BIBLIO-GIFTABLES
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Sixty Full-Page Full-Color Illustrations
Narkiss, Bezalel, & Cecil Roth. Illuminated Hebrew manuscripts. New York & London: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, Ltd., 1983. Folio. 175, [1] pp.
$40.00
Lengthy introduction followed by descriptions of 60 manuscripts,
each description with a full-page, full-color illustration. Work ends with a
bibliography.
Publisher's tan cloth, corners bumped, in handsome illustrated
dust-jacket, a bit sunned. A very nice book! (22344)
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“Marble is Never Commonplace”
National Association of Marble Dealers. The everyday uses of marble. Cleveland: The National Association of Marble Dealers, © 1927. 8vo. 76 pp.; illus.
$65.00
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Sole edition: Promoting the usage of marble in banks, bathrooms, churches, gardens, libraries, railroad stations, stores, and just about anywhere else it could be employed architecturally or decoratively. The volume is illustrated with
photographs of a wide variety of interiors and exteriors.
Publisher's brown marbled, textured paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped title. Clean and unworn.
Not a commonplace copy! (26833)
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Making Learning Sweet for
Tommy Gingerbread
[Newbery, John]. The entertaining history of Tommy Gingerbread, a little boy who lived upon learning. Hartford: Hale & Hosmer, 1812 [i.e., 1813?]. 16mo (9.5 cm, 3.75"). 30 pp.; illus.
$175.00
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Based on the classic Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread: Old Gaffer Gingerbread acquaints his son Tommy with upward mobility via the story of Sir Toby Wilson, who had been poor but honest and a hard worker, until he achieved riches. As a result, little Tommy decides he must learn to read, and to obey his parents. This chapbook includes Tommy's method for teaching himself the alphabet, and is illustrated with woodcuts on many pages; WorldCat notes that authorship has been variously attributed to John Newbery, Oliver Goldsmith, Giles Jones, Griffith Jones, and others.
Shaw & Shoemaker 51192; Welch, American Children’s Books, 453.5. Crudely sewn, lacking wrappers. Pages darkened and spotted, with inkstain obscuring small part of title-page and frontispiece image; corners bumped and worn. Early inked annotations on frontispiece recto and elsewhere.
Clearly, a successful inspiration for at least a few small hands to take up pen and ink! (29173)
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Lovely Christian Gift Book — BEAUTIFUL Hand Coloring
Newell, Daniel. The Christian family annual. Vol. 3. New York: Daniel Newell, [1845]. 8vo (22.6 cm, 8.9"). Engr. t.-p., [4], [9]–432 pp.; 11 col. plts., 13 plts.
$125.00
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Third annual volume: The year's issues of the Christian Family Magazine, gathered into a collection of improving essays, short stories, poems, songs (with music), and meditations, edited and published by the Rev. Daniel Newell. The volume is illustrated with an engraved title-page and
24 steel-engraved plates, including 11 hand-colored images of flowers and birds.
Faxon 126. Contemporary half navy morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine gilt extra; lightly/moderately rubbed. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Early leaves and plates with waterstaining along inner/lower portions and later leaves with scattered light spotting, regrettable but not devastating. (27103)
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Bibliophilic High Spots
Newman, Ralph Geoffrey, & Glen Norman Wiche. Great and good books: A bibliographical catalogue of the Limited Editions Club 1929–1985. Chicago: Ralph Geoffrey Newman, Inc., 1989. Folio. ix, [73] pp.; illus.
$95.00
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First edition, limited to 500 copies, of which this is numbered copy 226. The work is illustrated with examples of some of the most significant illustrations and colophons found in the LEC oeuvre; the colophon here is signed by Mortimer J. Adler, who provided the preface.
Publisher's blue-grey cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and LEC compass device, spine with gilt-stamped title. Slipcase lacking. Clean and fresh. (30010)
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Dime
Novel: Secret
Service
New
York Detective, A. The
Bradys and the girl smuggler, or working for the custom house, and other stories.
New York: Frank Tousey, 1914. Folio. 30, [2 (adv.)] pp.
$45.00
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Technically a nickel weekly but really a classic “detective hero” dime novel, this is no. 804 (19 June 1914) of the long-running serial thriller “Secret Service: Old and Young King Brady, Detectives.” The Bradys were a spin-off from Tousey's popular “New York Detective Library” series; early Old King Brady stories were written by Francis Worcester Doughty, with subsequent tales supplied by various in-house writers. The present issue features the
complete title story along with chapters VII and VIII of “Drawer 99 or A detective's Six-Year Search” by Percy B. St. John, chapters IX and X of “Ventriloquist Val or The Mystery of the Dark Room” by Tom Fox, the
complete story “The Witch in the Well,” and an assortment of jokes and odd news clips. (The ads present are their own enhancement.)
Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers, spine chewed and overall with soiling; back cover with tear from upper edge into text without impairment to reading. Paper age-toned; some text pages ragged at edges, again, without harm to reading. (26935)
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Dime Novel: A Yachting Yarn
New York Detective, A. The Bradys on deck or, the mystery of the private yacht. New York: Frank Tousey, 1914. Folio. 30, [2 (adv.)] pp.
$45.00
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Technically a nickel weekly but really a classic “detective hero” dime novel, this is no. 796 (24 April 1914) of the long-running serial thriller “Secret Service: Old and Young King Brady, Detectives.” The Bradys were a spin-off from Tousey's popular “New York Detective Library” series; early Old King Brady stories were written by Francis Worcester Doughty, with subsequent tales supplied by various in-house writers. The present issue features the
complete title story along with the prologue of “Drawer 99 or A detective's Six-Year Search” by Percy B. St. John, chapter III of “Ventriloquist Val or The Mystery of the Dark Room” by Tom Fox, the
complete story “The Traitor's Doom” by Alexander Armstrong, and an assortment of jokes and odd news clips. (The ads present are their own enhancement.)
Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers; spine and edges chewed with overall light soiling. Paper age-toned and actually rather good/strong, of its sort. (26936)
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NOT an Ordinary Widow
Nicholson, Meredith. Lady Larkspur. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1919. 12mo. [10], 171, [1] pp.
$45.00
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First edition of a lighthearted mystery-romance featuring a madcap young widow of questionable provenance and a bit of WWI espionage revolving around her ivory fan. Nicholson was an Indiana-born diplomat as well as a highly successful author, known for his bestsellers House of a Thousand Candles, The Port of Missing Men, and A Hoosier Chronicle.
Signed binding: Publisher's quarter blue cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, front cover with black-stamped title and larkspur decoration, spine with gilt-stamped title and larkspur. The design is signed “C.S.” (unidentified, but not the square letters of C.H. Simonds).
Binding as above, paper split at corners; spine extremities slightly rubbed. Pages faintly age-toned with occasional tiny spots of light foxing, mostly quite clean. (28589)
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First U.S. Edition: Icelandic Travel Book
Nicoll, James. An historical and descriptive account of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1841. 12mo (15.7 cm, 6.2"). Add. engr. t.-p., 360 pp.; 2 fold. maps, 1 plt. (incl. in pagination).
$125.00
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First U.S. edition: Overview of “three of the most singular and interesting
countries on the face of the earth” (p. iii). Printed as no. 131 in the “Family Library” series, the
volume is illustrated with two oversized, folding maps, a view of the Great Geyser of Iceland,
and a vignette of the coast near Stappen (on the additional title-page).
Binding: Publisher's olive-brown vermiform cloth of Krupp's style Mis1, spine with gilt-stamped series and individual title.
Sabin 32058. On binding: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823--50, Mis1. Binding as above, head of spine chipped, front joint with small spot of insect damage. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and small call-number ticket on front pastedown, title-page pressure-stamped, no other markings. First map creased, outer edge slightly tattered. Pages age-toned. A nice copy. (26418)
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The Lady with the Lamp Gives the RULES of
Nursing
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on nursing: What it is, and what it is not. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1860. 12mo (20.2 cm, 8"). 140, [4 (adv.)] pp.
$475.00
First U.S. edition of this classic manual of nursing and hygiene, following the London first of the previous year and preceding the Boston edition of 1860. Present here are Nightingale's thoughts on keeping patients clean, well-nourished, and free of anxiety; above all else, the pioneering practitioner of nursing urges independent thought and careful observation, rather than reliance on “common knowledge.”
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Garrison & Morton 1612 (London ed.). Original textured olive cloth, covers framed in blind, front cover with gilt-stamped title; binding faded with areas of moderate discoloration, most notably at head of spine and adjacently on front cover. Ex–social club library: hand-inked paper shelving label on spine, call numbers on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-page and two others, no other markings. Pages clean. (27884)
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Courting
the Anglo-American Tourist before WWII
Nisizawa, Tekiho. Japanese folk-toys. [Tokyo]: Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, © 1939. 12mo. Col. frontis., 82 pp.; col. illus.
$38.50
First edition: “Tourist Library: 26,” translated by S. Sakabe. Illustrated overview of Japanese toys from the archaic period forward: The illustrations are
in color, and charming.
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Publisher's printed paper wrappers, front wrapper with affixed color-printed illustration; corners and edges rubbed, wrappers sunned and lightly soiled, front wrapper with small area of discoloration from now-absent label. Ex–social club library with its attractive bookplate, back inside wrapper with charge-slip, inked numeral in lower margin of preface, no other markings. Pages clean; a few corners bumped. (27469)
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ROMANTIC
Style & Story — Illustration Suites in Two States
Nodier, Charles. La légende de Soeur Béatrix. Paris: Librairie A. Rouquette, 1903. 4to (25 cm, 9.84"). [2] ff., 67, [1] pp.; [68] ff.
$975.00
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The coloring here is VERY delicate though at the same time rich
our photos really do not do them justice.
Beautiful and scarce. This is signed
no. 1 of an edition of 150 on Japan paper (there were also 10 on “papier vélin” re-imposed in 4s) color printed and with watercoloring after the original by Henri Caruchet, the coloring executed under his direction by artists at the atelier of A. Charpentier et Fils. The title-page is printed in red and black, with Soeur Béatrix's face in a central medallion of blue, grey, and white.
This volume for connoisseurs offers two distinct parts: first, the text printed and all the illustrations present as fully colored, delicately washed in shades of pink, blue, purple, grey, white, and earth tones; and second, a set of the illustrations in proofs uncolored and without text. Most of the illustrations in both suites are
initialed by Caruchet.
Jean Emmanuel Charles Nodier (1780–1844) was a French author and librarian, appointed to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in 1824. His literary style
much influenced the Romantics, including Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset. This legend, first published in La Revue de Paris (1838), is representative of his fantastical oeuvre. It was later adapted into a French opera (Béatrice, 1914) and a film (1923).
Signed Binding: Crushed half milk chocolate morocco over marbled paper boards signed “V. Champs,” gilt author, title, and date to spine; patterned marbled endpapers (different from the covers). Original gilt and hand-colored stiff cream wrappers bound in, showing Béatrix full-figure on the front, her hands extended outward beneath the gilt title.
Provenance: An initialed ink inscription beneath the Justification du tirage states this copy was “Offert à Madame Conquet” — who must have been related to
M.L. Conquet, “the great Paris publisher of works of the romantic school,” whose publications were famous for being very limited editions and for the “high artistic quality of their illustrations” (“Books and Authors,” The New York Times, 26 March 1898).
Carteret, V, 141; Vicaire, VI, 179. Binding as above. One small nick on the front leather near the spine, and board extremities (paper and leather) lightly rubbed. The publisher's authentication embossed stamp below the limitation statement. Text clean, unblemished.
Simply, excellent. (30135)
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U.S.
Periodical
for Children Festively
Illustrated
The
nursery a monthly magazine for youngest readers. Volume
XXI & volume XXII. Boston: John L. Shorey, 1877. 4to (20.2 cm, 8"). iv,
188, iv, 188 pp.; illus.
$125.00
Click
the images for enlargement.
Charming and charmingly illustrated Victorian tales, poems,
and songs for children, many featuring animals — plus a series of lessons
on astronomy. Almost every page incorporates a steel- or wood-engraved image;
variously sized, many of these are full-page. (The final illustration, of
a young miss playing piano with her little lapdog “singing” along,
is especially appealing.) Music is included for “The Old Year and the
New,” “Chipperee, Chip,” “Song of the Cat,”
and many other tunes.

The Nursery was published from January 1867 through October 1880; it was originally
edited by Fanny P. Seaverns, although it is not entirely clear who was serving as editor at the
time of the production of the present two volumes.
Contemporary half roan and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and date;
binding scuffed. Two leaves with chips in lower margins, with loss of about four letters; two
pages with spots of staining, pages otherwise clean. This copy evidently was never abused by
childish hands, although the magazine certainly deserved to be pored over — really, this is a
wonderful little book. (29570)
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Our State in the '20s
Nutting, Wallace. Pennsylvania beautiful (Eastern). New York: Bonanza Books, 1988. 8vo. 302 pp.; illus.
$21.50
With more than 300 photographs of rural Pennsylvania, taken in the years 192324.
Publisher's cloth. Near fine copy, with a near fine dust jacket.
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