A wonderful example of early 20th-century Japanese book printing.

•  Publisher’s paper over light boards; paper of spine flaked off with covers dusty and little discolored. A delicate book, priced according to its faults and still a nice object.

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•  Disbound; three holes in inner margin, not touching text. Ink notation and numeral on first page. Some dog-earing and tattering in corners and outer margins. Pencillings in several margins. Occasional mild spotting. Now housed in a simple archival phase box. (13455)

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for an enlargement.

Provenance: First page with inked signature of Henry D. Gilpin (here "H.D. Gilpin"), the U.S. Attorney General who arguedthe Amistad case.  Front pastedown with Gilpin's bookplate and the Wisconsin Historical Society's rubber-stamp.

•  Half sheep over paper boards; covers off, leather rubbed and much abraded, spine leather chipped away; two holes in inner margin, never touching text. Remnants of paper label adhered to top margin of first page. Light spotting to several pages. A few small dog-ears. Now housed in a simple archival phase box. (13538)

Williams, a Welsh philosopher, was a founder of the Royal Literary Fund and a close friend of Oliver Goldsmith.

These collected translations are fairly widely held institutionally, but seldom seen on the market.

•  ESTC T51661; Lowndes 2792; Allibone 2736.   Recent period-style mottled calf, framed and panelled with gilt rules and gilt-stamped corner fleurons, panelling in contrasting calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, raised spine bands set off by gilt double fillets. Frontispiece portrait lacking. Light foxing; one leaf with tear from lower margin, extending into five lines of text.  (23537)

•  Publisher's quarter vellum and paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; top corners bumped (one crumpled), sides with a few faint smudges, spine irregularly darkened and with indistinct remnant of old inked call number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate noting presentation from Morgan himself, and rubber-stamp; title-page and two others pressure-stamped; one preliminary leaf with inked numeral and provenance note. Back pastedown with traces of now-absent pocket, offset onto endpaper. Pages clean. Upper edges gilt. An ex-library copy, but also one offering an interesting suggestion in the provenance; an elegant production full of interest and pleasure for reader or reference-seeker. (21052)

Scarce. Only 11 institutions, all in the U.S., report holdings via OCLC.

•  Sabin 37866; American Imprints 22538.   Period-style quarter tan cloth with light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Frontispiece portrait lacking. Light to moderate foxing.  (23903)

•  Front hinge starting (inside, only); gluestains on front pastedown. Priced accordingly.  Top edge gilt.

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•  Shaw & Shoemaker 39807; Smith, Americans Abroad, W66. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spines with printed paper labels; darkened and worn, vol. I with covers detached and paper cracked over spine, vol. II with front joint open though presently holding Front pastedowns with bookplates of the Salem Library Company; vol. I with early inked inscriptions to endpapers and half-title. Light to moderate foxing, no other stains.

•  NSTC 2W33589. Recent plain paper-covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Frontispiece, title-page, and several other pages stamped by a now-defunct institution. Lacking all but one plate (the frontispiece). Page edges untrimmed.

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Provenance: With laid-in invoice from the Davenant Bookshop in Oxford, dated 1924.

•  McKittrick/Rendall/Dreyfus 17. Publisher’s quarter brown buckram over tan paper- covered sides, spines with printed paper labels; gently worn, two labels chipped, one volume with cloth of a darker shade and noticeable rippling thereto. Two volumes with hinges slightly tender. Page edges untrimmed, some signatures uncut. It should be remarked that, by some unexpected trick of the camera, our righthand picture above makes this set look a bit smarter than it is; that said, though — it isrightly priced for its real condition and still worthy of purchase.

The engraved frontispiece was done by Philipp Jacob Leidenhoffer after a design by Johann Asem; one of the engraved in-text emblems attributes its design to “I.C. Banaivir,” about whom no information could be found, while the others are unsigned.

The title-page bears an inked inscription reading “SanCto MarCo / In aVgIa DIVIte,” dated 1714; a few small scraps of paper with notes in an early inked hand are laid in.

•  Landwehr, German, 660; Praz 543. Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind triple fillets, spine thickly blind-stamped with arabesque motifs; binding rubbed and abraded with leather cracked over joints and spine, spine stamping dimmed, and shelving number inked on spine. A few spots of pinhole worming to front cover, front free endpaper, and first few leaves; front pastedown with old bookseller’s ticket. Some pages with light foxing; one leaf with an old repair to the upper corner and one with a short tear from the lower margin. An interesting rarity, and one worthy of study.