Scribleriana Transferred:

• • In early February 2019 the University of Pennsylvania Libraries announced that it had purchased “the Geoffrey Day Collection of Sterneana.” Day, formerly the Fellows’ Librarian of Winchester College, during decades studying and editing Sterne, had collected “over 100 volumes of Sterne’s work printed before 1800 in English alone, including three copies of the rare York-printed first edition of volumes one and two of Tristram Shandy” and more than “100 translations of Sterne’s work in 21 languages (including Basque, Japanese, and Hungarian) . . . . Among these translations are at least two (one in German, one in Dutch) which are not known to exist anywhere else. Further, the Day collection also includes the only known copy of a completely spurious edition of volume 9 of Tristram Shandy, published clandestinely in 1767.” Also included are editions of his letters and sermons, works that Sterne drew on, and scholarly works on Sterne. In addition, Day gave “a manuscript letter written by Laurence Sterne to a local apothecary the day following the death of Sterne’s daughter in childbirth (Letter 10 in the Florida Edition of Sterne’s Letters). Day had himself received the letter as a gift from scholar and Penn benefactor Dr. William Zachs (C’83).” Zachs played a role in the acquisition, which was made possible, too, by the “generosity of local philanthropist Dan Gordon.” The press release by Sara Vilanova stresses the importance of the physical copies of Tristram Shandy given their marbled leaves, a “technical challenge” for subsequent editions that rose to it. An exhibition of the books was planned by Penn but cancelled due to the Covid-19 threat.

• • The National Library of Wales acquired several manuscript catalogues of the Pork-ington Library at the sale of the “Property of Lord Harlech, from Glyn Cywarch,” at Bonhams’s white-glove sale of 531 lots on March 29, 2017. One volume in cont. Russian gilt with Owen arms blindstamped on covers and illuminated frt inside, is labeled “Porkington Library. Feb: XXXVIII, MDCCIX. Arranged by John Broster, Chester,” and was compiled for Margaret Owen, wife of Owen Ormsby of London and Willowbrook; this is the oldest catalogue of the library, which will expand through marriage to the Ormsby Gore family and be called the “Brogyntyn Library.” After a “Plan of the Catalogue” on the first leaf, it has 73 folio leaves of text written on rectos only, with about 25 items on each page, listing titles, publication dates, and shelf numbers. There are another 150 titles on two loose leaves inserted, bringing the total to 2000 books. Another volume, acquired in the succeeding lot, #387, is labeled “MS Catalogue of Plays. Ormsby Gore. 1815,” 4to, 140 pp. mostly written on rectos, in cont. sheep, with two lists compiled by William Ormsby Gore, dated February 24, 1815, the first alphabetically by title, and the second by author. In the same lot, too, was a volume in late nineteenth-century calf and labeled “Old Plays. M.s. Index,” with 80 pp. of catalogue plus blanks, into which was inserted a twentieth-century list in pencil on eight pages, headed: “1^st Quarto Plays in Collection of Brogyntyn.”

• • On June 9, 2020, Forum Auctions hammered sold twelve of thirteen works by Isaac Newton, including a presentation copy of the first edition of Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (“for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society,” 1704). Though estimated at £300,000-400,000, this copy sold for a disappointing £150,000 plus premium. In cont. paneled calf with 19 engraved plates, it bore the inscription of Nicolas Fatio de Dullier: “Ex Dono Autoris Clarissimi: Londini, Februarii undecimo, 1703/4, Nicolaus Facius.” The earliest presentation copy known, it was given by Newton to his friend and collaborator five days before he presented a copy to the Royal Society. A Swiss mathematician and scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society since 1688, Fatio had worked with Newton for over a decade, as on alchemical experiments in 1693; he was a go-between for Newton with Christiaan Huygens, and more recently had helped Newton contact Huguenot craftsmen...