Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Following Hillhouse's discussion of his purpose and reasoning, the actual amendments have a separate title-page.

First edition.  Second and third editions were printed at New Haven by Oliver Steele & Co. in the same year as this first.

•  Sabin 31883; Shaw & Shoemaker 15230.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Pages with a few scattered spots of light staining and occasional early inked corrections; old stitching holes in inner margins. Page edges untrimmed. In fact, quite a nice copy.  (25210)

The steel-engraved portrait of Adams was done by Hall after Copley.

Sets retaining their very delicate original paper shelf-back bindings in uncut condition are very uncommon.

•  ESTC T83247; Allibone 36; Goldsmiths'-Kress 15903; Howes A60; Sabin 235.   Publisher's quarter tan paper with light blue paper–covered sides, spines with hand-inked titles and volume numbers; worn and rubbed, front covers detached (back covers largely holding), spine paper mostly lost (revealing binding structure), black cloth tape extending across each spine head. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, inked call number on endpapers, title-pages pressure-stamped, no other markings. Vol. I with front free endpaper lacking; one leaf torn from outer margin, extending into text without loss. Scattered spots and small stains, a few pages with light to moderate waterstaining in outer or lower portions, frontispiece more notably stained. Pages uncut. Priced according to faults, of course, this is a worthy Americanum and legal landmark.  (26984)

•  Original printed wrappers; five-digit number stamped on front wrapper; some chipping; loss of paper from spine. (78)

•  ESTC W35823; Evans 35119. Contemporary sheep, spine with red leather title label; abraded with a few wormholes (including one track across spine) and front joint opening. Some pages quite stained, not impairing reading; a couple instances of chipping in margins with loss of letters. Front free endpaper excised. Pp. 433–44 pinned together in the inside margin. Pencil doodlings on half-title and p. [5].

•  Very good. Removed from a nonce volume.  (936)

WorldCat locatesno copies in the U.S. and only two worldwide (Chilean National Library and one in Berlin). COPAC locates only a microform copy. No copies are located via the Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico Español. The KVK finds no additional copies in Germany or Austria.

•  Briseño, I, 74; Palau 59709.   20th-century Spanish sheep. Stitching holes in inner margins. Very clean. A very good copy.  (28505)

Click the images for enlargements.

There were two editions of the constitution in 1843: This one, and another that extended to 27 pages.

•  Not in Palau.   Original printed wrappers, small strip excised from blank area at top of front wrapper. Few dust smudges on wrappers. Very good copy. (15169)

Click the images for enlargements.

Not in OCLC.

•  Not in Palau. Original printed green wrappers. Waterstaining to inner area of wrappers, same faintly visible in one area of title-page. (15171)

This publication contains the Constitution of 1863 as ratified by the Ríonegro Convention as well as most of the other legislation that the Convention adopted. The constitution incorporated many anti-clerical measures, including: separation of Church and state; full freedom of worship, even for non-Catholics; suppression of religious orders; prohibition of corporate ownership of real property (which amounted to prohibition of Church ownership of property); and governmental supervision of worship. The document also thoroughly decentralized power and made each state a virtual law unto itself.

In an attempt to curb the power of Gen. Mosquera, the presidency was made an office of two-year duration, and immediate re-election or succession was barred.

IMPORTANT AND RARE: NUC Pre-1956 fails to locate any copies, and RLIN finds only one copy (SUNY-Buffalo).

•  Removed from a volume of pamphlets and now in later wrappers. Ownership mark eradicated from title-page. A very good copy of a rare item.

Click the image for an enlargement.

This is the first printing of that new liberal constitution, from the small press in the out-of-the-way town of Rionegro. It is very rare: We trace no copies via OCLC, RLIN, or NUC. Further, searches of the OPACs of the National Library of Colombia and of the universities of Cali and the Andes failed to locate a copy.

Click either image
for an enlargement.

Rare.  The only copy we located in Latin America via METABASE is in the Biblioteca Monseñor Sanabria Martínez (Biblioteca Asamblea Legislativa de la República de Costa Rica). In the U.S. we locate only the copies at Bancroft and Harvard Law libraries.

Wrapper title is “Decretos y constitución política de la República de Costa-Rica, emitida en 1871 y adoptada en 1882.”

•  Not in Palau.   Original printed wrappers, wrappers dusty and with old pencil writing. (21258)

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Posada, Bibliografia bogotana, 231; Palau 59632. Sewn as issued, without the wrappers. Minor soiling to title-page and last (blank) page. Old inked numbers at top of title-page. A very good copy.

constitutional and otherwise

•  Howes D120.   Publisher's pebbled brown cloth, covers framed in blind with central gilt-stamped horse and rider medallion on front, spines with gilt-stamped title; edges/extremities lightly rubbed and spines each with a patch lightened (moreso to vol. I). Ex–social club library: call number on endpapers, title-pages rubber-stamped. Minor offsetting from some plates, pages otherwise clean.  (26900)

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Evans 38786; ESTC W026281. Folded as issued, edges untrimmed and slightly darkened. Second leaf with corners creased.

In addition to simply calling the constitution unwise, ill-conceived, etc., González A. parses it for ideas traceable to “heretical” and other writers whose works were on the Index. When in doubt (or, perhaps, when NOT in doubt!), club your enemies with old-time religion, hellfire, and damnation!

First continental edition, following the Mexico City edition of 1816.

•  Palau 105019; Sabin 17823.   Publisher's acid-stained brown sheep; round spine, no raised bands, gilt ruling to create spine compartments, each compartment with a gilt center device. Attractive blue and white marbled endpapers. Some rubs and abrasions, generally light; rear cover with one scrape through leather to board. A clean, tight copy.  (27226)

This document gives the rules, constitutions, privileges, and indulgences of the third order in Lima on the occasion of its reestablishment at the conventual church of St. Michael. A fine woodcut of the arms of the Mercedarian order, surrounded by a typographic border, graces the verso of the title-leaf.

This is the first edition of the Breve compendio; it was reprinted in 1870.

•  Medina, Lima, 1945. Limp vellum lightly cockled and a little stained/soiled, with small hole to front cover from a defect in the skin; traces of adhesive on covers and a small paper label on front one. One small wormhole piercing margin of some leaves; traces of soiling and very light waterstaining. Library bookplate and personal rubber-stamp on front pastedown; old call number neatly penned (and crossed out) on title-page verso.

Although the university was founded in 1551 and began offering classes in 1553, its rules and practices were not published until 1668: Various manuscript compilations of the rules had been gathered during the first hundred years of the institution, but it fell to Bishop Palafox to undertake the definitive compilation and to initiate the publication of the results, which did not see light of day until after his death. It is his omnium gatherum that the body of this volume offers.

•  Medina, Mexico, 5836; Palau 6067; not in Harper, Americana Iberica; not in Maggs, Bibl. Amer. 20th-century quarter calf with marbled paper sides and endpapers. All edges carmine. Paper clean and crisp. A lovely copy.

•  Eberstadt 166: 91; Shearer 269; Sonneborn sale 89. Original printed paper wrappers. Now in a cloth-covered clamshell box with gilt-stamped leather title label; wrappers faded with some edge chipping, more pronounced wear to back wrapper than to front. Pages age-toned with a few short edge tears, and last few creased; generally clean.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. (180)

This is the genuine 1817 edition, not a modern reprint.

•  Sabin 1438; Shaw & Shoemaker 41808.   Recent light blue paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. One leaf with short tear from outer margin, not touching text. Pages lightly age-toned, otherwise clean.  (28150)

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Sabin 70572.   Sewn. Waterstained; soiling to outer leaves. Early reader's two small ink notations on title-page, just below the imprint. Uncut, partly unopened copy, with one signature opened unevenly.  (24487)

As our caption notes, this vast repository purports to have been made as “a bare narrative” of its “fact[s]”; but it now resonates with a richness far beyond mere chronicle. It repays both extended and “dip-in” reading for pleasure.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) R2316, R2318–19, & R2333; Lowndes 2152.   Recent half speckled calf, old style; marbled paper sides; round spines, raised bands, gilt center devices in spine compartments, bands accented with gilt beading. Binding signed by Starr Bookworks. Occasional early marginalia. Occasional foxing. Very old waterstaining in vol. VI, with cockling of paper; minor worming in upper margins of same volume (not anywhere close to text). Old library pressure- (not perforation-) stamps in some blank margins. A very nice set.  (22477)

This is a very scarce book. Palau did not know of this English translation, and fewer than eight U.S. libraries report owning a copy of it.

•  Palau 286648 (for the Spanish-language edition); Sabin 75576; Shoemaker 35093a. Recent quarter dark green morocco with marbled paper sides. Pages 3 through 6 are supplied in xerographic facsimile. Browning and foxing.

•  Richmond, Shaker Literature, I, 1279; MacLean, Shaker Literature, 441; McKinstry, Andrews Shaker Collection, 397.   Publisher's printed paper wrappers, unevenly age-toned; front wrapper with minor offsetting of printed text. Pages clean and crisp.  (27503)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

First edition.

•  Sabin 15716; Shaw & Shoemaker 610.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Title-page with small inked “pseud.” comment next to author's name. Pages age-toned with offsetting and some light spotting (darkest to title-page); one leaf with upper margin repaired some time ago. Page edges untrimmed; one signature unopened.  (25211)

•  Original printed wrappers, chipped at spine and edges and corners without loss of printing; darkened. A shallow chip or two to title and following page, shallow dog-earing and faint waterstaining to initial leaves including title-page; otherwise, clean and free of chips or tears. (21257)

•  Original printed wrappers. Five-digit number stamped on front wrapper. (287)

•  NSTC 2W17788.   Original wrappers, front wrapper chipped at edges, back wrapper chipped at inner edge and with paper remnants affixed at top. Leaves loose (wrappers included). Long tear in fore-margin of title-leaf and small chips in inner margins of title- and final leaves. Some short marginal tears. Small chips to lower outer margins. Lengthwise fold mark. (8931)