second edition.

One copy only—that in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge—is known to exist.


Tully of Old Age, etc. (33).

Dr. Bernard (1698), 4s. 2d. Francis Child bought Bryan Fairfax’s perfect copy in 1756 for 2 guineas. In 1885 this was sold at the Earl of Jersey’s sale (1885) for £350.

Dr. Askew bought T. Rawlinson’s perfect copy in 1756 for £1, 5s., and at Askew’s sale (1775) Willett gave 13 guineas for it. At Willett’s sale (1813) it was sold to the Marquis of Blandford for £210. At the Marquis’s sale (1819) T. Brockett gave £87, 3s. for it. At Brockett’s sale (1823) Watson Taylor bought it for £47, 5s. Thorpe bought it at Watson Taylor’s sale (1823) for £47, 15s. 6d. The “Merly” copy turned up again in 1857, when it was sold to Mr. F. Huth for £275.

The Duke of Roxburghe’s imperfect copy was bought in 1812 by the Duke of Devonshire for £115.

Since Blades’s book was published—the Rev. T. Corser (1868), £96 (“Old Age” only); Mr. Severne (1885), £250 (perfect); Earl of Crawford (1889), £320 (perfect); Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £102—Pickering & Chatto (Declamatio only).


The Chronicles of England, first edition (39).

R. Smith (1682), 3s. 6d.; Dr. Bernard (1691), 4s.; J. Ratcliffe (1776), £5, 5s.; S. Alchorne (1813), £63—Duke of Devonshire.

J. Roberts’s copy (1815) was bought for £105 by John Milner, at whose sale in 1829 W. S. Higgs bought it for £70, 7s.; at Higgs’s sale (1830) it realised £73, 10s.

The following sales have taken place since the publication of Blades’s book:—

Mr. Rainy, Bath (1883), £160—British Museum (poor copy, and imperfect). J. Hirst (1887), £67 (imperfect). Duke of Buccleuch (1889), £470—Quaritch (perfect, blanks excepted).


The Chronicles of England, second edition (43).

Bryan Fairfax’s imperfect copy was sold in 1756 to Francis Child for £5. In 1885 it sold for £40 at the sale of the Earl of Jersey’s library.

J. Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy was sold (1776) to George III. for £4, 5s.

An imperfect copy was bought by the Earl of Ashburnham in 1860 for £180. It was added to the sale after the library of E. A. Crowninshield, of Boston, U.S., had been brought to England. This copy, bound in new brown morocco, with “Description of Britain” (three leaves in facsimile), sold at Lord Ashburnham’s sale (1897) for £610—Pickering & Chatto.

Mr. Quaritch bought the Duke of Buccleuch’s copy in 1889 for £45. This was wrongly described in the catalogue as wanting only “fourteen leaves, of which two are blank,” whereas it not only wanted the first fourteen printed leaves as well as the two blanks, but also the last six.


The Description of Britain (40).

J. Towneley’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. in 1814 for £85, 1s.

The Duke of Buccleuch’s copy was bought by Mr. Quaritch in 1889 for £195. It was made up from two imperfect copies, with some leaves inlaid, but otherwise complete.


The History of Godfrey of Boloyne (42).

R. Smith (1682), 18s. 2d—Earl of Peterborough. Dr. Bernard (1698), 4s. J. West (1773), £10, 10s.—George III. J. Ratcliffe (1776), £6, 16s. 6d.—W. Hunter. Dr. Vincent (1816), £215, 5s., bought by Singer, but Blades says the Marquis of Blandford; but Mr. Norgate thinks this is a mistake, as there was no copy in the White Knights sale. Mr. Holford’s copy and that in the British Museum were the only known perfect copies until 1884, when Mr. Quaritch announced in his catalogue (No. 21,842) a “very fine copy, quite perfect, with all the blanks, and in the original binding,” priced £1000. Mr. Norgate suggests that this may be Dr. Vincent’s copy.


Polycronicon (44).

R. Mead (1755), £3, 13s. 6d. Joseph Ames (1760), two copies; one sold for 7s., and the other for 14s. J. West (1773), £16, 5s. 6d.

There were three copies in Ratcliffe’s sale (1775); one sold for 3s. 3d., another for 2s. 3d., and a third for £5, £5s. 6d.

Heber bought S. Tyssen’s copy in 1801 for £5; at his own sale it fetched £10, 15s.

The White Knights perfect copy was bought by Payne in 1819 for £94, 10s. It is now in the Grenville Library. (Blades overlooked this.)

Dent’s perfect copy was bought by Perkins in 1827 for £103, 19s.; at the latter’s sale (1873) it was bought by Mr. Quaritch for £365.

Lord Charlemont (1865), £477—Walford (wanting two leaves). This copy went to New York, and was sold immediately for 6750 dollars (= about £1380). T. Edwards (1871), wanting seven leaves, £34—Quaritch. This copy was sold at the Earl of Aylesford’s sale (1888) for £110, also to Mr. Quaritch. The seven leaves were supplied in facsimile. Ten were mounted, and a few others mended.

Sir W. Tite’s copy, with a 2, 3, 4, 8 in facsimile, realised in 1874 £150. Ashburnham copy (1897), wanting forty-six leaves, £201.

Other copies sold since the publication of Blades’s book were mere fragments, and only realised small sums.


The Pilgrimage of the Soul (45).

R. Smith (1682), 5s. J. West (1773), £8, 17s. 6d. J. Ratcliffe (1776), £3, 17s. At the Marquis of Blandford’s sale (1819) Earl Spencer bought it for £152, 5s. He perfected it with three leaves from a copy formerly belonging to Heber, and sold it in 1821, when Heber bought it again for £26, 15s. 6d., but at his sale in 1834 it only realised 18 guineas.


The Festial, first edition (47).

J. Ratcliffe had two copies: J. Edwards bought one for £3, 2s., and Dr. Farmer the other for £3. In 1796 the latter bought Herbert’s copy for £2, 2s., and made a perfect copy from the two. Lord Spencer bought this at Farmer’s sale in 1798 for £5.

–– Second edition (88).

The Duke of Roxburghe’s copy was bought by Earl Spencer for £105. Only one has occurred for sale since, viz., Rev. E. James (1854), £27, now in the British Museum.


Confessio Amantis (50).

F. Child bought B. Fairfax’s beautiful and perfect copy for £3 in 1756, and at the Earl of Jersey’s sale in 1885 it realised £810. It is now in the United States. George III. bought West’s imperfect and cropped copy for 9 guineas. Topham Beauclerk’s copy, wanting ten leaves, sold in 1781 for £2, 4s.; in 1881 it was sold at Mr. G. L. Way’s sale for £77. The Duke of Roxburghe’s perfect copy was bought by the Duke of Devonshire for £336.

Willett’s copy has been sold several times, and each time for a lower price than before. In 1813 the Marquis of Blandford bought it at Willett’s sale in 1813 for £315. At the White Knights sale (1819) it was described as “remarkably fine and perfect,” and was sold to G. Watson Taylor for £205, 16s. On being collated it was found to want six leaves, and was consequently returned, and resold to Mr. Watson Taylor for £131, 5s. At his sale in 1823 it only realised £57, 15s.

W. Haggard (1867), £185 (wanting several leaves). Lord Selsey’s perfect copy sold in 1872 for £670. H. Perkins (1873), £245 (six leaves in facsimile). Ashburnham (part 2, 1897), imperfect, £188.


The Knight of the Tower (51).

R. Smith (1682), 5s. 1d. J. Brand’s perfect copy was bought by Earl Spencer in 1807 for £111, 6s.

G. Watson Taylor bought the Marquis of Blandford’s perfect copy (without blanks) in 1819 for £85, 1s. At his sale in 1823 Jolley bought it for £52, 10s. Rodd bought it for Corser, at Jolley’s sale in 1843, for £90. At Corser’s sale (1868) Mr. Quaritch bought it for £560.


Caton (52).

R. Smith (1682),4s. 2d.; Dr. Bernard (1698), 1s. 10d.

The Duke of Devonshire’s fine and perfect copy has the Earl of Oxford’s autograph—“I bought this book at Edinburgh and paid for it the price of £3, 3s. to Mr. Alex. Seymmer Bookseller in the parliament close May 24 1725.” In another hand, “Ex Bib: Harl: £1, 1s., Feb. 1745.” It was bought from Messrs. Arch for £105.

The sale of Watson Taylor’s copy (1823) to Barclay for £30, 19s. 6d. is not recorded by Blades.

Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £295—Pickering and Chatto (imperfect).


The Golden Legend, first edition (53).

West’s imperfect copy was bought (1773) by Dr. Hunter for £12, 15s., and is now at Glasgow. Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. (1776) for £5, 15s. 6d. The highest price recorded by Blades at which a copy has sold is £230, bought by the Duc d’Aumale in 1854 at J. Dunn Gardner’s sale. This copy wants the last leaf in the Table and Biiij, the latter supplied in facsimile. Corser’s imperfect copy sold in 1869 for £147. It is now in the Huth library. W. H. Crawford’s imperfect copy sold in 1891 for £465.

–– Second edition (66).

There are no records of sales.

–– Third edition (93).

Printed by Wynkyn de Worde.


The Order of Chivalry (56).

J. West (1773), £5, 5s.—G. Mason. J. Ratcliffe (1776), £2, 8s.—George III. (imperfect). Lord Lovat (1852), £55, 10s.—Earl of Ashburnham (imperfect). Lord Ashburnham (1897), £345—Pickering & Chatto (imperfect).


Troylus and Creside (60).

West’s perfect copy was bought by George III. in 1773 for 10 guineas. Ratcliffe’s large and clean, but imperfect, copy has been sold several times at very varying prices. Herbert bought it in 1776 for £2. At Towneley’s sale in 1814 the Marquis of Blandford bought it for £252, 2s. At the White Knights sale in 1819 Watson Taylor gave £162, 15s. for it. Thomas Grenville bought it for £66, 3s. at Watson Taylor’s sale in 1823.


The Life of our Lady (61).

Earl Spencer gave £130 for his imperfect copy. The highest sale price recorded by Blades is £49 for the Duke of Roxburghe’s copy. The Rev. T. Corser’s imperfect copy, for which he gave £32 at Utterson’s sale in 1852, sold for £113 in 1868. Sir William Tite’s very imperfect copy (wanting thirty leaves) belonged to West, and was bought at his sale by Herbert for £2, 12s. 6d. Tite bought it in 1859 for £41, and at his sale it sold for £54. The Earl of Devon’s quite perfect copy (with the blanks) was bought by Mr. Quaritch for £880 in 1883.


The Noble Histories of King Arthur (63).

The only known perfect copy was in the Harleian Library, and was sold by Osborne in 1748 to Bryan Fairfax for £5. At Fairfax’s sale in 1756 Francis Child bought it for two guineas and a half, and in 1885 it was sold at the Earl of Jersey’s sale to Mr. Quaritch for £1950. It is now in New York.


The Life of Charles the Great (64).

The only known copy which is perfect is now in the King’s Library, British Museum. Ratcliffe bought it at West’s sale (1773) for £13, and at Ratcliffe’s sale (1776) George III. obtained it for 4 guineas.


The Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne (65).

The only known copy, in the King’s Library, is perfect. It was bought at West’s sale by George III. for £14.


The Royal Book (67).

West’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. for £10. Gustavus Brander bought Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy in 1777 for £2, 13s., but at his own sale it only brought 15s. It was sold in 1864 to Lilly for £62.

The Althorpe perfect and beautiful copy was bought by the Marquis of Blandford at Louis Goldsmid’s sale (1815) for £85, 1s. At the Marquis’s sale (1819) George Hibbert bought it for £73, 10s., and at Hibbert’s sale (1829) Lord Spencer obtained it for £61, 19s.

The Duke of Buccleuch’s copy (wanting a. i, with two very slight defects, both repaired) is not mentioned by Blades. It was bought by Mr. Quaritch at the Duke’s sale (1889) for £365.


Speculum Vitæ Christi (70).

West’s copy was bought by Ratcliffe, who had three imperfect copies; at his sale in 1776 George III. bought one for £3, 3s., Dr. Hunter another for the same amount, and the third sold for £3, 10s. Earl Spencer bought two copies—one at J. Allen’s sale (1795) for 11 guineas, and the other at the Roxburghe sale for £45; he completed the latter with two leaves taken from the former. The duplicate was sold and came into the possession of Sir Francis Freeling; at his sale in 1836 Mr. Corser bought it for £25, 10s., and at Corser’s sale (1868) it realised £67.

Two copies are known on vellum–one, in very poor condition, is in the Royal Library at Windsor; the other, in the British Museum, was bought in 1864 for £1000.


The Doctrinal of Sapience (71).

The Duke of Devonshire gave £78, 15s. for the Spencer duplicate (perfect) in Alchorne’s sale (1813). Dawson Turner’s copy (wanting six leaves) was bought by T. Bateman in 1859 for £28; at his sale in 1893 it realised £58. Earl of Ashburnham’s copy (first and last leaf in facsimile), 1897, sold for £660—Quaritch (for the British Museum). The last Earl gave £150 for this copy.


Servitium de Transfiguratione Jhesu Christi (73).

The only known copy was bought for the British Museum at a sale at Puttick’s in 1862 for £200. It was found in a volume of Theological Tracts presented to the Congregational Library, Blomfield Street, by Joshua Wilson of Tunbridge Wells in 1831.


The Fayts of Arms (74).

The largest amount paid for a copy at a public sale is £336, which the Duke of Devonshire gave for the Roxburghe copy (with a few lines of the last leaf in facsimile).

Bryan Fairfax’s imperfect copy was bought by Francis Child for £1, 11s. 6d. At the sale of Lord Jersey’s library in 1885 it sold for £71.

Libri’s perfect, but mended and washed, copy, which he had bought in very poor condition from Mario the great tenor, was sold in 1862 to Mr. F. Huth for £255.

Mr. Corser’s perfect copy was bought in 1868 by Mr. Quaritch for £250.

Sir W. Tite’s copy (with the first two leaves in facsimile) sold in 1874 for £190. This copy was bought by Tite at the Rev. C. H. Crauford’s sale in 1854 for £77. Crauford bought it at Wilks’s sale (1847) for £54.

The Earl of Crawford’s perfect copy, with Table inlaid, sold in 1889 for £235. R. Lindsay, in Philadelphia, had this copy in his catalogue (June 1893) for £425.


The History of Blanchardin and Eglantine (78).

The only known copy, which is imperfect, is in the Althorpe library. This copy was bought at Ratcliffe’s sale by G. Mason for £3, 6s.; at Mason’s sale (1799) the Duke of Roxburghe bought it for £21. Earl Spencer gave £215, 5s. for it at the Roxburghe sale.


Eneydos (81).

R. Smith (1682), 3s. Walter Rea (1682), 1s. 6d.

F. Child gave 30s. for B. Fairfax’s perfect copy, which sold at the Earl of Jersey’s sale (1885) for £235.

Hanrott’s imperfect copy was bought in 1833 by Lord Auckland for £43, 1s.; at his sale two years afterwards H. Holland bought it for £24. At Holland’s sale (1860) Mr. H. Huth bought it for £84.

Mr. Quaritch had a copy in 1875 with two leaves in facsimile, otherwise a fine copy, which he marked £300.


The Art and Craft to Know Well to Die (86).

West’s perfect copy was bought by Ratcliffe for £5, 2s. 6d.; at Ratcliffe’s sale George III. bought it for 4 guineas.

Mr. C. Tutet’s copy was bought in 1786 by Payne for 2 guineas; probably this is the perfect copy which Payne sold to the National Library, Paris, for 10 guineas.


The Chastising of God’s Children (90).

R. Smith (1682). 5s. Dr. Bernard (1698), 1s. 10d. Osborne (1751), 15s.

The Roxburghe copy (perfect) was bought by Lord Spencer for £140.

The Earl of Aylesford bought the Marquis of Blandford’s copy (bound with “Treatise of Love,” No. 91) for £32, 10s., and at his sale in 1888 it realised £305. F. Perkins (1889), £100.

S. Alchorne’s copy sold in 1813 for £94, 10s.; Valentine’s copy in 1842 for £5. Blades describes this last in his catalogue list as Alchorne’s; but this is probably a mistake, as Valentine bought J. Inglis’s copy (1826) for £17, 10s.


Sex perelegantissimæ Epistolæ (1483).

24 leaves. The only copy known of this tract was discovered in 1874 by Dr. G. Könnecke, archivist of Marburg, in an old volume of seventeenth-century divinity in the Hecht-Heinean Library at Halberstadt. The discovery was described by Mr. Blades at the time in the Athenæum (Feb. 27, 1875). This copy was bought by the British Museum in 1890 for £250.

Almost as scarce and valuable as Caxtons are the books printed at St. Albans:—

The Chronicle of St. Albans (circa 1484), the second book printed at St. Albans, and the first edition of the Chronicle, was sold at the Earl of Ashburnham’s sale (1897) to Messrs. J. & J. Leighton for £180. It was imperfect, but no absolutely perfect copy is known.

In Quaritch’s catalogue, 1884 (No. 355), a copy with five leaves in facsimile and twenty-two others deficient, was marked £300.

The Boke of St. Albans (1486), a copy perfected in MS., was sold at the Roxburghe sale for £147. It was resold at the White Knights sale for £84. In March 1882 Mr. Quaritch bought it at Christie’s for 600 guineas. The Grenville copy now in the British Museum has gone through many vicissitudes, which were graphically described by Dr. Maitland in 1847. It appears that at the end of the last century the library of Thonock Hall, in the parish of Gainsborough, the seat of the Hickman family, was sorted out by an ignorant person who threw into a condemned heap all books without covers. A gardener who took an interest in heraldry begged permission to take home what he liked from this heap, and he chose among other books The Book of St. Albans. This remained in his cottage till June 1844, when his son’s widow sold 9 lbs. of books to a pedlar for 9d. The pedlar sold the lot for 3s. to a chemist in Gainsborough, who was rather struck by The Book of St. Albans, and tried to sell it, but the neighbours did not wish to buy it. Eventually he obtained £2, 2s. for it from a man who expected to sell it to advantage. The purchaser sold it to Stark the bookseller for £7, 7s. Stark took it to London and sold it to the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville for seventy or eighty guineas. Mr. Blades communicated this account to Notes and Queries (3rd Series, iv. 369).

A copy was sold at the Earl of Ashburnham’s sale (1897), which was stated to be the Roxburghe copy, completed by the Earl from another copy. Mr. Quaritch bought this for £385.

Still rarer than this is one of the treatises in a separate form, and printed in the next century:—

Juliana Barnes’s Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle. London: Wynkyn de Worde (1532). First separate edition, unique.

In the Harleian Library, afterwards in Gulston’s collection, who sold it to J. Ratcliffe, bought at his sale by White the bookseller, sold by him to Mr. Haworth, at whose sale it sold for 19 guineas (unbound). Earl of Ashburnham (1897), green morocco, £360.

A few prices may now be given of some of the most interesting publications of the old English press, consisting of the works of poets, travellers, &c., all of which have greatly increased in value, and will probably increase still more:—

King Arthur, W. Coplande, 1557.

Dent, £20, 9s. 6d., fine copy, in olive morocco by Lewis. H. Perkins (1873), £120 (same copy).

Bancroft’s (T.) Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, 1639. Rare Books and MSS. (Sotheby, March 1897), fine uncut copy, £42.

Barnfield’s (Richard) Encomion of Lady Pecunia, 1598.

Malone bought Farmer’s copy for 19s. Ouvry (1882), £105.

Bradshaw’s (Henry) holy lyfe and history of Saynt Werburghe (Pynson, 1521, 4o, pp. 294).

Only three copies known: (1) Gough’s, now in the Bodleian; (2) Heber’s, sold in 1834 for £19, 5s.; (3) copy in Longman’s catalogue (Bibl. Anglo-Poetica), 1815, marked £63.

The prices of Caxton’s two editions of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” are recorded on a previous page of this chapter. Imperfect copies of Pynson’s first and second editions were marked £25 in Longman’s catalogue (1815). The first edition (fifty-four leaves inlaid and two leaves in facsimile) fetched at the Heber sale £60, 18s., and at the Earl of Ashburnham’s, £233. The second edition (1526) sold at the Roxburghe sale for £30, 9s., and an imperfect copy at the Ashburnham sale for £26.

Wynkyn de Worde’s edition is as valuable as a Caxton, and a fine and perfect copy sold at the Ashburnham sale for £1000.

Cutwode’s (T.) Caltha Poetarum; or, Bumble Bee, 1599.

Three copies only known: (1) Malone’s, now in the Bodleian; (2) Heber’s, from which the Roxburghe Club reprint was made, sold in 1834 for £3, 18s.; (3) a copy which belonged successively to Steevens, Caldecott, and Freeling. Steevens’ sale (1800), £2, 12s. 6d.; Freeling (1836), £11, 15s.

According to Ritson, this book “was staid at the press by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London; and such copies as could be found or were already taken were to be presently brought to the Bishop of London to be burnt.” Dibdin gives an amusing account of the Roxburghe Club reprint (1815) in his “Reminiscences” (vol. i. p. 465, note):—“A bet was laid (the winner of the bet to give the Roxburghe Club a dinner) between Sir M. M. Sykes and Mr. Dent whether the anniversary meeting of 1815 was the third or fourth of the club. Mr. Dent was the loser, when Mr. Heber promised to present the club with a reprint of the above poem at the extra dinner in contemplation. Only nine days intervened, but within that period the reprint was transcribed, superintended at the press by Mr. Haslewood (without a single error), bound by Charles Lewis, and presented to the members on sitting down to dinner. Mr. Haslewood was reported to have walked in his sleep with a pen in his hand during the whole period of its preparation.”

Drummond of Hawthornden’s Forth Feasting, 1617, bought by Ouvry at Sotheby’s in 1858 for £8, 15s. (bound in morocco), fetched £60 at Ouvry’s sale in 1882.

Fabyan’s Chronicles (Pynson, 1516), first edition.

Dr. F. Bernard (1698), 4s. 8d.

Roberts (1815), £84—North. John North (1819), £92. (Perfect.)

Samuel Lysons (1820), £35—Lord Aylesford. Lord Aylesford (1888), £250—Christie Miller. (Completed by leaves from another edition.)

Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (John Daye, 1562-63), first edition, complete.

Earl of Ashburnham (1897), £150.

Frobisher’s Three Voyages of Discoverie, 1578, with Keymis’s Second Voyage to Guiana, 1596, in one vol., calf gilt, by Kalthoeber.

Beckford (1882), £300.

Ouvry’s copy of Frobisher, wanting the maps, sold for £68.

Froissart’s Cronycles (Pynson, 1523-25), two vols. folio.

G. Mason (1798), £36, 15s. Roxburghe (1812), £63. Towneley (1814), £42 (title of vol. i. a reprint). W. H. Crawford (Lakelands), 1891, £25.

Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, 1589, with rare map, fine copy, in pigskin.

Jadis, £26, 5s. Same copy, Duke of Hamilton (1884), £23.

Hariot (T.), Merveilleux et estrange Rapport … Francofurti, 1590.

Duke of Hamilton (1884), fine copy, in morocco by Lewis, £97.

Linschoten’s Voyages into the Easte and West Indies, 1598, maps and plates from the Dutch edition, title inlaid, and last leaf mended.

Roxburghe, £10, 15s. Same copy, Beckford (1882), £14. Colonel Stanley, £22.

Lodge’s (Thomas) Rosalynde, 1598.

Longman (1815), £20 (imperfect). Heber, £5, 10s. Ouvry (1882), £63.

Lok’s (Henry) Ecclesiastes (London: Richard Field, 1597).

Longmans (1815), £28. Sotheby’s (March 1817), £6, 16s. G. Daniel, £38, 10s.

The first editions of Milton’s works have greatly increased in price. Not many years ago a copy of the first edition of the “Paradise Lost” could be obtained for about five pounds, but now a good copy is worth at least four times as much. The prices vary considerably with the date of the title-page, of which there are several issues. G. Daniel’s fine copy sold in 1864 for £28, 10s.

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