BANKS, Sarah Sophia - SHOTTEREL, Robert, & Thomas D'Urfey.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Archerie Reviv'd; or, The Bow-Man's Excellence. First edition of this witty versification of Roger Ascham's Toxophilus (1545), here in contemporary morocco by the "Tulip Spine Binder" and with an exceptional provenance. The copy comes from the library of Sarah Sophia Banks (1744-1818), a formidable antiquarian collector and accomplished archer.Banks's discreet ownership inscription, dated 1792, appears at the head of B1, accompanied by a manuscript note tipped in at the front. In it she observes that the word "Finis" on p. 78 had been pasted in to disguise a missing leaf, adding that she had since supplied the defect. The repair remains: "Finis" clipped from another copy and neatly pasted to F7, with the catchword concealed; the supplied leaf F8 contains the poem "In laudem Sagittatiorum". The annotation is a characteristic example of Banks's alert bibliographical eye and her conscientious approach to restoration. A lifelong devotee of archery, she owned and annotated several standard works on the subject, including Ascham's Toxophilus. The British Library holds two copies of Archerie Reviv'd, suggesting that this one may have escaped her bequest as a duplicate.The book itself is scarce. ESTC records fourteen institutional copies (seven in Britain, seven in North America), and auction records list just seven examples since 1920, including Charles II's copy offered by Maggs in 1950. The present binding corresponds to that on the Folger Library copy, attributed to the "Tulip Sp

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