Bibliotheca Spenceriana or A Descriptive Catalogue of the Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century ... in the Library of George John Earl Spencer...

London: Printed for the Author, by W. Bulmer and Co. and published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Co.; T. Payne; White & Cochrane; John Murray; and J. & A. Arch, 1814-1815. 4 vols., large 4to, ix, lii, i, 383; 503; 509, [3]; vii, 509, lxxvii pp., with 22 plates including one double-page, as called for, and numerous additional woodcuts, some in red, in the text of all four volumes. These woodcut facsimiles are by the Byfield family. Early half black morocco, marbled boards, backstrips lettered in gilt, a remarkably good set with the extra portrait of Spencer in vol. I and pp.87/88 in vol. I in both states (as usual). § First edition, large-paper copy, of Dibdin’s great work. 500 copies were printed according to the prospectus and most nineteenth-century sources, though A.N.L. Munby states that there were 550 copies; the prospectus states 50 copies on large-paper, but Dibdin (Bibliographical Decameron, vol. II, p.392) says: ‘There were only 55 copies struck off on Large Paper.’... Regular and large-paper copies collate and paginate identically. In vol.I, leaf M4, pp.87-88 occurs in two states, both usually found together, with and without the engraved facsimile of Polish type; the text of the bottom nine lines of p.87 is reset with the headline in a different type face; and there are minor changes in p.88. Dibdin's elaborate catalogue of the library of the second Earl Spencer, one of the great book collectors of his or any time. Dibdin was for many years Spencer's librarian and produced the four-volume catalogue in 1814-1815. Three subsequent supplementary volumes were issued in 1822-3 (not present). Jackson 36. W&P A25.