His collection of trade-cards is now at the British Museum, his collection and documentation of sixteenth and seventeenth century writing masters and their copy books is now kept in the V&A. He wrote books on both subjects as well as on London history, including subjects such as furniture makers, goldsmiths and signboards.
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| Signature of Ambrose Heal in a copy of The English Writing-Masters and Their Copy-Books, 1570-1800 (1931) [KB, National Library, The Hague] |
But his impressive library was not preserved as a whole. It was auctioned by his son Anthony S. Heal at Sotheby & Co in London in July 1964.
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| Collector's mark of Ambrose Heal (4.3 x 3.2 cm) [From Frans Lugt, Marques de collections de dessins et d'estampes online] |
The auction catalogue states on the title page that his collection included 'almost complete sets' of a number of private presses: Ashendene, Doves, Kelmscott and Vale Press, while he also had copies of books of other presses such as Daniel, Eragny and Essex House. This makes it a regular collection in terms of subject matter, but an exceptional one in terms of completeness.
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| Ambrose Heal |
The magazine The Dial was not part of his collection, but two significant pre-Vale editions are present: Daphnis and Chloe (1893) and Hero and Leander (1894).Then, spread over four pages of the auction catalogue, follows a 'complete set' of the Vale Press books: lots 198 through 219.
Most books are grouped into lots with multiple books: 2 (4 lots), 3 (1 lot) and 4 (6 lots). Ten lots focus on a single title, but these are, for example, the three-volume Shelley edition or the complete series of thirty-eight Shakespeare volumes with the Marlowe included.
This was the custom at Sotheby's - and still is - for ordinary copies of private press editions. Indeed, Heal owned only a single Vale Press book printed on vellum: James I, The Kingis Quair (lot 218). He also owned a paper copy.
The vellum Kingis Quair was unopened. Heal apparently had a preference for 'unopened' copies and possessed no fewer than fifteen volumes that were never cut open and read. These include the editions of Constable, Drayton, Sidney, Wordsworth, Ecclesiastes, T.S. Moore's Danaë, Shakespeare's The Passionate Pilgrim, Michael Field's plays The World at Auction and The Race of Leaves, the two-volume edition of Chatterton, the three-volume edition of Shelley's Poems.
In 1915, he acquired some volumes from the sale of the famous collection of George Dunn of Woolley Hall. Others had the bookplates of John Morgan, R.A. Walker, Francis Edwin Murray or Alice Marion Trusted and Herbert S. Squance.
Heal also owned one specially designed binding by Ricketts, for Apuleius' The Marriage of Cupide and Psyches (1897), executed in white pigskin, tooled in gilt and blind. This had the bookplate of John Morgan, whose collection was sold in 1908. The volume was acquired by Henri M. Petiet at the Heal auction and resurfaced in 1994 at the sale of his collection. This is now the Morgan-Heal-Petiet copy, although Heal's name was not mentioned in 1994, and the book probably does not have his bookplate. Current whereabouts unknown. The book was sold by in Paris Piasa in 2009 and by Sims Reed in London around 2011 when I saw it at the London International Antiquarian Book Fair. The volume contained handwritten notes by its first owner John Morgan about the costs of the special binding. The asking price in 2011 was £5,000.
