Bonhams 1793 : LIBRARIES - LEICESTERSHIRE. HANBURY (WILLIAM) A Plan for a Public Library, at Church-Langton, in Leicestershire, 1760

HANBURY (WILLIAM) A Plan for a Public Library, at Church-Langton, in Leicestershire, first edition, half-title, blindstamp on title and final leaf, ink stamp on verso of title, modern cloth, original marbled wrappers bound in, 8vo, Northampton, C. Dicey, and J. Rivington and J. Fletcher, in London, 1760

Sold for £1,375 inc. premium

Footnotes

SCARCE, ESTC citing only two copies in the UK (Bodleian and St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford), and one in America (Historical Society of Pennsylvania).

A proposal for a public library, the author offering to give "books to the value of one hundred pounds for the immediate Library", and suggesting that the range of subjects should include "good Romances, both ancient and modern". Hanbury also says that membership should be five shillings a year, and argues that "a morning's ride to such a Place might perhaps be equally beneficial to the Health, equally agreeable to the mind, and infinitely more improving to the Understanding than a Morning's Hunt..."

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