The following sales have taken place since the publication of Blades’s book:—
Mr. Rainy, Bath (1883), £160—British Museum (poor copy, and imperfect). J. Hirst (1887), £67 (imperfect). Duke of Buccleuch (1889), £470—Quaritch (perfect, blanks excepted).
The Chronicles of England, second edition (43).
Bryan Fairfax’s imperfect copy was sold in 1756 to Francis Child for £5. In 1885 it sold for £40 at the sale of the Earl of Jersey’s library.
J. Ratcliffe’s imperfect copy was sold (1776) to George III. for £4, 5s.
An imperfect copy was bought by the Earl of Ashburnham in 1860 for £180. It was added to the sale after the library of E. A. Crowninshield, of Boston, U.S., had been brought to England. This copy, bound in new brown morocco, with “Description of Britain” (three leaves in facsimile), sold at Lord Ashburnham’s sale (1897) for £610—Pickering & Chatto.
Mr. Quaritch bought the Duke of Buccleuch’s copy in 1889 for £45. This was wrongly described in the catalogue as wanting only “fourteen leaves, of which two are blank,” whereas it not only wanted the first fourteen printed leaves as well as the two blanks, but also the last six.
The Description of Britain (40).
J. Towneley’s imperfect copy was bought by George III. in 1814 for £85, 1s.