Five Thousand Receipts was first printed in America in 1826, and enjoyed as enthusiastic a reception in the United States as it previously had in England. This is the fourth American edition, here in the Kay variant giving “122 Chestnut Street – near 4th” as the publisher's address.

Provenance: Francis Kelsey, New York City.

•  Bitting 299; Lowenstein 122; Shoemaker 39366.   Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations; worn and abraded, joints open and fragile, front cover darkened, leather lost at spine extremities. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription; front fly-leaf with small hole and pencilled annotations. Pages with varying degrees of age-toning and spotting, several signatures deeply browned. Some corners dog-eared. One leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into text without loss; one leaf with internal closed tear, without loss. Used, as this usually was!  (27405)

Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover with double iris design stamped in green, white, and violet.

•  Binding as above, minimal rubbing only. Pages and plates clean. A beautiful copy.  (28613)

Signed binding:  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; Celtic knotwork-inspired medallion decoration stamped on cover and spine in gray and maroon. Front cover with “F” monogram (Charles Buckles Falls?).

•  Binding as above, minimal wear only to extremities, head of spine with very minor spot of darkening. Front free endpaper with gift inscription dated Christmas, 1904. One leaf with short tear from lower margin, not touching text. A few signatures opened slightly unevenly; pages clean.  (28593)

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a good dust jacket; some nicks along the lower edge of the jacket's near panel and head of the spine.

•  Publisher's red cloth in dust wrapper, jacket not price-clipped; dust jacket rubbed and chipped at extremities and along upper back edge, light dustsoiling to portion of back cover.  (24682)

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Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, covers decoratively blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title. In its modest, subtle (and difficult to photograph!) way, this is avery handsome binding.

•  Bound as above; binding very slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing. Ex–social club library: call numbers on fly-leaves, rubber-stamp on title-page and two others, no other markings. Pages clean save for slight offsetting from stamps. A nice copy.  (28238)

•  Cahoon, 42.   Quarter gilt cloth and boards, gilt label. Fine in tissue dust jacket.  (24865)

This example is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed, signed at the colophon by the illustrator; the appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 269.   Binding as above, in publisher's original slipcase; spine leather dried and chipping, slipcase with small scratches and mild shelfwear. Quite sound, and internally very clean and crisp; in fact, depending on taste, the look of the spine can suggest survivorship of a sort that Marcus Aurelius would have appreciated!  (30121)

Author's presentation copy:  Signed by Markham, with an inscription “with my friendly greetings” to a theological seminary, dated 1933.

•  Mounted on cardboard. Age-toned, edges darkened; clean and unchipped.  (26119)

•  NSTC 2S18901. Removed from a nonce volume. (16764)

•  Contemporary gilt-stamped green cloth with a bit of light wear to the head and foot of the spine, otherwise bright and lovely. Some page edges uncut. (10569)

Binding:  Original russet brown morocco, covers gilt-stamped with arabesque and foliate motifs, spine gilt extra. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. All edges gilt.

•  Binding very lightly rubbed with corners bumped and spine a bit sunned. Small rectangular piece (1.5" x .5") cut out from top third of front free endpaper and front flyleaf; title-page once with similar excision, sometime very well repaired. Mildly ex-library with pastedowns showing signs of once-present bookplates, etc., five-digit number rubber-stamped at base of p. [iii], and some light penciling; otherwise, scattered old spots only. A handsome book, strong and with its gilt still bright.  (20789)

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The volume is illustrated with an added engraved title-page and three steel-engraved plates, done by O. Pelton after designs by T.B. Read and Beaume, and by Charles Phillips after Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Signed binding: Hunter green embossed morocco, covers with cherub vignette in foliate frame; the embossed panel was designed by Francis N. Mitchell and engraved by Alex C. Morin, and the binding was done by Benjamin Bradley, with all three names stamped in panel. All edges gilt.

•  Faxon 713. On binding, see: Wolf, From Gothic Windows to Peacocks, 178; Spawn & Kinsella, American Signed Bindings, 53.   Binding as above, extremities with very minor rubbing; frontispiece lacking. Offsetting from plates, two pages with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item, scattered light spotting elsewhere. A gorgeous example of the binding, with interesting reading inside.  (26737)