[Gibbon, Edward]

Comprising a list of thirty-seven named works in 170 volumes bound in paper boards ("carton couvert") or half roan ("dos et coins basane"), and additionally producing one portfolio and mounting two maps, from 12 January to 8 October 1784, at a total cost of 84 Swiss livres and 19 sous, signed by Gibbon at the foot with autograph instructions to his banker, 14 October, and with Kraër's acknowledgement of receipt of funds, 16 October, two pages, folio (403 x 262 mm), Lausanne, January-October 1784, integral blank; creased, remains of former mount. Red cloth folder.

Sotheby's, 23 June 1969, lot 152 — Bernard Breslauer (Christie's New York, 21 March 2005, lot 71). acquisition: James Cummins

A fascinating glimpse of Gibbon's library, and the only one of his six surviving binding bills to remain in private hands. Valentin Kraër (1749–1795) had moved to Lausanne in 1779 where the great historian soon became one of his best customers, despite the binder's unremarkable craftsmanship. Gibbon was at this time still working on the Decline and Fall, and this list includes a number of Classical authors from Apollonius of Rhodes to Xenophon, but also a number of travel books, a folio atlas, and Buffon's Histoire Naturelle in forty-three volumes.