BERNARD

See also:

• BERNARD QUARITCH (1819-1899)

QUARITCH (1819-1899)  , English bookseller and collector, was born at Worbis, Germany, on the 23rd of April 1819 . After being apprenticed to a bookseller, he went to London in 1842, and was employed by Bohn the publisher . In1847 he started a bookseller's business off Leicester Square, becoming naturalized as a British subject . In 1848 he started to issue a monthly Catalogue of Foreign and English Books . About 1858 he began to purchase rare books, one of the earliest of such purchases being a copy of the Mazarine Bible, and within a period of forty years he possessed six separate copies of this rare and valuable edition . In 186o he removed to Piccadilly . In 1873 he published the Bibliotheca Xylographica, Tpographica et Palaeographica, a remarkable catalogue of early productions of the printing press of all countries . He became a regular buyer at all the principal book-sales of Europe and America, and from time to time published a variety of other catalogues of old books . Amongst these may be mentioned the Supple-mental Catalogue (1877), and in 188o an immense catalogue of considerably over 2000 pages . The last complete catalogue of his stock was published in 1887–88 under the title General Catalogue of Old Books and Manuscripts, in seven volumes, increased with subsequent supplements to twelve . All these catalogues are of considerable bibliographical value . By this time Quaritch had developed the largest trade in old books in the world .

Among the books that he published was Fitz-Gerald's

Omar Khayydm, and he was the Agent for the publications of the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries . He died at Hampstead on the 17th of December 1899, leaving his business to his son .