Excerpt from The Huth Library, Vol. 1: A Catalogue of the Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, and Engravings, Collected by Henry Huth, With Collations and Bibliographical Descriptions The Library, the most important part of which is described in these volumes, is the result of nearly fifty years of collection by a man whose taste for curious books was thoroughly innate. Henry Huth was born in the year 1815, and being destined by his father to enter the Indian Civil Service, was sent for preparation to Mr. Rusden's school at Leith Hill, in Surrey, where he soon became a favourite pupil. Here he learned Latin, Greek, and French (Spanish was his mother-tongue);and had also got well on with Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic, when, in 1833, the East India Company lost their charter, and his father took him away from the school. While yet a school-boy, he had taken a great and spontaneous interest in natural science, especially in physics and chemistry: all his pocket-money was devoted to the necessary purchase of apparatus, and sometimes he sold his old school-books for the same purpose. On one of these occasions, however, his attention was captivated by a work of Gervase Markham's, which he bought instead of the chemicals. Soon after, his father, finding him reading a book on chemistry, procured him a regular teacher; and thus his pocket-money was set free to be nearly all spent on his new and lasting fancy for curious books.

In 1833 he was sent abroad, first to the United States, then Mexico, France, and Germany; and in all these countries he made a few slight additions to his collection, but was especially lucky in Mexico, where he had several opportunities of securing rare Spanish books. In 1849 he returned to England to become a partner in his father's house; and from this time the real growth of the library dates. His youthful collection, which he had left behind him carefully packed up, was examined, and most of the books rejected; but some few remain in the library to this day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy.

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