Binding: Contemporary half calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with blind-stamped decorative devices between raised bands and with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels. All edges marbled.

•  Bound as above; fore-edges of the two inside, touching boards as the volumes stand on the shelf, bumped hard at centers (one can’t quite imagine how); otherwise, only very minor wear. Front free endpaper with inked inscription dated 1865. Nice on shelf and in hand.

•  Palau 137466; Sabin 68390. Victorian acid-stained sheep with gilt spines extra. Marbled edges. Tape adhered to one title-page at inner margin. Ownershjp signatures on title-page. A nice set.

Binding

Provenance: Infante Duc de Montpensier (sixth son of King Louis Philippe), husband of the Infanta Maria Louisa (Queen Isabella’s sister), with his bookplate.

•  Palau 236716. Binding as described above, covers showing only very minor wear, spine slightly faded. Front pastedown with bookplate described above. Pages gently age-toned, a few showing mild foxing but most clean. Very attractive.

Binding: Brown embossed morocco ca. 1850–60, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-tooled decorations; all edges gilt and gauffered; binding signed by Field.

Provenance: Armorial bookplates of Robert H. Menzies, early inked ownership inscriptions of Caroline Syers.

•  NSTC 2M31627; Lowndes 2477. On Pickering, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Bindings as above, extremities showing only minimal wear. Bookplates on front pastedowns and ownership inscriptions on front fly-leaves, as above. A very handsome production, a very nice set.  (24404)

Binding:  Prize binding from King Edward VI's School: Contemporary walnut-brown calf, framed and panelled in blind double fillets with blind-stamped corner crosses and gilt-stamped English Royal coat of arms (with the quarter of France and dragon supporter) as central medallions; spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels and blind-stamped crosses in compartments.

Provenance: Front fly-leaf of vol. I with inked inscription dated 1863, noting this set's presentation to R.K. Rodwell as an “Extra Prize for the best English Essay.”

•  NSTC 2T3717.   Bound as above, spines and extremities rubbed. Endpapers and frontispiece lightly spotted. All edges stained red.  (21923)

The first printing of the Imitation appeared in 1473 and there followed hundreds of European editions before the first American appeared 1749. It was as popular with the American audience as it had been in Europe, and it appeared here in English and German translation and even in an extracted form, almost always redone for Protestants.

This is the first printing of the Imitation in Connecticut.

•  Shoemaker 9094; Parsons 778. On the translator, see: The Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary sheep with a near-contemporary over-covering of another sheep binding—with a rectangle cut out to expose the original spine label. Over-covering very plain. Expectable foxing and a certain amount of staining; a "decent" copy made interesting by the careful early "conservation" of the binding.

Binding: Mid- to late-19th-century binding, with binder’s ticket of the True American Bindery of Trenton, NJ.

•  Half morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles and blind-stamped decorative devices; edges and sides moderately rubbed with a bit of paper skinned from cover of vol. II. Most pages with some degree of foxing.  Handsome on shelf, solid in hand.

The manuscript is exquisitely calligraphedentirely on fine quality vellum in black ink with some words and phrases in red, gold, blue, and sometimes combinations of the same all in one word. Each page of text is indited within a red triple-ruled frame which is itself enclosed in another red triple-ruled frame; large, swirled blue corner devices “connect” the ruled elements. Elegantly ornamented and illuminated“subtitles,” all different, introduce sections of the argument, and there are14 large historiated and illuminated initials (1.5" x 1.5"), each offering as background a landscape–architectural image accomplished in brown, red, blue, green and cream colors.

There are additionally four other family coats of arms skillfully rendered in color and illuminated here, these being the coats of arms of ancestors whose purity of blood is used to prove Don Juan Antonio's. The manuscript ends with the granting of the arms and a full explanation of each of their elements and the significance of their colors.

Binding: Contemporary full crimson goat, round spine with “spine compartments” defined by triple gilt fillets; each compartment with the central device of an urn. Covers with a gilt double-fillet outer border and a gilt floral-roll border within; turn-ins with a gilt roll of a rope design. Each full-page illumination and all coats of arms with salmon-colored silk guards, beautifully intact. All edges gilt.

•  Excellent condition on all points. Interestingly, this Spanish document in a Spanish morocco binding, recording the social apotheosis of a Basque whose fortunes grew via Mexican connections, is housed in a somewhat tattered and slightly broken contemporary pull-off-the-topgilt calf slipcase of Mexican workmanship.  (24671)

The present volume was the last to appear of four issues of this annual, which commenced its run in 1824. The binding style, which incorporates a wallet-pocket and pencil holder, is uncommon, though the first such American bindings date from the late 1790s.

•  Faxon 763 (for the 1826 edition); Shoemaker 26110. Green straight-grain morocco wallet binding, framed in wide gilt rolls; worn, with portions of binding faded to brown and hinges tender. Back pastedown with pencilled ownership inscription; some engagement pages filled in. Several leaves removed, some leaving traces. Some plates with spots of foxing. Clearly not only used but actually carried around on a regular basis; still appealing and intriguing.

Provenance: First and last leaves stamped by the Lyceum Library of Hull (founded in 1807, and later dispersed in a famous sale).

•  NCBEL, II, 1591. On Walpole, see the Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary half calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped leather title labels and gilt-stamped floral decorations in compartments. Board edges rubbed, with the spine gilt somewhat dimmed. All page edges marbled to match the boards. Elegant.

Provenance: Title-page upper margin with inked presentation inscription reading “Mrs. Miller with the Editor’s kind regards,” the editor being Thomas Worsley. Inked beneath the printer’s information are the words “not published,” also noted in another copy of this work. The front pastedown bears an inked inscription from Major and Mrs. F. Miller to Father Green, with a date in 1944 added in a different hand.

Binding: Signed contemporary binding: textured green cloth in imitation of morocco, front cover with decorative frame and title stamped in gilt; back pastedown with small binder’s ticket from Westleys & Co., London.

•  NSTC 2W32791. Binding as above, cloth a bit rubbed over corners and joints, with spine extremities pulled. All edges gilt. Front pastedown and title-page with inscriptions as above. Pages slightly age-toned, else clean, with errata slip present. Very nice.