[BASKERVILLE PRESS]. A complete bound set of classical texts uniformly bound in fine 18th-century morocco, all published in Birmingham by Baskerville, comprising:

VERGILIUS MARO, PUBLIUS. Bucolica, Georgica, et Aenis. 1757. Gaskell 1. -- JUVENALIS, DECIMUS JUNIUS, and AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS. Satyrae. 1761. Gaskell 15. -- HORATIUS FLACCUS, QUINTUS. [Opera]. 1770. Engraved vignette on title, engraved frontispiece and 4 engraved plates by Gravelot. Gaskell 39. -- LUCRETIUS CARUS, TITUS. De rerum natura. 1772. Gaskell 43. -- CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS. Opera. 1772. Gaskell 44. -- TERENTIUS AFER, PUBLIUS. Comoediae. 1772. Gaskell 46. -- SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, GAIUS, and LUCIUS ANNAEUS FLORUS. [Opera]. 1773. Gaskell 51.

Together, 7 works in 7 volumes, 4to (295 x 230 mm). Uniformly bound in contemporary red straight-grained morocco gilt, spines gilt, board edges gilt, turn-ins gilt, edges gilt, by ALEXIS-PIERRE BRADEL [so-called BRADEL l'AÎNÉ] with his ticket in vol. II. Provenance: Jules Janin (1804-1874), French writer and critic (morocco book label in vol. I).

A FINE COMPLETE SET OF THE FIRST EDITIONS OF THE BASKERVILLE CLASSICAL TEXTS. John Baskerville's Latin classics are renowned for their "calligraphic type, the density of the ink, the excellence of the presswork, the smoothness and gloss of the paper [which] all work in harmony in a design that was unusually sober for a relatively expensive book" (DNB). Baskerville's Virgil is the first book known to be printed on wove paper. Only the Horace is illustrated, with a frontispiece and title vignette by Henriquez and four plates by Rococo engraver Hubert-François Gravelot, which, according to Gaskell, are present in only about half the copies printed (and which are present here). Alexis-Pierre Bradel, called Bradel l'Aîné, was the nephew and successor of Derome le jeune, and was binder for the Bibliothèque National at the end of the 18th-century. The present bindings were likely executed prior to the French Revolution, as the binder's ticket lists his address as rue Saint-Jacques. A FINE SET.