The Old Book Collector’s Miscellany. Edited by Charles Hindley. First Edition. Three Volumes. Reeves & Turner. London, 1871-73.

Bibliophiles have shared in the gentle madness for centuries. From Sir Robert Cotton to Thomas Jefferson to Frances Currer to Larry McMurtry to Lisa Baskin, the community of book collectors has always outnumbered the volumes worth collecting. One way to channel this long history is to review the bibliographies published by book collectors, and one shining example is The Old Book Collector’s Miscellany: Or, a Collection of Readable Reprints of Literary Rarities, Illustrative of the History, Literature, Manners, and Biography of the English Nation, During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Compiled and edited by Charles Hindley, this three-volume set contains reprinted texts from the previous centuries in England as well as facsimile woodcuts and more. Most of the texts will be unfamiliar to readers today. Yet that is part of the joy of the collection. It reveals so much of what could have (and was) collected by generations before us. The work also contains that intangible quality of sincere bibliophilia. There are blank pages for notes on the texts, adoring prefaces, and a general sense of joy in reading and collecting.

This first edition set is in fine condition. Three volumes rebound in modern quarter leather and buckram boards. Raised bands. Gilt spine label. Modern endpapers. Text blocks fine. Unopened. Top edges gilt.

A scarce first edition set of The Old Book Collector’s Miscellany.