Fine Books and Manuscripts

3 works in one volume, 12mo (130 x 72 mm). Satyricon with engraved title, Icon Animorum with engraved frontispiece. (Argenis lacking title-page, presumably A1, a few leaves at the end wormed just touching letters, overall browning.) Contemporary vellum, edges red, manuscript note on upper cover, manuscript title on spine (some wear, spine slightly split). Together, three Latin duodecimo editions of Barclay's works. Icon Animorum, first publilshed in 1614, "shows Barclays alertness of observation, soundness of judgment and happiness in expression...Barclays main importance, however, for the history of literature rests on his two adventures in fiction, Euphormionis Satyricon and Argenis, the one a contribution to the development of the picaresque novel of real life, the other a finished example of a type of ideal romance" (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, 1907).