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.

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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. Onetime library call number on spine; other library pencillings, but no stamps. Clean copy.

•  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)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

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.

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.

•  Shipton-Mooney 47375; Bristol B9047; Arndt, German Language Printing in the U.S., 965. Not in Evans; not in Parsons. Full calf, antique German-American style. Title-page with insect damage and some small loss of paper; mounted. Occasional bug-spotting. Uniformly age-toned. A solid copy.

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)

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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)

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)

Helmuth's Kurze Andachten, a short collection of morning, evening, and other occasional prayers, was issued with this edition of the hymnal and is usually, as here, bound in at the end.

Provenance: Late-20th-century book label of Michael Zinman on front pastedown.

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 31426; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2032. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 31686; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2034. Contemporary sheep over wooden boards with working brass clasps; spine with raised bands. Scattered abrasions with leather chipped away through to the board on front cover's outer edge. Some pages dog-eared, with spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period.