Roxburghe Club

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The Roxburghe Club was formed in 1812 by leading bibliophiles when the library of the Duke of Roxburghe was auctioned. It took 24 days to sell the entire collection. The first edition of Boccaccio's Decameron was sold for 2,250 pounds, the highest price ever given for a book at that time. The person who bought it already had another copy, but lacking 5 of the pages. Thirty of the people who attended the auction decided to form a society. The Roxburghe Club is often claimed as the first book club. Certainly it was the model for many Folio Societies later in Britain and Europe. Each member undertook to sponsor the publication of a rare or curious volume. The scholarship and quality of binding was lavish, and no more than 100 copies were ever printed. The first president was the Earl Spencer.

A photograph exists of the membership in 1892, including the prime minister Arthur Balfour and anthropologist Andrew Lang, as well as American poet James Russell Lowell, Alfred Henry Huth, and Simon Watson Taylor. James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, was then President.