Lot 79: DONNE, JOHN.

Letters to Severall Persons of Honour. Printed by J. Flesher, and are to be sold by John Sweeting, 1654

Condition Note:

4to, first edition, second issue with cancel title, t.r. o'flaherty's copy, interleaved and with numerous marginal annotations, with cropped signature of Donne's close friend Sir Henry Goodere (d.1627) mounted on front free endpaper, engraved frontispiece portrait of Donne by P. Lombart, preliminary blank bound between front free endpapers, woodcut headpiece and initials, early twentieth-century niger morocco by Zaehnsdorf, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, preliminary and final blanks laid down, title and frontispiece slightly dust-stained, lower joint cracking

Wing D1865; Keynes 56;

T.R. O'Flaherty, interleaved letters and marginal annotations; I.A. Shapiro, ownership inscription (bought at Sotheby's, 29 February 1932 "per Dobell") and autograph notes ("Probably the copy in 'original calf' in the sale of 26 July 1899 (lot 385). This was rebound by Zaehnsdorf in 1900, presumably for the new owner.")

This copy of Donne's Letters was owned and annotated with extensive commentary on the letters by the Rev. T.R. O'Flaherty (or O'Flahertie) (fl. 1861-99), of Capel, near Dorking, Surrey. He was an avid collector of Donne and contributor on the subject to Notes & Queries. Among other things, he owned the 'O'Flahertie Manuscript' now at Harvard (MS Eng 966.5), the largest manuscript collection of Donne's poems, which was prepared in 1632 for an intended edition and possibly used in part for the 1635 edition. Several other editions of Donne from O'Flaherty's library are recorded in Keynes, passim.