•  Sabin 71333; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3293; Pilling, Siouan, 62; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Dakota-137; Field, Essay towards an Indian Bibliography, 1302; Banks, Books in Native Languages (rev. ed.), 59. Not in Evans, Masinahikan.   Publisher's textured dark green cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title and vignette and blind-tooled decorative bands; extremities rubbed, cloth very slightly faded at edges and with spots of minor dust-soiling. Ex–social club library: hand-inked paper shelving label at spine head, 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpapers, no other markings. Pages faintly age-toned, first two leaves creased. A solid copy.  (29760)

The outer binding is red textured cloth with the front cover stamped in black and gilt, and the interior front cover sample for the children’s version is a different red textured cloth stamped in black. The leaves for subscribers’information are unused.

•  Not in Arbour. Publisher’s cloth as described above, gently worn with corners rubbed and small scrape to front cover. Interior clean.

This is an untrimmed copy in original boards, with 24 pages of advertising for Carey publications bound in at the front of the volume. The preliminary map, engraved by John Bower, has hand-colored border lines; this American edition does not call for the plates found in the English first, but does include in-text depictions of several “Ethiopic inscriptions.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 33864; NSTC 2S3118. Publisher’s quarter tan paper over light blue paper–covered sides; front cover detached and back joint cracked, binding spotted, paper cracked and split along spine, spine label now absent and replaced with hand-inked title, spine with later paper shelving label. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1829. Half-title with portion of outer margin torn away (not touching text) and laid in. Map lightly foxed, with two short tears along folds. Pages age-toned, with occasional spots of foxing.

The text here is divided into sections for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, followed by a guide to Hebrew abbreviations; an index of classical authors; and a comprehensive Latin index to the defined words, which are described in the text in Hebrew and Latin. The whole is printed in Hebrew, roman, and italic type, double-column, with intricate head- and tailpieces, ornaments, and initials in floriated, historiated, and factotum frames.

Provenance:  Early ownership inscription of Gervüin Pûtre ( or Pêctre?), front pastedown.

•  VD17 1:051625M; Vancil, Cordell Collection, 216; Zaunmüller 345 & Graesse, VI, 305 (Hanover issue). On Semitic-language dictionaries, see S. Segert, “The Use of Comparative Semitic Material in Hebrew Lexicography,” in Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, vol. II, ed. A.S. Kaye.   Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt extra with raised bands, gilt morocco and manuscript paper labels, red speckled edges; joints cracking, free endpapers gone with early and late leaves creased and attachment of first ones affected, corners bumped and leather scuffed with some loss (sewing exposed at spine top).. Ex-library with old seminary pressure-stamp to title-leaf, this mostly detached and with print along that edge touched on both sides. Variously, waterstaining and browning; very mild worming, eye-catching on perhaps six leaves only; small marginal tears; a few ink and other splotches.  (30286)

All images were drawn and etched by the author himself.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription of Fairman R. Furness, of the prominent Furness-Bullitt family. Title-page with earlier signature of “A.G. Findlay.”

•  Hill, Collection of Pacific Voyages, 1563; Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration, II, S42; Sabin 80483; NSTC 2S19683.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding rubbed and abraded overall, spine head and label chipped. Front pastedown with small booklplate bearing no name; ownership inscriptions as above. Lower outer corner of title-page torn away; list of Briton officers with small tear repaired some time ago, tissue now lifting from repair. Pages and plates browned at edges with moderate spotting, staining, and dust-soiling; four pages with ink blurred from press. A fascinating book, an interesting copy.  (28374)

•  Rosenbach, Jewish, 131; Shaw & Shoemaker 5067. Not in Singerman Judaica Americana. Contemporary quarter sheep with paper-covered paste boards; heavily worn; joints open and covers almost detached. Early ownership signatures on front and rear pastedowns. Signature torn from upper outer corner of title-page, taking upper parts of three letters. Small Library of Congress duplicate release stamp on verso of title-page.

For more AMERICAN HEBREW
GRAMMARS, click here.

An appendix of examples of Hottentot and Caffre language is also supplied.

The engraved plates include illustrations of a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, dwarf mice, and Hottentot weaponry, as well as an oversized folding landscape and a map of the territory covered by the author.

•  ESTC T131019. Recently rebound in quarter calf over marbled paper sides, spines with gilt-stamped title labels. Title-page and two others of vol. I stamped by a now-defunct institution; one page with outer margin reinforced. Small hole to map. Title-page of vol. II with topmost left portion of title repaired and replaced in facsimile; title-page and five others stamped. Pagination skips in vol. II from 136 to 139. A few minor spots of foxing to plates; one plate with short edge tear carefully repaired.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black and orange. A clean, crisp copy.  (23630)

•  Contemporary calf, spine gilt and with red leather label. Leather dry and flaking, with loss over corners, joints open but sewing holding, chipping at head and foot of spine, and crack down center of spine: This volume could split. Ownership inscriptions in ink on front pastedown and reverse of frontispiece. Browning from turn-ins onto endpapers and fly-leaves; light to moderate foxing throughout. All edges speckled red.

•  TPL 5826.   Publisher's printed paper–covered boards, outer corners chipped and a lighter spot to front cover where there once was an old label of some sort affecting one word of type (“Price”); old, light waterstaining (with a darker edge) and some soiling to same cover, with evidence of the onetime moisture visible also to back cover and intermittently in the interior (especially to early leaves). Fragile. (25512)

The text here is in Latin with extensive quotations and citations in Greek, printed shouldernotes, and a 32-page “Supplementum linguae Graecae.” The “Specimen Lexici Hesychiani” is also appended, followed by separate indices for Greek and Latin.

•  VD17 12:121802D.   Contemporary half red sheep in imitation of morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, rubbed; spine with gilt-stamped author/title and gilt-dotted raised bands, faintly sunned with square of ink now obscuring a shelving number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplates, title-page and first text page pressure-stamped, all edges (closed) rubber-stamped, back pastedown rubber-stamped. A few instances of spotting, pages otherwise almost entirely clean. A good sound copy of this book.  (25837)

•  Publisher's wrappers, but clearly removed from a bound volume. (15126)

The oversized, folding maps of France and the world featurehand-colored provincial and continental borders; two additional oversized, steel-engraved plates depict the gods atop Mt. Olympus and the seven wonders of the world.

Early editions of this work are uncommon.

•  Quérard, La France littéraire, 341.   Contemporary marbled paper–covered boards, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; bindings faded and with some soiling/rubbing (most notably to spines). rubbed. Half-title of vol. I, pp. vii/viii of preface, and printed volume labels all bound in at back of vol. II; some signatures of vol. I unopened. Title-pages with traces of mostly effaced inscriptions; first and last few leaves of both volumes very lightly waterstained. One plate with two short tears from lower edge, not touching image. Solid and interesting.  (27048)

guide to Plato's vocabulary and usage

•  Brunet, V, 861; Sandys, II, 457; Schweiger, I, 332. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spine with inked paper label; binding scuffed and rubbed, spine with paper shelving label (inked through), title-label darkened. Front pastedown with 19th-century collector's bookplate, title-page verso with same collector's inked inscription. Light foxing. Final leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few letters.

In addition to the grammar and dictionary the work includes in Quechua a confessionary, the questions asked during the wedding ceremony, the Litany of Blessed Virgin Mary, and “the hymn and prayer devoted to the taking out of the Holy Scripture that is sung in various of the churches of this diocese every day.”

Provenance:  In an 18th-century hand, “Es de . . . Dn. Mariano Navia de Bolaño. On rear pastedown, “Collated perfect. May 22d / [18]94 J.J.”

•  Medina, Lima, 1068; Medina, Lenguas quechua y aymará, 39; Viñaza 336; Sabin 96271; Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 2409. Not in DeBacker-Sommervogel.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties, yapp edges. Very limited, rather neat pinhole worming; occasional spots of soil and paper somewhat browned in some sections due to nature of water in manufacture; inscriptions as above and one page of the vocabulary with contemporary annotation. A very nice, crisp copy.  (28399)

Trost (1588–1636), a professor of theology at Wittenberg, compiled this dictionary and issued it two years after publishing his much-praised edition of the Syriac New Testament with an accompanying Latin translation; the Lexicon was likewise lauded, primarily for its completeness.

This and Trost's Syriac New Testament are among the earliest books printed in Cöthen, Upper Saxony. This is the sole edition of the dictionary and it is uncommon in commerce.

•  Graesse, VII, 103; VD17 12:128565E.   Period-style calf, framed in blind; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, blind-tooled decorations in compartments, blind- and gilt-ruled raised bands with blind-tooling continued onto boards, ending in trefoils; signed in blind on lower rear turn-in by Grace Bindings. Title-page institutionally pressure-stamped, dedication with numeral rubber-stamped in lower margin. Pages age-toned; title-page and last two index leaves with moderate staining and spotting (in part from old binding). A strong, handsome book.  (25212)

Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.

At the end of this highly important and extremely rare grammar are found a comprehensive index, a short catechism, and instructions on the commandments and the sacraments of the Catholic Church, beingall in Nahuatl. Part One of the text expresses Vetancurt's important insight that Nebrija's classical, early-16th-century paradigm for the study of European languages, specifically Latin and Spanish, had its shortcomings when applied to the major New World language under scrutiny—though in the end he resigns himself to using that five-part organization, which was the one most familiar to his readers.

We note that virtually all bibliographies have failed to state that leaf E1 is misfolioed as 14 (it should be 15 and the error is not corrected subsequently), and that leaf H4 is misfolioed as 19 (that error not affecting the subsequent numbering).

Provenance: Marca de fuego of an unidentified Mexican conventual library.

•  Viñaza 204 (failing to note error in foliation, as do all bibliographies except Graff); Medina, Mexico, 1103; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Nahuatl 237; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 80; León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2816; Sabin 99385; Pilling 4002. Graff 4475 (this copy; giving correct collation). On the marcas de fuego, see: Sala, Marcas de fuego, pp. 28 and 39. On Vetancurt, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 118, frames 17–36 and 73–74. Contemporary limp vellum, shrunken and cockled, missing pieces along fore-edge of front cover and at base of spine. Some burn holes at tops of some pages resulting from embers’ straying during the branding of the book. Inner margins with expanded openings and occasional tearing around the sewing stations (i.e., paper has suffered from tight binding). Lacks two preliminary leaves containing approbations. Some foxing; last leaf (only) with foremargin insect-eaten. Text of the grammar complete. A significant work seldom acquirable.

This first edition has a title-page in black and red with the printer’s device of the Amsterdam Elzevirs, “Ne Extra Oleas”—showing Minerva with owl and shield next to an olive tree—and it is printed in two columns in roman, italic, Greek, and Hebrew, ornamented with woodcut initials.

•  Willems, Les Elzevier, 1295. On the Vossius, father and son, see: Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, 307–309 and 322–23. Contemporary English calf ruled in blind, bumped and abraded with a little loss on corners and edges; joints fully open at base and some chipping at head and foot of spine. Paper, ink-lettered spine label; inked call number and date on title-page. Pastedowns entirely gone and remnants of a manuscript used as binder’s waste visible at gutters, inside covers; due to the pastedowns’ removal, much of the binder’s construction can readily be examined here. A little light waterstaining and browning to first and last leaves (only). All edges red.

The two folding tables are printed on very thin tissue or “tracing”-like paper.

•  Publisher's marbled paper boards, a little abraded and dust-soiled and with evidence of an old shelving label sometime removed from front cover; respined with black tape. Ex-library with stamps on new front endpaper, a front fly-leaf, and base of title-page; four-digit number stamped in lower margin of contents page. No other markings.  (30272)

This is the sole American edition. First printed in England in 1804.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 30564; NSTC W2651. Contemporary speckled sheep. Spines divided into compartments by double gilt rules with large red leather title labels and small round black volume labels, both edged with gilt fillets and gilt-lettered. Fine cracking to spines with shallow chipping from head and foot; edges rubbed, corners bumped. Pages with light browning around impression and on edges, with darker browning from turn-ins towards beginning and end of each volume. Large bite from rear free endpaper of vol. II; generally, text problem-free, with but a few shallow tears and chippings and a few light waterstains.

The Rev. Alfred Wright (1788–1853) was a missionary and physician who spent over 30 years among the Choctaw people in Mississippi and Oklahoma. He founded the Wheelock Mission (named for Wright's friend Eleazer Wheelock, Dartmouth College's first president) in 1832, where he was directly involved in developing the Choctaw written language, along with Cyrus Byington and Joseph Dukes; indeed his Choctaw translations were among the first books printed in that language.

•  Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3890; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Choctaw-59; Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books, 285; W. B. Morrison, “The Choctaw Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma 4 (June 1926).   Original cloth-backed light marbled boards, the inner covers and endpapers foxed (an effect of the glue used in the binding) and all leaves a bit puckered (an effect of the sewing); lower corners lightly bumped and small tear to outer margin of B1. A very good, clean copy.  (29478)