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Beautiful & Absorbing

•  A masterful and sweeping history of Western illuminated manuscripts organized by the audience for which they were made. Sumptuously illustrated with full-page color and partial-page, in-text, black and white reproductions. The author was the head of the Western Manuscripts Department of Sotheby's and is now Donnelley Fellow Librarian, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

First American edition. The illustrations are different than those in the second and later editions, but the same as in the first English edition.

•  Publisher's cloth with illustrated dust jacket. As new.  (22335)

“I Was Born in the Year 1632 . . . ”

Click the image above left for an enlargement.

•  Illustrated late 18th-century rendition of this classic tale: The Stockdale edition of Defoe's most-read novel contains a frontispiece and engraved title-page in each volume, along with an engraved portrait of Defoe and 12 engraved illustrations done by Medland after drawings by Stothard. Chalmers’s Life of Defoe appears in this edition for the first time anywhere; another interesting addition is“A List of Writings, which are considered as undoubtedly De Foe’s.”

A handsome edition of a great, indeed landmark English novel.

•  ESTC N47632; Lowndes, III, 613; NCBEL, II, 900 (first few eds. only). Contemporary half calf over marbled paper–covered sides, bindings overall worn and rubbed with leather lost over corners and front joint of vol. I cracked though holding; now housed in a handsome clamshell case of quarter calf with marbled paper sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations. Front free endpapers with pencilled ownership inscription (dated 1875 in vol. I); front pastedowns with 20th-century collector’s bookplate. Light to moderate foxing to pages in proximity to plates, with occasional small spots to other pages; plates spotted and browned although not beyond expectable degrees. Worthy.

THE Bibliophile’s Tour — 3 Pleasurable Volumes

•  Revised second edition, following the first of 1821, of Dibdin’s entertainingly recounted, bibliophilic-focused jaunt through France and Germany, offering descriptions of the contents of some of the most important libraries of those countries.

Brunet calls this a somewhat less luxurious edition than the lavishly produced first, which was a folio (the engraved plates have here been kept to 12, a more affordable number), but still “un livre remarquable par sa belle exécution typographique et par les jolies gravures dont il est orné.” Four of the in-text illustrations are printed in red and black.

•  Brunet, I, 683; NSTC 2D11591. Contemporary half black morocco over marbled paper–covered boardss, spines with gilt-stamped titles and volume numbers; corners bumped, joints slightly rubbed. Front pastedowns each with private collector’s bookplate and unobtrusive institutional rubber-stamp; front free endpapers rubber-stamped; title-pages each with another collector’s small pressure-stamp in upper outer corner. Some plates and pages lightly foxed. One leaf with short tear from outer margin, not touching text. Well worth having (and reading).

Bookselling Reminiscences — HIS

•  First American edition of a highly personal look at the firm of Elkin Mathews, and at bookselling in England and Europe during the period 1925-55. Very interesting information on the formation of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Now out of print.

•  Fine in original dust jacket.

Bookselling Reminiscences — HERS

•  First American edition of the first volume of reminiscences of Percy Muir's widow: Much on the bookselling firm of Elkin Mathews and life on home front in WWII England. A good sequel to Muir's Minding My Own Business, above. In print for $35.00.

•  Fine in original dust jacket.

Collectors generally fond of BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, & MEMOIRS
may enjoy our page devoted to them — click here.

NEW JERSEY BOOKS, 1801–1860

Felcone, Joseph J.

•  This second volume of the catalogue of the Felcone library describes the books and pamphlets printed from 1801 through 1860. There are over 1400 bibiographical entries in this volume. The contents, binding, provenance, and historical context of each book or pamphlet is described in rich detail. An indispensable guide for anyone interested in the history of New Jersey.

•  Publisher's red cloth, stamped in gilt on the spine. New.

Good for Both Reading & Reference

•  English and Flemish panel-stamped bindings of the 16th century are damned similar in appearance. Fogelmark adds depth to our knowledge of each, and of which are which, picking up where Oldham's work on English blind-panel bindings left off with guesses and hints. We have a copy of this in our reference library, and you should too.

•  New, in publisher's gilt-stamped green cloth.

Forman, Buxton. The Shelley Library. An essay in bibliography. New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1971.
$40.00

•  Very, very detailed. First published in 1886; reprinted from a copy in the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore).

•  Publisher's cloth. As new.

BIBLIO–BEDTIME READING — WOOLLY WHALE

•  First edition of one of the most substantial treatments of this famous and elaborate auction hoax. It includes bibliographical descriptions of the catalogue, its subsequent printings, and the literature on the affair. Limited to 200 copies, printed in Centaur types on rag paper, with a title-page decoration by Fritz Kredel.

The Fortsas hoax is legendary for having fooled many renowned collectors and dealers near the mid-point of the 19th century (1840, to be precise) into travelling to the small town of Biche, Belgium for an auction of unique books that were bibliographically unknown!

•  Publisher's quarter cloth and decorated boards; top edge gilt, fore-edges untrimmed. Map endpapers. Cloth clean and fresh, volume in original glassine dust wrapper; significant portion of wrapper chipped away at base of back cover.

GUTENBERG — WOOLLY WHALE

•  Limited to 660 copies, hand set by George W. Van Vechten, Jr., with press work by George C. Montgomery and illustrations by Fritz Kredel.

This basic source for the study of Gutenberg contains Fuhrmann's study, facsimiles, and transcriptions of the original Alsatian-language documents and translations of them into French, German, and English. The documents were part of a trial for breach of contract.

•  Publisher's gilt-stamped cloth, top edge gilt, chipped glassine dust wrapper; in a slightly rubbed and sunned slipcase. A very nice copy.

For more WOOLLY WHALE,  click here.

On BOOKSELLING in theNetherlands

•  A history of Netherlandish bookselling: Band II in the series Geschichte des Buchhandels, under the general editorship of Herbert G. Göpfert and Reinhard Wittmann.

•  Publisher's cloth; a very good copy.

TO Part III

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