OLDYS, William, JOHNSON, Samuel, and MAITTAIRE, Michael - Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae, in Locos Communes Distributus Cum Indice Auctorum

London, Thomas Osborne, 1743. Hardcover. 8vo. Half calf with raised bands (and modern paper label) and marbled paper over boards. (6pp), 488pp. Good plus. Though internally very good -- tight, clean, nice -- and with calf spine buffed and attractive, the marbled paper boards are quite rubbed and edgeworn. Decent first edition of the first volume (only) of this five-volume set. When Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, died in 1741, bookseller Thomas Osborne hired antiquarian and bibliographer Oldys (1696-1761), the not-yet-renowned "Dr. Johnson" (1709-84) and French scholar/bibliographer Maittaire (1668-1747) to compile this massive bibliography of the noted English nobleman, politician and bibliophile. Published entirely in Latin, except for Johnson's "An Account of the Harleian Library" in the first volume. Boswell remarks that Johnson also contributed the commentaries about the books, and the good doctor may have written the preface to the third volume as well. Johnson biographer John Hawkins, in the first biography of Johnson penned after his death (1787) states that Johnson penned all of the third and fourth volumes. Whatever the case, what is offered here is the volume with Johnson's undisputed contribution, one of his earlier appearances in print. .

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