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.

In our considerable experience, works in Tarascan are considerably rarer than those in Nahuatl, the principal language of central Mexico.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3205; Viñaza 294 (giving wrong date of publication); García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 70 (also giving wrong date); Palau 309782; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3572.   Recased in contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties; some repairs to vellum; vellum cockled and with stains. Modern endpapers. Lacks the title-leaf and the full-page woodcut coat of arms of the dedicatee. Marginal damage to first leaf of front index and to last three leaves (i.e., rear index), repaired. Small loss of perhaps a dozen letters total, all in the indices. Much damaged and priced accordingly — still, textually complete.  (23340)

•  Publisher's red cloth in color-printed dust wrapper; minor shelfwear to corners and spine extremities, otherwise clean and fresh.  (23194)

•  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.

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

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Provenance:  This copy has a laid-in typed letter from Paul Bennett (the typophile) describing having received his copy of this book from Van Courtright Walton (book and type designer) of the University of Texas Press, plus two slips “with the compliments of the University of Texas Press,” one signed by Frank Wardlaw and the other by Van Courtright Walton.

•  Publisher's cloth in original dust jacket, jacket slightly sunned with minor offsetting to interior from red spine label.  (24485)

•  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.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover stamped in gilt and light green, spine gilt-stamped; corners and spine extremities a touch rubbed, otherwise clean and bright. Front free endpaper with pencilled gift inscription dated [19]10.  (12946)

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

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.

•  This edition not in Vancil or O'Neill. Publisher's quarter black sheep with blue paper covers; front cover printed with replica of title-page and rear cover with ads. Leather pulled at top of spine and front joint opening/fragile. Small amount of rodent activity shows at top of front cover, and first gathering loosening.  (8006)

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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.

Weston’s claim for his systems was that “By this new method any, who can but tolerably write their names in round-hand, may with ease (by this book alone without any teacher) take down from ye speaker’s mouth, any sermon, speech, trial, play, &c., word by word, though they know nothing of Latin, and may likewise read one another’s writing distinctly, be it ever so long after it is written; to perform these by any other short-hand method extant is utterly impossible, as is evident from ye books themselves.” He also addresses the question of speed, assuring the would-be stenographer that in his method “ . . . can be joined in every sentence, at least two, three, four, five, six, seven, or more words together in one without taking off ye pen, in ye twinkling of an eye, and that by the signs of the English moods, tenses, persons, particles, &c., never before invented . . . [,]” the whole of a conversation can be captured.

“A dictionary, or An alphabetical table, containing almost all the words in the English tongue, with the short-hand over against each word,”

•  ESTC T202325. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page and several others rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution — being a “mercantile” library, interesting provenance for a book of this sort. First and last few leaves showing faint waterstaining; pages and plates otherwise generally clean.

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.