BIBLIO-GIFTABLES

“The Vast Antiquity of Our Species”

•  “Being a glance at Man in his natural-history relations.” First U.S. edition, following the Edinburgh first of the preceding year. The title-page is printed in black and red.

•  Publisher's cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; small discolored spot on spine from now-absent label. Front pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings). (19153)

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“ETC., ETC.” Indeed

•  “With a full account of the sieges of Metz in 1444 and 1552; the capture of Strasburg in 1681, etc., etc.”

•  NSTC 0012071.   In original printed wrappers. Spine chipped; light staining to wrappers. Ex–historical society copy: rubber-stamps, including ones on front wrapper and title-page. Inked ownership inscription on front wrapper. Eight entirely charming leaves of advertisements bound in at end, of which the last has been excised (and this has been priced accordingly). (6456)

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Spenser Susan Hawk Trouble

•  First trade edition, first printing.

•  Fine copy in fine dust jacket, the flaps unclipped and retaining original price and month/year printing code.

“Now the Sun Shone . . .”

•  First edition: The third portion of Parkman’s “France and England in North America” historical narrative series, also published under the title LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West. Focusing on the exploration and settlement of the Mississippi, the work provides much information on LaSalle’s exploits, as well as on the Native Americans of the region.

•  Publisher’s cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine with small area of light discoloration, binding otherwise clean and intact with only very minor signs of wear to corners and spine extremities. Front pastedown with 19th-century collector’s bookplate and with institutional stamp (no other markings). Page edges slightly brittle, with two short edge tears not extending into text.

TIKAL

•  Prints of the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal, in Guatemala, each about 13.1" x 13.1" (33.5 cm x 33.5 cm). We fail to trace this item via OCLC.

•  Art portfolio (with small stain) containing ten prints. Four prints in fine condition, one print with small spot of soil at inner edge and at one corner (otherwise very good), and five of the remaining prints once framed, now removed; remnants of glue from old brown tape along edges, acids from the frame have darkened the back (blank) sides. One plate with tear (repaired) extending slightly into illustration. (13573)

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A Book for All Seasons

•  The Limited Editions Club offers this edition of An Almanac for Moderns—Donald Peattie's daily records of the flora, fauna, and constellations of an unnamed geographical place. In his introduction to the book, he writes, "[The Almanac was] not written . . . as an ordinary diary, even a Nature record of some particular year. The Almanac was conceived rather as the common experience of any year, with its impact of seasonal sight and sound, and its glimpses of the birds' ways and the slow self-robing and disrobing of the woods. Still more it is intended to convey the overtones of these events as they ring upon a modern ear with a scientific training."

Asa Cheffetz illustrated the book with idyllic wood engravings of rural life. Lester Douglas designed the text using an intertype Egmont Medium; it was printed by Judd & Detweiler. The binding is full spring-green linen with the title stamped on the spine in gold; the tree design on the front cover is stamped in black and the signs of the zodiac, which circle around the tree, are stamped in gold.

Limited to 1500 copies, this edition is signed on the colophon page by Asa Cheffetz.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 100. A very good copy with the slipcase. A bookplate may once have been present inside front cover; the small gilt label of bookseller Philip Duchnes appears inside the back cover.

SignedLeather Gift-Book Binding

•  First edition thus, with contents matching 1854's “Garland” according to Faxon.

Binding:  Publisher's bright red sheep in imitation of morocco, covers and spine gilt extra with arabesque and foliate designs. All edges gilt. Ticket inside back cover claims this as the work of “B. Bradley & Co. Boston.”

•  Faxon 24.   Leather worn over edges and joints, with joints starting; top inch of spine along back joint with sliver of leather missing. First and last few leaves foxed, with some additional foxing in proximity to plates, and pages gently age-toned.  (12953)

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Covers withEmbossed Paper Onlays

•  Eighth in the popular “Garland” series of American gift books. Although Faxon claims that the plates have been omitted from this retitled version of 1854's “Amaranth,” this copy has four plates in addition to the frontispiece. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Binding:  Publisher's red cloth, covers embossed and gilt-stamped, each cover with chromolithographed paper illustration affixed; spine gilt extra. All edges gilt.

•  Faxon 259.   Binding slightly dimmed overall, scuffed at edges and joints. Front free endpaper with owner's inscription dated 1869. A few spots of foxing, mostly in proximity to plates.  (12931)

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Show-Offs!

•  Edited by Tannegui Lefebvre, these fables and aphorisms were printed as a specimen of the Imprimerie Royale’s small-sized type. In an era of type scalable at the touch of a button, it is easy to forget what extraordinary skill and labor were involved in setting such tiny, tiny type as this, letter by letter — remembered, it is perhaps all the more awesome.

We've made no picture that shows this minute setting — unless the image were huge, you couldn't read the text anyway!

The engraved frontispiece, at left, was done by Ph. Simonneau.

•  Schweiger, II, 736. 19th-century stamped paper–covered limp boards, spine with later inked label affixed by tape; small scuff to front cover. Pages gently age-toned, with a few small spots of foxing.

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Meant for theRailroad Mens' Wives?

•  Brief scientific answers to such domestic mysteries as “Why does cooking vegetables render them digestible?,” “Why do mustard poultices cause the skin to blister?,” and “Why should bedsteds not be placed against walls?” The book was intended to encourage women's enthusiasm for their household chores by providing rational explanations for tasks that might otherwise seem like meaningless drudgery; Philp offers scientific principles underlying, e.g., points of nutrition, cookery, weather warning signs, children's health, dress, decoration, and other necessities of a well-ordered home. Click the images for enlargements.

Some of the science is now of questionable authority (and may have been even at the time of this publication), as in the answer to “What is supposed to be the proximate cause of sleep?” — “An impeded motion of the nervous fluid to the brain, produced by a mechanical compression or collapse of the nerves” (p. 176).

Provenance: Front and back pastedowns rubber-stamped by the Railroad Mens' Reading Room of Sayre, Pennsylvania (“Contributed by Henry C. Davis”); bookseller's label of a firm in Glasgow. Faint oval rubber-stamp on fly-leaf of Richard Hutchinson(?), New Brunswick (probably in England), with pencilled date, 1858.

•  NSTC 2P15178.   Publisher's green moiré cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped candle vignette surrounded by blind-stamped title and arabesques, spine with gilt-stamped title and back cover blind-stamped; binding lightly rubbed, with spine somewhat sunned and covers with streaks of discoloration. Front hinge (inside) tender; paper across back hinge cracked. Pastedowns and fly-leaf markings as above and two text pages rubber-stamped by the Railroad Men; two leaves of publisher's advertising affixed at front.  (23715)

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The Original Is atThe Morgan

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Reproduction of an illuminated manuscript belonging to The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. Introduction and commentaries by Webster Smith accompanying full-page, full-color reproductions of leaves from the book of hours. Selective bibliography.

•  Faux brown suede, blind-stamped on front and back covers and stamped in silver on the spine. Binding protected by a paper chemise and volume in a gilt-stamped slipcase graced with a full-color reproduction of a full-page miniature from the manuscript; bottom edge of slipcase (only) bumped.  Excellent copy.  (21763)

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Printed in Black & Red — Woodcut Initials — PLANTIN LEAVES

•  Each leaf now available has a single woodcut historiated initial measuring about 30 x 30 mm or 1 1/4" by 1 1/4", not colored or illuminated but bordered and highlighted in red.
Each: $30.00

Available AT THIS WRITING, subject to prior sale: C (the Israelites gathering manna), D (man kneeling in prayer, before a radiance), I, M (woman giving alms), S, and V (the Ascension).

•  Each leaf is offered unmatted, in a museum-recommended and -approved clear Mylar sleeve that will allow it to be enjoyed without worry of soiling it with hand oils or dust.

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“Monotony FindsNO Place at the Vegetarian Table”

•  Stated second edition, published in the same year as the first. These recipes are intended specifically for English chefs, in an attempt to remedy the reputation held by vegetarians of that nationality as being “bad cooks” (p. 5).

The advertisements at the back of the volume promote other vegetarian cookbooks, a vegetarian restaurant “a few doors from Holborn,” and the entrepreneurial lady's own line of concentrated essences, food colors, nut mills, etc.

•  Bitting 377.   Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black and gilt; cloth slightly wrinkled over front cover, corners and spine extremities rubbed, spine gilt dimmed. Front pastedown with bookseller's small ticket, front free endpaper with pencilled owner's name. Pages clean. (20641)

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Notable for Pleasing Condition

•  “Designed for Sabbath Schools and Bible Classes.” The American Baptist Publication Society was located at 530 Arch Street, Philadelphia, from 1858 to 1876.

So many of the miracles being cures, this has medical connections — if not, exactly, medical “content.”

•  Publisher's printed cream paper covered boards with cloth spine; corners a little bumped and cover a very little bit age-toned and soiled. Title and contents page only show a bit of foxing. Clean and complete — a very nice copy.  (21700)

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Westward!

Post, Charles Cyrel.

•  Novel about the 1880 gunfight at Mussel Slough, in California, between settlers and the agents of the Southern Pacific Railroad. With engraved plates. Testimonials (in the back) compare it to "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

•  Publisher's brown cloth, stamped in black and silver; front and spine with decorated with a frontier scene showing Conestoga wagons in a wilderness landscape with rising sun in the background. (We can't seem to get a photograph of this that doesn't "glare out.")  Bright with a few flecks of white (paint?). Spine slightly rubbed on joints and at head and base. Pages toned. Good+. (20739)

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“I am dear Frida yrs affectionately, Beatrix Potter”

•  Nine letters, with pictures, written by Miss Potter to her young friends are reproduced here in facsimile, from the originals owned by Philip Hofer, who supplied the foreword. A transcription of the letters is printed in the back. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Publisher's blue gilt-stamped cloth, with a gilt image of Peter Rabbit on the front cover. A fine copy.  (23454)

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Lovely Copy

•  Part of the “Lovell's Library” series, this collection proclaims itself the “Complete Edition” of the works of a tremendously popular 19th-century English poet. The volume begins with an introduction by Charles Dickens, for whom Procter had written a number of pieces under the pseudonym Mary Berwick, and contains six wood-engraved plates. Procter's poetry, always of a spiritual/religious bent, was deeply affected by her early conversion to Catholicism and her strong zeal for charity. Each page is bordered in red rules.

Binding: Publisher's red cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black and gilt, boards with beveled edges.

•  A lovely bright copy with spine gilt a bit less bright than cover gilding; small smudges to edges, joints, and back cover. Front pastedown with small owner's ticket and inked notation dated [19]72.  (22042)

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Illustrations by Dulac

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  This eccentric Russian fairy-tale is retold here in prose by Edmund Dulac, the noted children's book illustrator, from the poem by Alexander Pushkin. Dulac, in the foreword, asserts that the meaning of the tale is not easily understood, seeing it as belonging to a “class of folk tales that start as clear and simple myths and . . . have other myths or incidents, often irrelevant, added to them from generation to generation in order to make them more entertaining.” However, it has usually been interpreted as a kind of political satire.

Edmund Dulac created the book's enchanting illustrations, consisting of 10 full-page and six in-text watercolors, a two-color decorative title-page, and decorative head- and tailpieces, and initials, also in two colors. Ernest Ingham designed the book using a monotype Poliphilus font.

The binding is full Russian-red cloth with apolished brass design of a cockerel set in the front cover and a gilt-lettered title on the spine. This edition is limited to 1500 copies and this offering includes the monthly mailing notice.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 205.   Binding as above. In a glassine wrapper with shallow edge tears and chips, contained within a chemise covered with Russian-red paper with gilt cockerel design with gilt-lettered spine; spine sunned and paper chipped. The whole in an unevenly sunned slipcase, with slight loss of paper to top edge at mouth and spine. A fine book, in a good+ slipcase.  (22314)

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TO Part XXI . . .

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