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EVERYONE You Need to Know in France — Bright, Fresh, & IN THE BOX!
ALMANACH DE LA COUR, de la ville et des départemens pour l'année 1829. Paris: Louis Janet, [1828]. 12mo (11.2 cm, 4.4"). [34], 254, [2] pp.; 4 plts.
$350.00
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1829's issue of this useful and decorative annual, “orné de jolies gravures.” The preliminary calendar is followed by genealogical information for European nobility, the list of French bishops and archbishops, the royal household roster (both domestic and military), names and positions of civil servants by department, members of chivalrous orders, major military officers, etc. The
four steel-engraved plates offer views of the Chateau de Neuilly, Chateau d'Avaray, Chateau de Lucienne, and Chateau de Rosny (with brief descriptions of these noble residences).
Binding: Publisher's apple green paper–covered boards in original matching slipcase with gilt-stamped spine title. All edges gilt.
Binding as above: lower front and back edges each with tiny bump, extremities showing very slight rubbing, slipcase with edges rubbed and a few small spots of discoloration. Front free endpaper with pencilled annotations in French. Pages and plates clean. Really in quite remarkable condition. (30574)

“Scroungers” &
Their Rights in 13th-Century ARAGON
(Still Scrounging/Foraging in 1542)
Almudevar (Spain). Manuscript document, on paper. In Latin. Aragon: 5 May 1542. Small 4to (21.9 cm; 8.675"). [5] pp.
$775.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
[Anderson, Andrew]. Broadside.
Begins: “At Edinburgh, 170....”[Edinburgh, ca. 1700]. Folio (31.4 cm, 12.4"). [1] p.
$750.00
Sheet of five identical printed slips meant to be used as receipts; the text provides space for recording the date, the payer, and the sum paid for an amount of coal (in “Dales”) furnished by the Laird of Wolmet, acting through his factor Andrew Anderson, here identified as a “Writer in Edinburgh.”
Only one holding of this item, in Scotland, is reported by ESTC.
ESTC R172299; Wing (rev.) A3084B. Small portion of upper inner margin torn away. Tipped onto a leaf of 19th-century paper; now in a Mylar folder. (6867)

Medical Highlights, Secrets, & Tricks of the Trade
Anonymous. Professional anecdotes, or ana of medical literature, in three volumes. London: John Knight & Henry Lacey, 1825. 12mo (16.3 cm, 6.4"). 3 vols. I: Engr. t.-p., x, 296 pp.; 1 facs., 4 plts. II: Engr. t.-p., 288 pp.; 1 facs., 4 plts. III: Engr. t.-p., ix, [1], 288 pp.; 1 facs., 4 plts.
[SOLD]
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Sole edition: Opening with a history of British medicine and brief commentary on other global medical traditions, this anonymously compiled work features accounts of physical and medical anomalies, notable cures or failures thereof, lives of famous medical practitioners, and descriptions of medicine's most dramatic (or most curious) moments. The assembled anecdotes are intended to communicate to medical students “that knowledge of the history and biography of their profession, which would inspire them with that enthusiastic feeling, in regard to all that has been great and glorious in its connection and progress” (I, v).
The set is illustrated with a total of
twelve steel-engraved portraits and three oversized, folding facsimiles of prominent physicians' letters and signatures. The binder has disregarded the printer's directions for the arrangement of the plates, and grouped them all at the fronts of the volumes.
NSTC 2A12623. Contemporary speckled calf, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; bindings mildly rubbed overall and moreso in spines' top compartments where old labels were removed(?), spines darkened and showing small cracks in leather with some joints just starting, small square of old tape at corner of back cover on vol. I. Ex–social club library: each volume with 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Vol. I with hinges (inside) starting. Occasional mild spotting or smudging, short edge tears (not extending into text) and occasional corners or lower margins partially torn away throughout. Vol. III: lower inner margins of frontispiece and engraved title-page reinforced with strip of cloth tape. An uncommon and fascinating set. (29411)

A Portuguese
Anti-Church Law Explained
Anonymous. Carta em que um amigo sendo consultado por outro sobre a inteligencia da lei do primeiro de Agosto de 1774. Lisboa: Na Regia Officina Typografica, 1774. Folio (31 cm; 12.25"). 16 pp.
$375.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
In the form of a letter from one friend to another, this publication
seeks to explain “the end and the logic” of the law of 1 August
1774
prohibiting
citizens who have attained the age of 60 from selling or mortgaging their real
property to/with the Catholic Church.
No
copy located via NUC Pre-1956 or WorldCat. PROBASE
locates only one copy in the more than 170 Portuguese libraries that participate;
no copy found in the OPAC of the Portuguese National Library.
Removed from a nonce volume. Slim short wormtrack in lower margin
of last leaves; light soiling to edges. A nice copy indeed of a rarity. (28603)

Truth
& Progess
of Knowledge
[Bailey, Samuel]. Essays on the pursuit of truth, on the progress of knowledge, and the fundamental principle of all evidence and expectation. Philadelphia: R.W. Pomeroy (A. Waldie, pr.), 1831. 12mo. [1 (ads)] f., 233 pp., [1 (ads)] f.
$300.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First American edition. Bailey was an economist and moderate philosophical
radical.
In the field of economics he challenged David
Ricardo and his followers and demonstrated several of their fallacies and false
assumptions The present work is a continuation of his “Essays
on the Formation and Publication of Opinions and other Subjects” (1821).
American Imprints 5859. Publisher's quarter red
cloth shelfback with drab paper on boards and paper label to spine; spine
cloth chipped at top (3/4" missing). Ex–social club library; with 19th-century
bookplate, call number on endpapers, no other markings. Small piece of front
free endpaper torn away. Uncut copy. Clean. (28077)

Volcanic Illustrations — Baily's Central American Survey
Baily, John. Central America; describing each of the states of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica; their natural features, products, population, and remarkable capacity for colonization. London: Trelawney Saunders, 1850. 8vo (19.5 cm, 7.6"). Frontis., xii, 164 pp.; 2 plts.
$600.00

First edition of this
evaluation
of the commercial and agricultural potential of the Central
American countries. An officer of the British Royal Marines, Baily lived in
Guatemala for many years, and was the translator of Juarros's Compendio de
la historia de la ciudad de Guatemala; he was also a proponent of the “Canal
de Nicaragua.”
Click
the interior image for an enlargement.
The volume is illustrated with three engraved views, all three incorporating
volcanos. As usual, this copy does not include the oversized map, which was
printed and published separately.
Palau 21943; Sabin 2771; Nicaraguan National Bibliography
1476. 20th-century quarter red morocco and marbled paper–covered
sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; minor wear to corners and spine extremities.
Plates with light waterstaining to lower portions; frontispiece, title-page,
and plates backed with linen. (25454)

A PHILADELPHIA Bank's
Articles of Incorporation . . .
(Banking). Philadelphia [National] Bank. Pennsylvania. Laws, statutes, etc. An act to incorporate the Philadelphia Bank. Philadelphia: Pr. by W. W. Woodward, 1804. 8vo. 21, [1 (blank)] pp.
$800.00
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READ ARTICLE XVIII!
The legislature enables the bank to come into existence and prohibits conflicts of interest by barring sitting governors and legislators from serving on the Bank's board of directors. This act of incorporation seems to be as rare as the Bank's Articles.
Shaw & Shoemaker 7007. Original light boards covered with marbled paper. Back cover and two leaves gnawed by a rodent, with loss of paper. (3512)

Your
Money is being Confiscated
for
Your Own Good
Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand. Opinion sur les mesures
de police à prendre contre les Émigrans, prononcée dans la séance du samedi 9 juillet 1791.
Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale, 1791. 8vo (21.5 cm, 8.4"). [2], 9, [1] pp.
$100.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
First edition: Never
bound, uncut copy of this essay on the legality and ethicality of economic penalties
for émigrés. By the new regulations, these “mauvais
citoyens” (p. 2) were invited to return, or else pay sharply increased
taxes; Barère here argues that although trying to chain citizens to the
country of their birth is slavery (and impractical), the proposed measures do
no such thing and are a necessary element of the grand revolution. The bulk
of his argument is that in troubled times, the health of the nation supersedes
individual rights and preferences — and that the people should trust that
the wise representatives of the nation know what they're doing.
Martin & Walter 1607. Sewn, never bound; title-page
with affixed paper shelving label in lower inner corner, just barely touching but not obscuring
two letters of publication information, and with pencilled monogram in upper outer corner. Page
edges untrimmed; one signature unopened. Gently age-toned, otherwise clean and crisp.
(30699)
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not in PRB&M's
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FRENCH REVOLUTION, FIRST REPUBLIC
PAMPHLETS Voilà!

Gold & Silver Conversion Tables
from
the Press of a Woman Printer
Berdugo, Nicolás. Reducciones de plata, y oro a las leyes de 11. diner. y 22. quilat. valores de una y otra especie por marcos, onzas, ochav. tomin. y gran. como S. Mag. (que Dios guarde) lo manda en sus novissimas reales ordenanzas, expedidas en 1. de agosto de 1750. Cuyas reducciones, y valores el Excmo. Sr. Conde. de Revilla Gigedo ... mandò imprimir. Mexico: Impr. de Doña Maria de Rivera, 1752. Small 8vo (14.8 cm; 5.875"). [15] ff., 324 pp.
$1450.00
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Mining was one of the chief industries of colonial Mexico, and after a century of decline during the 1600s, the 18th century saw a renaissance in ore extraction, chiefly due to new technologies that made it possible to rework old ore and to achieve higher than previously imagined levels of silver and gold extracted from newly mined ore. Berdugo's work is a vade mecum of conversion tables of values for gold of different carats and for silver of different values of purity.
The work was
absolutely essential for all merchants and other business people, and for government workers in the treasury department — for milled coins were the exception in Mexican commerce, cob pieces the norm, and raw gold and silver, including dust, were extremely common.
The volume ends with the “Reglas varias, para sacar juntos, o separados en pasta, o en moneda los reales derechos, que se pagan a S. Mag. De el oro y de la plata, y para reducir a toda su ley estos metales.”
An uncommon economic work: We trace fewer than nine copies in the U.S.
This was printed by Doña Maria de Rivera with a red and black title-page, and with woodcut arms on first dedication page. The charming cut of a herald cherub appears after the decima dedicated to the author at the end of the preliminaries.
Medina, Mexico, 4073. Contemporary full Mexican calf, modestly tooled in gilt and with all edges red; recased, new endpapers. Final two leaves little ragged at edges costing a few letters and with small hole at center and short tears at inner margin; old staining and age-toning/browning throughout.
There is every indication that this well-produced little volume saw time “in the field”! (26850)

New
Chemistry, Practical
Applications — Illustrations!
Berthollet, Claude- Louis, & Amédée B. Berthollet. Elements of the art of dyeing; with a description of the art of bleaching by oxymuriatic acid. London: Pr. for Thomas Tegg; Simpkin & Marshall; R. Griffin & Co., Glasgow; & J. Cumming, Dublin, 1824. 8vo (23.2 cm; 9.125"). 2 vols. I: xxvii, [1(blank)], 408 pp., 7 plts. (2 fold.). II: vii, [1 (blank), 453 pp., 2 fold. plts.
$500.00
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C.-L. Berthollet was a member of the circle of Lavoisier and helped in the development of a chemical nomenclature that was applicable and derived from the chemistry being developed at the end of the 18th century. The present work is a systematic study and scientific discussion of the nature of dyeing, with nine plates, four folding.
Posthumous second edition in English, “translated from the French, with notes and engravings, illustrative and supplementary, by Andrew Ure.”
Uncut, partially unopened copy.
Uncut, partially unopened copy. Publisher's quarter cloth with paper covered boards; some discoloration to cloth, light chipping to board edges. Ex–social club library: paper label at top of spine, 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. A clean copy with the plates good and crisp; as noted above, an uncut, partially unopened copy. (27388)
Bible. English. Douai–Rheims. 1811–13. The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate... the Old Testament, first published by the English College at Doway, A.D. 1609, and the New Testament, first published by the English College at Rhemes, A.D. 1582; with annotations, references, and an historical and chronological index. Manchester: Oswald Syers, 1811–13. Folio (cm). [approx. 702] ff., lacking title–page, but having both cancel and cancelland of N.T. L2 present; (several signatures incorrectly signed); 19 plts. (1 excised & laid in).
$1950.00
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Scarce sole edition. Sold without direct episcopal sanction, this folio edition of the Douai– Rheims version was issued in rivalry with the better-known Haydock rendition and is the artefact of a sad story: The Catholic priests of Manchester, who mistakenly believed that Haydock’s effort to print a Douai–Rheims Bible had been abandoned after his move from that city to Dublin, therefore encouraged local printer Syers to produce his own edition — only to restore their patronage to Haydock following the discovery of their error, leaving poor Syers in the lurch.
The text generally follows the Challoner–Rheims revision, although the notes are collected from various sources. The volume is
illustrated with two frontispieces and17 plates engraved by J. Bottomley, Symns and Mitchell, and others after paintings by Westall, Raphael, Reynolds, et al.
Issued in parts in a small print run, this Bible is now uncommon.
Darlow & Moule 1034. Contemporary acid-stained calf rebacked with mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and blind-tooled compartment decorations; sides rubbed/scraped with leather worn over corners/edges, this not disfiguring. Hinges (inside) reinforced with cloth tape, and this large volume now strong. Lacking title-page. Plate from Genesis I:4 removed, and laid back in with margins cut away. First few leaves with edges ragged. Pages with offsetting around plates; occasional light spots of staining, mostly confined to outer margins. (11727)

Victorian Gothic to
Beat the Band
(Inside & Out)
Bible. N.T. Selections. English. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version). 1848. Parables of Our Lord. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1848. 12mo (16.5 cm; 6.5"). [16] ff.
$2000.00
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The Victorian era saw that
the
application of emerging technologies to book manufacture
could produce books that would rightly be thought of as tours de force.
The fascination with the “gothic,” for example, led to the marriage
of chromolithography and papier maché: the color printing used
to approximate the eye-popping illumination, miniatures, and marginal decoration
of late medieval manuscripts, and papier maché to approximate
gothic woodcarving.
This edition of the parables has 31 text pages, each with a
different chromolithographic border. The text is printed in gothic type in black and red, with touches of blue and gold in-fill. There are a scattering of chromolithographic miniatures and historiated initials; the title-page is printed in black and gold. The illuminated initials and borders are by Henry Noel Humphreys.
Binding: Publisher's boards of papier maché and plaster, formed using a metal mold and colored black, creating a gothic “carved wood binding.” Title blind-embossed on black roan spine. All edges gilt.
McLean states of the English edition of this work that “It was . . . the first of the so-called 'papier maché' bindings, contrived to look like carved ebony.”
This first American edition bears the first “papier maché” binding accomplished in the U.S.
Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England, 231; McLean, Victorian Book Design (second edition), pp. 99, 210; Maggs Bros., Bookbinding in the British Isles, part 2, 245; Abbey, Life, 222. Very nicely preserved copy with just a few small cracks in the binding, leaves expertly reattached/recased; spine intact with surface of front cover a little rubbed in one small portion.
Unlike the broken, chipped, and damaged copies we have seen, this is a treasurable exemplar. Housed in a quarter red cloth clamshell case with tan cloth sides and black leather gilt spine label. (30100)

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)
Curbing
Contraband
Brazil.
Laws, statutes, etc. 14 November 1757.[drop-title] Eu elrey. Faço
saber aos que este alvará com força de ley virem: Que sendo o
delicto do contrabando hum dos mais perniciosos entre os que infectaõ
os estados.... [Lisbon, 1757]. Folio. 8 pp.
$450.00
Document summary, found below "REY": "Alvará com força
de Ley, porque V. Magestade he servido ampliar os Paragrafos quinto, sexto,
e setimo do Capitulo decimo setimo dos Estatutos da Junta do Commercio destes
Reynos, e seus Dominios, para mais efficazmente se evitarem os contrabandos.
. . . "
Quarter green cloth with marbled paper sides, and red leather
cover label with gilt-stamped title and gilt ruling.
Briceño, Mariano de. Memoir justificatory of the conduct of the government of Venezuela on the Isla de Aves question, presented to his excellency the secretary of state of the United States.... Washington City: F.H. Sage, printer, 1858. 8vo (21.5 cm, 8.5"). 22 pp., [1 (blank)] f.
$250.00

The Isla de Aves was a matter of contention between the U.S. and Venezuela, as Venezuela claimed sovereignty over the island and thus the exclusive right to exploit the large amount of guano there. (The dispute was eventually decided in favor of Venezuela.) Briceño was envoy extraordinary to the U.S. and minister plenipotentiary of Venezuela.
Not in Palau. Original yellow printed wrappers, removed from a nonce volume with stab holes in the inner margins; inside wrappers with a short closed tear and a little shallow chipping, light soiling and a few stray marks. Fold mark down the center and traces of soiling on the top edges.

Poor Zenobia — Her Cure Is a Hard One!
Bunner, H.C. The elephant's love or Zenobia's infidelity. Presented with the compliments of C.I. Hood & Co. proprietors of Hood's Sarsaparilla. Lowell, MA: No publisher, 1891(?). 16mo. 16 pp.
$65.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Each page of this “comic” tale of a misguidedly affectionate elephant is ruled, with a testimonial to the medical benefits of Hood's Sarsaparilla appearing below that; a reprint from Puck (edited by Bunner) and Short Sixes, it is illustrated with a number of small cuts, its pale green paper wrapper bearing two larger ones.
BAL 1916. Fragile, rear cover almost separated; lightly soiled, one minute chip to one edge. (32708)
Burnside, Thomas. Document Signed. Clearfield, PA, 1811. Double folio (39.5
cm, 15.5"). [1] f.
$125.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Deed from the Hon. Thomas Burnside to Benjamin Patton, transferring the rights to a 559-acre property in western Pennsylvania previously owned by David Curry, deceased, which land became the property of the county upon default of payment of taxes. Two years later Patton sold the same tract to the George Curry, executor of David Curry’s estate. Patton had paid $14.65 in 1811 and sold in 1813 for $200.00.The Irish-born Burnside, then treasurer of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, was later a justice of the Pennsylvania state supreme court.
A notary’s seal is affixed to the document, which was signed by both Burnside and Patton.
Creased and slightly age-toned, with the folios separated and some offsetting from seal; a few small holes, touching text without notable loss.
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