•  New, in dust jacket.  (29379)

They address then-pressing topics: tariffs, protectionism, development of domestic industry, and European foreign policy ( NONE OF WHICH, of course, have ANY resonance today . . . ) .

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 49095; Clarkin, Mathew Carey Bibliography, 1133. Recent quarter tan cloth with paper sides in the style of the era; lightly soiled and the neat paper label with a small stain. Ex-library with stamp on title-page; paper brittle and age-toned, signatures wanting to separate (again) from spine (and some doing so). One page torn and repaired.

An Englishman through and through, Carr seems sincerely to have liked Ireland and the Irish he met. His book is full of extended and very readable detail — some original, much quoted — on (e.g.) language matters and Irish poetry, Irish agriculture and industry, Irish management of charities, Irish “sights” and ruins, Irish marriage cust marriage customs — and the implications of a potato-based diet.

Provenance: Contemporary inked inscription reading “Tho.s Wynne.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 10096. On Carr, see: The Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped title-label; leather moderately rubbed, joints cracking and spine label dimmed. Title-page with owner's name as described above; title-page and one other stamped. Pages, except for central leaves, with waterstaining in lower margins; two pages with smeared spots of ink. (11960)

Provenance:  Flourishing old signatures of “J. Lowry” to pastedown and title-page.

WorldCat locates only three U.S. libraries reporting ownership.

•  Palau 209844; Medina, BHA, 3925; not in Sabin but see 58289 for the 1767 Puebla printing.   Removed from a bound volume; old sewing holes visible in inner margin. Very good condition.  (28194)

Throughout his life Challoner “labored to save Catholicism in England from extinction; his writings and preachings served to strengthen the faith of the Catholic minority . . .” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 438). His readable, revised edition of the Douay–Rheims Bible (1749–52) served as the English Catholic standard until quite recently.

Provenance: Released as a duplicate from the greatest collection of American Catholica in the world, the Georgetown University Library, with a few of the requisite and expected stamps.

•  Parsons 461; Shaw & Shoemaker 31112. On Challoner, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, III, 437–438.   Contemporary treed sheep, spine with chipped, gilt-stamped red leather title-label; binding abraded, covers a bit sprung, spine with paper shelving label and some cracking of leather. Title-page and one other stamped as described above; pages age-toned. A “decent” copy.  (5306)

Click either image for an enlargement.

Provenance: Pencilled note on endpaper, “From Ralph E. McCoy’s Library”; McCoy, emeritus Dean of Libraries at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, published widely on the First Amendment freedoms.

•  Howes C336; Sabin 12379; Shaw & Shoemaker 17193. Later quarter plain brown paper over contemporary tan paper–covered sides; edges and corners rubbed. Front free endpaper (modern) with pencilled note of McCoy’s ownership; front fly-leaf with pencilled gift inscription dated 1849. Offsetting and foxing throughout. A very sound copy.

Sánchez Valverde was the first writer born in Santo Domingo to publish a book and he was a staunch defender of America and his native island against all prejudices and “calumnies” he perceived as directed against both.

Curiously, several sources (Palau, Sabin, WorldCat) give the terminal page of this work as 80 (or LXXX) and certainly the copy at the John Carter Brown Library conforms to that. This copy, however, clearly stops at page LXXIX with the word “Fin” and with what would be LXXX being blank: Ours is in line with Medina.

•  Palau 55495; Sabin 76308; Medina, BHA, 5155. On Clavigero, see: DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1209–12.   Loosely attached at one sewing point to a crude and ill-fitting vellum binding; binding soiled and pastedowns stained. Title-page with small splashy stains (dirty water?) in outer margin. Text clean with minimal light foxing here and there.  (29848)

Clavijo did not know how to write so Pedro Arias signed for him.

•  Very good conditon. Written in a clear, easy-to-read hand.  (27601)

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.

Single-click the image, for an enlargement.

•  ESTC W24802; Evans 33532. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding abraded with leather cracking over the spine, spine label lettering rubbed. Pages age-toned, with some spots of foxing.

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)

Bindings: Publisher's plain light blue paper–covered sides with tan shelfbacks, spines with printed paper labels; uncut.

•  NSTC 2C41665; NCBEL, II, 611; Shaw & Shoemaker 47741.   Spine paper darkened and cracked, joints and spines of both volumes restored with long-fiber tissue; inner margins of first and last few leaves unobtrusively repaired; as noted, page edges uncut.. Vol. I with front cover waterstained and back cover inkstained(?); title-page of vol. II with pencilled ownership inscription in upper portion. Foxing variously; one pencilled correction.  (30085)