Item 6 - Prose pieces in the hand of Thomas Gray

1 volume (39 x 29 cm), containing 28 leaves. Folios 1–16 each have papers mounted on them, i.e. inserted into spaces cut out of the leaves. Half-bound.

The contents of this book were probably among the items purchased by Granville J. Penn at Evans’ auction of Gray’s papers in 1845, and they probably constituted Lot 53 at the sale of Penn’s collection at Sotheby’s in 1851. This was one of the lots which remained unsold and which were offered for sale again at the same place in 1854, when this lot was relisted as Lot 237. See Index of English Literary Manuscripts, iii (2).71, 74, 96, 98–100. Most of the items bear figures which are probably sums of money, and the leaves on which they are mounted bear references in pencil, some of which refer to the 1854 sale. Binder’s stamp of Leighton, Brewer St. The armorial bookplate of Robert, Earl of Crewe, is pasted inside the volume, and his heraldic ‘garb’ is stamped on the front.

On the spine is stamped ‘Autograph MSS of the Poet Gray’.

Foliated 1–16, with four unnumbered flyleaves at the beginning and eight at the end.

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IELM = Index of English Literary Manuscripts