seminaries and schools

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The frontispiece portrait of Nelson was engraved by George Vertue after a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The volume also includes all publisher's advertisements as well as the rather uncommon Poem in Memory of Robert Nelson Esquire.

This was produced to be a handsome work, printed in large type on good paper with wide margins — the better to appeal to a “quality” audience?

•  ESTC T85360; Goldsmiths’-Kress 5249. Poem: ESTC T25431; Foxon P538.   Contemporary speckled calf, framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons; rebacked with speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, raised bands, and blind-tooled foliate compartment decorations. Original leather abraded, front cover with small chip to outer edge and area of faint discoloration from a now-absent label; title-page institutionally rubber-stamped (no other markings). Some signatures browned and foxed, most pages clean.  (25999)

•  Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers, spine chewed and overall with soiling; back cover with tear from upper edge into text without impairment to reading. Paper age-toned; some text pages ragged at edges, again, without harm to reading.  (26935)

•  Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers; spine and edges chewed with overall light soiling. Paper age-toned and actually rather good/strong, of its sort.  (26936)

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•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, front wrapper with affixed color-printed illustration; corners and edges rubbed, wrappers sunned and lightly soiled, front wrapper with small area of discoloration from now-absent label. Ex–social club library with its attractive bookplate, back inside wrapper with charge-slip, inked numeral in lower margin of preface, no other markings. Pages clean; a few corners bumped.  (27469)

•  Original half sheep and marbled paper–covered sides, bindings similar but not identical; rubbed overall, spines with traces of paper shelving labels, vol. II breaking apart at center. All edges marbled. Front free endpapers with inked ownership inscriptions. Pages clean.  (27086)

Binding:  Publisher's brick red cloth, elaborately stamped in black and bold on front cover (“Catholic Presentation Library”) and spine; stamped in blind on rear cover.

Prize book / Provenance: In manuscript on a slip of paper attached to the front free endpaper, “Premium / awarded to / Master Frank Von Au / for / Regular Attendance. / June 30, 1898.”

•  Bound as above, cloth of front joint starting to open; bright and fresh. Presentation slip as above, and presentee's name also rubber-stamped on front fly-leaf. Light foxing to guard tissue between frontispiece and title-page; offsetting to these, therefrom. A clean, nice copy.  (25786)

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An issue of the New Haven Journal Courier from December of 1890 recounts the following story of the broadside's origin and subsequent fate: “The late Charles Harvey Townshend, Esq., of New Haven about the year 1880 met Mr. Robert Livingston of New York while crossing the Atlantic. One day while Mr. Livingston was telling him of his experiences while a Yale student, he asked him, if he ever had the chance, to look in the front middle room, fourth story, north entry of old South Middle College, between the ceiling over the wood closet door. He said that in 1829 he placed there a bundle of printed sheets of 'doggerel verse,' a grind on a tutor of those days. These verses were recited by the composer, Peña, a Mexican (who was afterwards expelled) in the college chapel, on a Wednesday afternoon. Most of the class was expelled afterwards, for various reasons, and Mr. Livingston, who was one of them, said that his father always told him that he did perfectly right in not telling who wrote the verses (our emphasis). A fir [sic] broke out in Old South Middle in December 1890, and Mr. Townshend, with the permission of the then occupants of the room, searched the ceiling of the front middle room in accordance with Mr. Livingstons [sic] directions. He found there the bundle of verse, just as Mr. Livingston described.”

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 report five U.S. locations, with Yale (predictably) holding several copies.

•  American Imprints 39988.   As issued (not showing signs of having been bound); creased once horizontally, upper edge darkened, four or five tiny spots of foxing in the lower left portion. A very nice copy of this scarce ephemeral piece.  (24643)

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only four holdings, all in the U.S.

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, front wrapper with early inked inscription in upper portion; paper just starting at foot of spine. Age-toned, otherwise clean and fresh.  (25501)

education

•  NSTC 2P27024. On Prinsep, see: DNB. Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly age-toned. Traces of soiling and small inked numeral on title-page. A few instances of pencilled sidelining.

Binding/Provenance: Prize binding of contemporary vellum, covers framed and panelled in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and gilt central vignette with the crest of the city of Amsterdam, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. The partially printed, partially inscribed, bound-in prize certificate reads “Ingenuo magnaeque spei adolescenti, Henrico Gerteler propter insignes in artibus humanioribus progessus, in classe tertia . . . Quod testor R. v. Ommeren [/] Gymnasii publici Amstelaedamensis Rector,” dated 1791.

•  Brunet, IV, 905; Dibdin, I, 385–86; Graesse, V, 460; Sandys, II, 455; Schweiger, II, 831. Binding as above, vellum slightly darkened, lacking ties; spine with gilt dimmed and traces of a now-absent label and inked call number at foot of spine. Lower edges with institutional rubber-stamp; title-page with shadow of a pencilled numeral. Front free endpaper with paper adhesions from a now-absent bookplate; back pastedown with rubber-stamp and small adhesion. Pages clean save for offsetting to upper margins of a few, from a laid-in slip.

This nostalgic evocation of the exploits of two young boys at their aunt's countryside house is illustrated with 20 full-page plates and numerous smaller “studies from nature” by Howard Chandler Christy. Margaret Armstrong designed the binding, including the floral framing decorations and the endpapers are signed with her “MA.”

•  BAL 16667; Gullans, A checklist of trade bindings by M. Armstrong.   Publisher's green cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and white-stamped decorative frame around an affixed half-tone portrait, spine decoratively stamped in gilt and white; corners and spine extremities very slightly rubbed, back cover with small adhesion, binding otherwise clean and beautiful. Sewing loosening a bit; this is heavy paper.  (24864)

•  NSTC 2R11677; Lowndes 2099; Hugo, The Bewick Collector, 434.   Contemporary half dark green morocco with red marbled paper sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; some rubbing and with a bit of green discoloration to paper of front cover. Minor offsetting to frontispiece and title-page; mild to moderate foxing in first third of volume and to last few pages.  (21934)

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•  Shoemaker 40547. Not in Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books.   Publisher's printed yellow paper wrappers, front wrapper lacking, back wrapper stained with edges nicked, spine overstitched at a later date. Moderate spotting and staining to pages; corners bumped. Slightly tattered: first few leaves with short tear from outer margin, not touching text; title-page and subsequent two leaves with short tear from inner margin, extending into text without loss.  (24545)

The final section of the first volume and first section of the second volume here are on angels; the second has also an interesting section on the "Salvation of Infants."  The preface to the printed text notes that “however [readers] may value this book, the printed page can only imperfectly indicate the power of the living teacher,” and it is fair to feel closer to that teacher via these volumes.

•  Original half sheep and textured paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-ruled compartments; bindings rubbed overall, front cover of vol. I detached, spines sunned and with remnants of paper shelving labels. All edges marbled. Front free endpapers with early inked ownership inscription. Pages clean.  (26318)

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with printed paper-covered sides; neatly respined with cloth tape; binding darkened and worn, with paper scuffed. Endpapers with children's inked and pencilled inscriptions, some dated 1894. Pages age-toned, with pencilled sums done in a few margins and occasional short edge tears.  (18507)

José-Ignacio Roquette (1801–70), a Franciscan friar and professor at the patriarchal seminary in Lisbon, also wrote a History of the Discovery of America and works on natural history and philology. First published in 1844, this is the fifth edition of this rare work: We were unable to trace any copies via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, or RLIN.

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•  Contemporary mottled calf, spine handsomely gilt with floral devices and with a gilt-lettered red leather label; scratched and abraded with some loss on edges and corners. Marbled endpapers, a little rubbed. Light foxing and some spots of light soiling; a few tears in margins of pages and plates. A book apparently used by members of its intended audience, though not put through truly gruesome maltreatment.

•  Sewn; in original printed wrappers. Front cover illustrated with scenes of children playing. Publisher's advertisement on back cover. Foxed. Numerous chips and short tears, limited to margins; one long tear (1.5") to pp.15 and 16, intruding upon text and engraving. One corner of back cover chipped. A child has colored most of the engravings. A somewhat worn copy. (4845)

Garrison and Morton say of the first edition in English: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work 'the most progressive which had yet been written;' it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics.”

Translator Murray (1740–91) was a Swedish student of Linnaeus and later a professor of botany and medicine at Göttingen.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Adamus Elias Schmidt, dated 1784.  Early 19th-century signature of a Philadelphia doctor (erased) at top of title-page.

•  G&M 6323.   Contemporary half calf, well worn: leather dry and gone to red with joint leather lost, cords holding, paper of covers worn through to boards in some places. Text with age-toning. Not a pretty copy but complete, and solid for now. Housed in a red cloth clamshell case.  (22256)