SMITH, Thomas (1638--1710)
Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Cottonianæ. Cui præmittuntur illustris viri, D. Roberti Cottoni, equitis aurati & baronetti, vita: et Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ historia & synopsis. Scriptore Thoma Smitho, ...
Oxonii e Teatro Sheldoniano, 1696.
[12], L, [2], 159, [25] p., frontis. port.; 40.5 cm. (2º)

Smith was a scholar and lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford, who refused to take oaths to William and Mary after the revolution of 1688 and moved to London, where he became the unofficial librarian of the Cotton Library until the death of Sir John Cotton (grandson of the founder, the antiquarian and bibliophile Sir Robert Cotton who assembled the most important private collection of medieval manuscripts and historical documents in seventeenth-century England). This is the first printed catalogue of the library, now part of the British Library. The 'Vita D. Roberti Cottoni, Equitis Aurati & Baronetti', 'Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ Historia Et Synopsis', and 'Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ Catalogus' each have divisional title-page and engraved head-piece. Text in two columns. Includes index. ESTC r507.

Copy Notes Imperfect; wanting frontispiece portrait of Sir Robert Cotton. Inscribed in ink on first free-endpaper Francis Annesley, 1758. Annesley, the eldest son of Dr Martin Annesley, became the first Master of Downing College, Cambridge, and commissioned designs for the college buildings from James Wyatt. He was MP for Reading, 1770 to 1806 and the first hereditary Cottonian family trustee of the British Museum.

Binding C18th Cambridge style blind-panelled calf, blind morocco spine-label reading 'MSS Cotton', paper spine-label with abbreviated title inscribed in ink.

Reference Number 490