About a third of the books in this catalogue are from the library of the medical historian Edwin Clarke (1919–1996). These are early continental books, including two medical incunables (nos 1 and 60), and English books other than the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century medical books in English which made up catalogue 36. Among Clarke’s books is a copy of Webster’s famous Displaying of supposed witchcraft (1677), with notes on the endleaves by the herald John Gibbon (1629–1718) and his marginal markings using a private code of rectangles and playing-card symbols.

Five books come from the library of the Earls of Macclesfield (nos 21, 22, 33, 34 38). The scientific portion of this great library, known in the eighteenth-century as the finest mathematical library in England, was formed by William Jones (1675–1749, FRS 1711), who in turn had acquired many books from the library of John Collins (1625–1683, FRS 1667). Aphra Behn’s translation of Fontenelle (no. 34) was probably bought new by Jones; Foster’s Miscellanies (no. 38) probably came from Collins. It was probably Jones who acquired books from the library of Sir Thomas Knyvett (c. 1539–1618) which was dispersed in 1693, including Oronce Finé beautiful book on sundials (no. 33).

Just after Sotheby’s started selling the Macclesfield Library in London, a small portion of another intact collection was dispersed by Rowley Fine Art in Ely, Cambridgshire in a sale on 24 April 2004. The catalogue listed 240 lots, strong in seventeenth-century books of law and natural philosophy but on the instructions of the owners no provenance was announced. It was only on viewing the books that it became clear that they were from the library of Martin Bowes (1671?—1726), in most cases with his signature and motto ‘know and doe’. Bowes was born in London and admitted a pensioner, aged 15, at St John’s College, Cambridge in 1686; he left without taking a degree but followed his father into the legal profession and was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1686. Bowes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1699 but dropped out of the lists of fellows before his death in 1726. He made the grand tour and one or two of the books in the sale were purchased in Paris in 1700; he was a subscriber to the grand folio edition of Prior’s Poems on Several Occasions (1718). Bowes later settled in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and married Elizabeth Thurland, granddaughter of the judge Sir Edward Thurland, a close friend of John Evelyn. I purchased five books at the sale and these are offered here, four owned by Bowes (nos 4, 5, 15 and 61); and a later eighteenth-century pamphlet (no. 49), presumably purchased by one of his descendants.

The copy of Borelli’s rare De motionibus of 1670 (no. 9) belonged to the Jesuit Daniello Bartoli and he refers to it in his Del ghiaccio published eleven years later (Martin Bowes’ copy is no. 5). And finally three books (nos 26, 31 and 51) are from the library of Jean Bouillet (1690—1777), physician of Béziers in the south of France, a member of the Montpellier and Bordeaux Academies and a corresponding member of the Académie Royal des Science in Paris.

On the dispersal of the Macclesfield Library, Patricia Fara and Roger Gaskell, ‘Selling the Family Silver,’ Endeavour 29 no. 1, March 2005, pp. 14–19; A group of 29 continental books from Bowes’ library was included in Maggs Bros Catalogue 1362 (2004) with a brief introduction by Jonathan Riley.