A Georgetown bookseller named Joseph Milligan appraised Jefferson's
library by formula based on the size of volumes: $10 for folio, $6 for
quarto, $ for octavo, and $1 for duodecimo.  If you look at Millicent
Sowerby's 5-vol study of the library, its pretty clear that the nation
got the bargain, and that many of the volumes were not readily available
anywhere, and certainly not in the U.S. - e.g., Theodore de Bry's
American Voyages (1590-1610) or Samuel Purchas's Purchas His Pilgrimes
(1614); first editions of Harrington (1656) and all 8 volumes of
Rushworth (1721-1722) - not to mention the unique manuscripts of
Virginia laws etc from which Hening published a lot of colonial statutes
(Jefferson had also purchased and thereby preserved the entire library
of Richard Bland [d. 1776] who was regarded as one of the foremost
antiquarians of his day.
Anybody with doubts about the content and value of Jefferson's library
should just browse through Sowerby's fascinating volumes -- reprinted a
while back by Univ Press of Va.

Jon Kukla

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