The dispersal in 1812 of the library of John Ker, Duke of Roxburghe (1740 1804) was the bibliographical event of the decade and a key moment in 'bibliomania'. The huge collection contained illuminated medieval manuscripts, incunabula, fifteen books printed by Caxton, and all four Shakespeare folios. The sale, orchestrated by the bookseller and auctioneer Robert Harding Evans (1777 1857), attracted the greatest book collectors and dealers of the day, setting new records. For the first time in British auction history a single book fetched more than 1,000, while the Valdarfer Boccaccio, the...
The dispersal in 1812 of the library of John Ker, Duke of Roxburghe (1740 1804) was the bibliographical event of the decade and a key moment in 'bibli...