
(TRUE?)
CRIME
Apologies! This suddenly sold
almost "out"!
We'll refresh
it as fast as we can!
This GENTLEMAN
Highwayman
Shown in a LARGE
Cut
(A
Crime BROADSIDE). (Macleane, James).
Anonymous. Broadside.
Begins: "James Macleane, the gentleman highwayman at the bar." [London]: Pr. for T. Fox in the Old Baily, 1750.
Folio (42 cm, 16.75"). [1] f.
$2250.00
Single-click
the image for an enlargement.
Handsomely illustrated crime-related broadside.
A large unsigned engraving (23 x 23.2 cm, 9.25" x 9.25"; h x w) shows a dapper
Macleane in the dock in full court while a barrister asks a character witness,
"What has your L[adyshi]p to say in favour of the Prison at the Bar?" To which
she replies, "My L[or]d, I have had the Pleasure to know him well, he has often
been about my House & I never lost any thing." Below the engraving is the
caption cited above and the imprint information, and below the platemark is
text in triple-column format, containing a transcription of Macleane's statement
in his defense, a description of him and his demeanor, an account of his crimes
and how he was discovered despite having worn a Venetian mask, and details of
his sentence.
The celebrity of this criminal led to several accounts being published about
him and some engravings being created of him and depicting his crimes. All engravings,
broadsides, and pamphlets about him are scarce, several rare. As regards this
broadside, we find only two other copies (at the Society of Antiquaries Library
and the British Library, both in London).
ESTC T187880. Old folds with minimal and short fold tears. Lower
outside edge crumpled with small tears, now flattened and repaired. Evidence
of having been mounted on a large sheet of 19th-century paper.
A
very good copy of a very scarce and visually attractive broadside.

Protecting the
Families of the Condemned
Abascal y Sousa, José Fernando. Broadside, begins: D. Jose Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, etc.. .. Por quanto se me ha comunicado por la Regencia del reyno el decreto de las Córtes generales y extraordinarias siguiente: ... Las Cortes generales y extraordinarias, atendiendo a que por el articulo 305 de la Constitucion .... Lima: no publisher/printer, 1813. Oblong folio (31.5 x 44 cm; 12.375" x 17.25"). 1 p.
$400.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
The viceroy promulgates on 27 July the decree of the Cortes of 22 February, stating that the families of condemned prisoners should be protected from the infamy of the perpetrator's crime and that to protect the families and others sharing the surname of those condemned by the Inquisition, all images of the condemned and all published notices should be found and destroyed.
Medina, Lima, 2875. Very good condition. Three small wormholes in each half of the sheet. (24508)

Despite
the Title,
ONE
Highly
INappropriate Picture??
Bible histories, with appropriate pictures. New Haven: S. Babcock, 1836. 16mo (9 cm; 3.5"). 16 pp., illus.
[SOLD]
Click either image for enlargement.
A “toy book” with eight in-text wood engravings (Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, etc.) and a disturbing full-page cut on the outside rear wrapper of a boy shooting a girl with a long-gun! — perhaps a gloss on Cain and Abel??
Publisher's green illustrated and printed wrappers; later oversewing at spine. Top edge a little ragged. (21639)
Ultimately, a
Sad Story . . .
Colburn, Zerah. A memoir of Zerah Colburn; written by himself. Containing an account of the first discovery of his remarkable powers; his travels in America and residence in Europe; a history of the various plans devised for his patronage; his return to this country, and the causes which led him to his present profession; with his peculiar methods of calculation. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1833. 12mo. 204 pp. (lacking frontis.).
$75.00
First edition. Zerah Colburn's prodigious calculating abilities
astounded audiences in America and Europe when he was a small child; as an adult,
his skills waned, and he died young without having fulfilled the promise of
his early days. Although Colburn does his best in this memoir to justify his
father's having taken him away from family and native country, putting him on
display for money, and denying him the opportunity to acquire more than bits
and pieces of an education, regret plainly looms behind every line praising
his father's devotion. The author sums up his experience (which, as his European
tour struggled to its impoverished conclusion, included attempts to become an
actor and to open a school) by saying that "When sometimes he hears people wishing
that they had his privilege of seeing the world, to think of the price at which
he purchased this privilege, would suggest the idea that they little knew what
it was which they desired" (p. 133), and noting that men should never rely on
expectations of being supported by others. In addition to the sorry story of
Colburn's career, there are many random tidbits of information on Napoleon's
progress, the English public school system, a
prominent
murder case of the time, and other items that caught the
author's interest, as well as an appendix containing numerous examples of his
youthful mathematical accomplishments and some suggestions as to how Colburn
performed his calculations. Error in pagination: p. 204 misnumbered 104. Includes
"A few pieces in rhyme" (pp. 192-[204]).
Sabin 14257. Full brown cloth. Much of spine cloth chipped away,
including title and shelving labels. Covers worn, detached, and blind-stamped
by the Mercantile Library (now-defunct). Cloth peeling at back cover. Title-page
and several other pages rubber-stamped. Library charge pocket on rear pastedown.
Paper with waterstains and spots of foxing; outer paper edges somewhat unevenly
highlighted by hand with ink, thus framing each page of text on three sides.
Pages 159/160 with one corner folded over. Without the frontispiece portrait.
Fascinating early account of the perils of childhood celebrity.
(7639)
(English
Literary Periodical). The monthly magazine...Vol. XII. London:
R. Phillips, 1801. 8vo (22.5 cm, 9"). 644 pp.
$150.00

Collected issues of this monthly “literary journal,”
which actually served as a catchall also for general news and very various
items of interest—including articles on natural history and voyages or
travels; wedding, bankruptcy, and death notices; remarks on pictures, or on
theatrical and musical performances; and assorted free-floating anecdotes and
witticisms, as well as original poetry and reviews of contemporary publications.
The contents are indexed; among the items of interest in this particular volume
are a brief, skeptical analysis of the Ossian poems signed by one “Meirion,”
a report on education of the deaf and dumb, a letter to the editor protesting
the sport of bull-baiting, and news of a pregnant wife and mother who, in the
throes of depression (she had “evinced a disposition to be very low-spirited”
during her previous pregnancies), drowned herself and three of her children,
which act the writer considers a “most horrible example of a crime almost
new to human nature.”
A
preface to another volume in this series notes that “by means of some
new literary connexions in america,
we shall possess peculiar advantages in presenting to our Readers, accounts
of the most interesting circumstances belonging to the United States”—and
it was an American reader, in fact, who owned the present example.
Provenance:
Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker
from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.
Disbound; marbled paper–covered boards much chipped and
worn, with joints cracking and large portions of spine leather lost or worn
down; sewing going, with some leaves separated. Some signatures uncut; page
edges untrimmed and in some cases browned. Occasional edge chips. Volume now
housed in a simple, acid-free phase box.
Exquemeling, Alexandre Oliver. Piratas de la América, y luz a la defensa de las costas de Indias Occidentales ... traducido del flamenco en español por el Doctor de Buena Maison. Madrid: Por Ramon Luis, 1793. 8vo. xxvi, 228 pp., [2] ff. (half-title lacking).
[SOLD]
Uncommon Spanish-language edition of the classic account of the pirates of the Caribbean, including Henry Morgan; it was this Spanish translation and not the original Dutch that served for the long-lived, hugely popular English-language translation.
Exquemeling, who
served some 20 years as a barber-surgeon among the pirates, has much to say about the social and political situation in Mexico, Central America, and the islands, with considerable attention being paid to the situation of slave and free blacks.
The first edition in Spanish appeared in Cologne in 1681, followed by a second from the same printer in 1682. This is only the third edition.
Sabin 23474; Palau 85732; Medina, BHA, 1714 (for first editions). Spanish acid-stained sheep (“pasta española antigua”); lacking front free endpaper and half-title (only). Title-page shows transfer-effect of leather turn-ins. Stray stains in margins and occasionally in text. A sound, decent copy.
Mystery Scandal?
In memoriam Elliott Speer, 1898–1934. East Northfield, Mass.: 1935. Small 8vo. 36 pp.; illus.
$45.00
Memorial services for Elliott Speer, 11 November 1934. Elliott Speer was Headmaster of the prestigeous Mount Hermon School for Boys in Northfield, Massachusetts.
He was shot to death in his study on 14 September by a still unknown gunman using a shotgun! The Northfield Schools Bulletin. Vol. XXIII, January 1935, no. 1.
Craig Walley's relatively recent Murder at Mount Hermon: The Unsolved Killing of Headmaster Elliott Speer has resurrected interest in the mystery.
Original wrappers. Fine. (17126)
A Moral Tale?
The Life and death of fair Rosamond, concubine to King Henry III. To which is added The Lass o' Gowrie. Stirling [Scotland]: Printed for the Bookseller, [18--]. 12mo. 8 pp.
$125.00

Title woodcut vignette of a woman kneeling at an altar. In the
six-page ballad “Fair Rosamond”, Henry II builds a tower with a
hundred and fifty entrances at Woodstock, near Oxford. The tower serves as a
safe house for his mistress, the fair Rosamond. So complex is its architecture
that those who enter must follow a thread to find their way out. When Henry
has to leave to put down a rebellion in France, the jealous Queen Eleanor wounds
the knight who guards the tower, follows the thread to Rosamond's chamber and
murders
her by forcing her to drink poison.
This Stirling printing is rare. There is also a Glasgow printing of which
OCLC locates only 6 copies worldwide.
Original self wrappers (unbound, removed). The bottom corner
of the second leaf is lightly chipped and the pages are somewhat darkened.
Good. (17552)
Keepsake . . .
The oath of a free-man. With a historical study by Lawrence C. Wroth and a note on the Stephen Daye Press by Melbert B. Cary, Jr. New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, 1939. 8vo. [20] pp.
$40.00
From Governor Winthrop's journals we know that the "Oath of a Free-Man" was the first thing printed on the first press in what is now the U.S. No copy of it is known to exist, but the notorious Mark Hoffman, a.k.a. "The Mormon Bomber," created what he attempted to palm off as the "recently discovered, only-known copy" of this literally legendary historical document. It was a convincing fabrication for many, but not all, and his inability to sell it led to the
financial crisis that precipitated his bombing spree and led to the discovery of his many, many forgeries of historical autograph documents supposedly by mountain men, Alamo figures, Mormon founder Smith, and Emily Dickinson.
This is Keepsake no. 60 of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, although this copy does not include the laid-in sheet noting that detail. Important study by the head of the John Carter Brown Library on the Oath.
Publisher's cloth, front cover with printed paper label. Clean and fresh. (14191)
Murders TWA'
The tragical ballad of Lord John's murder; together with The cruel brother.
Glasgow: Pr. for the booksellers, [1840?]. 12mo. 8 pp.
$125.00

Well, SERVES HIM RIGHT!
The wandering shepherdess; or the betrayed damsel. Glasgow: Pr. for the booksellers, [1840]. 12mo. 8 pp.
$125.00
A young nobleman seduces and murders an Oxford merchant's beautiful daughter, then takes to his bed and dies of guilt and despair. The title-page bears a woodcut vignette of a young woman in a bonnet and cloak leaning against a gate, with "[No.] 9." printed at the foot.
This ed. not in NSTC. Removed from a nonce volume. Pages age-toned;
one leaf with outer margin cropped closely. (16768)
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more LAW mostly less
sensational :) , click here.
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