(BINDINGS - JENKINS & CECIL). PEPYS, SAMUEL.

MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL PEPYS . . . COMPRISING HIS DIARY . . . AND A SELECTION FROM HIS PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

(London: Henry Colburn, 1828). 229 x 146 mm (9 x 5 3/4"). Five volumes. Edited by Richard Lord Braybrooke. Second Edition.

ESPECIALLY ATTRACTIVE POLISHED TREE CALF (stamp-signed by Jenkins & Cecil on front flyleaf), covers bordered with gilt chain roll, raised bands, spine compartments handsomely gilt with knotwork centerpiece surrounded by small tools and with scrolling foliate cornerpieces, decorative rolls on bands and at head and foot of spine, red and blue morocco labels, turn-ins with fine foliate roll, marbled edges and endpapers. Engraved frontispiece portrait, six additional portraits, tailpiece, folding map, two double-page views, and a two-page facsimile of Pepys' handwriting. A hint of wear to extremities, plates a little foxed, but A VERY HANDSOME SET IN QUITE FINE AND BRIGHT CONDITION, the text especially fresh and clean.

In his own time, Pepys was known as the Secretary of the Admiralty, a post he held from 1673-88, and it was through his work in this position that he earned the credit for rejuvenating an English navy that during his day had reached its lowest point since the Middle Ages. But to us, Pepys (1633-1703) is famous for this diary of the 1660s, giving important historical detail of momentous events in London and at the same time revealing (though not until its encoded language was deciphered in 1825) a candid account of his uninhibited private affairs. This handsomely bound set is apparently an uncommon example of the work of the Jenkins & Cecil firm. Ramsden does not give an address for them, but notes that one of their volumes was item #920 in the Huth Library sale (a copy of Brathwait's "Arcadian Princess" in sprinkled calf), and puts the date of that binding after 1840. The British Library Database of Bookbindings has an entry for a 19th century morocco binding tooled in gilt and signed by Jenkins & Cecil on a 16th century prayer book (shelfmark c52a18). ABPC lists 10 items bound by them, including a Nuremberg Chronicle. (ST8116q)