One sale in 1784 was formed principally from the libraries of N. Wilson of Pontefract and H. Bradshaw of Maple Hall, Cheshire.
He made frequent business visits to the continent, and accompanied in 1788 his fellow-bookseller, James Robson, to Venice, in order to examine the Pinelli library, which they purchased and sold by auction the following year in Conduit Street, London.
It was described by Richard Gough in An Account of a Rich Illuminated Missal executed for John, duke of Bedford, Regent of France under Henry VI, 1794. dedicated by the author to Edwards.
Around 1804, having acquired a fortune, he decided to retire, and with the Bedford Missal and other literary and artistic treasures he went to live at a country seat in the neighbourhood of Old Verulam.
Edward Bromhead, rector of Reepham, Norfolk, and about the same period bought the manor-house at Harrow, where some of the archbishops of Canterbury had once lived.
The house was finely situated among gardens, in which was an alcove mentioned by Dibdin, some of whose imaginary bibliomaniacal dialogues are set in the surrounding grounds.