Mr. Henry Huth, who was born in London in 1815, was the third son of Mr. Frederick Huth of Hanover, who settled at Corunna, in Spain; but on the occupation of that town by the French in 1809 he came to England, where he became a naturalised British subject, and founded the well-known firm which is still carried on by his descendants. Mr. Henry Huth, we are informed in the preface to the Catalogue of the Huth Library, written by his son, Mr. Alfred Henry Huth, was intended for the Indian Civil Service, and was sent to Mr. Rusden's school at Leith Hill in Surrey, where he 'learned Greek, Latin, and French (Spanish was his mother-tongue), and had also got well on with Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic'; but in 1833, the East India Company having lost their Charter, his father removed him from the school and took him into his business. Office-work proving distasteful to him, he travelled for some years on the Continent and in America, rejoining his father's firm as partner in 1849. From his early years Mr. Henry Huth had been a collector of books, and on his return home he set energetically to work to form that splendid library which ranks among the finest in England, and which has been carefully preserved and augmented by his son, Mr. Alfred Henry Huth. Mr. Henry Huth gave commissions at most of the important book-sales, and we are told that 'he called daily at all the principal booksellers on his way back from the city, a habit which he continued up to the day of his death.' He was a member of the Philobiblon Society, and in 1867 printed for presentation to the members a volume of Ancient Ballads and Broadsides published in England in the Sixteenth Century, reprinted from the unique original copies he had bought at the Daniel sale. He was also a member of the Roxburghe Club. Mr. Huth died on the 10th of December 1878, and was buried in the churchyard of Bolney, in Sussex. He married Augusta Louisa Sophia, third daughter of Frederick Westenholz of Waldenstein Castle, in Austria, by whom he had three sons and three daughters.

Among the treasures in Mr. Huth's library are block-books of the Ars Moriendi, Ars Memorandi, and the Apocalypse; the superb copy of the Gutenberg Bible which was formerly in the libraries of Sir M. Masterman Sykes and Mr. Henry Perkins; two copies of the Fust and Schoeffer Bible of 1462, one on vellum; and a particularly fine copy of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, printed at Rome in 1468. The collection also comprises several of the pre-Reformation German Bibles; the first edition of Luther's Bible; the Coverdale Bible of 1535, and the Icelandic Bible printed at Holum in 1584; together with upwards of one hundred other Bibles, a large number of New Testaments, and various portions of the Scriptures in all languages.

In books from the presses of Caxton and other early English printers the library is remarkably rich. It contains no less than twelve Caxtons; about fifty Wynkyn de Wordes, of which several are unique; sixteen Pynsons, and a Machlinia. A vellum copy—the only one known—of the Fructus Temporum, printed at St. Albans about 1483; and the Exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in Symbolum Apostolorum, printed at Oxford, and bearing the date 1468 (a typographical error for 1478), are also found on its shelves.

Among the books printed by Caxton are the first editions of The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Tully of Old Age, Gower's Confessio Amantis, and Christine de Pisan's Fayts of Arms.

The books from the presses of foreign printers are both numerous and fine. Some of the most notable examples are the Dantes of Foligno and Mantua, both printed in the year 1472; the first edition of Homer, printed at Venice in 1488; a magnificent copy on thick paper, with the original binding, of the Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499; the Aldine Virgil of 1501, with the book-plate of Bilibald Pirkheimer; and two copies of the Tewrdannck, one on vellum, printed at Nuremberg in 1517. There is also a copy of the first edition of Don Quixote, with the Privilege only for Madrid.

Few collections are richer than the Huth Library in old English poetry and dramatic literature. It contains the first four folio Shakespeares, and a goodly gathering of quarto plays, many of which were acquired at the Daniel sale in 1864. Among them are the first editions of Richard II. and Richard III., printed in 1597; Henry V., Much Ado about Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Merchant of Venice, all printed in 1600; the first sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor, printed in 1602; the second edition of Hamlet, printed in 1604; and the first editions of Pericles, printed in 1609, and Othello, printed in 1622. Other rare Shakespeareana are the first editions of Lucrece, the Sonnets, and the Poems, printed respectively in 1594, 1609, and 1640. It is only possible to mention a few of the rare English books in this grand library; but the Hundred Merry Tales, published by Rastell about 1525; the unique copy of Munday's Banquet of Daintie Conceits, printed in 1588; a first folio of Ben Jonson's Works on large paper, of which only one other copy is known in that state, and a perfect set of the editions of Walton's Compleat Angler from 1653 to 1760, cannot be passed over without notice. The unique collection of Elizabethan ballads, to which reference has already been made, would be considered a great treasure in any library. The collection of Voyages and Travels is believed to be the richest private one in Europe. It comprises the early letters of Columbus and Vesputius, and perfect editions of De Bry, Hulsius, Hakluyt, Purchas, etc., together with the voyages of Cortes, Drake, and other famous travellers.

The fine and large collection of manuscripts contains many choice and interesting examples. Several beautifully written Bibles, and a number of Books of Hours are to be found in it. Some of the latter are most charmingly illuminated; two of them, written in the fifteenth century, of Flemish execution, are especially good. One of these contains the coats of arms of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and Isabella his wife. There are also three handsomely illuminated Petrarchs, and a remarkable manuscript on vellum in four volumes, with very beautiful illustrations of beasts, birds, fish, and insects, painted by George Hoefnagel for the Emperor Rudolph II. A collection of Madrigals for three voices, the words by John Milton, Thomas Tompkins, and others, is of especial interest, for Mr. A.H. Huth informs us that several of the songs by Milton in it have never been published, and that he composed some of the music.

The library also contains a considerable number of interesting letters, and a very fine collection of engravings; the series by Albert DÜrer being nearly complete. A somewhat recent addition to the collection is 'a proof set before numbers of the engravings to the Landino Dante of 1481, by Baccio Baldini, after the designs of Botticelli, and separately printed on slips.'[104]

Many of the volumes once formed part of the libraries of Grolier, Maioli, Canevari, Diana of Poitiers, Henry IV. of France, De Thou, Count Mansfeld, Louis XIII., and other celebrated collectors, and bear on their covers the arms or devices of their former owners. There are fine examples of the work of all the great binders, and many books bound in silver, needlework, etc.

The admirable catalogue of the library in five volumes was compiled by Mr. F.S. Ellis and Mr. W.C. Hazlitt, and partly revised by Mr. Henry Huth himself.

[104] Account of additions to the Huth Library, by Mr. A.H. Huth, in Mr. Quaritch's Dictionary of English Book-Collectors.