Markham, The booke of honour, London, 1625, contemporary limp vellum with a fore-edge title flap

Auction Closed

July 11, 03:42 PM GMT

Estimate

500 - 700 GBP

Lot Details

Description

MARKHAM, FRANCIS. The Booke of Honour. Or, Five Decads of Epistles of Honour. London: Augustine Matthews, and John Norton, 1625


FIRST EDITION of Markham's treatise on the origin and status of the various ranks of nobility and knighthood, IN A CONTEMPORARY LIMP VELLUM BINDING WITH A FORE-EDGE TITLE FLAP. The present copy includes some occasional early modern marginalia and underlinings, and the price of 2s 4d written in an early modern hand on a front endleaf (repeated on the title-page and B1r). Francis Markham (1565-1627) was the brother of (the better known) Gervase, and a soldier. Though an accomplished prose stylist, his only other published work was Five Decades of Epistles of War (1622).

Folio (281 x 188 mm). Roman and italic type, 46 lines plus headline. collation: A-B2 B-2C4 (A1 blank): 104 leaves.


binding: Contemporary limp vellum (286 x 195 mm), flat spine, plain edges, title in ink on spine and (in the same hand) on a slip of paper pasted to front endleaf and folded across fore-edge. (Hole at one edge and corner torn, staining, lacking ties, old repairs and small closed tears to fore-edge title slip.)


provenance: Edward Bayntun-Coward, Catalogue 5, 1997. acquisition: Purchased in 1997 from Edward Bayntun-Coward, Bath. references: USTC 3012173; ESTC 17331

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