Only three U.S. institutions (and two British) report holdings of this uncommon item. This copy bears an inked inscription in the upper margin reading “With the Author’s Comps.”

•  NSTC 2M7062; not in Goldsmiths’-Kress. Recent moiré cloth–covered boards. Title-page with small inked numerals in outer margin; presentation inscription as described above partially trimmed in upper margin. Shouldernotes trimmed closely, in some instances with loss of a few etters. Pages clean.

The front cover has a wonderful chromolithographic illustration of letters in envelopes and the title of the volume. The advertisements for other Dick & Fitzgerald publications that fill the endpapers and fly-leaves are worth reading in their own right.

•  Publisher's quarter red cloth with printed/illustrated paper over boards. Text with foxing. Binding lightly worn at edges.  (23673)

Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.

Such statistical publications as this were essential for the government of the newly independent nation, especially for planning purposes and for use when negotiating with bankers for the loans so essential to the nascent nation.

Interestingly, the population statistics ignore distinctions such as “indio,” “mestizo,” etc. The brief paragraphs about the towns and hamlets are filled with facts such as that the nuns of one particular town still wear hats of the Quiroga style.

An observation having nothing to do with the text: The paper on which this work is printed is very thin laid paper with no apparent watermark. The quality is not “European” and this cataloguer (DMS), with nearly 40 years experience with Mexican books, wonders if the paper is from one of Mexico's first paper mills?

•  Palau 155712; not in Sutro. Later 19th-century quarter sheep with stone pattern marbled paper sides. Binding worn, text skewed in binding. Private ownership pressure stamp on title-page.

Meade was, briefly, a member of the 3rd Philadelphia Battalion, but saw no military action himself; his grandson was Gen. George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac.

•  On Meade, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 473–74. Creased along folds, with a few ink blotches and very minor offsetting. Later pencilled note beneath signature.

In the 17th and and 18th centuries “Canary wine” was a popular sweet wine from Tenerife that found much favor among the English, colonial and other.

•  Generally very legible. One small portion of lower blank are torn with loss of paper. Old “clear,” non-cello, non-press-apply tape repair to missing area and to corners for mounting in an album. With pencilled dealer’s code (Sessler’s). Good or good+ condition.

In 1637 Diego Mendez Chavez was the successful bidder for the ten-year right to collect the royal tax on fresh and salted fish (with a few types of fish, doubtless already assigned to others, excepted). This compilation of documents relates to Mendez Chavez’s travails in collecting the tax and paying his monthly stipend.

An interesting and complicated file of primary economic data during Spain’s century of decline.

•  Good/Good+ condition. Sewn. Written in several hands, all notarial in style. First 10 leaves with stain from water having spilled on the cahier; only the first leaf is affected to the extent of making reading difficult (but NOT impossible). Some tattering to edges of final three leaves.

Single-click either image, for an enlargement.

Scarce: Only two U.S. copies traced via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, and RLIN (Harvard, LC).

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 13422.18. Contemporary mottled green paper over cartonneé covers: paper browned, torn, and chipped, especially along spine and edges. Uncut copy. Light soiling on deckle edges, endpapers, and title-page. Some light waterstaining in parts. Pencilled notes on front free endpaper.

•  Publisher's blue wrappers — front and back shown in our images. A few short tears. An excellent copy.  (24449)

Although a scholar in Greek and Latin at Washington University, Waterhouse according to the DAB had "interests [that] carried him far from the classical subjects he enthusiastically expounded in the classroom." He is noted as a "firm believer in the future of the Middle West [and] an ardent advocate of improving the Mississippi River."

•  On Waterhouse, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XIX, 533. Original flexible fabrikoid, splitting along spine.

For the MISSISSIPPI RIVER,  click here.

•  Goldsmith’s Kress 8390. On Muratori, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, X, 81. Contemporary vellum over paste boards with remnants of gilt label on spine; soiled, stained, and chipped with loss of top layer of vellum on rear cover and part of spine. Interior with light foxing, water- and other staining. Far from splendid, far from dead.

In libraries, this is a common item on microfilm—very uncommon, as a reality.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 44957. Stitched in paper wrappers, front wrapper with printed paper label; pencilled notations to upper margin of front wrapper, small smudge to back wrapper. Ownership inscription to front fly-leaf. A little foxing only.

Rare: We trace no U.S. copies of this edition via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, or RLIN.

•  NSTC 2P809, Imprint 3; this edition not in Goldsmith’s-Kress. Recent speckled brown wrappers. Some shallow chipping. Closely trimmed by binder, shaving a few signatures and borders of tables. Inked numeral in margin of title-page.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author, two folding maps (one showing the distribution of brothels), and a folding table.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Edwin A. Dalyrymple on front pastedown.

•  William Osler, Bibliotheca Osleriana: a catalogue of books illustrating the history of medicine and science, 3615 (first edition).   Contemporary half calf with marbled paper-covered sides, spines with blind-accented raised bands; gilt-stamped title on a red leather label; another compartment with gilt-stamped author's name and volume number; spine compartments framed in blind and each with a blind-tooled center device. Marbled endpapers. Fore- and bottom edges stained red. One folding map chipped at top edge and with shallow tear along two folds, without affecting map; folding table with shallow tear along one fold, just touching one letter. Overall, a very good set.  (24480)

Tench Coxe was the publishing President, Peter A. Browne, the Secretary.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7024; Sabin 60367. Publisher's plain blue wrappers, soiled. Dog-earing, with a few chipped corners; some soiling and foxing.

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Shoemaker 21854. Light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper title-label. First leaf with closed tear from outer margin, just touching text. Foxed, with some staining to final blank leaf.

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Shoemaker 21855. Later light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper title-label. Slightly age-toned, with small paper flaw to one outer margin, else clean.

The advertisements at the back of the volume promote other vegetarian cookbooks, a vegetarian restaurant “a few doors from Holborn,” and the entrepreneurial lady's own line of concentrated essences, food colors, nut mills, etc.

•  Bitting 377.   Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black and gilt; cloth slightly wrinkled over front cover, corners and spine extremities rubbed, spine gilt dimmed. Front pastedown with bookseller's small ticket, front free endpaper with pencilled owner's name. Pages clean. (20641)

Single-click images where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for enlargements.

Several sources, including Rodrigues, call this a "rare" publication.

•  Borba de Moraes (2nd ed.), Bibliographia brasiliana, I, 419; Maggs Bros., Bibliotheca brasiliensis, 231 (misstating the contents and failing to find it in Rodrigues); Rodrigues 698 "rare." On the Pombaline reforms, see: James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America: A history of colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Recent quarter red morocco with raised bands: Gilt beading on, and gilt ruling above and below, each band; gilt center-devices. Marbled paper sides and matching marbled endpapers. Contemporary numbering of the leaves in ink; some contemporary marginalia in ink. Nice.

Click the image for an enlargement.

The writer seems to have been Joseph Prentis (1785–1851), son of a Williamsburg merchant of the same name; it is difficult to identify him with absolute certainty, but Saunders is elsewhere recorded as having assisted in the administration of the estate of Joseph Prentis the elder.

•  Creased, with small spots of discoloration. Portion of upper and upper inner margins lost to hungry rodent, with loss of a number of words; one tear to the final leaf repaired some time ago with tape.

In addition to the dedication page, and prefaces to the first, third, and fourth editions, these volumes also include “additional notes and essays, a collection of new tables, a history of the sinking fund, a state of the public debts in January 1783, and a postscript on the population of the kingdom.” First published in 1771.

•  ESTC T12986; Goldsmiths-Kress 12495.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, edges of boards tooled in gilt. Joints cracked and weakly holding. Covers darkened along top and outer edges; leather lost on corners. Light foxing to a few early and later leaves, including title-pages; offsetting from leather affecting only first three and final three leaves, at edges. Each volume pressure-stamped on the title-page and one other page. Title-page rectos marked with small inked initials in upper right corner, versos rubber-stamped with a five-digit number. Penciled notation at bottom margin of p. xxx (vol. I). Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box with gilt-stamped leather labels.  (24415)

•  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.

•  Highly uncommon pamphlet: The author, who identifies himself only as Publicola, responds indignantly to Giovanni Angelo Belloni’s defense of John Thomson’s actions relating to the failed Charitable Corporation. Thomson, who had fled to Rome to escape prosecution for fraud, apparently was attempting through Belloni to set conditions for the possible return of books and papers relevant to the Corporation; the British were outraged enough to have Belloni’s letter publicly burnt by the “Common Hangman.”

•  ESTC T225828. Recent marbled paper over light boards. Some pages very lightly spotted; edges untrimmed.

•  Not in Brown, Culinary Americana. Publisher's printed paper wrappers; wrappers with moderate spotting. A few pages lightly stained, not obscuring text. (16656)

This substantial booklet is extremely uncommon; OCLC does not identify any holdings.

•  Stapled in original printed paper wrappers; covers darkened with spots of minor staining, spine paper chipped.  (23746)