(1756 - 1816), bookseller and bibliographer, e. s. of William Edwards of Halifax, Yorks.
1787 see James Robson
1789 Bologna (3 Sep.), Venice (27 Sep.)
1796 - 7 Venice (10 - after 24 Sep. 1796), Rome (28 Dec. 1796 - 2 Feb. 1797), Florence ( - 14 Feb.)
James Edwards was one of a party of four booksellers, the others being Robert Faulder, Peter Molini and James Robson, who left London in July 1787 to go through France to Italy, primarily to see the Pinelli library in Venice which was being offered for sale.1 They visited the printer Bodoni in Parma in August, and went on to Venice. Edwards and Robson bought the Pinelli library for 13,000 sequins (and sold it in two sales in London on 2 Mar. 1789 and 1 Feb. 1790). The party went on to Florence and Rome,2 and returned to England late in October, see Robson. In 1790 Edwards also sold the libraries of Salichetti of Rome and Zanetti of Venice (DNB). Edwards's subsequent correspondence with Bodoni (Bodoni cart.) shows he was in Venice in September 1789 and again in September 1796, when he went on to spend the winter in Rome (December to February 1797), before proceeding to Florence for a fortnight and leaving for Germany on 14 February.3 In 1792 Robert Gray commented that Edwards purchased 'almost everything' from Bodoni.4 He was presumably the 'James Edward' who came to Venice from Trieste with James Forbes on 10 September 1796.5 A laissez passer from Rome to Ancona for Forbes and Edwards, cavalieri inglesi, dated Rome 30 January [179[7?] is in a private collection.6
1. See R. Edwards, Publishing History, 18[1985]:5 - 48. 2. See also Thorpe letters MSS (5 Jan., 9 Apr. 1788). 3. This corr. pub. (Eng.transl.) by Edwards (at n1). 4. R. Gray, Letters during a Tour ..., [1797], 295. 5. ASV IS 779. 6. Note by S. Pancrazzi.
