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Aa-Al
Am-Az
Ba-Bos Bibles1
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Bibles3 Bot-Bz
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D
E F
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Sp-Sz
Ta-Ti
Tj-U V-Wa
Wb-Z
Snakes
Lost
Civilizations
& an
Adventuresome
Artist
(“A”
is for “ADVENTURE”). Catherwood,
Frederick. Views of ancient monuments in Central America, Chiapas
and Yucatan. London: Frederick Catherwood, 1844. Folio extra. 25 colored
plates.
$50,000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The images above show mattings; images below are “close-ups.”
Before Indiana Jones stirred our imagination about lost civilizations and their treasures, there were Frederick Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens, whose explorations of the Maya ruins of Central America, Chiapas, and the Yucatan excited the Anglo-American world in the middle of the 19th century and helped spur the rediscovery of the Maya among the non–romance language nations. And it was Catherwood's illustrations that fixed forever what the temples and other buildings looked like to the Victorian-era and later visitors to the area.
Following the great success of Catherwood & Stephens' s two accounts of their travels in Maya land, Catherwood decided to convert his drawings to large-scale luxury prints, the illustrations in the two travel accounts having been in octavo format. In England he enlisted a crew of the best lithographers to transform his camera lucida drawings to grand, eye-filling lithographs, with George B. Moore, William Parrott, Thomas Shotter Boys, and Henry Warren among those putting the images on stone; he had no one less than Owen Jones design and accomplish the title-page, chromolithographed in red, blue, and gold.
This set of images is of the very rare colored issue on card stock.
Hill, Pacific Voyages, rev. ed., 263; Palau 50290; Sabin 11520; Tooley, English Books with Coloured Plates, 133. Plates were removed long ago from their binding (not present) and sold as a set of plates; all have been expertly conserved (conservator's report provided) and mounted on acid-free board, now housed in a custom clamshell case. The plates have been trimmed within the images by between one tenth and three tenths of an inch in each direction, letterpress descriptions and map lacking; the plates are
handsome beyond easy imagining and fascinating in the detail and care of their coloring. (29366)
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This appears in the HISPANIC
MISCELLANY click here.
A Temperance Catechism — Improving Your Swine — “Hull's Physic”
(“A”
is also for “Almanac”).
Abell, Truman. New-England farmer's almanac,
for the year ... 1834 ... Fitted to the latitude and longitude of the town of
Windsor, Vt. but will serve without sensible variation, for all the adjacent
states. Windsor, Vt.: Ide & Goddard, [1833]. 12mo. [24] ff.
$30.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
First almanac published by Ide & Goddard. Title-page has a wood engraved illustration of a globe, telescope, map, books, and inkwell with quill pen; also illustrated with small vignettes above each month's calendar. Includes information on the sessions of the courts in New Hampshire and Vermont, college vacation schedules, advice on diet and regimen, suggestions on how to be a good neighbor, a brief manual of temperance principles, general information on insects, poultry, hogs, growing field beets, cutting corn stalks, and preserving yeast Irish jokes, we almost add, “of course.”
Advertisements on the last page, notably for
patent medicines.
Drake 13678. Uncut copy; later stitching; corners cut. Slight dog-earing, title-page a little tattered. Early inked ownership signature at top of title-page and some marginalia or interlineations. (9959)
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A
Scandalous Life
— An Elegant Book
(“A”
is for “A Very Readable Memoir”).
Langdale, Charles. Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert; with an account
of her marriage with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the
Fourth. London: Richard Bentley, 1856. 8vo (21.8 cm, 8.58"). Frontis., 202 pp.
$250.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of this biography constructed by Charles Langdale (1787–1868) from letters written by and concerning Maria Anne Fitzherbert, née Smythe (1756–1837), the morganatic wife of future King George IV, which Langdale received by confidential post after the death of his brother, one of her correspondents, Lord Stourton. Catholic, twice widowed, and a commoner to boot, Mrs. Fitzherbert was an easy target for scandalmongers; here, a contemporary endeavors to redeem her from the “reproach of a dishonest connection [with George IV] and abandoned principle” (p. 11), brought on by Lord Holland in his “Memoirs of the Whig Party” published the year prior in the Dublin Review.
The elegant frontispiece is a portrait of Mrs. Fitzherbert by J. Broum after Richard Cosway, R.A. (1742–1821), the famous miniaturist who painted her on numerous occasions and whose portraits of her were so admired by her husband the King, that he took one to his grave.
Binding: Full later brick red calf by Root & Son, double-ruled in gilt with leafy flowers in the board corners and in four of six spine compartments; gilt title, etc., on black morocco lettering pieces in the remaining spine compartments. Gilt-rolled board edges and turn-ins; mottled amethyst and emerald endpapers and a red silk marker.
On Mrs. Fitzherbert, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Bound as above, spine a little scratched. Small tear repaired in margin of frontispiece and a bit of paper supplied to repair one lower inner margin; insignificant little nicks to a very few sheets, and a crease in one lower outer corner.
Clean, LOVELY. (30075)
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This
entry is repeated in the
“LaLd” section of this
catalogue . . .


A
Trio of Treats
Aberfoil, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's journey to. To which are
added, St. Patrick was a gentleman;
and The Auld sark sleeve.
Glasgow [Scotland]: Printed by and for J. Neil, 17, Bazar, 1829. 12mo. 8 pages.
$85.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Woodcut title vignette of a ship in full sail.
Original self wrappers [unbound; removed]. There is a small
chip out of the inner edges of the leaves and the top corners of the first
two leaves are lightly creased. Very good. (17404)
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Trial by Jury
Adam,
William. Observations respecting the further extension of trial
by jury to Scotland in civil causes. Edinburgh: J. Hay & Co., 1819. 8vo.
[2], 51, [1], xi, [1] pp.
$150.00
First Edinburgh edition of a paper “meant to explain matters
to Scotch Lawyers not versed in the Law of England, and to English Lawyers not
versed in the Law of Scotland, and to persons not educated to the Law of either
country.”
Click
the image for an enlargement.
NSTC 2A2513. Removed from a nonce volume. Closely trimmed
with shouldernotes and signature marks variously shaved; clean. (30249)
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Famous for Its
Maps of the Holy Land
& Based on Sources Now Lost
Adrichem (a.k.a. Adrichom), Christiaan van. Theatrum Terrae Sanctae et biblicarum historiarum cum tabulis geographicis aere expressis. [colophon: Coloniae Agrippinae: Officina Birckmannica, sumptibus Hermanni Mylij, 1628]. Folio (37 cm; 14.5"). [6] ff., 256 pp., [15] ff.; 12 fold. or double-page engr. maps.
$10,000.00
Next to the last edition, and fifth overall, of Adrichem's important and influential work on the Holy Land. Adrichem (1533–85) was a Delft-born priest (a.k.a. Christianus Crucius) who wrote several works on Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Theatrum Terrae Sanctae is famous for its engraved maps, but the work is justly sought for its descriptions of Palestine and the antiquities of Jerusalem. Additionally the work contains a chronology from Adam to 1585, the year of the author's death.

First published in 1590, Theatrum Terrae Sanctae had subsequent editions in 1593, 1600, 1613, 1628, and 1682; and was translated in several languages, including English. Because Adrichem used contemporary sources that are now lost, the work is important for the history of Palestine and Israel during the last half of the 16th century.
The work begins with an engraved allegorical title-page, has woodcut initials and tailpieces, and bears
12 folding or double-page engraved maps. The text is printed in roman type in double-column format.
VD17 12:119393Z; Bibliographia Belgica A 131; Tobler 210; Röhricht 210–11. Recent full black morocco, tooled in coppery gilt old style. Some browning to maps, a few very old repairs to same; endpapers and some other leaves with instances of darkening at edges, the leaf “behind” the largest folding element showing this most strikingly (and showing it extended farthest into the margins). Foremargins brittle and some with short tears or with strengthening strips.
In all, a good+ copy and a very handsome volume. (24104)
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Adrichem, Christiaan van. Chronicon de Christiano Adricomio Delfo; traducido de latin en español por Don Lorenco Martinez de Marcilla. Madrid: En La Imprenta Imperial, 1679. Small 4to. π4 A–Z4 Aa–Pp4 Qq2; [4] ff., 284 (i.e., 286) pp., [11] ff.
$700.00

Later edition of this
translation into Spanish of Adrichem’s history of Biblical events to the year 109 a.d. An additional “Chronicon Breve” at the end of the volume gives a chronology from Adam and Eve to the year 1585.
Click either image
for an enlargement.
The title is within a typographic border; text is printed in double-column format, in roman type.
Palau 2864. 19th-century half sheep with marbled paper sides; binding shows wear. Lower margin of title-leaf and leaves of the preliminaries with minor worming; repaired with pasted-over paper. Some side- and shouldernotes shaved with loss. Sporadic soiling, not severe.
Aelianus, Claudius. [4 lines in Greek, then] Aeliani de natvra animalivm.... Londini: Gulielmus Bowyer, 1744. 4to (26.2 cm, 10.4"). 2 vols. I: xiv, xxvii, [35 (index)], 603, [1] pp. II: [605]–1128, [88 (index and addenda)] pp.
$500.00
Attractive 18th-century printing of Abraham Gronovius’s edition, here presented in the original Greek with Conrad Gesner’s Latin translation and comments on facing pages, and with additional commentary by Daniel Wilhelm Triller. Dibdin calls this an “excellent and ample edition” of the Natura Animalium, an entertaining collection of animal-related tales and folklore compiled by Aelian, a 2nd-century a.d. Roman scholar of rhetoric and Greek literature who borrowed much of the material from earlier Greek authors. The work includes one of the earliest known references to fly-fishing, a description of the Macedonian fashion of catching river fish with lures constructed of feathers and bright red wool.

Provenance:
Neat ownership signature of “J.W. Blakesley, Trin. Coll.”
— very likely the Dean Blakesley who, among other things, wrote the first
English life of Aristotle and edited Herodotus.
ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered
boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork
medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; front
joints repaired and now strong, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early
inked owner's name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page,
erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some
pages; leaves otherwise clean.

Aesop's Fables
Printed by Baskerville — His First ILLUSTRATED Book
Aesopus. Select fables of Esop and other fabulists. In three books. Birmingham: Printed by John Baskerville, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1761. 8vo (16.9 cm, 6.65"). Frontis., [ii], lxxviii, 204 pp., [14] ff. Plates.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition. Aesop's classic fables with additions by Robert Dodsley, beautifully printed by John Baskerville (1706–75), appear here on
wove paper; this is the third of just three(!) books he printed on the new material instead of on laid paper, and it is a very early example overall of the new technique. This was also Baskerville's
first illustrated book; and it was ambitious, being finely illustrated with 16 full-page engraved plates including the frontispiece, most plates presenting a dozen small circular vignettes with each one representing its own single fable, these adding up to
many scores of individual images. The volume additionally bears an engraved title vignette, three good-sized engraved vignettes serving as headpieces, and three large engraved tailpieces all specifically done for this book, signed on pp. 61 and 204 by Charles Grignion after Samuel Wale.
Dodsley (1703–64) divides the fables into three sections, with a gathering of
“Fables Newly Invented” appearing after those “From the Ancients” and “From the Moderns”; he notes in his preface that “several, both of the old [i.e., Modern] and the new Fables, are not written by himself,” but supplies no attributions. Preceding the fables are a life of Aesop taken from an English translation of Mons. de Meziriac's biography (rather than the “absurd relation” by Planudes, “that lying monk”) and an essay by Dodsley on the fable genre.
Provenance: Owner's gilt-stamped initials (E.C.K.) on upper cover.
ESTC T84696; Gaskell 14. Original speckled calf with covers double-ruled in gilt, gilt-stamped “E.C.K.” as above, and gilt board edges; spine with raised bands and red morocco spine label; red edges faded to a dusty pink, and a green silk marker. Joints (outside) a little weak, starting; extremities bumped and worn, at points exposing boards; small scar from repair to rear board leather. Light offsetting from binding onto endpapers and from some of the plates to leaves opposite; mild foxing and a little staining; one marginal annotation in ink.
A nice copy, overall, of a book interesting for multiple reasons. (30066)
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Agricola,
Johann. Siebenhundert und funfftzig deutscher sprüchwörter
ernewert und begessert durch Johan. Agricola. Mit vielen schönen lustigen
und nützlichen historien und exempeln erkleret und ausgelegt. Wittenberg:
Gedruckt bey J. Krafft, 1592. Small 8vo. )(8 *8 A–Z8
Aa–Xx8 (-Xx8, a blank) [14], 350 ff.
$1200.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Last 16th-century edition (first was 1541) of Johann Agricola's work on German proverbs, their origins, meanings, and current uses. He is best remembered as a theologian who was a leading figure of the Antinomians, at first a friend of Luther’s and later a bitter opponent who after Luther’s death worked with Roman Catholic authorities in forming the Augsburg Interim.
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.

16th-Century Tour of Italy — Venice Is an Island
Alberti, Leandro. Descrittione di tutta l'Italia & isole pertinenti ad essa. In Venetia: Appresso Gio. Maria Leni, 1577. 4to (21.7 cm, 8.5"). 2 vols. in 1. [303], 503, [1(blank)], 69 (i.e., 96), [4] ff.
$2500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Early, expanded edition, following the first of 1550: An important and widely read account of Italy, written by a Dominican monk and Bolognese scholar who spoke at length about his home city in addition to the other major regions of the country. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1917) online notes that the work contains “many valuable topographical and archaeological observations.”
Nicely printed in italic type (without maps), the work has a good index. The separate title-page of vol. II gives Isole appartenenti alla Italia, dated 1576. Venice is treated here, as an island, not as part of “the mainland.”
Adams A475; Index Aurel. 102.349. Contemporary vellum, worn and darkened, lacking ties. Hinges (inside) with insect damage causing partial opening, text block starting to pull away from spine. Front free endpaper with two inked ownership inscriptions, one dated 1620 and one 1898. Small area of worming to upper inner margins of about 40 leaves, minor and not approaching text. Scattered instances of early inked underlining and a very few marginalia, pages otherwise pleasingly clean. Ready for many more years of use! (26501)
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Lovely Production of a Timeless Story
Alcott, Louisa May. Little women or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1967. 8vo. viii, [6], 428, [4] pp.; 14 plts. (2 double).
$130.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The beloved classic, here with an introduction by Edward Weeks and monochrome and wash drawings by Henry C. Pitz, hand-colored at Walter Fischer Studio. The volume was designed by Bert Clarke, set in monotype Walbaum, printed by Clarke and Way, and bound by Russell-Rutter in cream, gold, and green floral brocade with a gilt-stamped green leather title-label.
This 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, 396. Binding as above, in original glassine dust wrapper and publisher's slipcase; volume clean and fresh, wrapper with small chips to spine extremities, slipcase gently sunned and with a little soiling, one corner bumped. (30120)
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Splendors
(Barbaric &
Otherwise) of
the
Russian Empire
[Alexander, William]. Costume of the Russian empire, illustrated by upwards of seventy richly coloured engravings. London: E. Harding et al., 1803. Folio (33.7 cm, 13.25"). [152] pp.; 70 col. plts. (of 73).
$2500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First
edition: Diglot
(i.e., in French and English) hand-colored plate book showcasing the ethnic
garb of Finland, Lapland, Estonia, Kamchatka, the Aleutian Islands, etc. Men,
women, and young children — and a “Female Schaman, or Sorceress,
of Krasnajarsk” — are all depicted in plates engraved by J. Dadley
and elaborately hand-colored; the designs for the plates were taken from a series
of engravings originally done for C.W. Müller's 1776 edition of Georgi's
Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs.
The explanatory text, which is generally attributed to William Alexander, often
includes descriptions of religious beliefs, alleged ethnic characteristics,
and
wedding
traditions. Many of these descriptions are decidedly focused
on the otherness of the practices in question; some achieve a level of
generalization that is rather breathtaking, e.g., “The Lapland women are
short, but often well formed, obliging, modest, and extremely irritable.”
Binding:
Publisher's straight-grained red morocco, covers framed in gilt-stamped Greek
key pattern, spine with gilt- and blind-stamped decorations; all edges gilt.
Lipperheide 1341; Abbey, Travel, 244. Binding overall rubbed and somewhat rough, front joint (outside) starting and back hinge (inside) likewise. Offsetting from plates, instances of light foxing and occasional soiling throughout. Plates 16, 29, and 39 excised some time ago, with faint pencil marks on contents list indicating their absence. An imperfect copy, still offering an array of engaging images and elegantly bound, with its sociologically intriguing text intact. (28807)
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BIBLIOPHILE, click here.
Allix, Pierre. Dissertatio de Trisagii origine. Rothomagi: Apud Joannem Lucas, 1674. 8vo (18.2 cm, 7.125"). A–I4; 70 pp., [1 (blank)] f.
$500.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Peter Allix (1641–1717) was a Huguenot pastor and theologian noted for his works on theology and Church history: In this work he investigates the origins of the well-known Greek hymn, the Trisagion, i.e., “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us” that also figures prominently in Western liturgies. Obliged to flee France following the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, he continued his academic writings (now in English) and—using the Anglican liturgy—founded a French church in London.
This
sole edition is ornamented with a woodcut printer’s device and a woodcut headpiece and initial; the text is referenced with sidenotes.
Rare: Only two copies traced in the U.S. via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956.
Provenance: Bookplate of Virtue & Cahill Library (the library of Portsmouth’s Catholic Cathedral) no. 8783, with a large overlaid rubber-stamp thereon starkly, blackly noting the dispersal and eventual sale of the library “following enemy action”—the cathedral having been bombed by the Germans in 1941.
On Allix, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, I, 334–35. 19th- or early 20th-century half calf over marbled paper, spine with gilt title; edges of leather with a dog’s tooth roll in blind. Leather rubbed, especially on joints and edges. Some soiling and waterstaining, mostly light and most notable on early leaves, with some small wormholes in the margins; a little fine chipping and some shallow dog-ears. Old inked ownership inscription on title-page, crossed out but still legible.
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