BROADLEY, Alexander Meyrick – Walter Vernon DANIELL (compiler). Collectanea Napoleonica being a Catalogue of the Collection of Autographs, Historical Documents, Broadsides, Caricatures, Drawings, Maps, Music, Portraits, Naval and Military Costume-Plates, etc relating to Napoleon I. and his Times, 1769-1821. Formed by A.M. Broadley ... Compiled by Walter V. Daniell Together with an Explanatory Preface by A.M. Broadley, and a Catalogue of his Napoleonic Library. London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, and Brussels: W.V. Daniell, Godefroy Mayer, Emile Hirsch, R.W.P. de Vries, and Spineux & Cie., [1905].
8vo (244 x 153mm). Original green cloth, boards ruled in blind, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, and decorated with gilt 'N'-cypher; [2 (title, verso blank)], [i]-v, [6 (blank)], [7]-166; title printed in red and black, portrait frontispiece of Napoleon in Egypt after E. Detaille retaining tissue guard, 7 plates, and illustrations in the text; extremities a little rubbed, spine with repaired split and wear, light offsetting on endpapers, otherwise a good copy, together with the prospectus for the work.
First edition. The author, journalist, and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley was the author or co-author of a number of works on Napoleon and his era, including Napoleon and the Invasion of England: the Story of the Great Terror (London: 1908), Nelson's Hardy: his Life, Letters and Friends (London: 1909), Dumouriez and the Defence of England against Napoleon (London: 1909; cf. item 55), Napoleon in Caricature 1795-1821 (London: 1911; see the following item), and Napoleon in Exile (London: 1914). Broadley was also a celebrated grangeriser (or extra-illustrator) of books, and one of his greatest achievements was the creation (with the assistance of Daniell) of an extra-illustrated set of Rose's Life of Napoleon I and Rosebery's Napoleon. The Last Phase and inlaying and extending them from three octavo to twenty-eight folio volumes by the addition of engravings, portraits, manuscripts, autograph letters, etc. over a period of four years; this monumental work was bought, with a number of other pieces, by Curzon at the auction of Broadley's library (held in four sales between 1916 and 1918) and later bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Part I of Collectanea Napoleonica (pp. [7]-125) is 'An Index to the Napoleonic Collections Illustrating Mr. J. Holland Rose's "Life of Napoleon I." and Lord Rosebery's "Last Phase", Extended to 28 vols., Royal Folio' and catalogues the portraits, engravings, manuscripts, and other items which extra-illustrate the set. Part II (pp. [127]-166) is a 'Catalogue of Books, Pamphlets, etc., Relating to Napoleon I. and his Times', which includes, i.a., Broadley's set of Barras' Memoirs (London: 1895), item 101 in the present catalogue. It is pleasing to record that Broadley's preface acknowledges 'the invaluable assistance of [...] Messrs. Sabin, Sotheran, Tregaskis and Maggs' in the formation of the collection (pp. ii-iii).
Kircheisen p. xxxi.
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