Librarie Lardanchet (Paris) - Catalogue de Beaux Livres Anciens et Modernes No.s 44 - 46 - 47

Paris, 1950-1953. binder's cloth. 21x13cm, (581) pages. Weighs 1.2 kilos. Binder's cloth with red tolled morocco spine and cover labels. Top page-edge gilt.. A bump to spine. Minor wear. VG. ¶ From the collection of British book collector John Roland Abbey [1894-1969], with his bookplate on flyleaf and heraldic device mounted on cover. This is a single volume containing three antiquarian book catalogues bound together, all issued by the firm of Librarie Paul Lardanchet of Paris. Includes no.s 44 [1950: 224 pages]; No. 46 [1952: 181 pages] and 47 [1953: 176 pages]. Numerous illustrations. ["Major John Roland Abbey was an English book collector and High Sheriff..His book collecting started in 1929 buying books from various Private presses, eventually gaining complete collections of books from the Kelmscott, Ashendene and Gwasg Gregynog presses. He also became interested in modern bindings, and in 1931commissioned examples from Sybil Pye and, from R. de Coverley & Sons, a copy of Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer decorated with Abbey's coat of arms. He also collected antiquarian books, starting from the sale of Primrose's collection and building it up from 1936 to 1938 thanks to sales from the Mensing, Moss, Aldenham, Schiff, and Cortlandt F. Bishop collections, eventually holding over 1,300 books. He died on 24 December 1969 in London, and, with the exception of manuscripts given to his family and a group of books donated to the Eton College Collections, his remaining texts were sold for £993,509 between 1970 and 1975" - wikipedia].