Five Thousand Receipts was first printed in America in 1826, and enjoyed as enthusiastic a reception in the United States as it previously had in England. This is the fourth American edition, here in the Kay variant giving “122 Chestnut Street – near 4th” as the publisher's address.

Provenance: Francis Kelsey, New York City.

•  Bitting 299; Lowenstein 122; Shoemaker 39366.   Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations; worn and abraded, joints open and fragile, front cover darkened, leather lost at spine extremities. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription; front fly-leaf with small hole and pencilled annotations. Pages with varying degrees of age-toning and spotting, several signatures deeply browned. Some corners dog-eared. One leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into text without loss; one leaf with internal closed tear, without loss. Used, as this usually was!  (27405)

Signed binding:  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; Celtic knotwork-inspired medallion decoration stamped on cover and spine in gray and maroon. Front cover with “F” monogram (Charles Buckles Falls?).

•  Binding as above, minimal wear only to extremities, head of spine with very minor spot of darkening. Front free endpaper with gift inscription dated Christmas, 1904. One leaf with short tear from lower margin, not touching text. A few signatures opened slightly unevenly; pages clean.  (28593)

•  Vicaire, Manuel de l'amateur de livres du XIXème, I, 772. Uncut, mostly unopened copy. Publisher's wrappers, printed in black and red; front one off, with expectable chipping and with soiling. Some pages lightly spotted; mostly, clean. Now housed in a simple acid-free phase-box. (14356)

•  Publisher's red cloth in dust wrapper, jacket not price-clipped; dust jacket rubbed and chipped at extremities and along upper back edge, light dustsoiling to portion of back cover.  (24682)

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Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, covers decoratively blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title. In its modest, subtle (and difficult to photograph!) way, this is avery handsome binding.

•  Bound as above; binding very slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing. Ex–social club library: call numbers on fly-leaves, rubber-stamp on title-page and two others, no other markings. Pages clean save for slight offsetting from stamps. A nice copy.  (28238)

Author's presentation copy:  Signed by Markham, with an inscription “with my friendly greetings” to a theological seminary, dated 1933.

•  Mounted on cardboard. Age-toned, edges darkened; clean and unchipped.  (26119)

adds a preliminary volume of background information on England's politics and economy during the 15 years prior to the start of the main history

•  NSTC 2M17389.   Publisher's textured brown cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; vols. III and IV with spine heads chipped. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label on each spine head, call number on endpapers, title-pages and a few others rubber-stamped, no other markings. Light waterstaining to upper and lower inner portions of vols. I and II, upper only of vol. III; pages otherwise clean save for very faint age-toning. Paper a bit embrittled, with occasional short edge tears or corner chips, but the set quite suitable for use with reasonable care.  (28336)

Binding: Publisher's very bright pebbled violet-blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title tending attractively to copper, back cover with blind-stamped Masonic device; all edges red.

Provenance:  The front cover is gilt-stamped “Blessed Charity. Chicago, October 8th and 9th, 1871" (reported on several other copies), beneath which is “Grand Lodge State of Massachusetts” (gilt-stamped in a different font).

•  Bound as above; extremities rubbed, spine darkened. Pages mildly age-toned. A nice association copy of a not-terribly-common Chicago Fire item.  (29484)

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•  Publisher's green pebbled cloth, front cover stamped in yellow; spine reinforced with cloth tape, tape now rubbed and splitting. Title-page with updated contact information on affixed label covering original printed publisher's information. A number of leaves with grey discoloration in upper margins; otherwise, a clean copy of a somewhat unusual item.  (26240)

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The volume is illustrated with an added engraved title-page and three steel-engraved plates, done by O. Pelton after designs by T.B. Read and Beaume, and by Charles Phillips after Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Signed binding: Hunter green embossed morocco, covers with cherub vignette in foliate frame; the embossed panel was designed by Francis N. Mitchell and engraved by Alex C. Morin, and the binding was done by Benjamin Bradley, with all three names stamped in panel. All edges gilt.

•  Faxon 713. On binding, see: Wolf, From Gothic Windows to Peacocks, 178; Spawn & Kinsella, American Signed Bindings, 53.   Binding as above, extremities with very minor rubbing; frontispiece lacking. Offsetting from plates, two pages with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item, scattered light spotting elsewhere. A gorgeous example of the binding, with interesting reading inside.  (26737)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper of vol. I with inked inscription: “Presented to the 'German Society Library of the State of Pennsylvania' by the Compiler,” signed “Wm. M'Carty.”; same to vol. III. Vol. II from a second 19th-century Philadelphia subscription library!

•  American Imprints 42-3093; Sabin 42997.   A married set. Vols. I & III: Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind, spines with gilt-stamped title and two different vignettes; corners and spine extremities chipped (foot of vol. I revealing printed music beneath the cloth). Ex–social club library with remnants of shelving labels on spine heads, 19th-century bookplates and call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages. Vol. II (Naval) sometime rebound in navy leather over blue cloth, leather edges blind-tooled, spine with gilt-stamped leather title label; spine sunned, rubber-stamp of a different 19th-century library on title-page and a number of other pages, small repair to dedication leaf of vol. II. All volumes with occasional short marginal edge tears or corners chipped away; some pages lightly age-toned. All meaty, all sound for use, all evocative; despite “mixed” nature, a very pleasant set.  (3283)

•  Publisher's dark blue cloth, front cover and spine stamped in silver; corners and spine extremities slightly rubbed. Front hinge (inside) cracked and back hinge tender; endpapers partially adhered to pastedowns.  (22222)

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Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black and white; designed by Thomas Watson Ball and with his “B” cipher. The cover depicts a richly dressed man at a tickertape machine. Top edge gilt.

•  Bound as above; black stamping showing light wear: a solid, clean copy.  (22208)