Catalogue of a collection of early printed books in the library of the Royal Society.

  • Royal Society (Great Britain). Library.
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Catalogue of a collection of early printed books in the library of the Royal Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/128 (page 4)
    (J81 works, many of the volumes containing a number of separate works. It is specially rich in tracts of the Reformation period; there are in the collection 144 separate works by Martin Luther, and a large number of tracts from other hands (such as those of Erasmus, Melanchthon and others) which have reference to Luther and to questions concerned with the Reformation. Hie Society possesses, in a translation made into the Massachusetts Indian language from Richard Baxter’s “A Call to the Unconverted,” a book which (so far as can be ascertained) is unique. The translation is by John Eliot, an English minister who from 1646 to 1690 was engaged in missionary labours among the Massachusetts Indians. Of a thouscfnd copies of this work that are known to have been printed at Cambridge, Mass., in 1664, no other example is known to exist, the fact of their disappearance being probably accounted for by their being printed for distribution among Eliot’s Indian disciples and pupils. The Society's copy is in the original boards. Another very rare work of Eliot’s, which is in this collection, is his translation of the Bible into Massachusetts Indian. This was the first Bible printed on the American continent, and was issued at Cambridge, Mass., 1661-63. The Society’s copies of the second edition of Chaucer’s “ Canterbury Tales,” printed by Caxton (1484 ?) and the edition printed by Pynson (1493?), are both imperfect. Only one perfect copy of the former is known, and only three of the latter. The copy of the Second Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays lacks the leaf with Ben Jonson’s verses and two of the unnumbered leaves that should follow the title-page. Among other rare works in the collection the following may be noted: Joannes Naso’s “ De Spectaculis a Panhormitanis in Aragonei regis laudem editis,” of which only two other copies are known ; the work of Hartmannus Schedel known as the “Nuremberg Chronicle” (1493); “Bartholomseus de proprietatibus rerum” (1495 ?), a fine specimen of Wynken de Worde’s printing; a collection of 49 scarce Italian tracts, mostly ballads and poems printed at Venice early in the sixteenth century and illustrated with woodcuts; Pope Boniface YLll.’s “ Liber Sextus Decretalium” (1465) and Cicero’s “ De Officiis ” (1466)} two books printed on vellum and finely illuminated, both from the press of Johannes Fust and Peter Gernsshem at Maintz. Albrecht Diirer is represented by a volume containing three sets of biblical illustrations in woodcut: the “Epitome in Divae Parthenices Mariae Historiam,” “ Passio Domini,” and “ Apocalipsis.” The present catalogue is arranged under the names of the authors of