
18TH-CENTURY BOOKS
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“Nothing But
INDEPENDENCE . . . Can Keep the Peace of the Continent”
Paine, Thomas. Common sense; addressed to the inhabitants of America, on the following interesting subjects. I. Of the origin and design of government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. III. Thoughts on the present state of American affairs. IV. Of the present ability of America; with some miscellaneous reflections. Norwich: Re-printed and sold by Judah P. Spooner, and by T. Green, in New-London, [1776]. 8vo (19 cm; 7.5"). 64 pp.
$30,000.00
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Uncut copy with original stitching of what was “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era” (Gordon Wood, American Revolution, p. 55). Popularity of the work can roughly be gauged by the fact that at least 25 editions were printed in the first year
Two editions were printed at Norwich, Connecticut, by Spooner and Green: one extending to 56 pp. and the other, offered here, to 64 pp. This edition is by far the scarcer: It was
unknown to Evans and only seven U.S. libraries report owning a copy.
Provenance: Contemporary ownership signature at top of title-page: “J. Store's [book].”
Not in Evans. Bristol 4313; Shipton & Mooney 43119; Trumbull, Connecticut, 1214; Johnson, New London, 1047; Adams, American Independence, 222r; Grolier, American One Hundred, 14 (for first edition). This edition not in Sabin or Howes. Uncut and stitched as issued. Title-page age-toned, lightly soiled and lightly abraded. Lower margin of pp. 29–30 torn with loss of three words on 29 and four on 30; supplied for reading sense. Housed in quarter red morocco clamshell case, spine nicely gilt, with an inner paper chemise protecting the pamphlet. (29365)
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Tom Paine
Discounts the Pound Sterling
Paine, Thomas. The decline & fall of the English system of finance. New York: Printed by William A. Davis, for J. Fellows, 1796. 12mo (18.5 cm; 7.25"). 58 pp., [1 (ads)] f., without the half-title.
$375.00
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Self-proclaimed “second American edition” printed “from a London copy of the Paris edition” — and, uncommon. Paine on his favorite subject of criticism — the English. Here he points out that the English financial system is on the brink of bankruptcy, and identifies acts of banking folly to be held responsible for getting it into that state. Written at a time when Paine was in France and still deeply involved in the revolutionary cause, the essay caused no small amount of controversy when it first appeared in Paris and then subsequently in London in April of 1796.
With the leaf of advertisements for “new publications for sale by John Fellows.”
Provenance: Signature of “Geo. Wilson jr,” dated 1880, inked to title-page.
Evans 30944; ESTC W20110 & T5824. Uncut copy, without the half-title, stitched in modern plain wrappers; dust-soiled and age-toned with old dampstains. Ownership signature as above on title; pencilled note on verso (not in the same hand), “bad effect on bank of connection with gov't.” A good copy. (29899)
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“Must England Ever be the Sport of Hope, & the Dupe of Delusion?”
Paine, Thomas. A letter to the Earl of Shelburne, on his speech, July 10, 1782, respecting the acknowledgement of American independence. Philadelphia printed, London reprinted: J. Stockdale, 1783. 8vo (20.8 cm, 8.2"). [2], 28 pp.
$500.00
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First British (and first stand-alone) edition. Paine here expounds on the impossibility of America re-subjecting herself to English rule: “The sin of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left it in our power to say we can forgive” (p. 6). Howes notes that this “was No. 12 of The American Crisis, as published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1782; there was no separate American edition.” Provenance: Title-page with early inked ownership inscription, “Boquhan” (Stirling, Scotland).
Adams, American Controversy, 83-69a; ESTC T5851; Howes P26; Sabin 58229. Gilt-stamped leather spine laid down on 20th-century dusty rose-colored paper-covered boards; front cover slightly faded, spine extremities chipped. Ownership inscription as above. Pages clean. (29323)
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The Provincial Letters
Pascal, Blaise. Les provinciales, ou lettres ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un provincial de ses amis, et aux R.R. P.P. Jesuites sur la morale & la politique de ces Peres ... Nouvelle edition, revue, corrigée & augmentée. Amsterdam: Aux depens de la Compagnie, 1734; Cologne: Pierre de la Vallée, 1739. 12mo (15.8 cm, 6.25"). 4 vols. I: Frontis., [14], 404 pp. II: Frontis., [10], 378 pp. III: Frontis., [10], 372 pp. IV: [8], 539, [13] pp.
$900.00
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Pascal's pseudonymously published Provinciales, an elegantly composed, widely read defense of Antoine Arnauld and of Jansenism against Jesuit opponents. First printed in 1657, the work appears here along with the notes by Guillaume Wendrock (a.k.a. Pierre Nicole), translated from Latin into French.
The first three volumes were printed in Amsterdam in 1734, and each opens with an engraved frontispiece; the fourth volume was printed in Cologne in 1739. All four volumes have title-pages printed in red and black, with the fourth specifying that Nicole's notes were translated by Mademoiselle de Joncourt.
Provenance: All four title-pages with small early inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner of “A. Thorpe, York.”
Period-style quarter mottled calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Vols. I and II with frontispiece rectos institutionally rubber-stamped, with bleed-through into images; ownership inscriptions as above. Pages clean. (27243)
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Pearce,
Zachary. The miracles
of Jesus vindicated...the second edition. London: J. Roberts,
1729. 8vo (19.7 cm, 7.75"). 31, [1 (blank)], 31, [1 (blank)], 32, 39, [1 (blank)]
pp.
$300.00

All four parts: Parts I, II, and III are a reimpression of the second edition (without prices on title-pages and with the register continuous), while part IV is here in its first edition. Written by the Bishop of Rochester in response to Thomas Woolston’s Discourses, these essays argue for literal rather than allegorical New Testament interpretation and defend the Scriptural miracles. ESTC N34872; Part IV: ESTC T93310. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Title-page with traces of now-absent early ownership inscription and with an early inked annotation identifying Pearce, then the Bishop of Bangor, as the author; one page with inked and pencilled annotations. Pages mildly age-toned.

Predestination?
Peralta, Antonio de. Dissertationes scholasticae de S. Joseph, unigeniti filii dei putativo patri, deique genitricis sponso dignissimo: eidem beatissimo patriarchae tutelari suo consecratae. Mexici: Typis Josephi Bernardi de Hogal, impressoris librorum apud Civitatis Palatium, 1729. 12mo. [14] ff., 219, [1] pp., [2] ff.
$800.00
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Peralta (1668–1736), a native of Zumpango, Mexico, was a Jesuit and a professor (“Primario Sacrae Theologiae Professore”) in the Society's College of Sts. Peter and Paul in Mexico City. He was the author of several books, more than one of which begins “Dissertationes scholasticae.” The present one, here in the first edition (it was reprinted in Antwerp in 1734) studies predestination and the life of St. Joseph.
This is a handsome production from the Hogal press, which is considered one of the finest operating in Mexico in the 18th century. It sports a full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of José de Castorena y Urzúa, the bishop of the Yucatan, and a notably strong, lovely one of St. Joseph and the Infant Christ; neither is signed.
Provenance: Marca de fuego of the main Mercedarian convent in Mexico City, in upper and lower edges of the book.
WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 combine to locate only five copies of this in the U.S., one of which is incomplete.
Medina, Mexico, 3086; Palau 218002; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 480. Contemporary limp vellum with ties. An occasional spot or stain; two short, slim, delicate wormtracks to (in each case) perhaps six leaves, across text but not affecting reading, and a third even shorter, slimmer, entirely marginal.foray in a number of other leaves. A very nice copy. (29581)
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Pérez de Hita, Ginés. Historia de las guerras civiles de Granada. Amberes: Por Henrico y Cornelio Verdussen, 1714. 8vo. [4] ff., 680 [i.e., 686] pp., [1] f.
$750.00
“Nueva Impression, corregida. de muchas faltas y erratas” of this classic late 16th-century historical novel, originally published (1595) under the title Historia de los vandos de los zegries y abencerrages. The Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature says of it that it is “a remarkable work of fiction on a basis of history but interspersed with frontier and Moorish ballads already circulating out of context.” A second part that was published more than two decades later (1619) is universally characterized as a disappointment; this edition prints the favored part I only, i.e., from the origins of the kingdom through the entrance of the Catholic Kings into the city.
The marginal notes here are printed in French!
Palau 221179; Peeters-Fontainas 1056; Gallardo 3449; Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature 457. 19th-century calf, old style. Scuffed and abraded. Front free endpapers starting to loosen and with a few tears in margins. Text clean and tight.
Petronius Arbiter. Satyricon quae supersunt cum integris doctorum virorum commentariis; & notis Nicolai Heinsii & Guilielmi Goesii.... Amstelaedami: Iansonio-Waesbergios, 1743. 4to (26.3 cm, 10.4"). 2 vols. I: Frontis., [37] ff., 886, [2] pp.; illus. II: [4] ff., 408 pp., [66 (index)] ff.
$600.00
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One of the most famous satires of all time, here in the expanded revision of Pieter Burman’s edition, with the much-debated corrections by Johann Jacob Reiske — with which the editor’s son, Caspar Burman, was most displeased. Brunet calls the 1743 edition “beaucoup plus complète que la précédente [of 1709], et celle qu'on recherche le plus;” Dibdin confirms that this second edition is preferred by collectors and “the
curious” over the first. The neoclassical frontispiece was engraved by J.C. Philips.
Brunet, IV, 575; Dibdin, II, 276–77; Schweiger, II, 725. 19th-century quarter sheep in imitation of morocco, with marbled paper–covered
sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles; spines, edges, and extremities rubbed, vol. I with spot of discoloration to spine. Main title-page with shadows of pencilled numerals. Pages clean.
Pickering, Timothy. Message from the President of the United States, accompanying a report of the Secretary of State, containing observations on some of the documents, communicated by the President, on the eighteenth instant. 21st January, 1799. Ordered to lie on the table. Philadelphia: John Ward Fenno, 1798 [i.e., 1799]. 8vo (20.2 cm, 8"). [2], 45, [1 (blank)] pp.
$1150.00

Important documentation of a low point in relations between the United States and France, summing up the state of affairs following the signing of Jay’s Treaty and the revelation of the XYZ Affair. John Adams’s letter of transmittal is on the verso of the title-page, followed by Pickering’s report describing numerous French government actions that could be interpreted as hostile or aggressive, if not directly contrary to international law, including much mention of seizures of American ships; the letter closes with Pickering’s incendiary warning “I hope we shall remember ‘that the Tyger crouches before he leaps upon his prey’” (p. 45).
Evans 36546; ESTC W26008. Period-style quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title. First two leaves with a bit of light spotting in margins, otherwise clean.

“Pindaric”
Satire . . .
Pindar, Peter [pseud. of Wolcot, John]. Peter's pension. A solemn epistle to a sublime personage.... Second edition. London: Pr. for G. Kearsley, 1788. 4to (26.8 cm, 10.5"). [4], 47, [1 (adv.)] pp.
$245.00
Wolcot lets George III in for it, first taking a moment to decry his own reputation for devilish unkindness—totally undeserved, according to him, as witnessed by the subsequent four laughably saccharine imitations of contemporary verse. Having gotten that out of the way, he recounts humorous tales of the monarch's poor judgment, dim sensibilities, and parsimony, before directing a final blow at a hypocritical parson.
This second edition was printed in the same year as the first; although the title-page mentions "an engraving by an eminent artist," no illustration is present in this copy.
ESTC T7920; NCBEL, II, 695. Recently rebound in marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped title label. Lacking engraving. A half-title (possibly not that belonging to this piece) has, at some point in the past, been cut in thirds and used to back/repair the title-page (to good effect, actually), leaf 45–46, and leaf 47–48 (text on p. 48, a list of "Pindar's" productions partially obscured by repair; the work itself, fine). One page (not the title) has been stamped by a now-defunct library; several leaves with tears, some repaired.
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