The Roxburghe Club, although destined within two years to find its vocation as the prototypical book club, at first started with a far more humble intention. According to Thomas Frognall Dibdin's later reminiscences, it was originally intended merely to commemorate, on a yearly basis, a particularly enjoyable gathering of book lovers at a dinner held to celebrate a red- letter day during the sale of a library reputed to be ‘one of the finest and most perfect ever got together’. The collection that had come up for auction had previously belonged to John, Duke of Roxburghe, a renowned bibliophile who had died on 19 March 1804. The sale took place over a period of 42 days and was carried out by the auctioneer R. H. Evans at 13 St. James's Square, the late Duke's residence. One of the most eagerly anticipated lots of the auction was the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471, believed at that time to be a unique copy, and which finally went under the hammer on 17 June 1812. Dibdin, in his extensive accounts of the day, trumpeted that ‘it has been said that the amount of that one day's sale equalled what had been given for the ENTIRE COLLECTION’. He goes on to say that on the evening of 16 June a number of ‘enthusiastic and resolute bibliomaniacs’ met for dinner at the home of Mr William Bolland in Adelphi Terrace, an agreement was made to meet for dinner at the St. Albans Tavern on the evening of the seventeenth after the sale and that the choice of venue was made ‘from an affectionate respect to the memory of the St. Albans’ Press’, a strong indication that the group were already meeting in a spirit of commemoration of the early printers and in celebration of their shared interests.