# - Publishing, bookselling and bibliophily--

c.100 letters, accounts and receipts, mostly addressed to Cadell & Davies but also to other booksellers, from various authors, printers, engravers, translators and bibliophiles, discussing: book orders, sales and exchanges, copyright, engravings of plates, research and submissions of work, appointments, binding instructions, costings and accounts ("...an Edition of 750 Copies of Mr Anstey's Works, handsomely printed in quarto, on good medium Paper, supposing the Volume to consist of 600 Pages, and to be embellished with 12 Engravings, will cost altogether, including the various Expenses of Printing, Paper, Engravings, Doing up in Boards, Advertising, &c. about £875..."), subscriptions and distribution of copies (including a list naming Joseph Banks, Joshua Reynolds and James Boswell)



the correspondents including: the poet Thomas Newcomb, writing to the bookseller James Rivington to request two of his poems to be "very handsomely bound and gilt" for presentation; the map engraver S. Neele, defending at length the quality of the maps in John Pinkerton's A Modern Atlas, 1815; the founder of Durham University, Charles Thorp, settling his father's account; Mary Anne Neri, who had her work The Eve of San Pietro published anonymously by Cadell & Davies, requesting they involve her "as little as possible in further expences of advertising &c, which from their account of the Sale, it appears will not be of much success"; the essayist and mathematician Richard Hey (two detailed letters to Vernor & Hood, with a proposal to compensate for their losses on his play The Captive Monarch by cutting expenses on his novel Edington, 1795); Thomas Newenham, referring to slow sales of his View of the Circumstances of Ireland; the printer George Nicholson, detailing costs; and the Quaker minister Henry Tuke, diplomat Sir James Porter, physician John Ferriar (6 letters), novelist Elizabeth Hamilton and several translators and clergymen such as James Stanier Clarke (with details of costs for the publication of his Progress of Maritime Discovery) and Henry Boyd (about his translations of Dante and Ercilla); c.160 pages in all, some with endorsements or annotations by the recipients (including a few draft replies, a habitual practice of Cadell & Davies), various sizes, 1771 to 1827 where dated, some items mounted or tipped onto album leaves, seal tears, some creasing, dust-staining and fraying

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

a window onto the publishing and bookselling landscape of britain at the turn of the 19th century.

Portions of the Cadell & Davies archive, which was broken up to feed an emerging autograph market, are currently in various locations such as the British Library, the University of Birmingham, Reading University, the Huntington Library, Yale, the New York Public Library and the Houghton Library (including letters by Samuel Johnson).