Bookplate in the Princeton copy of Gianvincenzo Gravina (1664-1718). Della ragion poetica tra’ Greci, Latini ed Italiani. Edited by Thomas James Mathias. (London: T. Becket, 1806) [Call number: (Ex) 2950.406]
❧ This bookplate is not recorded in such standard sources as Franks Bequest: Catalogue of British and American Book Plates bequested to the Trustees of the British Museum (London, 1903). By good fortune, there is tipped in at front an 1806 letter by the book’s editor Thomas James Mathias (1754?- 1835). The letter provides a substantial clue about the name of the bookplate’s owner — Mathias addressees “you and Lord Arden.” The coronet in the bookplate is that of a baron, signaling that “Lord Arden” must be the “Baron Arden” of the day, Charles George Perceval, 2nd Baron Arden (1756–1840). His wife is Margaretta Elizabeth, Baroness Arden, and we can directly see her initials (“M.E.A.,” including those initials reversed) in the monogram below the coronet.