(AUCTION CATALOGUE: HEINSIUS, N.). Bibliotheca Heinsiana sive Catalogus Librorum quos, magno studio, & sumptu, dum viveret, collegit vir illustris Nicolaus Heinsius...in duas Partes divisus.
Woodcut printer's device on first title. 1 p.l., 374 pp., 1 blank leaf; 286 pp., 1 blank leaf. Two vols. in one. Small 8vo, cont. blind-stamped Dutch vellum over boards, large ornamental centerpiece with a fleuron in each corner. Leyden: [Abraham Elzevir] for J. de Vivie, 1682. First edition, Pollard's issue "i"; this is the actual sale catalogue and not one of the later re-issues. This is the first copy of the first issue I have handled; it is very rare on the market. The first issue has the date of the sale on the title and the conditions of sale -- "Ad Emptores" -- on the verso. Our copy has been priced throughout in a contemporary hand with calculations on the front free endpaper. "The sale catalogue of the polymath library of Nicolaus Heinsius, eminent Dutch classical scholar, Neo-Latin poet, and diplomatist, containing over 13,000 lots. It was immediately recognized as having more than ephemeral value, and was reissued as a reference work, with a new, undated title-page in red and black (verso blank), on which all mention of the sale was omitted, an added preface ('Typographus Lectori Salutem"), and a frontispiece portrait of the late owner. There is a further issue, without date of sale, portrait, or preface, and with title in black, dated 1682. It became one of the most frequently consulted catalogues of its kind."Grolier Club, Bibliography, 80. Fine and lovely copy. Pollard & Ehrman no. 231. Taylor, Book Catalogues, pp. 18, 41, 58, 99, 121, 131, 171, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 227, & 245.
$US9500
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