Nov 18, 2008 - Sale 2163

Sale 2163 - Lot 255

Price Realized: $ 1,440
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
COMPLETE WITH THE FOURTH VOLUME (VIRGINIA.) Burk, John, et al. The History of Virginia, from its First Settlement to the Present Day. Folding table. 4 volumes. 8vo, contemporary calf, rebacked, worn at extremities; Volume I free endpapers renewed, extensive annotations throughout including indexing marks on fore-edges, marginal fore-edge chipping from ink burn on several pages, other minor faults; signatures of William Green dated 1864, later bookplates and bookseller's tags on rear pastedowns. Petersburg, VA, 1804-1816
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first edition. William Green (1806-1880), the early owner, was a prominent Richmond jurist and amateur historian. An 1883 biography states that "no monk ever illuminated his missal with more enthusiasm than did he crowd the margins of his books with notes and comments." During the Civil War, Green drafted a history of the Virginia legislature and judiciary, never published. His annotations of Burk's text are often quite lengthy and include numerous bibliographical references.
Burk's important history has its own interesting story. Production was halted after Volume III when the author was killed in a duel in 1808. Eight years later, two editors--with some assistance from Thomas Jefferson--then published Volume IV to continue Burk's work through the early years of the Revolution. According to Howes B971, this last volume is often lacking from sets, as most copies were burned. Church 1298; Sabin 9273. We find only one other complete set at auction since 1983.