Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 216, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1912 — Valuable Find of Manuscript [ARTICLE]

Valuable Find of Manuscript

A very interesting and remarkable discovery of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books, ranging as far back as 1480. has, just been made In the library at Oxton Hall, says the Nottingham (Eng.) Guardian. It came about in this way:-. The vicar of the. parish. Rev. W. Laycock, obtained permission to go through the books in the library at his leisure. While so doing his curiosity wifi aroused by a locked and forgotten cupboard therein, which he proceeded to Investigate. Its contents proved to be between forty and "fifty volumes,

which confirmed the Impression conveyed by the antiquity of their appearance that they belonged to the very earliest stage of the art of printing, which was introduced into this country in 1847. * v The majority of them are folio volumes, and with one exception they are all in their original bindings. The covers are carefully pitted boards of solid oak, and the books are bound with stout leather laces, the backing and lining being fragments of illuminated manuscripts of a much earlier date, cut up as waste with a ruthless indifference.