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20-511: Haslewood was born in London, the son of Richard Haslewood and his wife Mary Dewsberry. At an early age Haslewood entered the office of his uncle, Dewberry, a solicitor in Conduit Street, afterwards became a partner, and ultimately succeeded to the business. He distinguished himself by his zeal for antiquarian studies; his editorial labours were considerable, and he collected a curious library. Among

40-567: A copy, but one that lacked 5 pages.) That evening, a group of eighteen collectors met at the St Albans Tavern, St Albans Street (later renamed Waterloo Place) for a dinner presided over by the 2nd Earl Spencer , and this is regarded as the origin of the Roxburghe Club. A toast drunk on that occasion has been repeated at every annual anniversary dinner since to the "immortal memory of John Duke of Roxburghe, of Christopher Valdarfer, printer of

60-589: A degree. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1787. He wrote some novels and poems , now forgotten, but rendered valuable service through his bibliographical publications (printed at the Lee Priory Press), Censura Literaria, Titles and Opinions of Old English Books (10 vols. 1805–9), his editions of Edward Phillips 's Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800), Arthur Collins 's Peerage of England (1812), and of many rare Elizabethan authors. He

80-694: A member. The President since 1998 has been Max Egremont . The Club rapidly became more than a mere social institution. Each member was (and remains) expected to sponsor the publication of a rare or curious volume. Other volumes are published by the Club collectively. Initially the volumes were editions of early blackletter printed texts (the first, in 1814, was the Earl of Surrey 's translation of parts of Virgil 's Aeneid , originally printed in 1557); but from as early as 1819 they began to include texts taken from manuscript originals. The standards of scholarship are high, and

100-567: The Boccaccio of 1471, of Gutenberg , Fust and Schoeffer , the inventors of the art of printing, of William Caxton , Father of the British press [and others; and] the prosperity of the Roxburghe Club and the Cause of Bibliomania all over the world". It was decided to make the dinner an annual event: further members were admitted the following year. The club was formed by Thomas Frognall Dibdin , author of

120-591: The Duke of Roxburghe (who had died in 1804), which took place over 46 days in May–July 1812. The auction was eagerly followed by bibliophiles , the high point being the sale on 17 June 1812 of the first dated edition of Boccaccio 's Decameron , printed by Christophorus Valdarfer at Venice in 1471, and sold to the Marquis of Blandford for £2,260, the highest price ever given for a book at that time. (The Marquis already possessed

140-499: The Life and Publications of the late Joseph Ritson, Esq. , 8 volumes. Occasionally he contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine . He died on 21 September 1833, at Addison Road, Kensington. At the sale of his library (auctioned by R. H. Evans in London on 16 December 1833 and seven following days: a copy of the catalogue is at Cambridge University Library at the shelfmark Munby.c.142(1)) Thorpe,

160-606: The Roxburghe Club publications). A valuable collection of Proclamations formed by Haslewood is now in the library of the Duke of Buccleuch at Dalkeith; nine volumes of newspaper cuttings, prints, &c., illustrative of stage-history, are preserved in the British Museum . Haslewood was a keen collector of fugitive tracts. It was his fancy to bind several together in a volume, and affix some absurd title, as Quaffing Quavers to Quip Queristers , Tramper's Twattle, or Treasure and Tinsel, from

180-632: The Roxburghe Club, founded 17 June 1812. Falling into unfriendly hands, the manuscript afforded material for a virulent attack on Haslewood's memory in the Athenæum , January 1834. In 1837, James Maidment reprinted the Athenæum articles at Edinburgh, with a memoir of Haslewood, under the title Roxburghe Revels, and other Relative Papers; including Answers to the attack on the Memory of the late Joseph Haslewood, Esq., F.S.A., with Specimens of his Literary Productions , 4to (fifty copies, privately printed; uniform with

200-514: The Tewkesbury Tank , Nutmegs for Nightingale , etc. Egerton Brydges Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, 1st Baronet (30 November 1762 – 8 September 1837) was an English bibliographer and genealogist . He was also Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1812 to 1818. Educated at Maidstone Grammar School and The King's School, Canterbury , Brydges was admitted to Queens' College, Cambridge in 1780, though he did not take

220-448: The book Bibliomania; or Book-Madness (1809), who served as its first secretary; and the club was formalised under Earl Spencer's presidency. The Club has had a total of 350 members from its foundation to 2017. The circle has always been an exclusive one, with just one " black ball " (negative vote) being enough to exclude an applicant. Since 1839 the number of members at any one time has been limited to forty. A photograph exists of

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240-543: The bookseller, bought for 40 l . a collection of Haslewood's manuscript notes on the proceedings of the Roxburghe Club. This ill-written and insipid record of the club's achievements was titled Roxburghe Revels; or, An Account of the Annual Display, culinary and festivous, interspersed incidentally with matters of Moment and Merriment. Also, Brief Notices of the Press Proceedings by a few Lions of Literature, combined as

260-498: The claims were ultimately rejected, but he continued to style himself " per legem terrae Baron Chandos of Sudeley". It seems likely that not only was the claim groundless but that the evidence was forged. He was made a baronet on 27 December 1814. In 1824, he started The Literary Magnet as a weekly magazine with his son Egerton Anthony Brydges under the joint pseudonym Tobias Merton (perhaps an anagram of their names). He continued editing it until around August 1824, when it

280-524: The club, 300 for the public. The Roxburghe Club is generally recognised as the first "book club" (that is, text publication society ), and was a model for many book societies that appeared later in Britain and Europe . In 2000 the publisher Susan Shaw completed the work that she had been given by the Roxburghe Club to create a facsimile copy of "The Great Book of Thomas Trevilian" in two volumes. The book

300-530: The membership in 1892, including the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and anthropologist Andrew Lang , as well as American poet James Russell Lowell , Alfred Henry Huth , and Simon Watson Taylor . James Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne , was then President. The first female member was Mary, Viscountess Eccles , elected in 1985. In 2011, the Australian comedian Barry Humphries was elected

320-427: The quality of printing, facsimile reproduction, and binding is lavish. Copies of each volume (in a fine binding) are presented to all members, and a limited number of extra copies (generally in a less lavish binding) may be made available for sale to non-members. From 1839, the total number of copies for each publication, including members' copies, was limited to 100. Recently, the limit was raised to 342 copies: 42 for

340-464: The works of Richard Brathwait, whose claim to the authorship of the famous Itinerary Haslewood firmly established. Haslewood supplied Egerton Brydges with occasional communications for Censura Literaria , 1807–9, and The British Bibliographer , 1810–14. He was one of the founders of the Roxburghe Club , and conducted some of the club books through the press. In 1809, he published Green-Room Gossip; or Gravity Gallinipt , and in 1824 Some Account of

360-429: The works that he edited were Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry , 1810; Juliana Berners or Barnes's Book of St. Albans , 1810; Painter's Palace of Pleasure , 1813; Antient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy , 2 vols. 1811–1815; Mirror for Magistrates , 2 vols. 1815; and Drunken Barnaby's Journal , 1 vol. 1817–18, 2 vols. 1820. The 1820 edition of Barnaby's Journal contains an elaborate notice of

380-641: Was a founding member of the Roxburghe Club , a publishing club of wealthy bibliophiles. He was elected a Knight Grand Commander of the Equestrian, Secular, and Chapterial Order of St. Joachim in 1807, at a chapter held in Franconia . In 1789, the Chandos barony became dormant. Egerton Brydges attempted to claim the title, initially on behalf of his older brother Rev. Edward Tymewell Brydges , then later on his own behalf. The litigation continued from 1790 to 1803, before

400-508: Was passed to another editor. He died in Geneva . Chisholm, Hugh , ed. (1911). "Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton"  . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Roxburghe Club The Roxburghe Club is a bibliophilic and publishing society based in the United Kingdom . The spur to the Club's foundation was the sale of the enormous library of

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