Book auctions

Here are two very different kinds of auction catalogue.

• The first dates from relatively early in the history of English auction catalogues: it is the library of a physician, Dr Francis Bernard (d. 1698).

• The second relates to the huge sale of the Fagel collection, which was bought by Trinity College Dublin in 1802.

• Try and find Govert Bidloo’s Anatomia Humani Corporis (Amsterdam, 1685) in both. Today, Bernard’s catalogue is searchable as a google book and this will give you a clue as to which section to search in the Fagel catalogue.
• Comment on how the books are arranged in both catalogues.

Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian, The Edward Worth Library, Dublin.