18TH-CENTURY BOOKS
Aa-Al   •   Am-Az   •   Ba-Beq   •   Ber-Bo   •   Bibles   •   Bp-Bz
Ca-Cb   •   Cc-Coq   •   Cor-Cz   •   Da-Di   •   Dj-Dz
  Ea-England   •   English-Ez   •   F   •   Ga-Gp   •   Gr-Gz   •   Ha-Hb  
Hc-Hz   •   I-K   •   La-Lel   •   Lem-Log   •   Loh-Lz   •   Maa-Mar
  Mas-Mz   •   N-O   •   Pa-Pi   •   Pj-Pz   •   Q-R   •   Sa-Sch
Sci-Se   •   Sf-Sol   •   Som-Sz   •   Ta-Th   •   Ti-U   •   Va-Wil   •   Wim-Z

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The Hermit of New Spain — His Life, Apocalypse, & Secret Remedies

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•  A prominent Spanish editor-printer's important edition of Francisco de Losa's life of the Blessed Gregorio López (1542–96), a court page to Philip II who went to Mexico to live as a hermit. López's spirit of prayer and charity towards the natives — not to mention his intriguingly mysterious reclusiveness — resulted in a movement for his canonization and earned him the respect of such Protestants as John Wesley. Losa, a priest, knew López personally and spent much time with him in Mexico prior to López's death; the resulting biography was first printed in Mexico in 1613, and made its first Spanish appearance in 1642.

Franciscan artist and engraver Matías de Irala provided thecopper-engraved frontispiece portrait here. In addition to the life, the volume also contains López's works Tratado del Apocalypsi (first published 1676) and Tesoro de Medicina (first published 1672), the latter a compendium of indigenous Mexican herbal remedies and Latin-American medicinal folklore. This, the stated fourth edition (in actuality the sixth, according to Medina), appears to be the only such to combine the three works.

•  Guerra, Materia medica mexicana, 194 (1672 ed.); Medina, BHA, 2619; Palau 142530; Sabin 42578; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 727/152.   Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title; vellum a bit darkened, spine wrinkled with small nick, ties partially intact. Text block mostly separated from spine; sewing loosening in final signature. One lower outer corner torn away. Light smudges and small areas of waterstaining almost entirely confined to margins, touching some headers; a few pencilled marginalia; pages otherwise clean.  (29099)

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United Brethren Missions to“The Indians in North America”

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•  First English translation of Loskiel's highly informative account of missionary activities among Native American tribes “to the west of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia” (p. 2), dating between 1735 and 1787. Before recounting the mission's history, the author describes the customs, languages, and beliefs of various tribes, along with the flora and fauna prevalent in their territories. A great deal of Loskiel's information is taken from the accounts of Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg and David Zeisberger, the latter having served for over 40 years as a missionary in North America. Howes notes that the English edition “omits naming some former antagonists who had later become friendly.”

Provenance:  Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription of James Beatty; two additional similar inscriptions dated 1825 and 1826. First preface page with genealogical annotations regarding the Beatty family, including remarks on the Staten Island Moravian Church's acquisition of John Beatty's land, and a note that the James Beatty who owned this volume was the son of that donor; all three generations of Beattys were strong supporters of the Moravian Church.

•  Howes L474; Field 952; Sabin 42110; ESTC T88588.   Contemporary mottled sheep, shellacked, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; front cover with small abrasions, joints and extremities rubbed, spine with leather cracked (at one point deeply) and and chipped at head, joints starting from head and foot but binding still holding nicely. Map lacking. inner page portions with irregular semicircular of browning, sometimes deep into pages, sometimes quite shallow; old waterstaining across lower outer corners at beginning and end of volume only. Occasional other stains; occasional pencilled underlining.  (29265)

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Sacred Hebrew Poetry

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•  “Editio tertia, emendatior,” the first having appeared in 1753 and the second in 1763; collected lectures by the Bishop of London on Hebrew poetry, delivered at Oxford. The volume is printed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; it was later translated into English and published as Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews. Hannah More praised the work highly in a letter to Frances Boscawen, and said that it “taught me to consider the Divine Book it illustrates under many new and striking points of view.”

•  ESTC T113648.   Recent quarter calf, old style; raised bands, gilt ruling above and below the bands as accents, gilt center devices in spine compartments. Deep red spine labels lettered in gilt; marbled paper sides, with dark wedge of soil crossing bottom 3/4-inch of front cover’s paper and line of same soil also to turn-ins of back cover. Faint off-setting to top and bottom margins of early leaves from old binding; medium-light waterstains in margins of index (i.e., last 6 leaves), and the odd spot or bit of soil elsewhere. Generally, a very nice clean book.  (25318)

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“A Valuable Edition” — per Dibdin

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•  First edition of Pieter Burman’s edition of the Pharsalia, Lucan’s account of the Roman Civil War — the greatest epic poem in Latin after the Aeneid. The engraved title-page vignette was done by J. Van der Spyk after a design by J. de Groot.

Binding / Provenance: Contemporary calf, framed in gilt triple fillets and panelled in gilt quadruple fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and gilt-stamped central coat of arms of the Wilder family, with the motto “Virtuti moenia cedant.”

•  Schweiger, II, 565; Dibdin, II, 186–87. Binding as above, rebacked making use of most of the original spine, spine with gilt-stamped compartments and gilt-stamped leather title-label; edges worn and rubbed, portions of original spine leather cracked and chipped. Front pastedown with small abraded area; front fly-leaf with inked inscriptions dated 1834 and 1938. Some leaves with faint waterstaining in upper margins and lower outer corners. Attractive.

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Lucan BearingPlates after Gravelot

Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus.

•  Lucan's Pharsalia, the greatest epic poem in Latin after the Aeneid, takes as its subject the civil war between Pompey and Caesar. Lucan (a.d. 39–65) was born at Córdoba, Spain, but raised in Rome; he was the grandson of the elder Seneca, nephew of the younger Seneca, and the brother of the Gallio mentioned in Acts 18. He published his Pharsalia in a.d. 62 or 63, but it seems likely that his poetic talent aroused the jealously of the vain Nero, as after its publication the emperor forbade him to write or even plead in the courts, and then later compelled him to commit suicide for alleged treason. The illustrated plates in this edition are after Gravelot, and the French translation is by M. Marmontel.

Binding: Contemporary treed calf, spine gilt extra with badge of a thistle in compartments; red leather labels. Marbled endpapers. All edges red.

Provenance: Small booklabel of William Salloch on rear pastedown.

•  Schweiger, Handbuch der classischen Bibliographie, II, 568. Cohen & DeRicci, Livres à gravure du XVIII siècle, 662. Not in Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700–1914. Binding as above, gilt somewhat dimmed; some chipping of leather to corners and spine tips, and endpapers rubbed. Internally generally clean, with some browning from turn-ins and a few spots of soiling. Bookplate on front pastedowns.

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A Simple & Workman-likeBipontine Edition

•  This unassuming, rather “homey” octavo edition of 1783 was printed in Zweibrücken at the ducal printing office, noted for printing a number of fine editions of the classics. In addition to the usual preliminaries and the advertised notitia literaria, a very useful list and discussion of the editions of Lucan printed up to that point is also included in this, the first Bipontine edition of that author. The volume’s one ornament is a striking engraved vignette on the title-page that shows the head of Pompey being offered to Caesar.

•  Schweiger, Handbuch der classischen Bibliographie, II, 565; Dibdin (4th ed.), An Introduction to . . . Greek and Latin Classics, I, 188. Brown paper over light boards, spine with now-illegible paper label; stained and faded, corners bumped. A little foxing and soiling on endpapers and half-title; otherwise internally clean. Bookplate with inked date on front pastedown. All edges heavily speckled red.

Lucan for theFirst Republic

Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus.

•  The illustrated plates in this edition are after Perrin, and the French translation is by Brébeuf.

Binding: Contemporary treed calf, spines gilt extra with red labels and covers gilt-framed; gilt edges and gilt inner dentelles. Marbled endpapers in a French shell pattern. All edges gilt.

Provenance: Small booklabel of William Salloch on rear pastedown.

•  Schweiger, Handbuch der classischen Bibliographie, II, 568. Cohen & DeRicci, Livres à gravure du XVIII siècle, 662. Not in Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700–1914. Leather on spines and edges of covers dry and chipped; joints open, but sewing holding. Some closed tears to endpapers and front free endpaper of vol. I partially detached; paper generally clean with occasional spots of light browning or foxing. Bookplate on front pastedowns. Plates clean and charming.

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Rhetoric for the Preacher

•  Luis de Granada (1504–88) was a Dominican friar noted for his theological learning. As is appropriate for a member of the Order of Preachers, he here treats of homiletical rhetoric, giving his readers advice on how to prepare sermons, frame an argument, and adorn their language for the maximum effect. First published in Latin in 1576, this work was translated into French, then into this Spanish version by Bishop José Climent of Barcelona (1770).

•  Palau 108151. Recent neat vellum over light boards, spine lettered in black. Paper cockled with light to moderate waterstaining and small spots of soiling, not impeding legibility. Some marginal chipping with tissue paper repair on front fly- and title-leaf, a few shallow marginal tears elsewhere, and a wormhole in lower inner margin of final 22 leaves and rear fly-leaf; rear fly-leaf with some holing. Overall actually in very good condition.

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Special for the American Audience — Deceptive & Beautiful!

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•  A very curious printing of the Marburger Gesangbuch: It was printed and bound in Germany and imported and sold by German-American bookseller Ernst Ludwig Baisch, who had a store on Second Street near Rees in Philadelphia. The woodcut frontispiece portrait of Luther and the integral leaf with the “Philadelphia” title-page are tipped in. Goff opines that Baisch, while in Germany in 1774, “ordered from certain German printers a number of copies of [four] . . . works to be issued with new title-pages citing Philadelphia as the place of issue and his name as publisher.”

Goff goes on to say that “[a]t least a certain number of three of these were also apparently bound before shipment to Philadelphia.”Offered here is one of those false imprints in its special binding.

Binding:  An example of a painted and tooled vellum binding known in Germany as a “Bauern Einbände,” or “Peasant Binding” — but, though betraying a strong influence of folk art, such bindings were certainly not for peasants! The style almost certainly began in Hungary with early examples first appearing in southern Germany, and it was to gain greatest favor in northern Germany and Holland during the 18th century.

This vellum binding is elaborately tooled, embossed, and painted. There is an outer border on each cover; the center area is occupied by an embossed and painted bouquet arising from a heart-shaped jar inscribed with “Singet und spielet dem Hernn in eurem Hertzen,” this within columns and an arch surmounted by a fountain flanked with flowers. The cover is identical to that shown as Fig. 2 in Goff's article. Our spine treatment is different.

The bouquet is painted in red, green, and yellow, and below the quoted matter is a stylized device of a “4" above the letters “C G R” (or “C R G”).

All edges gilt and gauffered; neat clasps are present.

NAIP locates only five copies, we locate another four. Whether all nine have “peasant” bindings we have not been able to determine, but at least five do.

•  Not in Evans; not in Bristol; not in Hildebrand. ESTC W34038. On the binding and the history of Baisch, see: Goff, “German folk bindings on 'Philadelphia' books of 1774,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1968, pp. 324–30.   Binding as above, colors on the rear cover much faded and the embossing less pronounced; spine damaged and repaired, with loss of some of the original vellum but with enough remaining to see the style. Front fly-leaf filled on both sides with old writing in German; some leaves neatly turned-in (dog-eared), in fact a neat and clean copy. Housed in a brown cloth clamshell case with leather label.  (29150)

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Precious New Year's Gift in a FlatteringEMBROIDERED Binding

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•  Charming miniature almanac for a Belgian town, full of useful (now evocative) information as below and in a delightful binding worth its own leading paragraph . . .

Binding:  Splendid18th-century embroidered binding of gold wire and silver and colored threads over white silk, each cover featuring one pink flower with a long green stem and leaves at its center. Raised wide swirls of silver with touches of gold surround this in relief, the whole cartouche being set on a background of densely laid-on metallic (silver?) threads semé in gold; a thin gold border edges the covers, with spine sewn in a relatively simple pattern of leaves and crossbars. Boards cut flush with text block, text of calendar section interleaved with blanks for memoranda. All edges gilt.

Contained in this little book, surrounded on each page by a simple woodcut border, are the birthdays of European royals, including newborns; woodcut illustrations of moon cycles and numismata; tables of international currency values, tariffs, and taxes; names of government officials in Liege; a town calendar of events, meetings, and saints' days; and anadvertisement for the publisher, who sold the present almanac in various bindings and other such “cute New Year's Gifts,” including Paris almanacs, at his local shop.This was the fanciest binding style offered chez Dessain, according to his ad!

Provenance:  Ex musaeo Hans Furstenberg (gilt-stamped russet leather bookplate, front pastedown), the famous collector of 18th-century French books.

WorldCat finds similar little almanacs from the same period, butnot this.

•  Binding as above; worn at edges, longest stitches across spine loosening, silver thread tarnished as virtually always and colored threads fading. Minor offsetting from bookplate onto title-page, else in good condition.  Housed in a 19th-century marbled paper–covered slipcase.  (30397)

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PoeticsPANNING the Spanish “Greats”

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•  Probably the most influential 18th-century Spanish study of poetics in general and Spanish poetics in particular. Luzán Claramunt was Spain's principal exponent of the Franco-Italian theories of poetics and though he failed miserably as a constructive critic, he practiced destructive criticism very effectively on the works even of Lope de Vega and Calderon!

Nicely printed with elegant large head- and tailpieces (one each), handsome initials, and a perfectly charming vignette of a bird after the volume's “FIN.”

•  Palau 144343.   Contemporary limp vellum, lacking the ties; fore- and top edges of vellum rodent gnawed, top corner of all leaves slightly rodent gnawed, some staining to early fore-edges and a few others. Text almost throughout browned from iron in water used in paper manufacture, sometimes heavily enough to make this a good example of the extreme of the phenomenon, sometimes lightly enough to be called just “foxing and spotting”; paper absolutely unweakened and volume fine for use.  (28390)

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TO Part XXIII . . .

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