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Notes
Most of the accounts of Edwards of Halifax concern their work as bookbinders. The most important scholarship is that of T. W. Hanson, "'Edwards of Halifax': [A Family of] Book-Sellers, Collectors, and Book-Binders", Halifax Guardian, Dec 1912, Jan 1913, reprinted in Papers, Reports, &c., Read before the Halifax Antiquarian Society, 1912 (Halifax [1913]), 142-200; "Richard Edwards, Publisher", Times Literary Supplement, 8 Aug 1942, P. 396; and collections for his incomplete book on Edwards of Halifax (called Hanson MS here) now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Many of the facts cited here were first encountered in this last collection.
See "The Edwardses of Halifax and Bibliomania", Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, XI (1989), 141-156.
See "Richard Edwards, Publisher of Church-and-King Pamphlets and of William Blake", Studies in Bibliography, XLI (1988), 283-315.
Premature obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, LIV (March 1784), 238; it was followed by an apologetic notice next month (P. 315): "Mr. Edwards, bookseller, of Leeds [sic], is not dead, as mentioned in our last, p. 238.—We shall use more caution in inserting articles from country news-papers, where they are not unfrequently inserted to serve a particular purpose, without regard to truth."
Gentleman's Magazine, LXXVIII (Jan 1808), 92; like the other passages in the Gentleman's Magazine about the family quoted here, it is repeated with little in the way of change or acknowledgement in John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, III (1812), 422, &c.; in John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, IV (1822), 881-884; and in C. H. Timperley, A Dictionary of Printers and Printing (1839), 832. The last sentence in the quotation above was added in Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, III (1812), 422.
For detailed information on all the catalogues discussed here, see the Bibliography of Edwards Catalogues below.
The auction catalogues of Pinelli (1789) and Wootton (1795) give only Pall Mall, without a number. Note that the title-pages name the proprietor only as J. Edwards or as Mr. Edwards, though that of 1785 begins "James Edwards Catalogue".
[William Beloe (1756-1817)] The Sexagenarian; or, The Recollections of a Literary Life, Second Edition (1818), II, 279, 278; "the Exotic Bookseller" (described on pp. 277-282) is clearly James Edwards, for his father was "the inventor" of fore-edge paintings "in a remote provincial town", and, when the Exotic Bookseller retired, he "married, and became a country gentleman", as James Edwards did.
James Edwards's fascination with vellum copies is indicated by the note he made in his copy of Anacreon, Conviali Semiiambia [ed. J. Spaletti] (Roma, 1781): "This Copy of the Roman Anacreon is unique as printed upon vellum, and the paintings executed . . . at a very great expense. The publisher would never fix any price upon it during his lifetime, I bought it at Rome after his decease in 1796 and believe it to be the finest Book printed upon vellum with miniatures that exists" (Sotheby miscellaneous book-sale 1 Aug 1935, lot 112).
Gentleman's Magazine, LXXXVI (1816), 180 (obituary of James Edwards). Note that the advertisement of the catalogue (which is all we know of the title) mentions neither Edwards and Sons of London nor John Edwards.
Edwards clearly consulted Richard Gough (1735-1809), the principal antiquary of his time, about the books in his catalogue, as it contained just the kinds of work which most interested Gough.
John Bradshaw (1602-59), President of the Parliamentary Commission which tried Charles I and others, left his property to his nephew Henry Bradshaw (d. 1698), but it was confiscated by the Crown after the Restoration. Henry Bradshaw's property had apparently descended to H. Bradshaw of Maple Hall, Cheshire, as mentioned by Nichols. Hanson, MS, p. 43, remarks that "A huge proportion" of President Bradshaw's "papers" went to Lewis Montolieu, who sold a collection of 2,000 Commonwealth and Restoration pamphlets in 65 quarto volumes "formed . . . by the President Bradshawe, and . . . his Heirs" anonymously at Christie's, 13 Dec 1809, for £77.11.0.
Quoted from a reproduction of the manuscript in the Lewis Walpole Library (Farmington, Connecticut) of Yale University.
Of course, this emphasis upon northern cities may be simply because the 1785 title is known only from advertisements in Leeds and Manchester newspapers. However, as the ads name two London booksellers besides Edwards, they probably did not omit other booksellers in cities more fashionable than Leeds and Manchester; such names would in any case have given the catalogue more cachet.
Note that the illustrated books of voyages, insects, archaeology, birds, and fine art were exactly the sorts of work which Edwards was to publish himself.
A note made by Edwards in his own copy of the catalogue, according to Hanson MS, p. 103. Benjamin White (1725-94) was a good deal older than James Edwards, but Thomas Payne (1752-1831), Robert Faulder (fl. 1779-1811), and Thomas Egerton (fl. 1784-1830) were about the same age.
Quoted, like the other Roscoe correspondence here, from a reproduction of the MS in the Roscoe Collection of Liverpool Public Library.
This may be the copy which David Steuart acquired by 1796 and gave to the Advocates' Library in 1806—see Brian Hillyard, "History of the National Library of Scotland's 42-line Bible", Bibliothek: A Scottish Journal of Bibliography and Allied Topics, XII (1985), 113-117.
Finance may have been supplied by a shadowy connection of the family, John Edwards (1745-1819), the son of John Edwards (1706-93) of Lisbon, who retired with a fortune to Northowram Hall near Halifax in 1808, and apparently acquired the house at Harrow of his cousin James Edwards and proposed marriage to his widow between 1816, when James Edwards died, and 1819, when John Edwards died (according to C. J. Weber, A Thousand and One Fore-Edge Paintings [1949], 30). Beloe says that James Edwards set out on his first "circuit of Europe . . . with abundance of money" (II, 278).
Dibdin, Bibliomania (1811), 106. When this copy was sold by Evans with "the Library of an Eminent Bibliographer" on 26-28 June 1817, lot 261, it was described as "formerly Mr. Edwards's copy, who has marked the condition of each article in pencil in the margin".
George Smith and Frank Benger, The Oldest London Bookshop (1928), 43-47. There were about 1,150 incunabula in the Pinelli Library.
Gentleman's Magazine, LIX (Jan 1789), 69-70, erroneously specifying that the final offer was made "immediately". The phrase in the Gentleman's Magazine is repeated in John Nichols, Illustrations, IV (1822), 881, but the date is given wrongly as "1788". The Gentleman's Magazine reviewer remarked: "The importation of such a collection of books into this country reflects honour on the booksellers who have engaged in it, who, we understand, are Messieurs Robson and Edwards, who undertook a journey to Venice on purpose to examine it". This information is not in the catalogue. According to William Blades, The Enemies of Books (1896), 20, the fleet bearing the Pinelli library was "Pursued by Corsairs, one of the vessels was captured, but the pirate, disgusted at not finding treasure, threw all the books into the sea. The other two vessels escaped and delivered their freight safely . . .". However, this high-jacked cargo is an earlier Pinelli Library; the episode is described in a letter of 21 February 1609 (Marcella Grendler, "A Greek Collection in Padua: The Library of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli [1535-1601]", Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIII [1980], 389).
This is the same address as The Turf Gallery where Robson sold the Library of Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans, on 18 June 1796 (according to G. Smith and F. Benger, The Oldest London Bookshop [1928], 54), and the Bibliotheca Woottoniana on 24 Feb-2 March 1795 (q.v.).
P. [vii]; according to The Dictionary of National Biography, the catalogue-maker was Dr Johnson's friend Samuel Paterson (1728-1802), the auctioneer and bookseller. Hanson MSS, p. 74, says that Paterson wrote to say that if he had been given time he could have made a creditable catalogue, "But as so many difficulties and objections are started which it is out of the power of man to answer, I beg to decline a task where there is no likelihood of satisfying my employers".
C. H. Timperley, A Dictionary of Printers and Printing (1839), 825. This sum "barely repaid the expense of purchase; including duties, carriage, and sale", according to T. F. Dibdin, Bibliomania (1811), 122.
According to advertisements in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection of "Presscuttings from English newspapers etc. 1686-1835", I, 512, 590; see also I, 343, 347, 513. In 1791 James Robson issued a Catalogue of Books . . . Comprehending Also the Valuable Articles at the Pinelli Sale, intended for Abroad; perhaps these were lots which Robson had bought in. (There is no special Pinelli section in this Robson catalogue.)
Ian Philip, "The Background of the Bodleian Purchases of Incunabula at the Pinelli and Crevenna Sales", Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, VII (1979), 369-375. Earl Spencer bought 266 lots (£294.3.0) through James Robson (Anthony Lister, "George John, and Earl Spencer, and his 'Librarian', Thomas Frognall Dibdin", in Bibliophily, ed. R. Myers & M. Harris [1986], 92.)
Arthur Rau, "Bibliotheca Parisina", Book Collector, XVIII (1969), 307-317. Hanson MSS, p. 87, cites (without locating) a copy of the French catalogue in which a hundred lots are identified as "Not Arriv'd", "N.A.", "missing", and simply not priced.
Lots 18, 171, 206 ("This edition is so scarce as to have escaped the observation of all Bibliographers"), 223, and 526.
T. F. Dibdin, Bibliomania (1811), 544-546, 121; Dibdin lists some notable books and prices (pp. 543-548n). The Rev. Joseph Stirling wrote to Bishop Percy on 10 April 1791: "The celebrated Bibliotheca Parisiana was sold last week; about six hundred articles produced near 7,000 l., an unheard of thing in the annals of literature. . . . A Mr. [Thomas] Johnes, Member for Radnorshire, was the most considerable purchaser at the Parisiana. I dare say his bill came to near 2,000 l." Hanson MSS, p. 86, remarks that James Edwards's shop assistant Charles Barron (who signed his business letters when Edwards was abroad in 1796) bought in a number of inexpensive items and also some dear ones, such as No. 605, Recueil de Peintures bound by De Rome (£191.2.0) which reappeared in Thomas Edwards's 1828 sale, No. 869 (Sir Thomas Philips, £95.11.0).
Nichols, Illustrations, IV (1822), 882. Beloe, Sexegenarian, II, 279, says that his "speculations . . . elevated [Edwards] to considerable distinction and opulence".
The Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. K. Garlick and A. Macintyre, IV (1979), 1572. I am informed by Miss Constance-Anne Parker, Librarian of the Royal Academy, that there is no record at all of the 1802 Catalogue in the Minutes of the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy librarian of Edwards's time (1794-1812) was Edward Burch, R.A.
When Evans took over James Edwards's business, he acquired numbers of his publications, which he offered in his Catalogue (1804), describing himself as "Successor to Mr. Edwards". Many of the Edwards publications were described as "new and very neat", a formula probably indicating that they were remainders rather than second-hand copies. Among the more remarkable Edwards editions were Benaven, Le Caissier (1781) No. 380; Horace, Opera (1792), Large Paper, No. 520; Dutens, Table Genealogique (London, n.d.), new, No. 629; Eckel, Doctrina Numorum, No. 865-866; Cardonnel, Scotland, quarto, No. 958, and octavo, No. 1608; Pinkerton, Essay on Medals, No. 1888; Roscoe, Medici (1796, the First Edition, not the current one), No. 3671; works with coloured plates (Lysons, Wood-chester, No. 48, 240; Harrison, Colour, No. 306) and in elegant bindings (Smith, Views in Italy [1792], No. 29; Holbein, Triumph of Death, No. 64; Hamilton, Grammont, No. 76, 648-649).
Dibdin, Bibliographical Decameron III (1817), 113; the whole account is a long footnote on pp. 111-126. Edwards's pervasive responsibility for the sale is indicated by a MS note from him of 28 March 1815 (bound with one of the Hanson copies of the catalogue in Bodley) in which he offers credit to Messrs Arch & Co for the sale to follow.
One of the vases owned by Edwards was represented in a large print in some copies of [James Christie], A Disquisition upon Etruscan Vases (1806).
Dibdin, Bibliographical Decameron, III (1817), 112. On the other hand, Alfred Wallis, Examples of the Book-Binders' Art of the XVI. and XVII. Centuries (1890), said of the bindings: "This may be considered to indicate the lowest pecuniary point in which historic and beautiful bindings sank in the present century, but they remained at a low-water mark, or thereabouts, for a long time afterwards" (Introduction, [v-vi]). The sale made some noise in the literary world, and three notes [?by Dibdin] about the Bibliotheca Edwardsiana appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, LXXXV (Feb, March, April 1815), 135, 254-255, 349: "The magic hammer of Mr. Evans will in a few weeks be upraised amidst a throng of Bibliomaniacs" when the library of James Edwards, "(the hospitable Rinaldo of the 'Bibliomania')" will be sold "by the advice of . . . [his] Medical friends". Some highlights are quoted from the catalogue in March and some prices recorded in April, with the enigmatic statement: "The beautiful Vases were not sold". There was also "An Account of the Prices and Purchasers of the most valuable Articles in the Collection of the late James Edwards, Esq. sold by Mr. Evans, April 5, 1815, and Five following Days, at No. 26, Pall Mall" in the Classical Journal, XII (Sept 1815), 35-41.
Dibdin, Bibliographical Decameron, III (1817), 14-15, 15fn, and 17. A footnote to p. 14 says: "The Bibliomania was scarcely published when the aptitude of the character of Rinaldo to that of the late Mr. James Edwards was promptly and generally acknowledged."
According to Hanson MSS, p. 260, after the death of James Edwards's son James Justinian George Edwards (1811-84), there was a ten-day sale of his house-contents by Messrs Edwards of Newcastle-under-Lyme, beginning 23 Feb 1885, including some lots which came from his father, such as the ring with the head of Alexander Pope (No. 782), which the poet had given to Bishop Warburton and which James Edwards had inherited from Dr William Stephens.
See "The Bookseller as Diplomat: James Edwards, Lord Grenville, and Earl Spenser in 1800", Book Collector, XXXIII (1984), 471-485.
Quoted from a reproduction of the original in his collection generously sent me by my friend Dr Anthony Lister. On it is a memorandum in the hand of W. Ford: "This circular was drawn up by W. Ford Booksr. of Manchester who also made the Catalogue." According to Anthony Lister, "William Ford (1771-1832) "the Universal Bookseller", Book Collector, XXXVIII (1989), 27, this Edward sale was "Quite the most interesting instance of Ford's participation in a Manchester auction". Thomas Edwards also acted occasionally as the vendor of auction catalogues in whose contents he had no financial interest. For example, Mr Edwards, Halifax, was one of seventeen vendors in as many cities for Winstanley & Taylor's catalogues of the Library of John Leigh Philips, Esq. deceased, 17-27 Oct 1814 (Harvard, Boston Public Library) and of his Paintings & Drawings, Prints & Etchings, Cabinet of Insects, &c., 31 Oct-11 Nov 1814 (Harvard)—but not of his Books . . . (Omitted in the Former Sale), 11 Nov 1814 (Harvard).
This catalogue contains an advertisement for the sale of Thomas Edwards's paintings, drawings, and engravings, but I do not know of a catalogue for it.
See "The Selling of Blake's Night Thoughts Designs in the 1870s", Blake: An Illustrated Blake, XII (1978), 70-71.
Untraced Catalogues: William Edwards (Nov 1749; Dec 1754; Oct 1755; Oct 1756; Oct 1757; Oct 1759; March 1760); James Edwards (1785; Santorio 1791; Wootton 1795); Thomas Edwards (April 1812; May 1812; 1828 prints). Traced Catalogues: James Edwards (1787; Pinelli 1789; 1789; gold 1790; Pinelli 1790; 1790; Paitoni 1790-91; Parisiana 1791; Parisina 1791; 1794; 1796; June 1799; April 1815; July 1820); Thomas Edwards (1815; Aug 1815; 1816; March-April 1818; 1821; 1-2 May 1826; 14-16 May 1826; May 1828; March 1835); Edwards-Heathcote (June 1928). I have derived much valuable information in tracing these catalogues from British Book Sale Catalogues 1676-1800: A Union List Compiled and Edited by A. N. L. Munby and Lenore Coral (1977).
The information about William Edwards catalogues derives from Elizabeth Swaim's list of "Eighteenth-Century Auction and Fixed-Book Sales in Yorkshire" 1691-1781 in her "The Auction as a means of book distribution in eighteenth-century Yorkshire", Publishing History, I (1977), 75-91, supplemented from the Hanson MSS for those of 1749, 1759, and 1760. She remarks that the advertisements are often ambiguous as to who is holding the auction and that the only one she is sure is by William Edwards is that of 1757. She also lists W. Edwards as the vendor of the following auction catalogues of other men: 27 Jan 1755 at Bradford (advertisements in the Leeds Intelligencer, 7 Jan 1755; York Courant, 7 Jan 1755); 29 Jan 1757 at Bradford (Leeds Intelligencer, 25 Jan 1757). No catalogue of William Edwards is known to survive.
The first two references are taken from Hanson MSS, pp. 18, 129; for the third, I am indebted to Professor Elizabeth Swaim.
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