illustrated with six plates

•  Brunet, II, 1568.   Contemporary treed calf, covers framed in gilt Greek key roll, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; rubbed with leather lost at corners and spine head, front joint starting from foot. Pages lightly age-toned with scattered faint spotting; plates clean and fresh.  (26987)

“Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature,”

The work was additionally printed in Dublin and Basil in the same year. OCLC notes that a third volume was printed almost ten years later, by J. Murray; that supplementary volume is not present here.

Signed binding: Contemporary treed calf, covers framed in gilt rolls, beautifully rebacked with gilt-stamped spines preserving handsome original gilt-stamped, two-color leather title and volume labels, turn-ins with gilt rolls. Front pastedown of vol. I with binder's ticket: “Pigge Binders, Lynn.”

A charming silhouette of Gibbon serves as frontispiece to volume I.

•  ESTC T79696; Allibone 663; Brunet, II, 1586; Norton, Gibbon, 131.   Bindings as above with original leather showing some scuffs and abrasions; gilt on original spine labels a little (but a little only) dimmed. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Final page of each volume, back pastedown of vol. I, and title-page of vol. II institutionally rubber-stamped; no other such marks. Intermittent spots of light foxing. A lovely, wide-margined, archetypically “18th-century” quarto production for this quintessentially 18th-century writer.  (23770)

•  A copy in lovely condition, imperceptibly rebacked with the original spine retained. Original wrappers bound in. Protected in a crimson morocco-edged slipcase.

A PRB&M “FEATURED BOOK”  —
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•  Original printed wrappers; dusty, with chipping, and front one now separated. Paper lost at top of spine along front joint. The whole, fragile and wanting to separate between signatures. (Our interior image tends a bit to pink tone that is not actually present, FYI.) Now housed in a simple acid-free phase box.

Over60 large woodcuts illustrate the text, with some images appearing in both sections. The volume concludes with several poems on the themes of life, death, and the afterlife.

Uncommon: We trace only nine copies in the U.S., all but one in libraries east of the Mississippi.

•  Fairfax-Murray, French, 108; Morin, Bibliothèque bleue de Troyes, 435; Nisard, Histoire des Livres Populaires, II, 303. Binding with old, good repairs to head and foot of spine; joints and corners with additional subtly neat repairs and refurbishment. Pages lightly age-toned, with some signature marks and a few bottom lines shaved; a treasure from multiple points of view.

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Pages lightly creased but clean.  (27789)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Brunet, III, 39; Osler, Biblotheca Osleriana, 5950 (first ed.). 19th-century quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and raised bands ruled in gilt fillets; edges and spine moderately rubbed, paper chipped over corners, corners bumped. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean.

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•  Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped decorative motifs and gilt-stamped leather title label. Front pastedown with bookseller's ticket. Light waterstaining to lower inner margins of first and last sections (you can see the degree of this, at left), pages otherwise generally clean. A charming gift for a French speaker with maritime interests! (9091)

The listings are augmented in the first three volumes by numerous in-text reproductions of illustrations and title-pages from the books. This copy includesauction prices neatly inked alongside every book.

•  Contemporary treed sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and gilt-ruled bands; sides showing minor rubbing, edges, joints, and extremities moreso. All hinges (inside) cracked or tender, some endpapers with pencilled notations. Vol. I: Two pages with light offsetting from now-absent item, one leaf with lower outer corner torn away. Vol. IV with bookplate of Alvaro de Fontagud y Aguilera. Pages gently age-toned, most noticeably in vol. IV, with occasional light smudges; each volume with last page browned.  (29161)

Binding:  19th-century crushed half black levant morocco over black and white marbled paper; binding signed on verso of front free endpaper withminute stamp of [Leon] Lemardeley. Spine with raised bands, gilt above, below, and on each; gilt-tooled skull and crossbones in three compartments, a flame in two others, and author and title in the remaining one. Gilt rule where the half leather meets the marbled paper on each cover. Green and red French swirl marbled endpapers. Silk ribbon place marker. All leaves tipped to stubs. Uncut copy.

•  Warthin, The Physician of the Dance of Death, pp. 79–80; NSTC B3545. Binding as above, signed as above; front joint, front hinge (inside) and corners refurbished/strengthened with toned long-fiber tissue, edges and back joint lightly rubbed. Age-spotting on pages and plates, generally light; some off-setting from the plates. Bookseller's catalogue description clipped and pasted to front pastedown. Dealer's letter pasted to rear pastedown. Two uncalled-for plates.  This is a pleasing, better than “decent” copy priced well below excellent ones in contemporary bindings.  (25933)