A catalogue of the classic contents of Strawberry Hill collected by Horace Walpole

London : Smith and Robins, Printers, 1842. Quarto, lithographed card wrappers (marked and creased), cloth spine with tile added by hand, bookplate to front wrapper of Julius Brenchley of Maidstone, museum stamp and Withdrawn note from the Maidstone Museum (where Brenchley sent much of his collection), lithographed portrait of Walpole and title page, pp. xxiv; 250, some pencil marks, occasional foxing, a good copy.

The catalogue of the extraordinary collection of gothic novelist and antiquarian Horace Walpole in his gothic revival villa Strawberry Hill House, which took place over twenty-four days. The collection included valuable books, paintings, china, porcelain, medals, objets d’art, bronzes, manuscripts, coins, prints, and other treasures. Notable entries include ‘A magnificent missal, perfectly unique and most beautifully illuminates, it is enriched by splendid miniature pictures by Raffaelle‘, and, ‘A highly interesting and curious relic, the hair of King Edward IV, cut from his head when the coffin was discovered in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, in the year 1789, presented by Sir Joseph Banks‘.

Julius Brenchley (1816 – 1873) was an intrepid explorer and naturalist who travelled the globe, including excursions to Australia and the South Seas, published in ‘Jottings during the cruise of H.M.S. Curaçoa among the South Sea Islands in 1865’.