![Item #301136 Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle in the collection of Lt.-Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham. Prepared for the Press by Geoffrey Scott. [With:] Boswell's Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson [and:] Index. James Boswell.](https://jamescumminsbookseller.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/301136.jpg?auto=webp&v=1431110515)
Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle in the collection of Lt.-Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham. Prepared for the Press by Geoffrey Scott. [With:] Boswell's Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson [and:] Index.
[New York]: [William Edwin Rudge; The Viking Press], 1928-1937.
Price:
$4,000.00
One of 570 numbered copies, this being no. 252, designed by Bruce Rogers. Numerous aquatone facsimiles of original manuscripts by Boswell. 20 vols. 4to and Folio. Volumes: 20. Red boards, printed spine labels. very good plus set in original boxes (some sunning to box spines, box to vol. 4 with a few splits).
Item #301136
This set was designed by Bruce Rogers in the last of his eight years at William Rudge's plant. The acquisition of the papers by Isham is itself a terrific story. Suffice it to say that in 1928, the collection was reluctantly sold by a Lord Talbot and his wife, one of Boswell's great-granddaughters, to Lt. Col. Isham, long after they had been presumed destroyed, and then discovered in various remote cabinets and chests in Ireland and Scotland. After his great acquisition, Isham wanted a sumptuous format for the collection, and negotiated a deal with William Edwin Rudge. Bruce Rogers was assigned the task of designing the format, and produced a set of volumes that are "magnificent examples of the arts of the printed book. They are, surely, the most impressive single monument of the Rudge/Rogers association." Blumenthal, pp. 104-5.
James Van Alen had provided the financial backing that made possible the purchase of the Boswell papers; “without Van Alen's backing and continuing forbearance, Isham could never have completed his private edition, let alone tackled the acquisition of the Fettercairn papers and the later finds at Malahide … without Van Alen the scattered archives of James Boswell would probably never have been fully reassembled" (David Buchanan, The Treasure of Auchinleck. The Story of the Boswell Papers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974).
Item #301136
This set was designed by Bruce Rogers in the last of his eight years at William Rudge's plant. The acquisition of the papers by Isham is itself a terrific story. Suffice it to say that in 1928, the collection was reluctantly sold by a Lord Talbot and his wife, one of Boswell's great-granddaughters, to Lt. Col. Isham, long after they had been presumed destroyed, and then discovered in various remote cabinets and chests in Ireland and Scotland. After his great acquisition, Isham wanted a sumptuous format for the collection, and negotiated a deal with William Edwin Rudge. Bruce Rogers was assigned the task of designing the format, and produced a set of volumes that are "magnificent examples of the arts of the printed book. They are, surely, the most impressive single monument of the Rudge/Rogers association." Blumenthal, pp. 104-5.
James Van Alen had provided the financial backing that made possible the purchase of the Boswell papers; “without Van Alen's backing and continuing forbearance, Isham could never have completed his private edition, let alone tackled the acquisition of the Fettercairn papers and the later finds at Malahide … without Van Alen the scattered archives of James Boswell would probably never have been fully reassembled" (David Buchanan, The Treasure of Auchinleck. The Story of the Boswell Papers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974).
