Henry Davis (1897-1977) was a businessman who owned factories in London and Belfast. The Henry Davis Collection consists of early and rare printed books from the invention of printing in 1455. The collection includes the Fust and Schoeffer Latin Bible of 1462, paper and vellum copies of Jenson's Pliny Historia Naturalis (Venice 1472), the first editions of the Greek and Latin classics and early editions of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Montaigne. The collection also includes some fine bindings.
The Collection is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of printing and book illustration, literature, the classics, the Renaissance and the development of scientific thought. The Collection consists of printed items and manuscripts ranging from a leaf of the first book printed using movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, to the works of the Gregynog and other twentieth century presses. It also includes the work of some of the most notable of the early printers, Aldus Manutius, Nicolas Jenson and Johann and Peter Schoeffer. Many of the incunabula are still in their original bindings.
The Collection comprises 200 items, of which 80 are incunabula i.e. printed before 1500.
The Ulster Gift: books presented to the University of Ulster by Benedikt S. Benedik,Z 1990