PICKERING, William (publisher): COURTHOPE, William (intro.).

£5,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Rows Roll. First edition of this elaborate facsimile of the Rows Roll, one of eight known hand-coloured copies. A further 109 copies were printed. The illustrations, "executed in line work of great delicacy, firmness, and precision", depict benefactors and holders of the Warwick earldom with their painted coats of arms, accompanied by their appropriate badges or cognizance (Wright, p. 80).The 15th-century roll of the earldom of Warwick, known as the Rows Roll, was among the Manchester Papers at Kimbolton Castle for over 200 years. In 1845, the publisher William Pickering, known for his well-designed facsimiles, commissioned the antiquary Rev. Lambert Blackwell Larking to transcribe the text. The transcription remained unfinished, however, by Pickering's death in 1854. Henry G. Bohn took on the publication and commissioned a preface and introduction from the peerage scholar William Courthope. The work was consequently printed by Pickering's favoured printer, Charles Whittingham, and its title page, dated 1845, credits the work to Pickering. It is considered one of the grandest of his facsimiles.Provenance: from the Pickering Books library of John Porter, with his book labels, designed by Leo Wyatt (1909-1981), to the pastedowns and rear free endpaper verso. His collected bookseller's cataloguing slips and a note written in his hand, on headed India paper and listing the locations of the other known copies, are loosely inserted. Porter's bibliography of works published by W

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