All 16th-century editions are scarce. Via NUC, OCLC and RLIN we locate only this copy of this edition (now deaccessioned) and that at Princeton.

Binding: Contemporary alum-tawed sheep over wooden boards with partially bevelled edges. Elaborately blind-embossed with a roll and a center panel ornament. Front cover with initials “H. S.” and date “1597” in gilt. Rear cover with gilt putti in the areas where initials and the date appear on the front.

Evidence of readership: Marginalia in the prefatory index; very scattered early underscoring.

•  VD16 A969; Goedeke, II, 8. Binding as above, lacking clasps and with old paper spine label; ex-library with bookplate and call number in old, faded, white numbering on spine. Title-page browned and tipped in; loss of paper to fore- and bottom margins of same. Some age-toning to paper and several leaves with natural paper flaws, repaired with archival tissue; three other leaves also with natural paper flaws repaired at time of binding or shortly after printing. Approximately 12 leaves with inkstains, sometimes obscuring text. One leaf (178) with a hole costing a significant loss of text. A marginally acceptable copy as regards text, in a good binding.

This edition has a handsome, single-unit woodcut title-border incorporating pillars, stags, vines, and cherubs. The text is in fraktur, of course.

Rare: WorldCat locates only one copy of any edition in the U.S. (at Emory — this edition), while VD16 locates three German copies each for the Augsburg and Würzburg editions and only a microform of the Strassburg printing.

•  Kuczynsk 579; VD16 S3433.   Removed from a nonce volume. One small area of discoloration on title-page. Very good condition.  (25922)

During the Bern Disputation (1528) Althamer stood and defended the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper.

This is printed in gothic type and offers a title-page graced by a four-element woodcut border composed of floral, avian, and animal motifs, with putti not forgotten.

Provenance: Ownership signature on title-page of Howard Osgood, noted late 19th- and early 20th-century collector and scholar; old circular pressure-stamp on same page of a seminary (properly released).

WorldCat finds two copies in North America, one of which has been deaccessioned, and COPAC finds two copies in Great Britain, both at the British Library.

•  Hillerbrand, Anabaptism,3577; VD16 ZV2334 or ZV2333 or B6972 (all listed without attrib. author).   Removed from a nonce volume, provenance indications as above. Light dust-soiling to exterior paper; minor library pencillings and one old inked numeral; limited brown stain in blank area of last leaf, offsetting to previous page opposite. A few instances of marginal notation or textual correction in old ink and an old hand.  (25960)

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The work is highly illustrated and the engravings, being16 folding maps/plans, and 18 folding plates, are of battles, plans of fortresses, maps of areas, statutes, etc. Three double-page engraved tables are of scripts. The in-text illustrations, which are just as detailed and impactful, are numerous.

An important book on the rising Dutch presence in the East Indies and concomitant diminution of the Portuguese hegemony. This is the first edition in German; a Dutch-language edition also appeared in 1672.

•  Landwehr, VOC, 557. 18th-century calf, gilt spine extra. Binding shows wear, with abrasions and leather lost; joints starting. Once in a library and bearing the odd pencilling, but no stamps. Clean copy.

•  Contemporary German half-calf with tan paper over the boards, the paper sprinkled with black. Leather of corners worn and almost gone; leather of spine also worn with spine label missing; a perfectly solid copy however. Internally some age-toning only. All edges red. A very good copy.  (25049)

•  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)

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Uncommon: Fewer than nine copies located in U.S. libraries.

•  Goldsmiths’-Kress 16971. Period-style speckled paper, spine with printed paper title and publication labels. Title-page and one other rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution (being a “mercantile” library, intereting provenance for this work; title-page with short tear from upper margin (touching one word of title) repaired some time ago. Pages age-toned; first few leaves with inner margins waterstained.

The volume is illustrated with an oversized, folding engraved map captioned in English.

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only nine U.S. holdings (one deaccessioned).

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 32415.2; Sabin 9688. On Buxton, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online and Allibone, 317.   Boards covered with German-style black-flecked brown paper, spine with printed paper label. Pages slightly age-toned, with a very few scattered instances of light spotting; map with faint offsetting and short tear along lower inner margin, not touching image. An attractive copy.  (25325)

This handsome and SCARCE book is famous for its woodcut illustrations: It has one quarter-page, four half-page, one three-quarter page, and eleven full-page woodcuts. These include battle scenes, the assassination, camp life, etc., all of the figures being dressed anachronistically in Renaissance garb.

The text is printed in large gothic in double-column format.

•  Index Aurel. 128.654; Schmidt, Repertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois, no. 91, p. 40–41; Schweiger, II, 51; not in Adams (who only lists much later editions in German). Recased in an 18th-century vellum-over-boards binding. Sophisticated copy in all likelihood, with several leaves apparently supplied from a different copy, those leaves being either slightly smaller than the others or more heavily sized. Occasional light waterstains in from a very few margins; two leaves with old scribbling in ink in margins; minor worming in lower margin of last six leaves. A very nice copy of a very scarce book that is clearly difficult to find complete, incomplete, or sophisticated.

A very handsome production.

•  Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked with speckled calf; gilt-stamped leather spine-label. Verso of front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1816. Title-page partially separated from bottom up, and with shadow of old pencilled numeral. A good clean copy.  (18542)

Edited by Johann Andreas Cramer (1723–88), a poet, hymnographer, and theologian at the Christian Albrecht's University of Kiel, the hymnal's text is printed in fraktur, with a title-page vignette showing the royal cipher of Christian VII of Denmark and with a few woodcut tailpieces, one handsomely showing the royal arms of Denmark, including Schleswig and Holstein.

Provenance: Bookplate: "Aus der Bibliothek von Oskar Hagen;" Ink inscription opposite the title-page, noting the volume's donation in honor of Thura Niemann, d. 1870.

•  Contemporary black sheep; covers modestly decorated in blind with a ruled border, tiny roundels at corners, and strokes resembling stitching at spine. Worn with a little leather lost at spine and corners; front joint opening. All edges gilt and gauffered; wallpaper style endpapers. A shaken volume: Some quires coming loose and some page corners bumped with loss of gilding. Pages shaved, just touching running heads in some places; all pages lightly age-toned but otherwise clean, save small light stain to title-page and darker one to p. 319 of first work. Pressed leaf laid in.

Click the title-page image for an enlargement.

The main title-page is printed in black and red, the text in black letter (i.e., gothic, fraktur) and the footnotes in roman.

•  Contemporary vellum over paste boards; later paper spine label with hand lettering; small area of lower spine with black spots. Vellum loosening at the turn-ins. Board edges soiled. Few stray stains in some margins. Private bookplate.

Of this account of the expedition, Howgego (II, 167) writes that it “provided a wealth of new material on the African interior but so belittled Clapperton's contribution that it almost reads as thought Denham was travelling alone.” Clapperton had left Denham in England to write the account while he returned to Africa to again explore the Niger, thus enabling Denham to do his dirty, self-aggrandizing deed.

In this German edition the two folding plates are of various tribesmen (and -women). One map is quite large.

•  Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration, II, 132–34, 166–67; Henze, I, 571; II, 49; III, 675; Embacher 95; Kainbacher, I, 39.   Modern boards covered in the19th-century German style with brown paper speckled in black, with a brown leather spine label lettered in gilt. Two leaves closely trimmed in foremargins, with no loss of text. A very good copy.  (23123)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Binding: Publisher's crimson cloth, front cover and spine gilt- and black-stamped, back cover black-stamped. All edges gilt. Actually, breathtaking.

•  Binding as above, clean and bright with only very faint traces of wear to corners and joints. Pages clean; some lower outer corners slightly crumpled. It is hard to imagine a better copy.  (23709)

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Present here are 76 sermons, being vol. 4 of Eck's Christliche Auslegung der Evangelien. The volumes were all issued separately over the course of several years, by different publishers, and all are treated as stand-alone productions by VD16 and all bibliographies as well as library catalogues.

The work is printed in gothic type (as one would expect) and is illustrated with ten nice-sized (9 x 6.5 cm; 3.5" x 2.5") woodcut illustrations, including the woodcut of The Crucifixion that occupies the otherwise blank verso of the next to last leaf. The title-page is printed in black and red, the printing contained within a single-element woodcut border; this is composed of 14 shields and has at the center top a bishop's hat and tassels.

Provenance:  Ownership signature of Joannes Bintengerber (1579); unidentified 16th- or early 17th-century ownership mark in ink on top edge of volume (resembling a brand mark); Howard Osgood (late 19th-, early 20th-century collector and Baptist minister and teacher); later in collection of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (deaccessioned, with their old circular pressure-stamp partially discernable on title-page).

Evidence of readership: Scattered marginalia (e.g. 68r, 96v, 97r, 120r, 137r, 140v, 155v), usually short but not always.

Rare: Via OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 we trace only 4 copies in U.S. libraries.

•  VD16 E288.   Full modern calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented with gilt rules; red leather title label; rules in blind extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils with blind double fillets beyond. Title-leaf with repairs to foremargin and to small losses in five places at or within the borders; same instances affect four places in the text on the verso. Foremargins of some other early and late leaves a little tattered and irregular, with some repair; endpapers soiled and one other leaf soiled in outer margin; leaf A6 repaired in inner margin. Pin-hole type worming, not serious, in the text at times; waterstain in inner margin of some leaves; outer corners, especially upper ones, bumped/creased in first part. Ownership inscriptions and marginalia as noted. Despite flaws that must be recounted, a sound and handsome book.  (25415)

Schrodt and Vogelstein offer a different summary: “The letters refer to an invitation sent to Eck by Zwingli, Haller and Kolbe, all of them evangelical preachers, to participate in a religious disputation scheduled to take place in Bern. The first letter, addressed to the confederation, explains courteously enough that he, Eck, does not intend to follow the call of the three proven heretics individually, a call not issued by the civic authorities. Not that he is afraid of their arguments; but he insists on an authoritative invitation and presence.

The other letters are framed in very aggressive and personally offensive language but carry the same message. Eck challenges the evangelical disputants to appear with him before any of the Catholic potentates, spiritual or secular, or any of the great (Catholic) universities, and he would shatter their heretical arguments.”

This pamphlet is type-signed, “Johan. Eck. inquisitor.”

WorldCat locatesonly one copy in North America and one in Great Britain; COPAC locates an additional one in Britain.

•  VD16 E422; Kuczynski 650; Hohenemser 3352; Pegg, Swiss Libraries, 1496; Schrodt & Vogelstein 64.   Removed from a nonce volume. Spine with a reinforcing strip of 19th-century German scrap paper. Title lightly dust-soiled and evidence of old erased pencilling. A clean, good copy.  (25964)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with ownership inscription by Henry Binkly, dated 1833; several laid-in slips of paper include a recipe for hair dye and a concoction involving sulphur, sugar of lead, and bay rum.

•  Shoemaker 8591; First Century of German Language Printing in the U.S., 2565. Contemporary sheep framed in blind, spine with blind-ruled raised bands, abraded but solid. One clasp lacking, one present and working. Moderate foxing; one sectional title with pencilled annotations. Clearly a volume that saw both use and reasonable care. Plain, and pleasing.

The title-page wood engraving is signed “Whitney” — possibly Elias James Whitney.

•  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped pictorial vignette in blind-stamped frame; cloth with spots of discoloration, corners and spine extremities a little rubbed. Light to moderate foxing/spotting. Charming.  (23911)

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 43969 ( = 43951); Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2286. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 44299; Arndt 2288.   Contemporary black roan in imitation of straight-grain morocco, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding with minor scuffing, spine with faintly visible scuff from now-absent shelving label. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped; back pastedown with Pennsylvania bookseller's small ticket. Expectable spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period. A few page corners dog-eared.  (24426)