Catalogue de la partie réservée de la Collection Libri. Première vacation. Vendredi, 25 juillet 1862. Épreuves.

No place no date (but London, 1862). 143 pp. (19 x 25,5 cm). As issued, bound by the original simple cord with no wrappers. Uncut. And with the mention "Epreuves" in the top right hand corner. As issued, without preliminary matter. With two small stamps of the "librairie Tross" on the first and last page. So this seems to be a real 'advance copy'. (some dustsoiling).

Guiglielmo Libri (1803-1869) left his native Italy in 1832 to start a new life in France and soon obtained a reputation as a scholar and bibliophile. His lasting fame, however, is primarily based on his theft of huge quantities of books and manuscripts. In 1841 he was appointed secretary to a commission to inventory the manuscripts in the French public libraries and began augmenting his own extensive library with purloined volumes of great antiquity and value. During his tenure he sold large amounts of books a.o. to Lord Ashburnam. Eventually he was found out and in 1850 he was sentenced to ten years of hard labour.
By this time he had already fled France for London and the sentence was never carried out. In fact, Libri's conviction seems to have had a small effect upon his personal reputation outside of France, and even within France many of those who were loyal to him before the conviction remained loyal, believing that he was falsely accused and falsely convicted. His guilt was conclusively proved only after his death in 1869. While in London Libri sold 'his' collection in a series of auctions. On July 25 1862 the auction of the "Reserved and most valuable portion of the Libri Collection" began. For this the auctioneers issued a catalogue in English; Libri also issued a catalogue in French. This French edition is not in the standard Sotheby & Wilkinson format; it is thus likely that Libri paid for it himself for distribution to French and other continental buyers. [c.f. Norman. Scientist, Scholar & Scoundrel... no 82].