This is the first edition of the issue/state of the texts in two volumes.

The highly developed system of characters used in these books was invented by Fr. Chrestien Le Clercq (b. 1641) and was used beginning in the late 17th century by the Micmac for both religious and nonreligious texts, written on birch bark. In this production, the Micmac characters are printed on blue-green paper.

Provenance: Owned by H.W. Longfellow with “Micmac Language” in his hand on the recto of the frontispiece of the Gesangbuch and “Micmac Language New Brunswick” in his hand on the recto of the frontispiece of the other volume.

•  Pilling, Algonquian, 275; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2058 & 2059. The set not Evans, Masinahikan; not in Banks (rev. ed.), Books in Native Languages; not in Newberry Library, Ayer Indians.   Each volume bound in black oilcloth wallet-style with a natural cloth tie; some adhesion of old paper to the exteriors of the bindings. Internally very attractive clean, and with awonderful provenance.  (29261)

The present edition forms volumes 8 and 9 of the series Historia de la conquista del Nuevo Mundo.

Provenance:  Bookplate of the great 19th-century Mexican collector J. M. Andrade on the front pastedown of each volume.

•  This edition not in Sabin.   19th-century quarter red morocco with red textured cloth sides. Spine with raised bands and very good gilt tooling including center devices in spine compartments. Interiors clean. A very good set.  (25271)

On 4 July 1776 only two signatures were affixed to the unanimously adopted Declaration of Independence — those of John Hancock, president of the Congress, and Charles Thomson, secretary, in order to authenticate the document that had been voted on and approved.  Yet by a curious twist of fate (read rather, surely, of a political enemy's knife), when the calligraphic copy that is so well known to every school child was ready shortly after 19 July, authenticator Thomson was not invited to sign it!

Its printer was the daughter of Robert Aitken, who had printed the first Bible in English in America. A major edition of the English Bible, this isessential for any Bible collection, not just for collections of American Bibles — though as an American Bible and simple Americanum it has a revered place.

•  Rumball-Petre, Rare Bibles, 184; Hills 153; Herbert 1514; O'Callaghan 91–92; Shaw & Shoemaker 14486; Hedak, Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 20–42. On Thomson, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 481–82.   Recent quarter brown calf with stone-pattern marbled paper sides; a lightly tanned set with occasional light spotting only.  A solid and very good set.  (32628)

The Rev. Wright (1788–1853) spent over 30 years among the Choctaw people in Mississippi and Oklahoma. He founded the Wheelock Mission (named for his friend Eleazer Wheelock, Dartmouth College's first president) in 1832, where he was directly involved in developing the Choctaw written language, along with Byington and Dukes.

•  Darlow & Moule 3051; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Choctaw-9; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 265; Pilling, Muskhogean, 101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2744. Not in Field; not in Sabin.   Period-style half morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and date. First and last pages slightly smudged, text otherwise clean; a few scattered signatures unopened. A handsome copy of an uncommon and significant New Testament.  (29504)

Prior to this, various books of the New Testament had been printed at the Park Hill Mission Press but a complete Testament was never attempted there

Provenance:  Bookplate of Dr. Andrew Pickens, late a professor of theology at Furman University.

Evidence of readership: Occasional marginalia and interlinear notes in the neat small hand of Dr. Pickens, mostly suggestions for translations or meanings of words; a leaf of notes and a syllabic “key” are laid in.

•  Darlow & Moule 2448; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 215; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3743.   Publisher's black pebble-textured cloth. Very good condition.  (27811)

•  Matthew: Darlow & Moule 6788. John: Darlow & Moule 6789. Both: Pilling, Algonquian, 420; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 296.   Contemporary pebbled brown cloth, front cover detached, spine sunned. Pages age-toned. First two leaves of John each with short tear from upper margin, not touching text.  (26209)

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locateonly the copy at Yale.

•  Sewn as issued. Title-page with light dust-soiling in top and bottom margins. Very Good.  (31384)

features a character named Catrine Montour, based in part on the half-French, half-Native American “Queen” Catherine Montour (1710–1804), while the climactic rescue involves two maidens riding to the aid of an officer captured by Senecas.

This is the genuine first edition, not a modern reprint.

Binding:  Publisher's olive cloth, front cover with Art Nouveau water lily design and gilt-stamped title, spine with gilt-stamped title.

•  Binding as above, minor rubbing at extremities. Front free endpaper with pencilled Christmas gift inscription dated 1902; back free endpaper with rubber-stamped numeral (no other markings). Pages and plates clean. A very nice copy.  (28585)

Only one copy traced via OCLC — this, in Germany!

•  Not in Banks. Not in Evans.   One leaf, folded. First page with half-inch long tear and another smaller tear at upper left corner, not touching text. Near fine.  (14758)

Provenance:  First in the University of Miami Library, deacessioned; then in the library of Robert Chamberlain and later in that of France V. Scholes, both noted scholars of the Yucatán. Their signatures are on the front free endpaper and their notes are penciled in the margins of many pages.

This copy bears the full-page woodcut portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf, which is not found with all copies. Additionally, the title-page bears an interesting 14-piece composite woodcut border and the verso of that page has a stunning full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, to whom the letter is addressed. The coat of arms is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes; the lay-out is elegant and there is one large, handsome woodcut initial.

As usual, the letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et insulis noviter repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered islands of the West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost Cortés letter.

One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico and of the first encounter of the West with the Aztec civilization, this is a work of bedrock importance to the New World. No complete copy has appeared for sale since 1985.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 524/5; Sabin 16947; Harrisse, BAV, 125. Sanz 933–34; Medina, BHA, 70; Church 53; Burden 5; JCB, German Americana, 524/4; Streeter Sale 190.   18th-century half vellum and sprinkled paper over boards, gilt red leather label. Map supplied in expert facsimile; blank leaf H8 lacking. Bookplate of John Carter Brown (Library) on front pastedown, with deaccession stamp. Occasional very minor soiling in the text, else very good — a copy clean and even crisp.  (26808)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Sabin 16953.   Contemporary treed calf, front joint (outside) starting at top to open. A good+ copy — in fact, a rather nice one.  (20510)

an Indian “princess.”

We locate fewer than ten copies, one of which is now missing. The work was written to be a potboiler and was read to death in the German as well as the English editions.

•  Evans 30324; Sabin 19130 & 98450; Seidensticker, First Century of German Printing in America, 145; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 1045. Not in Wright, American Fiction.   Modern wrappers. Title-page and p. 82 with bug-spotting; text age-toned and with staining; fore- and upper margins of pp. 77–80 with short tears and some crumpling. Minor worming in some lower margins, not taking text. Pp. 81/82, and final leaf offering advertising, in excellent facsimile. Housed in a gray cloth clamshell case with red leather spine label.  (26968)

Click the images for enlargements.

The work is illustrated with a frontispiece and three copper-engraved plates done by Louis le Grand after designs by Gravelot.

•  Sabin 20201; Palau 73986; LeClerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 3180; Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, 1003–04.   Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label; corners, joints, and spine extremities rubbed, spine with two pinpoint holes and surface cracks to leather. Front free endpaper partially separated, with pencilled annotation on verso; inner margins of one plate and opposing page with small area of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item, pages otherwise clean. All edges marbled in blue. An attractive copy.  (25799)

Provenance:  Elegant calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.

•  Grabhorn Bibliography 481; Howes D521; not in Flake & Draper.   Publisher's quarter red morocco and printed paper–covered sides in red, black, and cream, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; edges and extremities lightly rubbed. Front pastedown with handsome bookplate as above. Pages and plates crisp and clean. A nice copy of a handsome and significant book.  (30530)