Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq.

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London: Printed by S. and R. Bentley, Dorset Street. 1st Edition. Two volumes; quarto; size of bindings: 9 ¼ in. x 12 1/8 in. x 2 in. (thick); Volume 1: engraved frontispiece portrait of Pepys (Kneller/Bragg), printed title-page with Pepys' crossed anchor device; contents, list of plates: [i]-xlii; pp. [1]-498; index title-page, + index: [i]-xlix. Volume 1 is illustrated with 8 engraved plates, including Pepys/Impington family pedigrees. Volume 2: frontispiece engraving of Pepys' Library in York Buildings (Nevill/Cooper), printed title-page with device; pp. [1]-311; Volume 2 is illustrated with 5 engraved plates (with a total of 7 portraits). All the plates show various degrees of tanning or brown-spotting (foxing), with transfer of the images to the facing pages. Both volumes are bound without the half-tiles (as is usual). Bound in full, contemporary, brown Russia leather, with three, flat raised bands on the spines; gilt-lettered titles, and richly gilt designs in compartments, with gilt borders around the covers, and large, gilt designs in the corners; gilt line borders on cover edges, inner leather turn-ins. All edges gilt, green headbands, and dark blue silk bookmarkers, bound in; dark blue-green, coated endpapers, with an early bookseller's label in the upper left corner of the front paste-downs: Jas Sage Bookseller. 4. Newmans Row, Lincolns Inn Fields., and a former owner's small book label: Raymond E. Hughes. The bindings are unsigned, but are of high-quality from the 1825-1850 period. The spine of the first volume has been skillfully re-backed in leather, with the original leather spine laid down. The spine ends, outer hinges, cover edges and corners show light wear, or rubbing (the top edge of the back cover of volume one, shows some abrasions to the leather surface, as do the lower edges, and cover corners, of both volumes). Some light, scattered tanning, or tan-spotting to some page margins. "Pepys commenced his diary in January of 1660, stopped May 1669 on account of his eyesight. Written in Shelton's system of shorthand which Pepys probably learned as a boy in college. It was first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith, afterward rector of Baldock, then an undergraduate of St. John's. In 1825 about half of the transcript was edited by Lord Braybrooke and published as the first edition. Unquestionably one of the world's greatest human documents." (From a bookseller's description card in this set). Weight: 12 1/2 lbs. Postage is extra on this item. N° de ref. del artículo F-14

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