Posted on Wednesday 7 February 2007
In a later Rivière binding of red crushed morocco gilt, an attractive 1669 first of Paradise Lost was sold for £6500 in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale on November 16. The title, which showed some repairs to the margins, was in Grolier’s sixth state, with commas after “T.Helder”, and “at the Angel (italicised) in Little Brittain” in the imprint.
At Christie’s the day before, Quaritch had secured a rare copy of the Milton's Accedence Commenced Grammar published in that same year. As a pupil at St. Paul’s, he had used William Lily’s grammar, an authorised school text since 1540, and two thirds of his illustrative quotations are borrowed from Lily, but Milton’s simplified grammar, which ran to just 75 duodecimo pages, was based on his belief that a working knowledge of the language could be acquired in one year not the usual seven. It also combined explanations of inflection [accident] and syntax.
It was the first issue copy, showing some soiling and a couple of torn corners in a rubbed 19th century roan binding.