The first edition of the Domesday Book. Two volumes. Folio (473 x 293mm). Bound in contemporary half calf, gilt title labels, five raised bands, and decoration in gilt and blind to the spines, over beige moire silk. 
 
A very good set, some wear, repair and restoration to the binding. Some foxing.
 
The first edition of one of the most important documents in English history; The Domesday Book.
The Domesday Book is the earliest and most iconic public record in English history, showing the impact of the Norman conquest, and who gained and lost land in the decades that followed.
The original record was commissioned by William The Conqueror in 1085, and over the next three years one main scribe copied out accounts for each manor and tenement across England, detailing 270,000 inhabitants, both free and unfree, and 13,000 settlements.
 
The production of this, the first printed edition of the Domesday Book, has a long history. It began with a paper read at the Society Of Antiquaries by Philip Carteret Webb in 1756 which argued for the necessity of a printed edition of the Book. The eventual project suffered a number of false starts, but by the early 1770s John Nichols had produced a ‘record type’ for printing the edition, and by 1774 Abraham Farley had taken over full editorship of the project.
 
According to Nichols, this work was a “full ten years passing through the press”, and so was begun under by him working with William Bowyer, but was completed by Nichols alone. Nichols regarded the record type he had designed as among his greatest achievements, writing that "on the correctness and beauty of this important Work, I am prepared to stake my typographical credit".
 
It was eventually published in 1783, fully reproducing the text of the Domesday Book across two volumes, but without any other material whatsoever, neither introductions, nor indices, nor even title pages.
 
In 1811 the Record Commissioners re-issued the set with title-pages & Indices; and in 1816 Henry Ellis completed the undertaking with Additamenta, an edition of the minor Domesday texts (Exeter, Ely, Winchester, Boldon), with an engraved plate from each.
 
ESTC T97297