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    f m -~==s =m I38 The Publishers' Circula...

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    188 Fleet Street, February 15 i&ao

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    it NOTHER great opportunity is placed be...

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    'THE BOOKSELLERS' UNION/ History There r...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    F M -~==S =M I38 The Publishers' Circula...

    f m - ~ == s = m I 38 The Publishers' Circular Peb f j

    188 Fleet Street, February 15 I&Ao

    188 Fleet Street , February 15 i & ao

    It Nother Great Opportunity Is Placed Be...

    it NOTHER great opportunity is placed before the Trustees of the British Museum - ^* - perhaps it would be more accurate to say before the Treasury , of acquirin g for ih

    nation a collection of books and manuscripts unique and invaluable . The Earl of Ashburnha has not only given the Museum authorities the first offer of his collection , but , out of its 4 OOfl volumes about 900 ofthe most havebhis

    3 , consisting : striking specimens , , y lordship ' s n mission , been committed to the care T *^ of Mr . Maunde Thompson — , the energetic w chief — of Vi th tilt * ¦¦ " w _ it of Manuscri "H i ^ r * ts 1 at the J _ T British * . 1- * T _ Tk 0 F These ^ T ^ T * have * t i ^* v

    Department pMuseum . specimens been deposited b Mr . Thompson in the British Museum for the inspection of the Trustees , and have alreadv been viewed by some of them at one of their ordinary meetings . We understand -that a special

    meeting of the Trustees will shortly take place , at which a full attendance of the most dis tinguislied members of that body will be secured , when the question will be considered of

    ^— ' — - — V V * . \_/^ asking i tlie i-i Treasury m for I * . a grant J-l for * the i V _ purchase _!____ of _/• the it whole T 1 collection n • . . Hememberincr -r ^ k - the recent loss of the Hamilton manuscripts , which have gone to enrich the Imperial collection at

    Berlin , there is all the greater need to press upon the Government the importance of securing this rich treasure , which includes , among other rarities , three of the finest collections of modern

    times , those of Libri , Barrois , and the late Duke of Buckingham . Among the manuscri pts connected with our own national history is a great volume , bound in the fragments of an

    embroidered cope , containing no less than 44 Anglo-Saxon charters , ranging in date from the seventh to the eleventh century—the text in Latin , the recitals of boundaries in the vernacular .

    Tn another is the earliest holograph of an English King—Henry IV . —written in French evidently learnt at the c schole of Stratford-atte-Bowe . ' In a third is a rescript + m of Edward ^

    "VI ., ordering the use of his Prayer-book , a jaunty letter of Arabella Stuart , several letters of Cromwell , and a return of refusals to pay ship money in Buckinghamshire , headed by

    the name of John Hampden and signed by assessors whose own names appear among the ' recusants . A copy of the Saxon Gospels written in the tenth century appears 3 in a blaze of

    metal work and jewels which recalls and rivals the inazquales beryllo phialas of the Roman -millionaire . The Register of Hyde Abbey , near Winchester , written in the eleventh century ,

    is crowded with Anglo-Saxon drawings of great historical interest and no little artistic merit , one of the most remarkable of which represents Canute and his wife—if we may so write

    the name of the king whom the Register and Mr . Freeman call Cnut—in the act of presenting the great cross of gold to the Abbey . Among other treasures , are 42

    manuscripts of the several works of Dante ( or commentaries on them ) , including no less than 27 manuscrip •• ts of the ' Divina Commedia . ' There is not only no private A . collection in

    the world to compare with this , but of the great public and national collections of Europe there are not more than two or perhaps three which surpass it—viz . those of the Laurentian

    and Magliabecchian Libraries at Florence , and j ) erhfaps that of the National Library of Paris . I Merely to note one or two points , it contains the oldest dated manuscript of the ' Divina

    Commedia ' in the world—viz . 1335 ( with the exception of one or two whose dates are certainly false or forged Q _> )/ . It comprises X also several manuscripts X of surpassing XT ^ j beaut — — y % J , in respect ¦*• of

    writing , illumination , or material ; and notably a very celebrated and beautiful manuscript I belonging for generations to the Malaspina family , which has even been thought to l ) e a

    Malasp ' presentation ina . In copy autograp / the hs 'Purgatorio the collection ' having is singularl been first y rich dedicated , and in by fact its , author looked to at a from Marcliese ever }

    point , it ought , for the credit of England , to be bought en bloc as it is offered .

    'The Booksellers' Union/ History There R...

    'THE BOOKSELLERS' UNION / History There repeats is nothing itself new , sometimes under the w sun ith , and variations a Booksellers , and our ' Union contemporary is by no , mean the Bookseller s a new thing , h & . of oi '

    to puDiisnea published prove that a a mass mass literary correspondence correspondence ability is by no , , clueny chieflv means from trom extinct country countrv as has booksellers booksellers sometimes , , which which been asserted certainly certainly , am gw goes ongst " ^" the present vwviau race of booksellersof Kt these correspondents , to write however as

    uj . j . vj jji . * . ** w vjl MvvnovAvv > io . . Many -LTXCJtiJ ^ L lillvJCJO KjKJL ^ CO LHJXJ . Ll t 3 I . lOJ 5 seem OUtJlH h \ J WxJLHJ , A * - ^ " »' " —' , The thoug difference h they were between quite that unawa Union re that ' a and Booksellers the ' Union existed more than thirty to be years that ago tne .

    ' present suggested one appears agamsD against old * Union / free ree ' vraae trade was a was was combination tnen then tne the question question of publishers . , xnis This and new new booksellers ' Union Union / ' so so against far far as a « undersellers we w-e > can cam gatner rather ; protectio iw its views * *^ n :

    fro crusade crnsaae m the of or correspondence retail retail booksellers oooKseners , and against acrainst the Bookseller unaersellers undersellers ' s editorial . with with summing an an added addad -up , threat th is reat a sort or of of coercion coercion three-corn again n $ « " ~ ^ *

    publishers . , . The old Union was one which lied more especially to the London trade ( with oflfeh 00

    in Edinburgh and Glasgow ) ; the app vice -of underselling as a general rule in the COX **^ J !^

• Citation
  • Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Feb. 15, 1883, page 138, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_15021883/page/2/