
GREEK & LATIN
~ CLASSICS 
& THE ANCIENT WORLD AT LARGE
Including selected Biblical Greek &
Incorporating occasional NEO-LATINITY
A-B
C-E F-H
I-Lt
Lu-Q R-S
T-Z
Coveted Editio Romana of
Pindar's Epinician Odes
(A
Book with MORE THINGS THAN ONE! going for It).
Pindarus [transliterated as Pindaru].
[In Greek:] Olympia. Pythia. Nemea. Isthmia. Rome: per Zachariam Calergi Cretensem
[Zacharias Kallierges of Crete], 13 August 1515. 4to (22.5 cm, 8.85"). [240]
ff. including both blanks (ff. 65 & 177, i.e., ff. [66] & [168]); additional
[7] ff. notes bound in at end.
$19,000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The Editio Romana of Pindar’s famous praises of victorious Panhellenic athletes, being
the first edition of the text with the scholia and the first Greek book printed at Rome. Three of the four odes are considered more accurate in this edition than in the Aldine editio princeps (1513, based on a different family of manuscripts).
This was printed by
the talented Greek expatriate Zacharias Kallierges, who had earned his reputation as one of the best printers of Greek at Venice in the incunable period, at the palace press of Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466–1520), whose financial ties to the papacy made him the wealthiest manolv in Rome and a prominent patron of the arts. In this great endeavor — there is evidence the edition comprised approximately 1,000 copies, existing in multiple permutations since part of the text was
reset, probably twice! (see Fogelmark) — he was assisted by his sometime partner and backer Cornelius Benignus, a humanist and Chigi's secretary. The nicely laid out title-page bears
the devices of both Benignus and Kallierges, whose mark appears again on the verso of the final leaf.
Save just one instance of Latin, the “Impressi” printed in roman on the title-page, the entire volume is in Greek elegantly printed in black with some red, including on one leaf several capitals floating in the margin just outside the justified text. A few large floriated initials — two red, introducing the Olympia and the Pythia — and a handful of interesting small ornaments decorate the headings of major sections.
The copious scholia, also printed in Greek, engulf the text, typically filling at least seventy-five percent of each page with notes on the subject, syntax, and even scansion of Pindar's poetry.
Chigi's good friend the Pope granted the right to print this work exclusively to Kallierges for five years.
Provenance: Willm. Markham (his bookplate, front pastedown, covering another); Ed. Jameson (inscription above title).
Marks of readership: A partially legible early ink scrawl in Italian below the title and a one-line note faded to illegibility on another leaf; one missigned leaf corrected in manuscript; sparse underlining and annotations in brown and red ink; and, on eight leaves ruled for notes bound in at end, entries (one or several) in an early hand to most columns.
Adams P1221; Brunet, IV, 658; Dibdin, II, 286 (“scarcer and dearer than the preceding [edition]”); Graesse, V, 293–94; Sandys, II, 80 & [107]; Schweiger, I, 234; S. Fogelmark, “The 1515 Kallierges Pindar: A First Report” in [Greek title]. Studies in Honour of Jan Fredrik Kindstrand. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Graeca Upsaliensia 21, VIII, pp. 37–48, and his forthcoming monograph. 18th-century brown calf, covers bordered with gilt triple fillets and an interior roll alternating a flower and a dotted arch; marbled endpapers and all edges red. Board extremities bumped/scuffed and volume rebacked with gilt morocco spine labels (original leather discolored where laid over the new material); hinges (inside) subtly repaired with similar marbled paper. Intermittent foxing and generally light old waterstaining, the latter chiefly to lower margins or across corners but occasionally ranging upwards or across text; fore-edges of ff. 231 affected, with final leaf significantly stained and extensively repaired/reinforced without loss to text or to printer's device on the verso.
A masterpiece of Renaissance printing, on thick paper. (29671)


Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres. Choix des mémoires de l’Academie Royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Londres: T. Becket & P. Elmsly, 1777. 4to (27 cm, 10.6"). 3 vols. I: [2], iii, [1], lx, 656 pp. (pagination skips 17–32, text uninterrupted). II: [2], iii, [1], ccviii, 495, [1 (blank)] pp. III: [2], iii, lxviii, [1], 696 pp.; 1 fold. plt., 2 plts.
$1250.00

Sole edition thus:
Three-volume set of selected pieces from the Histoire et mémoires
de l’Académie, a massive collection of French-language commentary
and criticism on Greek and Latin classics. The printing of the Histoire et
mémoires commenced in 1717 and ran through 1809, with the total number
of volumes coming to 51; the present compilation offers especially noteworthy
treatises from the beginning of the series through 1763.
Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.
The third volume includes two plates and one oversized, folding plate reproducing two inscriptions and a frieze, engraved by E. Malpas.
Uncommon outside of Great Britain.
ESTC T113913; Brunet, I, 26; Lowndes, I, 5. Contemporary treed calf, spines gilt extra, with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; leather worn at edges and moderately rubbed with joints cracking. Front pastedowns with private bookplates and signs that a plate was removed on front free endpaper (one vol. endpaper holed); impressions of old pencilled shelf numbers on title-pages (and one lightly inked old date). First two leaves of vol. III with upper margins stained and final leaf browned; some pages with a few spots of faint foxing, most clean and crisp.
Aelianus, Claudius. [4 lines in Greek, then] Aeliani de natvra animalivm.... Londini: Gulielmus Bowyer, 1744. 4to (26.2 cm, 10.4"). 2 vols. I: xiv, xxvii, [35 (index)], 603, [1] pp. II: [605]–1128, [88 (index and addenda)] pp.
$500.00
Attractive 18th-century printing of Abraham Gronovius’s edition, here presented in the original Greek with Conrad Gesner’s Latin translation and comments on facing pages, and with additional commentary by Daniel Wilhelm Triller. Dibdin calls this an “excellent and ample edition” of the Natura Animalium, an entertaining collection of animal-related tales and folklore compiled by Aelian, a 2nd-century a.d. Roman scholar of rhetoric and Greek literature who borrowed much of the material from earlier Greek authors. The work includes one of the earliest known references to fly-fishing, a description of the Macedonian fashion of catching river fish with lures constructed of feathers and bright red wool.

Provenance:
Neat ownership signature of “J.W. Blakesley, Trin. Coll.”
— very likely the Dean Blakesley who, among other things, wrote the first
English life of Aristotle and edited Herodotus.
ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered
boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork
medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; front
joints repaired and now strong, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early
inked owner's name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page,
erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some
pages; leaves otherwise clean.

Aesop's Fables
Printed by Baskerville — His First ILLUSTRATED Book
Aesopus. Select fables of Esop and other fabulists. In three books. Birmingham: Printed by John Baskerville, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1761. 8vo (16.9 cm, 6.65"). Frontis., [ii], lxxviii, 204 pp., [14] ff. Plates.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition. Aesop's classic fables with additions by Robert Dodsley, beautifully printed by John Baskerville (1706–75), appear here on
wove paper; this is the third of just three(!) books he printed on the new material instead of on laid paper, and it is a very early example overall of the new technique. This was also Baskerville's
first illustrated book; and it was ambitious, being finely illustrated with 16 full-page engraved plates including the frontispiece, most plates presenting a dozen small circular vignettes with each one representing its own single fable, these adding up to
many scores of individual images. The volume additionally bears an engraved title vignette, three good-sized engraved vignettes serving as headpieces, and three large engraved tailpieces all specifically done for this book, signed on pp. 61 and 204 by Charles Grignion after Samuel Wale.
Dodsley (1703–64) divides the fables into three sections, with a gathering of
“Fables Newly Invented” appearing after those “From the Ancients” and “From the Moderns”; he notes in his preface that “several, both of the old [i.e., Modern] and the new Fables, are not written by himself,” but supplies no attributions. Preceding the fables are a life of Aesop taken from an English translation of Mons. de Meziriac's biography (rather than the “absurd relation” by Planudes, “that lying monk”) and an essay by Dodsley on the fable genre.
Provenance: Owner's gilt-stamped initials (E.C.K.) on upper cover.
ESTC T84696; Gaskell 14. Original speckled calf with covers double-ruled in gilt, gilt-stamped “E.C.K.” as above, and gilt board edges; spine with raised bands and red morocco spine label; red edges faded to a dusty pink, and a green silk marker. Joints (outside) a little weak, starting; extremities bumped and worn, at points exposing boards; small scar from repair to rear board leather. Light offsetting from binding onto endpapers and from some of the plates to leaves opposite; mild foxing and a little staining; one marginal annotation in ink.
A nice copy, overall, of a book interesting for multiple reasons. (30066)
17th-Century French Politics: “François, que faites-vous?”
Anonymous. [drop-title] Cassandre françoise. [Paris: 1615]. 8vo (17.1 cm, 6.75"). 22, [2 (blank)] pp.
$750.00

Anonymous political pamphlet warning of impending disaster for
all of France as a result of the proposed marriage between Louis XIII and Anne
of Austria, making use of
classical
analogies for various important figures and events. The
title is taken from the header; Lindsay & Neu's main entry for the piece
describes the work has having 16 pages, although at least three holdings describe
22 pages as seen here.
WorldCat and Lindsay & Neu combine to locate eight copies in the U.S.
Click
the images for enlargements.
Lindsay & Neu 3238 (note collation variation). Recent
paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. A few pages
institutionally pressure-stamped; inked numeral in upper outer corner of p.
2. Light foxing; pinhole worming in lower margins, not touching text. Two
leaves with inner margins reinforced. A nice copy of an uncommon item. (27773)

A Handsome
Dated Binding — Initials, “A.W.” — 1539
Arrianus. [three lines in Greek, romanized as] Arrianou Peri Alexandrou anabaseōs historiōn biblia oktō. [then in Latin] Arriani De expeditione sive Rebus gestis Alexandri Macedonum regis libri octo, nuper & reperti, & quàm diligentissimè in lucem editi. Historiam quoque eandem, olim quidem a Bartholomaeo Facio latinitate donatam, nunc vero ... mendis repurgatam, hic adiungi curavimus ... Basileae: [Robertus Winter, 1539]. Vol. 1 of 2. 13, [1] pp., [321] ff. (lacks last 8 leaves).
$950.00
Click the middle and righthand images for enlargement.
The author's most important work, written after the example of
Xenophon's Anabasis, this is an account of Alexander the Great, and of
India and Iran in his time. The edition bears a prefatory epistle by Nicolaus
Gerbel (1485–1560), its editor.
Present here is vol. I containing the original Greek text, the Latin translation
having been printed in a separate volume. Incomplete at the end, it
lacks the final eight leaves or the last part of the Indica (37.3–43.14),
only, with Arrian's Anabasis Alexandrou (Campaigns of Alexander)
appearing
complete
as Books 1–7.
Binding:
Contemporary alum-tawed pigskin over bevelled boards, remnants of the metal
closures. Covers elaborately blind-embossed with several rolls and devices.
Front cover has in its center panel the initials “A. W.,” the
date 1539, and medallions of Manfred of Saxony and Luther, while the rear
cover's center panel has medallions of Melanchthon and Erasmus.
Graesse, I, 227; Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique,
III, 388; Adams A2009. Binding toned to a pleasing dark tan. Old bookplate
on front pastedown. Front free endpaper torn with loss. Vol. I only, and lacking
those final eight leaves; the Anabasis complete. (20418)

Litterati of Antwerp Salute One of Their Own — Portrait after Peter Paul Rubens
Woodcut *&* Engraved Versions of the Plantin Device
Asterius, Episcopus Amasenus. S. Asteri Episcopi amaseae homiliae Graecè & Latinè nunc primùm editae Philippo Rubenio interprete. Antverpiae: Ex Officina Plantiniana, apud viduam & filios Ioannis Moreti, 1615. 4to (24.13 cm, 9.5"). [6] ff., 284, pp., [2] ff.
$2000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition. A multi-part memorial volume from the Plantin–Moretus press in honor of Philippe Rubens (1574–1611), brother of the famed artist, whose Greek and Latin rendition of the Homilies by Asterius, Bishop of Amasia (ca. 375–405), occupies the first section of the text, here in Greek and Latin printed in double columns. Little is known about Asterius, Bishop of Amasea, and there has been much scholarly debate regarding exactly which homilies should be attributed to his authorship and which to other early Christians, including Asterius the Sophist; the Catholic Encyclopedia online says his works provide “valuable material to the Christian archaeologist.”
The second section here includes verses Rubens composed in the later years prior to his death in 1611 and dedicated to illustrious members of his circle including the humanist Justus Lipsius, Janus Woverius, and Peter Paul Rubens and Isabelle Brant, who married in 1609. Brant’s father, Jan, composed the introductory letter to the reader.
The volume was published at the request of Cardinal Ascanius Columnas in an edition of
only 750 copies, and was printed at Antwerp at the press of Moretus’ widow and sons with the famous Plantin device appearing in two versions (engraved, to the title, and woodcut, to the final recto).
A full-page engraved funeral portrait of Rubens engraved by Cornelius Galle
after Peter Paul Rubens signals the beginning of the third section, in which Jan Brant records the life of his son-in-law’s brother and transcribes his epitaph. Even Balthasar Moretus contributes an epigram in honor of the deceased.
In the fourth section, Rubens’ own orations and selected letters appear, i.a. his funeral oration to Philip II of Spain. Josse DeRycke contributed the final funerary tribute.
Done up in fully elegant Plantin–Moretus style, the volume has in addition to its careful typography and full-page plate and devices been lavished throughout with two-line block initials and four-line historiated woodcut initials; also, it offers several intricate woodcut tailpieces.
Searches of NUC Pre-1956 and WorldCat locate only eight copies in U.S. institutions, one of which has been deaccessioned; most are
not in obvious places.
Graesse, I, 241; Corpus Rubenianum, XXI (1977), 152. Period-style full brown calf, covers framed in blind double fillets, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label, raised bands with blind tooling extending onto covers. With a few odd spots to the text only, this is a
remarkably fine, crisp copy. All edges green. (28878)
Uncommon
AMERICAN
Tragedy
Bailey, John J. Waldimar. A tragedy, in five acts.
New York: [Pr. by J. Van Norden?], 1834. 8vo (24 cm, 9.4"). 124, [2], 6 pp.
$250.00
Bailey's privately printed drama ("Not Published," the title-page
trumpets) seems to have been well received, judging by the appended reviews;
many of the contemporary critics made particular mention of their desire to
support the piece as an outstanding American effort at tragedy.
The
historically inspired plot is set at Thessalonica during the fourth century,
and revolves around the love of popular soldier Claudius for Hersilia, daughter
of the despotic general Waldimar.
Sabin 2736. Publisher's textured cloth, front with gilt-stamped
title, greatly faded with extremities rubbed and worn, spine with paper shelving
label and some loss of cloth. Title-page and some others lightly stamped by
a now-defunct institution. Two short edge tears, some corners slightly crumpled;
the occasional spot, stain, or foxing — a good copy.
Anacharsis
in English
Anything
But Dry!
[Barthelemy, Jean-Jacques].
Travels of Anacharsis the younger in Greece. During the middle of the
fourth century, before the Christian æra.... The first American edition.
Philadelphia: Pr. by Bartholomew Graves and William McLaughlin for Jacob Johnson
& Co., 1804. 8vo signed in 4s (22 cm, 8.625"). Vol. I: xviii, 419, [1 (blank)]
pp.; fold. map; II: [1] f., iii, [1 (blank)], 403, [1 (blank)] pp.; III: vii,
[1 (blank)], 463, [1 (blank)] pp. (lacking half-title); IV: vii, [1 (blank)],
496 pp. (lacking half-title).
$750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Translated from the French by William Beaumont for the original
English printing. Really a textbook on
the
daily life and culture of ancient Greece, primarily centered
around Athens, this lengthy work is "so written, that the reader may frequently
be induced to imagine he is perusing a work of mere amusement, invention, and
fancy" (p. iii). Footnotes citing a multitude of classical sources back up Barthelemy's
imagined journey, which is illustrated with an attractive engraved map by du
Bocage.
Shaw & Shoemaker 5809. Recently rebound in period-style
tan cloth over light blue paper sides, spines with paper labels. Contemporary
ownership inscription to front fly-leaf in each volume. Map with light offsetting
and short tear just starting along one fold. First 20 leaves of vol. II waterstained
and last 10 foxed; scattered incidences of spotting in all volumes, pages
generally clean.
A
nice-looking set, and still as it always was! a work offering
a pleasant way to absorb ancient history.
Baudius,
Dominicus. Amores, edente Petro Scriverio, inscripti Th. Graswinckelio.
Lugduni-Batavorum: Francisci Hegerus & Hackius, 1638. 12mo. [6] ff., 518 pp.,
[1] f.; illus.
[SOLD]
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Compilation of prose and poetry on the many facets of love: writings on the death of a wife, on the choice of a wife, on marriage, and on classical writers and their views of love. Writers include Pieter Schrijver (1576–1660), Lelio Capilupi (1497?–1560?), Jean Gaspard Gevaerts (1593–1666), Ausonius, Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and Daniel Hiensius. The text is printed in roman and italic type and there is one full-page engraving — a portrait of Baudius.
This work is the first listed in all bibliographies under Louis Elzevir’s press at Amsterdam. In fact both the Elzevir edition of 1638 and this have the same colophon: “Lugduni-Batavorum: Typis Georgii Abrahami vander Marse, MDCXXXVIII.” And both collate the same, the only difference being the printer’s device and imprint information on the title-page.
Uncommon: Searches of OCLC, RLIN, & NUC locate fewer than ten copies in U.S. libraries.
Provenance: The Rev. Edward A. Dalrymple (Baltimore collector, mid–19th century); his collection given to the Maryland Diocesan Library; that library sold in 2006.
Rahir 1876; Willems 961 note. Contemporary vellum over light boards; spine delicately and lightly tooled in gilt. Ex–Maryland Episcopal Diocesan Library with stamp on front pastedown. One natural paper flaw; occasional early underlining.

This Classicist
Crushes
Collins?
Bentley, Richard. Remarks upon a late discourse of free-thinking: In a letter to F.H. D.D. by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. Part the second. London: John Morphew & E. Curl, 1713. 8vo (19.7 cm, 7.75"). [4], 82, [2] pp.
$750.00


First edition of the second portion of one of the best-known responses to Anthony Collins's landmark Discourse of Free-Thinking. Bentley here takes up where he left off in the first part of the Remarks (considered a crushing rebuttal of Collins's treatise, and of deism as interpreted in the Discourse), moving on to assess many of the citations and classical references from p. 90
onwards of Collins's work. Writers whose words Bentley feels Collins misrepresented include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Plutarch, Cato, and Cicero.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
ESTC T53381. On Bentley's response to Collins, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Faint crease lines occasionally visible, pages otherwise clean. (20751)

First Greek O.T. Printed in England
Bible. O.T. Greek. Septuagint. 1653. [four lines in Greek, then] Vetus testamentum graecum. Londini: Rogerus Daniel, 1653. 8vo (17.5 cm, 6.9"). [8], 1279, [3], 186, [2] pp.
$850.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of the Septuagint printed in England, edited by the scholar and Socinian controversialist John Biddle. Two issues of this edition are known to exist: This is a copy of issue B: Further, there are two states of issue B: This is the variant with 16 lines of text in the dedication.
The Greek type is small, but readable and elegant.
This edition includes the Scholia, with a separate title-page (“In Sacra Biblia Graeca ex versione LXX. interpretum Scholia; simul et interpretum cæterorum lectiones variantes”); the Old Testament is printed in double-column format, and the title-page in red and black.
Darlow & Moule 4692; ESTC R210989; Wing B2718; Bowes, Catalogue of Cambridge Books, 266; Rumball-Petre 254. Contemporary speckled calf, covers framed in triple blind fillets, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label (chipped) and blind-tooled ray decorations in head and foot compartments; sides with small scuffs and patches of mild to moderate discoloration, leather chipped at head of spine and nicked at lower front edge, spine leather showing thin cracks. Pastedowns and front free endpaper lacking, back free endpaper and fly-leaves partially excised. Pages trimmed very closely, in a few cases touching headers or first or last letters. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription, lined through. Occasional small ink spots, touching but virtually never obscuring letters; one leaf with three words corrected in an early inked hand; scattered instances of early underlining in colored pencil. Mild age-toning.
A landmark of Bible printing in England. (30034)

A Scholar's
Annotated Greek New Testament
Bible. N.T. Greek. 1865. Stephanus. [He Kaine Diatheke] Novum Testamentum textûs Stephanici a.d. 1550. Accedunt variae lectiones editionum Bezae, Elzeviri, Lachmanni, Tischendorfii. Curante F.H. Scrivener, A.M. Cantabrigiae: Deighton, Bell et Soc.; Londini: Whittaker et Soc., Bell et Daldy, 1865. 12mo imposed on 4to sheets (25.7 cm, 10.1"). 2 vols. I: [10], viii, 216 pp. (plus additional interleaving). II: 217–598, [2] pp.
$2000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
“Editio auctior et emendatior” from the classic “Cambridge Greek and Latin Texts” series, this copy heavily annotated by a notable Baptist minister — the Rev. Dr. Henry Griggs Weston, who served as editor of the Baptist Quarterly, president of the American Baptist missionary union, and president (for 40 years) of Crozer Theological Seminary. A eulogy by the board of trustees at Crozer (quoted in Cutter's New England Families) claims that Weston, who assisted in the production of the Improved Edition of the Bible Union New Testament, “probably knew more about the New Testament than any man of his generation.”
Here Weston made use of both interleaving and the wide, untrimmed margins of this printing of Robert Estienne's landmark Editio Regia of the Greek New Testament: Page after page of vol. I is entirely covered with extensive marginalia in English and Greek, dating ca. 1890, while the second volume is less thoroughly but no less thoughtfully analyzed. The hand is often small and prone to abbreviations, but legible nonetheless, especially because different types of notes are generally recorded in different colors of ink.
The printed text has added readings from the Greek New Testament editions of Beza, Elzevir, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, all edited by the Rev. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener.
Provenance: Front covers each with gilt-stamped leather label reading “Henry G. Weston.”
NSTC 2B26290. Contemporary half brown morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, front covers with leather labels as above; somewhat rubbed/scuffed with joints and hinges reinforced, back joint of vol. I just starting, spine leather with small cracks and chips. Front pastedowns with traces of now-absent bookplates; first pages each with rubber-stamped numeral, inked notation along inner margin, and institutional pressure-stamp; back pastedowns with pockets. Text annotated as above, marginalia in different colors of ink depending on category (vol. II and latter portion of vol. I not interleaved, with fewer marginalia). Paper slightly embrittled, with occasional short edge tears; one leaf with short slice from outer margin, extending into text without loss. A few instances of staining; scattered faint foxing. Sound, attractive, and interesting in a
variety of ways. (26038)

ROMAN Political Science in its
Original State
Bilhon, Jean Fréderic Joseph. Du gouvernement des Romains, considéré sous le rapport de la politique, de la justice, des finances, et du commerce. Paris: Chez Louis (pr. by Pierre Didot l'Ainé), 1807. 8vo (21.2 cm, 8.4"). viii, 312 pp.
$500.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Sole edition, here unopened and uncut in the publisher's paper wrappers, of this treatise on ancient Roman government and economics. Bilhon also published Principes d'administration et d'économie politique des anciens peuples, appliqués aux peuples modernes and Éloge de J.J. Rousseau.
Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only eight U.S. holdings.
Goldsmiths'-Kress 19346.100. Publisher's rose paper wrappers, rebacked in paper wrapper edges chipped and hinges (inside) reinforced. Half-title and title-page institutionally rubber-stamped, front pastedown with institutional bookplate and early inked numeral, half-title with small inked ownership inscriptions. Signatures unopened, edges untrimmed; pages age-toned throughout, some with a little foxing; a nice copy. Now housed in a neat rose-maroon cloth clamshell case with gilt-stamped leather title-label. (25268)

A Not-So-Brief History of
Time
Brady, John. Clavis calendaria; or, a compendious analysis of the calendar: Illustrated with ecclesiastical, historical, and classical anecdotes ... second edition. London: Pr. for the author & sold by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, et al., 1812–13. 8vo (21.6 cm, 8.5"). 2 vols. I: xxxvi, 387, [1] pp.; 1 plt. II: [2], 395, [1] pp.
$325.00
Second edition of this popular survey of the history of time and calendars from the ancient world onwards, following the first edition of 1812. Brady here describes the rituals and lore associated with the regulation of time, in all its divisions and subdivisions; much material from the lives of the saints is present. Allibone quotes the London Quarterly Review's assertion that “Especially to students in divinity and law, [the work] will be an invaluable acquisition; and we hesitate not to declare that, in proportion as its merits become known to the public, it will find its way to the libraries of every gentleman and scholar in the kingdom.” Contemporary opinion seems to have borne that prediction out, as the subscribers list here (carried over from the first edition) is substantial and the work went through several editions in the first few years after its initial publication.
Click the images for enlargements.
Vol. I is illustrated with one wood-engraved plate depicting a Saxon almanac, and seven in-text engravings depicting Odin, Frigga, Thor, and the other deities with days named in their honor.
Provenance: Signature on title-pages of George Buckton, vol. I dated 1812 and vol. II dated 1813.
Allibone 237 (listing 1813 & 1814 eds. only); NSTC B4120. Contemporary treed calf, rebacked preserving original spines with gilt-stamped titles, gilt-ruled and -dotted compartment bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; original spine leather chipped, cracked, and darkened as by fire. Covers with corners and edges unobtrusively rubbed; portions nearest spines showing evidence of heat exposure; hinges (inside) reinforced. Front pastedowns each with institutional bookplate, vol. I front pastedown with bookseller's ticket and affixed early cataloguing slip, vol. I back pastedown and vol. II front pastedown with inked library inscription. Title-pages with inked ownership inscriptions as above. Offsetting from plate and to endpapers from binding, pages otherwise clean though with all edges (i.e., of closed book) darkened.
A particularly handsome exemplar of popular scholarship of the day. (25436)
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