My own journey collecting items from the Byrdcliffe library began when I found a leather-bound set of Dryden offered on the web, complete with Byrdcliffe bookplate. Which immediately created a mystery. How could a set whose title paged clearly stated that it was published in 1821 find itself in the collection of a collector who was not even born until 1854?
Okay, maybe totally obvious in 2019, but definitely not so obvious in 1884. My theory, especially given the penciled inscription on Vol. 1, which seems to read “1039 Gosford 1884,” was that Ralph Whitehead had bought these volumes second-hand, and that seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Whitehead was then a student at Balliol College, Oxford, which had a thriving industry in used books during that period. But I had to at least consider other likely ways that Whitehead might have obtained the volumes. Was it possible that, given 19th-century binding practice, he or his father had purchased the pages from a printer, in order to commission a fine binding later?
Upon my querying ExLibris, an incredibly informed listserv devoted to rare book sellers and collectors, the highest authorities were kind enough to immediately weigh in. Eric Holzenberg of the Grolier Club assured me that:
By the middle of the nineteenth century large sets of this type would almost certainly have been edition-bound, not sold in loose sheets. Publishers might keep parts of an edition unbound for a time, but always with the intent of binding the books in batches as sales allowed. They were not commonly sold unbound – that practice had largely died out by the 1830s. Your collector – or the original purchaser – might have either acquired the sets in the publisher’s uniform serviceable but probably not-very-fancy cloth bindings, then had them re-bound to suit his/her taste and pocketbook; or bought them (second-hand) already in their fancy bindings.
Nonetheless, Andrew Brown pointed out:
In the 1980s, Oxford University Press was selling — or trying to sell — various publications in sheets, one being the Bruce Rogers Bible, others dating back to the eighteenth century. Oxford is not the Universe, contrary to local belief, but generally outdated trade practices can linger on for generations here and there.
And Mark Samuels Lasner confirmed:
As late as the 1980s sets of The Complete Works of John Ruskin, published by George Allen from 1903 to 1912, were still available in sheets. The price was something in the neighborhood of a few pounds per each of the 39 volumes. You then arranged for the binding, which cost considerably more.
Despite such informed responses, the real clue lay in another bookplate found in the second volume of the set, which read E Libris Comitis Gosford, or “From the Library of the Earl of Gosford.” (Earl is actually the oldest English title, equivalent to the Scandinavian “jarl” or chieftain. The title was replaced by the Latinate “Countess” on the female side, but the Old English title remains.)
The village of Gosford is quite close to Oxford, and I immediately applied to the town council for further information. They in turn directed me to the librarians at the Oxfordshire Libraries and Balliol College, both of whom replied immediately and informatively. The library at Balliol could offer me little information beyond the fact that Ralph Whitehead did indeed study at Balliol College. However, the reply from Kate Robinson at the Oxfordshire Libraries was far more informative:
There seems little doubt that it is from the library of the Earl of Gosford. We think that the Balliol connection is entirely incidental however, as the auction and second-hand book trade in libraries and books was well established by then and without knowing more about the Dryden and any other bookplates or provenance it’s not surprising that volumes found themselves overseas.
She went on to point out that “a James Toovey bought the library of the Earl of Gosford in 1878 and the business is still going today in West Sussex so this is an avenue of exploration as well,” and provided a web address at www.tooveys.com My inquiries at that establishment as yet remain unanswered, but it seems clear that Ralph Whitehead must have bought these volumes from them during his time at Oxford, and I am willing to pronounce this mystery solved.
(My thanks to the ExLibris listserv and the authorities previously cited for their expert assistance with this article, as well as Lauren Dolman of the Balliol College Library and Kate Robinson of the Oxfordshire Libraries who both kindly responded to my queries with helpful information.)
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