Dibdin, Thomas Frognall

8vo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.; 183 x 120 mm). Sixteen pages including half-title and title, inscribed by the author: "Price stitched 3/6. Only 36 Copies printed. T.F.D." Nineteenth-century calf, gilt fillets on panels. Perfectly rebacked.
[With:] Proof of portrait of Dibdin as frontispiece; [John Haslewood under the pseudonym of] Cristofer Valdarfer. Bibliomaniac Ballad. London: Nichols, Son and Bentley, [c. 1813]. Two pages. Upper and lower margins trimmed short and browned. Autograph letter signed by the librarian of the Lincoln Cathedral to T.F. Dibdin about the purchase of the books: "I have at length brought your negotiation with the Dean and Chapter so far to a conclusion that the six books are packed up and sent to you by tonight's coach... These are 1. Cathon; 2 Chronicle; 3 Dictes and Sayings; 4 Fabyan; 5 Scotch Bible; 6 Poetical Pieces, with Eleanour Rummyng. I tried to get the little Cambridge book thrown in, but could not (...)"; Promissory Note written and signed by Dibdin to the Dean and Chapter in payment for the books (one page, dated "Kensington, Oct 7, 1814"); Printed Demand Note from the British Museum for a copy of "The Lincoln Nosegay," dated "British Museum, Nov 19, 1814"; four manuscript pages by successive owners (including Mr. Pirie). 
[With]: William Jackson. Autograph letter signed to Lt. Col. C.H. Grey, dated "19 January 1936" about this copy of "The Lincoln Nosegay."

T. F. Dibdin (?) — John Haslewood (bookplate; his sale, 1833, lot 384) — Henry Huth (bookplate; his sale, 1880, page 427) — Tomkinson (his sale, April 2, 1922, lot 315) — C. H. Grey (a letter from William Jackson to Lt. Col. C. H. Grey, dated January 1936). acquisition: Seven Gables, 1966

Jackson 34; Jackson, Lincoln Nosegay, 1953; Windle and Pippin A24a; BBB Harvard 35
exhibition: Grolier Club, New York, 1936

Dibdin-Haslewood-Huth-Tomkinson copy.

Dibdin's pseudo-auction catalogue, limited to thirty-six copies (although Lister, in his article "George John, 2nd Earl Spencer and His librarian Thomas Frognall Dibdin, thinks forty were actually printed), written in pseudo–Middle English, of the nineteen early printed books in English (including three Caxtons) that he had bought (in six volumes) from the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral for 500 guineas in 1814.
This catalogue became instantly a collector's piece (leading to the printing of a forgery) and this copy, the Dibdin-Haslewood-Huth-Tomkinson copy, is by far the most interesting and desirable. The books seemed to have been sold to Lord Spencer, whose librarian Dibdin had been since 1805.