The Lost Erotica of James West

On the cold, cloudy, and damp afternoon of Saturday 3 April 1773, on the eighth day of the sale of "the Curious and Truly Valuable Library of the Late James West"—one-time President of The Royal Society and one of the original
trustees of the British Museum—three particularly important volumes of erotica were due to be sold.1 As the auctioneer approached lot 1110, collectors such as William Herbert, John Ratcliffe, and James Brindley competed
with members of the London book trade at "Mr. West's late Dwelling-House in King's-Street, Covent-Garden" for items from West's "varied and extensive" library.2 True dyfferens betwen ye regall power and the ecclesiasticall
power from 1548 (lot *1094) sold to Herbert for eleven shillings. Prior to Lucas's article, West attracted sustainedinterest only from Thomas Frognall Dibdin, who discussed West in his weekly periodical The Director (1807); since
Lucas's article, West's library has been the subject of only one essay, by William Noblett, which was published in
2012.10 Dibdin's account of West's library evolved between 1807 and 1811 from a series of weekly essays into a
series of increasingly-lengthy footnotes in a dialogue concerning eminent book collectors.11 His analysis of West's
library divides the collection into ten "general heads" (tracts, divinity, education, poetry and romances, natural
philosophy, natural history, history and antiquities, heraldry, legends and chronicles, and topography) briefly
commenting on the size, value or significance of each category.12 R. Charles Lucas's essay traces the growth of
West's collection, elaborating on West's interest in historical and antiquarian manuscripts, and his main
bookcollecting competitors, especially in relation to works printed by Caxton, before turning to the sale of West's
library (describing and comparing the two catalogues that were prepared for it), and the prices realised at the 1773
auction. West's purchase of Robert Harley's collection of ballads, his expansion of the collection, and the sale of
the collection to Thomas Pearson, is a staple of accounts of the Roxburghe collection.15 And the 1773 sale of
eight Caxtons from West's estate to George III marks, according to Kristian Jensen, the turning point for these
early-printed books from utilitarian-antiquarian object to luxury commodity.16 It is not without reason that Thomas
Frognall Dibdin described West as a peerless collector—a "transcendent bibliomaniac"—and his library as "a
collection of books, in English Literature, which, for rarity and value, in a proportionate number, have never been
equaled. "25 But, whatever West's wishes may have been, and however little his family needed the money,26 the
collections were not donated to Balliol College (his alma mater), or to the Inner Temple or Lincoln's Inn, or to The
Royal Society (of which he was President), or the British Museum, of which he was one of the original trustees.27
If West's collections had been donated to one of these institutions, it is likely that he would have attracted
significantly more scholarly and popular interest.