Hays notes in her preface that “Women, unsophisticated by the pedantry of the schools, read not for dry information, to load their memories with uninteresting facts, or to make a display of a vain erudition . . . they require pleasure to be mingled with instruction, lively images, the graces of sentiment, and the polish of language” (vol. I, p. iii).

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 12742; Sabin 31061.   Period-style quarter tan cloth over blue-grey paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels. Title-page of each vol. with ownership inscription in upper portion excised; title-page of vol. II with small portion of outer margin reinforced. Pages age-toned, with a few foxed or spotted; occasional short edge tears, not extending into text.  (24204)

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for an enlargement.

Provenance: From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christianity.

Uncommon: Of U.S. institutional copies we trace fewer than 10.

•  19th-century German black mottled paper over boards. Binding shows wear. Ex-library with call number tag on spine; bookplate.

Allen was a famous lexicographer and was co-editor of the Webster's New International Dictionary; his gastronomical dictionary composes about half the volume, with the other sections also consisting largely if not exclusively of arrays of alphabetical entries.

•  Publisher's olive cloth, front cover stamped in dark green and black, spine with title in black; small area of discoloration to lower portion of outer edges,  (22220)

Provenance:  A signature “Fr. Antonio Lobato de Sto. Thomas” appears at the bottom of the last page and is almost certainly that of the the friar himself, which would mean that this is his autograph manuscript of the sermons.

•  Contemporary very stiff vellum. Binding gnawed by a rodent with loss. Written on a good quality European paper, with some soiling and an occasional stain. No faults are serious and overall this is a remarkably good survival for an 18th-century Philippines manuscript. Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box.  (23668)

•  Not in Banks. Not in Evans. Stapled into original stiff printed wrappers, very good condition. Inner hinges of cloth tape.

Provenance: Covers gilt-stamped “Gymnasium Velavicum.”

•  Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped bands and decorations within compartments; vellum chipped over spine extremities and showing moderate dust-soiling. Upper portion of front free endpaper excised; half-title crumpled, with inner and outer margins chipped. Pagination skips from 304 to 309, with signature complete and text apparently uninterrupted. Some edges and corners waterstained and a few lower margins inkstained, with occasional instances of edge chipping. Creasing to a handful of index leaves.

Elias Hutter (1553–1609) was an orientalist and professor of Hebrew at Leipzig. The text here is drawn from his famous and sought after polyglot New Testament in 12 languages (Nuremberg, 1599), and so shares in the censure Hutter received for there translating and inserting "in some versions missing passages which he found in others" (Darlow and Moule)—but, he was open about that. The present work was apparently for devout students of Hebrew, both to further their knowledge of that language and to give them comparative texts for study and meditation on the week’s lessons. Polyglot lectionaries are not common, and this is the only polyglot lectionary of the epistles and gospels listed by NUC Pre-1956 before the 19th century.

•  Not in Darlow & Moule, but see 1430, 1431, 1432, 1433, and 1434 for Hutter’s polyglot New Testament in 12 languages, and his St. Matthew’s Gospel, St. Mark’s Gospel, polyglot Psalter, and polyglot New Testament in four languages. Sheep, spine simply gilt with a red leather title label; leather rubbed and abraded, front joint opening. Pages with some instances of light waterstaining or browning. All edges red.

The “Secunda editio, a mendis purgata” on the title-page refers to corrections made in the 1717 edition of errors found in the 1708 edition. The line “cura et studio Johannis Leusden et Caroli Schaaf. Editum ad omnes editiones diligenter recensitum; & variis lectionibus, magno labore collectis, adornatum” tells the readers that Leusden (1624–99) and Schaaf (1646–1729), two of the leading scholars of Syriac in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, made this the edition one they can rely upon.

The editors did not see eye to eye on the matter of pointing, and up through Luke 17.26 Leusden's preference (based on the Chaldean system) was used — after which Schaarf began using the system favored by the Walton Polyglott — Leusden having died at that editorial point in the project!

Title in Syriac at head of title-page, which page is printed in red and black and has an engraved printer's device. There are woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials in the text, which is printed with the Syriac text in parallel columns with a Latin translation, in double-column format. A handsome production.

•  Kubler, A New History of Stereotyping, pp. 39–41. Darlow & Moule 8969.   Recent full brown calf, old style by Grace Bindings: raised bands, gilt ruling above and below the bands as accents, gilt center devices in spine compartments. Covers with concentric compartments accomplished using rules, rolls, and corner devices. Private presentation inscription to an Episcopal diocesan library on reverse of last leaf, with no other markings at all; a clean, satisfactory copy.  (23054)

•  Brunet, II, 1119; Darlow & Moule 4560. Recent period-style full morocco, framed and panelled in blind rolls with blind-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments (signed by Grace Bindings in blind at inner area of rear cover, lower turn-in). Lower margin of title-page with a defunct library’s old presentation rubber-stamp. A few instances of light foxing, most pages clean and the margins beautifully wide.

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According to a writer in “Notes and Queries” (Third Series, vol. VI, 251), this work was suppressed: “The publication of the new Testament, says Dr. Southey, in such a language as the negro or Talkee-talkee, brought upon the Bible Society a greater outcry than any that had been raised against it since the schism with the Apocrypha occasioned.” Overlooked or thought unimportant by the opponents of this translation was the fact that it was the first attempt to present the Bible in the language that had evolved among blacks of Surinam; that is, to proselytize them in their own language, rather than in the approved “imperial” tongue.

•  Darlow & Moule 6984. Contemporary sheep with diced covers, round spine, blind tooled spine decorations, marbled edges. Leather of covers abraded and top of spine pulled with loss of leather. Old institutional bookplate over another, inside front cover; properly deaccessioned from another institution. Paper good, and clean.

•  Front wrapper present, lacking rear one; removed from a bound volume. (15152)

•  Zedner, Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum, 153.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Light age-toning and a bit of faint foxing.  (23145)

•  Not in NSTC.   Removed from a nonce volume. (16766)

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•  NSTC 2B41650. Contemporary half red morocco with paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; sides and edges showing minor scuffing, spine slightly darkened. Front pastedown with bookseller’s ticket of B. Westermann & Co., private collector’s 19th-century bookplate, and institutional stamp (no other markings). Pages faintly age-toned. A sturdy copy of this hefty tome.

•  Brunet, I, 1122. Contemporary vellum, spine with inked title; spine and edges mildly dust-soiled. All edges speckled red and blue. Front pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp; front pastedown torn and back pastedown lifted away from cover. Pages clean.

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The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg travelled throughout Mexico and Central America as part of his ecclesiastical duties, and channeled his interest in archeology and antiquities into a number of publications on the original Mesoamerican sources he collected or copied. The present work includes commentary by him on the Chichicastenango manuscript, and much speculation regarding the prehistoric connections between the Old World and the New.

•  Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 1082; Sabin 7437.   Contemporary half morocco and paper-covered sides, spine gilt extra; edges/corners rubbed, small repairs to spine and joints. Front free endpaper with institutional rubber-stamp; back pastedown with rubber-stamp partially touching the small affixed ticket of a New York bookseller. Outer margin of half-title and one other leaf chipped. A few leaves towards back of volume unopened. (20651)

•  NSTC 2B57765. Removed from a nonce volume. The front edges of the title and verso are darkened, else very good. (16759)

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Father Cuoq (1821–98) was an extremely accomplished linguist as evidenced by his becoming fluent in both Algonquin and Iroquois; Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 93) writes glowingly of his mastery of these languages. His life as a missionary of the Order of Sulpitians, notably among the Nipissing at Lake of Two Mountains, certainly aided in his scholarly achievement.

•  Pilling, Algonquian, 100-101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 952; Field 391; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Algonkin-14; Sabin 17980. Not in Banks; not in Evans, Masinanhikan. Original printed green wrappers, spine reinforced some time ago, edges chipped. Half-title with pencilled annotations. First text page rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution; pages otherwise clean.

•  Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Algonkin 19; Pilling, Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages, 101; not in Vancil, Cordell Collection. 20th-century maroon cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and publication information; boards very slightly sprung, with some discoloration along back joint. Pages age-toned (especially first and last few leaves) and embrittled, with occasional edge nicks. Several signatures towards back of volume unopened.

•  NSTC 2C47117. Publisher’s cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine embossed and with gilt-stamped title; front cover detached, cloth chipped at spine extremities and rubbed at edges. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper and title-page rubber-stamped, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1870. Early inked marginalia to one page.

•  Evans 36309. Contemporary sheep, spine perished, boards just barely holding; leather dry and abraded. Ownership names clipped from top of title-page. Some translation in an early hand in ink in the early part of volume.

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Vol. I opens with an engraved frontispiece done by Pierre Giffart, of Athena supervising a battlefield, and is also illustrated with an engraved plate depicting various antiquities.

•  Brunet, II, 851; Graesse, II, 439; Sandys, II, 289.   18th-century speckled sheep, spines gilt extra; small areas of covers abraded, joints and extremities lightly rubbed, spines with paper shelving labels and small pinholes of worm damage. Front pastedowns each with armorial bookplate (with cardinal's hat) of Marius Marefuschus, institutional bookplate, and a Paris bookseller's small ticket. Mild to moderate foxing. With their handsomely tooled spines, these make a still-imposing pair. (20890)

•  Evans 21068; Pilling, Algonquian, 124; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Mohegan-2; Field 487 (giving date erroneously as 1787); Sabin 21971. Uncut, unopened copy retaining original sewing and preserving the often missing preliminary leaf. In a Mylar envelope. As darn near a fine copy as is obtainable.

Provenance: Inked ownership inscription of Michael Gundelsheimer (d. 1715), at base of title-page, partially cut off by binder’s trimming. Gundelsheimer was Archdeacon of Feuchtwangen in the Margravate of Nuremberg, and was noted for his travels in the Middle East.

•  Full 17th-century calf, covers ruled in blind and spine neatly gilt with green leather label in one compartment, impress from another label (now lacking) in a second compartment, and an elegant “flower encircled” device in others compartments. Cover leather lightly waterstained in two places and shallowly abraded with some small black stains; spine leather cracking with some tears and chipping at extremities, faint white markings in bottom compartment, and cracking along joints. Title-page with ownership inscription touched by trimming as above, and traces of shelf location once pencilled on. A few leaves shallowly extruded. Scattered light foxing and browning, occasional traces of soiling, and a little cockling. Slip from bookseller’s catalogue on front pastedown. Marbled endpapers. All edges red.