The valuable library of books, in Fonthill Abbey : a catalogue of the magnificent, rare, and valuable library, (of 20,000 volumes) illustrated, in many instances, with two and three sets of proof and other plates; generally of the most choice editions; selected with great care, and utmost liberality, during the last forty years; also, of the books of prints, galleries of art, curious missals and manuscripts, the Persian and Chinese drawings, &c. &c. &c. : which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Phillips, at the abbey ..
This 1823 London auction catalogue, issued by the auctioneer Mr. Phillips, lists the library of 20,000 volumes at William Beckford's Fonthill Abbey for prospective bidders. The cover-style plate shows a pointed diamond frame enclosing a Gothic abbey tower, set within a lattice of diamond-pattern tracery with a bookplate-like lettered label and a signed flourish. A designer might take from it the diamond lattice border and the framed oval vignette as a model for ornamental book covers or Gothic revival title pages.
