//Gordon N. Ray, Illustrated book in England (1976)
  • Title: THE | FABLES OF ÆSOP, | AND OTHERS, | WITH DESIGNS ON WOOD, | BY | THOMAS BEWICK. | “The wisest of the Ancients delivered their Conceptions of the Deity, and their Lessons of Morality, in Fables and Parables.” | {vignette} | NEWCASTLE: | PRINTED BY E. WALKER, FOR T. BEWICK AND SON. | SOLD BY THEM, LONGMAN AND CO. LONDON, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. | 1818. || Pagination: [2] – blank / receipt with thumbprint, [i, ii] – t.p. / blank, [iii] iv-xvi – introduction with “Auld Clouty” vignette, [xvii] xviii-xxiv – table of contents, [1] 2-376; 188 wood-engraved head-pieces to the fables and 136 other vignettes, tail-pieces, etc. Collation: demy 8vo( octavo in fours); π1 (receipt), a-c4, B-3B4; A and 2P2 unsigned. Binding: Original blue boards, rebacked, original spine laid down, with original paper spine label ("Demy Paper/Price 15 s."); wove paper, top edge trimmed, the others are not; round book-plate to front paste-down “TWM, The Whitehead Library”; in a clamshell case, also book-plated inside. Size: case: 24.2 x 16.2 cm; boards: 22.8 x 14.2 cm; 22 x 14 cm. Note from seller: First copy in boards to ever appear at auction. Edition: First edition (one of 1,000 copies printed in demy 8vo), with Bewick's thumbprint and signature in facsimile, “Demy” and “15” in manuscript on receipt (page facing title-page), variant A (with "Auld Clouty" wood-engraving at bottom of p. XVI, and with the last line in p. 248 reading "road of honour and honesty"). "According to Roscoe, demy 8vo copies were apparently the first to be issued". There is 1 copy at the University Library, Cambridge and 1 at Liverpool public libraries. Catalogue raisonné: Roscoe: pp. 155-165, 45c for Variant A [see LIB-2714.2021]; Hugo (I vol.): p. 261; Ray: p. 35; Steedman: №№ 99-104, pp. 34-35 (№ 103 for Variant A).
  • THE | POETICAL | WORKS | OF | Mr. John Milton. | Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, | Sampson Agonistes, and his Poems | on several Occasions. | TOGETHER WITH | Explanatory NOTES on each Book of the | PARADISE LOST, and a TABLE | never before Printed. | LONDON: | Printed for Jacob Tonson, at Judges-Head near Inner-Temple-| Gate in Fleet – street , M DC XC V. || Pagination: [6] 1-343 [5] 1-66 [4] 1-57 [5] 1-60 [2] 321 [1], frontispiece and 12 plates, one before each book of Paradise Lost. Collation: 4to, folio; blank leaf, π3 B2, C-Z4, Aa-Yy4, A-H4 I2, [A]-D2 †D2 E-Q2 [A]1 B-Z2 Aa-Zz2 Aaa-Zzz2 Aaaa-Mmmm2 [N]1, 2 blank leaves, + frontis. portrait and 12 plates extraneous to collation. Plates: Portrait of John Milton (British, 1608 – 1674) engraved by Robert White (British, 1645 – 1703) after William Faithorne (British, 1616 – 1691) 11 plates engraved by Michael Burghers (Dutch, c. 1640 – c. 1723) after John Baptiste de Medina (Flemish, 1659 –1710); 1 plate (for Book IV) engraved by Peter-Paul Bouché (Dutch, 1646 – c. 1697) after Bernard Lens (British, 1659 – 1725). Binding: Folio, bound in full contemporary English panelled and speckled calf, tooled in blind, re-backed, corners repaired, the lines in Paradise Lost numbered; title pages of Paradise Regain'd and Samson Agonistes dated 1695; without a list of subscribers after the general title; with the Table for Paradise Lost; printed on laid paper, with tall "s", margins sprayed red. Provenance: near-contemporary ex libris of Sarah Bugg inside front board; along with that of Sam Bontham, 1726; later owned by forger Osborne Charles Vyse Aldis (1843 – 1916), with his signature on general title, with a nine-line note in his hand and initialled on page 343. Catalogue raisonné: Gordon N. Ray, Illustrated book in England (1976): p. 3. Ref: National Gallery of Art Contributors: Bouché, Peter-Paul (Dutch, 1646 – c. 1697) Burghers, Michael (Dutch, c. 1640 – c. 1723) Faithorne, William (British, 1616 – 1691) Lens, Bernard (British, 1659 – 1725) Medina, John Baptiste de (Flemish, 1659 – 1710) Milton, John (British, 1608 –  1674) Tonson, Jacob, the Elder (British, 1655 – 1736) White, Robert (British, 1645 – 1703)