Click the interior image for an enlargement.

We find only two U.S. locations and a copy at the British Library.

•  Publisher’s printed paper wrappers; edges nicked, paper split and chipping along spine, text block cracked. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate. Lower margins of title-page and preface waterstained, inner margin of frontispiece waterstained; upper margin of title-page with portion torn away. Some plates lightly foxed or browned, one with waterstaining in lower margin. Pages untrimmed. One’s sense is that this was USED as a guidebook!

•  Barbier, II, 171; Weller, Falsche Druckorte, II, 197.   19th-century boards covered with German mottled paper, spine with inked title-label; binding abraded, spine label darkened. Ex-library with lined-through call number label to spine, front pastedown with institutional bookplate, first text page with inked numeral in lower margin. Front free endpaper with inked inscription in Greek. A few instances of light foxing, pages mostly clean.  (19717)

Nine plates are included, the last of which an impressively oversized, folding map in French and Russian showing the river route from Yakutsk to Okhotsk; the map is labelled, “Par un Anglois nommé William Walton qui en envoya l‘original à Mr. Visher à Petersbourg le 15 fevrier 1743” and “Calquée d‘après l‘original et gravée par E. Dussy.”

•  Sabin 77608. Mottled calf, worn and cracking, covers framed with triple gilt fillets; spine with five raised, abraded bands and gilt-stamped, chipped floral devices in compartments. Front joint cracked and back starting, with cords holding. Some loss of leather to corners, base of spine.  Bookplate of the Bibliotheca Sobolewskiana.  Edges marbled; most pages clean, a few with varying offsetting.

Very uncommon. OCLC and ESTC report only one holding, at Stanford.

•  Original printed boards, worn, paper almost entirely lost over spine. Without endpapers, apparently as bound. Sewing loosening, with several leaves separated. Scattered spots of mild foxing. Despite faults noted, a charmer.

The work is generally attributed to the Comte de Ségur, a diplomat and historian who served under Rochambeau in the American War of Independence; he also published works on classical and Jewish history.

•  Old-style blue morocco, covers framed in double gilt fillets, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped devices in compartments, leather turndowns tooled in blind. Tear in upper margin of one leaf repaired very unobtrusively; several leaves with closed tears or holes also professionally patched, just touching a few letters; one leaf with clear tape covering tear. Pages washed, resized, and very clean, with only a few faint spots; edges slightly brittle, with occasional very short tears.

For NAPOLEANA,  click here.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Provenance:  Howard Osgood's signature on title-page.

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 2558; Wing (2nd ed.) S3801B.   Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label, board edges stamped with gilt roll; corners and spine extremities worn, front joint cracked and back joint starting, sewing holding. Front pastedown with small French bookseller's ticket and early inked numeral. Title-page with small early inked owner's name and with institutional pressure stamp, reverse with pencilled numerals. Pages clean. (19511)

•  Not in Von Hunersdorff, Coffee. Publisher's embossed gilt-paper binding, moderately worn with the spine and board edges a bit darkened; still a very attractive, unusual binding. Front pastedown with small bookseller's ticket and with remnants of a school prize bookplate. Pages mostly clean, with scattered hints of light foxing. (10592)

For INVENTIONS,  click here.

Illustrator Rafaello Busoni created the book’s numerous in-text and nine full-page lithographs in two colors, and signed the colophon. Designer George Macy chose a monotype Cochin font to be used at the Printing House of Leo Hart, and decreed a binding of imported cream linen stamped in brown, with French handmade marbled paper sides in various hues of brown.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 261. In original slipcase with a very faint crack to spine paper; exposed parts darkened and some soiling and spots generally, with shelf-scrape marks; still, sturdy and on shelf satisfactory. Of the well-protected book, a near-fine copy.