Letters and bills to Sir Thomas Phillipps. 

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Title

Letters and bills to Sir Thomas Phillipps. 

Date

ca. 1820-1870.

Description

The donation in 1996 of Harrison Horblit's collection of books, manuscripts, and papers relating to the complicated life, spectacular library, and problematic printing activities of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) was a game-changer for the Grolier Club Library, and it is safe to say that no collection at the Club has generated more research and more scholarly published work. Significant additions to the Horblit Phillipps Collection were made at auction in December 2004, a few months too late to be included in the Club's "Lasting Impressions" survey of the Library. These included, among many other items of Phillipps interest, a collection of letters and sketches relating to Phillipps' genealogical and historical interests, including a color sketch of his own coat of arms, and, most importantly, three rough wooden boxes, the only surviving remnant of Sir Thomas Phillipps's "modular shelving" system for his 100,000-volume library of books and manuscripts, stuffed with several thousand late medieval and later fragments of English documents, the last unsaleable remnant of the legendary Bibliotheca Phillippica.