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[Bougeant, Guillaume-Hyacinthe]. Amusement philosophique sur le langage des bêtes. La Haye: Antoine van Dole, 1739. 8vo (16 cm, 6.25"). 135, [1], 8, [48 (adv.)] pp.
$625.00


Early Holland edition, following the first Paris printing of the same year, of a high-spirited philosophical exercise in Cartesian criticism that examined Descartes’ notion of the animal-machine, concluding that animals are in possession of intelligence and communication amongst themselves, by means of being inhabited by the souls of demons and fallen . The work caused such a scandal that Bougeant was exiled to La Fleche for his folly.
Following the piece is the text of a letter from Bougeant to Abbé Savalette of the Jesuit Council, in which Bougeant describes his regret at having brought about so much turmoil, renounces the positions taken in the Amusement, and notes that he would have chosen to suppress the work if it had been in his power to do so. The volume closes with a lengthy catalogue of books published by Pierre Humbert in Amsterdam from 1734 through 1740.
Provenance: Front pastedown with small bookplate of Augustine Legillon, dated 1809.
DeBacker-Sommervogel I, 1879. Contemporary speckled calf with expectable acid-pitting; remarkably skillfully rebacked with the original gilt extra spine restored, and bearing a gilt-stamped leather title label. Advertising leaves with a few inked annotations in an early hand.
Overall a very nice copy.
Water as
Cure-all
Bourne, George Melksham. The home doctor: a guide to health. By Dr. Bourne, of San Francisco. San Francisco: San Francisco News Company, 1878. Small 8vo. Frontis. port., xx, 505, [1] pp.; illus.
$450.00

First edition of this practical treatise of alternative medicine.
George Melksham Bourne was a practitioner of drugless healing in an era when
scientific approaches to medicine were gaining public favor. Here, Bourne expounds
his own system of the "water cure" which emphasized profuse sweating and steam-baths
as a treatment for disease. The conflict between conventional and unconventional
approaches to medicine is brought home in his vivid descriptions of the toxic
effects of allopathic medicine and also in the preface, where he notes efforts
by the "regulars" to impede the publication of this book. Illustrated with a
frontispiece portrait of Bourne and an in-text illustration.
Click
the interior image for an enlargement.
Publisher's brown buckram, stamped in gilt on the spine, in
blind on covers. Paper edges marbled. Clean, free of chips or tears. A very
fine copy. (23804)
Bradley, Dan Beach. [title in Thai characters, romanized as] Nangsu’ ni pen ru’ang kitchakan hæng Phrayesu Chao. The life of Christ by Dr. Bradley. Bangkok: A.B.C.F.M. Mission Press, 1841. 8vo (24 cm, 9.1"). [180 (2 blank)] pp.
$5000.00
Click any of the above images for an enlargement.
Printed in Bangkok, text in Thai. Condensation and adaptation of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by a renowned American physician and Protestant missionary, who from 1835 to 1873 lived in Siam where he introduced Western
medicine, journalism, etc.
Affixed to the rear pastedown is a xylographically printed map of the Holy Land with sites in Thai characters.
This is surely one of the earliest maps printed in Thailand, if not the first.
Rare: Via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 we trace only two copies in U.S. libraries and this one of those two, now deaccessioned.
Publisher’s patterned cloth and orange paper sides; rubbed, soiled, and chipped with joints starting. Some bubbling of paper to front pastedown. Ex-library: front pastedown with library bookplates and a rubber-stamped five-digit number (repeated on another leaf), title-page and one other page pressure-stamped, and one margin inked with a four-digit number. Front free endpaper torn in gutter margin. One leaf chipped at fore-edge, with loss of several characters
loss unlikely to affect the sense); pages otherwise free of chipping or tearing — clean.
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Sur le Mexique
Brasseur de Bourbourg, Abbé Charles-Étienne. Quatre lettres sur le Mexique. Paris: F. Brachet; Mexico: Juan Buxo y Cia., 1868. 8vo (25 cm, 9.8"). xx, 463, [1] pp.
$800.00
First edition, variant printing with additional Mexican imprint information, this being one of two 1868 Paris editions of vol. IV in the Collection de documents dans les langues indigènes pour servir a l'étude de l'histoire et de la philologie d l'Amérique ancienne series on the origins and development of indigenous American languages.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg travelled throughout Mexico and Central America as part of his ecclesiastical duties, and channeled his interest in archeology and antiquities into a number of publications on the original Mesoamerican sources he collected or copied. The present work includes commentary by him on the Chichicastenango manuscript, and much speculation regarding the prehistoric connections between the Old World and the New.
Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 1082; Sabin 7437. Contemporary half morocco and paper-covered sides, spine gilt extra; edges/corners rubbed, small repairs to spine and joints. Front free endpaper with institutional rubber-stamp; back pastedown with rubber-stamp partially touching the small affixed ticket of a New York bookseller. Outer margin of half-title and one other leaf chipped. A few leaves towards back of volume unopened. (20651)
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“Large Scale” in Several Respects . . .
62 Engravings & Bedford Bound
Brayley, Edward Wedlake. The history and antiquities of the abbey church of St. Peter, Westminster: Including notices and biographical memoirs of the abbots and deans of that foundation. London: J.P. Neale for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1818–23. Folio (37.9 cm, 14.9"). 2 vols. I: [18], 227, [19], 72, [10] pp.; 13 plts. II: [2], 304, [40] pp.; 49 plts.
$3000.00
Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.
First edition, illustrated with a total of 62 engraved plates. Allibone describes Brayley “a laborious and accurate topographer”; he compiled and edited a wide range of works with titles featuring assorted Beauties, Picturesques, Histories, Antiquities, etc. The present work provides a history of Westminster Abbey and some of its associated luminaries, along with extensive descriptions of its architecture, sculptures, and paintings. The illustrator who portrayed many of the above, John Preston Neale, was an architectural draftsman and landscape painter “best remembered for his views of the nation's country houses, churches, and public buildings,” according to the Oxford DNB.
Binding: By Francis Bedford, signed, in dark brown morocco done between 1851 and 1880, covers framed and panelled in ornate gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and midpoint decoration. Spines gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels. Board edges gilt-tooled with triple fillets, turn-ins with gilt-tooled rolls and corner fleurons. All edges gilt. Stamped “F. Bedford” on lower front turn-in.
Provenance: Each front pastedown with armorial bookplate of William Arthur, sixth Duke of Portland.
NSTC 2B46491; Allibone 240; Brunet, II, 1215. Binding as above, minor shelf wear to lower edges and corners, vol. I with front board expertly reattached and with small dent to outer edge of front cover. Joints delicate, due to size and weight of volumes, but holding. A few pages and plates with faint foxing, otherwise clean. (24100)
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Mr. Brecht! Bring Down This
“Fourth Wall”
Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny opera. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1982. 4to. Frontis., [10 (5 blank)], 11–155, [5 (1 blank)] pp.; 12 plts. (incl. frontis.).
$125.00
This edition of Bertolt Brecht's script for one of the 20th century's most innovative and political musicals is limited to 2,000 copies. The translation used is that of Desmond Vesey, with lyrics rendered in English by Eric Bentley who also wrote the introduction. The illustrations are reproductions of Jack Levine's etchings of scenes from G. W. Pabst's 1931 film version of The Threepenny Opera and one three-color lithograph created for this edition. Howard I. Gralla designed the book choosing a 12-point Walbaum font with two points leading-space between the lines.
Binding: Full black linen, stamped in gold on the front cover from a design by Levine. The slipcase is covered with black paper and bears a gilt title on the spine.
The colophon is signed by both the designer and the illustrator. This offering includes the monthly newsletter.
Binding, slipcase, and illustrations all properly evoke the grittiness of the London underworld.
Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 529. Bound as above, in original glassine wrapper and slipcase; wrapper with tiny nicks and chips in a couple of places. A fine copy, in a fine slipcase. (22080)
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Bremer, Fredrika. The homes of the New World; impressions of America. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1853. 12mo (20.2 cm, 7.9"). 2 vols. I: xii, 651, [1 (blank)] pp. II: 654,2 (adv.) pp.
$350.00

First American edition. Howitt, an English Quaker, published a number of volumes of poetry; here she translates novelist Bremer’s epistolary“impressions of America” — Die Heimath in der Neuen Welt, being a “detailed and amiable record of an extensive tour,” as Howes describes it — from the original Swedish into English. Names are named, places are limned, the wrongs of slavery are a recurring motif.
Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.
The first London edition appeared in three volumes, but the present edition in two, as stated on the title-page.
Howes B-745. Publisher’s charcoal blind-stamped cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; cloth showing mild wear overall, with spine gilt attractively oxidized. Front free endpapers with pencilled owner’s inscription dated 1869. Pages slightly age-toned, with scattered small spots of staining. Quite a nice set.
British Anti-State-Church Association. Proceedings of the first Anti-State-Church Conference, held in London, April 30, May 1 & 2, MDCCCXLIV. London: Pr. for the British Anti-State-Church Assocation, 1844. 12mo (19 cm, 7.5"). xi, [1], 142
pp.
$150.00
First edition of these conference proceedings, with the title-page proclaiming “People’s edition.” The Anti-State-Church Association was one of the most prominent Dissenting societies during the church debates of 1826–52, although unsuccessful in their disestablishment campaign.
Click the images for enlargements.
NSTC 2LON952. Removed from a nonce volume. Title-page with inked numeral in upper outer corner. First two leaves with small nicks to outer edges; pages clean.
“Northern Liberties”
Broadside. Partially printed, completed in manuscript, beginning: To --------- Esq. Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas, at Philadelphia in the County of Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania to any other Attorney of the said Court, or of any other Court elsewhere. Philadelphia: before 1790. Folio. 1 page (13.125" x 8").
$100.00
By this legal instrument William Tyson “of Northern Liberties [now a part of the city of Philadelphia] in the County of Philadelphia and state of Pennsylvania, Dealer” agrees to pay Thomas Walton “of the same place” two hundred pounds “current money of the said state of Pennsylvania in specie” of 100 pounds is payable with interest. The rate of interest is unstated but is six percent per annum.
Tyson and Walton signed the document on 24 August 1791.
An excellent display piece.
Old folds with a few short tears. Residue of mounting tape at two points on the left margin. (14729)
Brook, Mary. Reasons for the necessity of silent waiting, in order to the solemn worship of God...third edition. London: Mary Hinde, 1775. 8vo (20 cm, 7.9"). [2], 31, [1 (blank)] pp.
$325.00
Third edition of Brook’s explication of the principles underlying Quaker worship practices, issued by a woman printer—Mary Hinde, successful printer and publisher of numerous Quaker items.
ESTC T65811. Recent wrappers. Pages age-toned, with a few small spots.

The World — As It Was in
1766
Brookes, Richard. The general gazeteer: or, compendious geographical dictionary. Containing a description of all the empires, kingdoms, states, republics, provinces, cities, chief towns, forts, fortresses, castles, citadels, seas, harbours, bays, river, lakes, mountains, capes, and promontories. London: Pr. for J. Newbery, 1766. 8vo (8.5", 21.6 cm). vi, xxxiv, [335] ff., [3] pp.; 8 fold maps (one map partly missing).
$800.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Stated “second edition, with great additions and improvements,” of this standard reference work. Industriously compiled by Richard Brookes, it went through numerous editions, the first being published in 1762. Sieges, battles, commerce, fair days, and the “Customs, Manners, and Religion of the Inhabitants” are briskly covered; this is not geography as mere topography.
Opening at random places, we see from the entry on the Mississippi River that Louisiana is “a delightful country inhabited by savages”; that Prague, “a handsome, large, famous town or city” can “send 50,000 men into the field, without meddling with artificers, or perceiv[ing] any great loss of them”; and that the trees are always green in the Philippines.
The book includes eight folding maps, respectively, of the world, Africa, North America, South America, England and Wales, the Empire of Germany, and Europe.
ESTC N7888. Contemporary calf, covers framed in double gilt fillets, rebacked in recent calf; raised bands defined by gilt rules above and below each band, and gilt-stamped title on a red leather label. Significant wear to corners and edges of front and rear covers; shallow chip at top edge of front cover. Title-page mounted, with upper, outer, and lower edges reinforced; early inked ownership notation (“His Book” but without a name attached!) on title-page. Some instances of mild foxing and the odd spot; light waterstaining to a number of early and later leaves, mostly in margins; offsetting from leather affecting only first three and final three
leaves, at edges. First map with two repairs at top and bottom edge; closed tear at bottom and creases down center. A couple of maps with very shallow edge tears. All maps generally clean and overall in very good condition, excepting the map of Europe of which the right portion has been torn away along the fold and is now missing.
Much interest and pleasure here. (23789)
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Political/Jurisprudential/
Theatrical SATIRE
[Broome, Ralph]. Letters from Simpkin the second to his dear brother in Wales, containing an humble description of the trial of William Hastings, Esq. with Simon's answer. Dublin: P. Byrne & J. Moore, 1788. 8vo (18.5 cm, 7.25"). 46 pp. (lacking half-title).
$325.00
First Irish printing, from the same year as the English first:
Broome, adopting the persona of a Welsh country bumpkin, mocks Sheridan and
other members of Parliament for their proceedings during the trial of William
Hastings.
ESTC N2497. Recent marbled-paper wrappers,
front wrapper with paper title label. Lacking half-title. Title-page with
lower corner neatly off, otherwise in excellent, clean condition.
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A
Remarkably
Fresh & Attractive Copy
Brown, Eli F. The eclectic physiology or guide to health. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Company, [1888?]. 8vo. 189, [3 (adv.)] pp.; 4 col. plts.
[SOLD]

Temperance-themed survey of the structures and processes of the human body, noting the damages done by alcohol and tobacco. Designed for use in “common schools,” this edition bears a copyright date of 1886 and a preliminary notice from the Department of Scientific Instruction of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, dated 1888.
Four color-printed anatomical plates and a number of black-and-white in-text engravings illustrate the volume.
Binding: Publisher's brown cloth, front cover elegantly stamped all over in black, spine stamped in black and gilt.
Provenance: Pencilled ownership inscription of Burr Hines, of DeGraff, Ohio.
Bound as above with slightest rubbing; clean and tight. Front free endpaper with pencilled ownership inscription; front and back fly-leaves with pencilled medical annotations (headings for study? and definitions). (23752)
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Brown, Samuel R. Views of the campaigns of the North-Western Army, &c. Troy, NY: Francis Adancourt, 1814. 12mo (19.5 cm, 7.6"). 156 pp.
$650.00
Enlarged edition, printed in the same year as the first edition, of this account of General William Hull’s ill-fated campaign in the Michigan Territory at the start of the War of 1812, and of General William Henry Harrison’s second formation of the North-Western Army following Hull’s surrender at Detroit. A separate section, entitled “Military Anecdotes,” begins with a lengthy description of Tecumseh.
Single-click either image, for an enlargement.
Brown was an author and publisher from upstate New York who volunteered in the War of 1812. Thurlow Weed, one of his employees, described Brown in his autobiography as “an eventempered, easy-going, good natured man, who took no thought of what he should eat or what he should drink or where wither he should be clothed. He wrote his editorials and his ‘History of the War’ upon his knee, with two or three children about him, playing or crying as the humor took them.”
Sabin 8557; Shaw & Shoemaker 31013; Howes, U.S.iana, B-866. Original quarter tan paper over light blue paper-covered sides, recently neatly rebacked with tan cloth, with a printed paper label on the spine. Original sewing going, with a number of leaves separated. Pages untrimmed, with some edges ragged, and with varying degrees of offsetting.
Browne, Daniel Jay. The American bird fancier; considered with reference to the breeding, rearing, feeding, management, and peculiarities of cage and house birds.... New York: C.M. Saxton, (copyright 1850). 12mo (19.2 cm, 7.5"). Frontis., 107, [1], 12 (adv.) pp.; illus.
$225.00
Amateur’s guide to the care and keeping of birds such as canaries, goldfinches, linnets, and pigeons; this is most likely the first edition and certainly at least a very early printing. Written by Browne, head of the agricultural division of the U.S. Patent Office from 1853 through 1859, the work is illustrated with a number of in-text engravings in addition to the frontispiece depiction of two canaries and their nest.
Single-click
either image,
for an enlargement.
Provenance: Front pastedown and free endpaper with inked inscriptions belonging to “Caroline and Jane (of) Millport” and (twice) “J. Emory Botsford (of) Millport NY.” These bird lore–seeking Botsfords were surely kin to Anna Botsford Comstock (1854–1930)—identified by the online Encyclopedia Britannica as a prominent American “naturalist, illustrator, and educator” and by a Cornell “Sciencenter” publication as “the first female Cornell professor and arguably the mother of nature education.” A pleasant thought, if not a matter of true importance! (See: http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Comstock_Anna_Botsford.html and http://seti.sentry.net/archive/bioastro/2002/Jul/0145.html.)
Binding: Publisher’s pebbled blue cloth, covers and spine gilt- and blind-stamped,. Front cover with gilt-stamped pictorial vignette of a woman at a casement window, surrounded by birds on boughs and caged.
Binding lightly rubbed, gilt bright. Endpapers browned, pages clean. A nice copy.

The Author Was a
Strange (Mental) Case
Browne, Simon. A defence of the religion of nature, and the Christian revelation; against the defective account of the one, and the exceptions against the other, in a book, entitled, Christianity as old as the creation. London: Richard Ford, 1732. 8vo (20.6 cm, 8.1"). vi, [2], 267, 272–512 pp.
$575.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
First edition, with errata slip present. Browne was a dissenting minister who, according to Allibone, spent the last ten years of his life under the delusion that God had “annihilated in him the thinking substance, and utterly divested him of consciousness: that though he retained the human shape, and the faculty of speaking, in a manner that appeared to others rational, he had all the while no more notion of what he said than a parrot” — and yet while in that state, he compiled Greek and Latin dictionaries, answered Woolston's Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and wrote this rebuttal of Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation.
ESTC T86771; Allibone 263. Period-style calf framed and panelled in blind rolls with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, gilt-dotted raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments (signed in blind on lower rear turn-in by Grace Bindings). Pagination jumps from 267 to 272, text complete. Title-page with early inked annotation on the authorship of Christianity as Old as the Creation, and with institutional rubber-stamp in lower margin; closed lower edges rubber-stamped. First and last few leaves lightly spotted. (23782)
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Browning,
Robert. The ring and the book. Los Angeles: Pr. for the members of the Limited Editions Club by Plantin Press, 1949. 2 vols. I: xxi, [3], 340 pp.; 8 plts. II: [4], [341]–690, [4] pp.; 8 plts.
$100.00

Illustrated with copper engravings by Carl Schultheiss, this Limited
Editions Club production has an introduction by Edward Dowden; it was designed
by Saul Marks, printed at the Plantin Press, and bound by Russell-Rutter Co.
in half red sheepskin over printed Fabriano paper–covered sides, with
gilt-stamped titles on the spines. 1500 copies were printed, of which this is
no. 1015, signed at the colophon by illustrator Schultheiss.
Bibliography of the fine books published by the Limited Editions
Club 1929–1985, 194. Bindings as above, spines very slightly
rubbed. In original cloth-covered slipcase sunned where exposed on a shelf,
slightly scuffed on the sides, and paper spine label detaching from bottom
edge with lower right corner chipped (but no loss to printing). Top of case
not quite solid—the top right edge is cracked within its cloth covering,
though this is not immediately apparent. A fresh, handsome set.

“Moscovy” & Persia & More
Bruyn, Cornelis de. A new and more correct translation than has hitherto appeared in public, of Mr. Cornelius Le Brun's travels into Moscovy, Persia, and divers parts of the East-Indies ... London: J. Warcus, 1759. Folio (33.1 cm, 12.9"). [2], 246, 229–343, [1 (blank)] pp.; 2 oversized fold. plts., 13 double-page plts., 3 double-page maps, 49 plts.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
Improved English translation of Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes orientales, originally published in English in 1702. Different descriptions of this edition call for differing numbers of plates, the present example being illustrated with
67 copper-engraved plates, of which are 18 are double-spread or oversized, folding images, and many of which show up to four landscape views.
The text and plates provide much information on local costumes, customs, and flora and fauna, particularly fruiting varieties of the former and avian representatives of the latter.
ESTC T110677; Howgego B177; Atabey 160 (for first ed. in English, 1702). Recent speckled calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped decorations between gilt-ruled raised bands. Title-page institutionally pressure-stamped, first text page with inked numeral in lower margin. One leaf torn across without loss. Pages and plates clean, with occasional minor offsetting.
A clean, handsome, very engaging book. (20489)
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Corruption Trial & Ultimate Vindication
Buchan, David Stewart Erskine, Earl of. Letters of Albanicus to the people of England, on the partiality and injustice of the charges brought against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor General of Bengal. London: Pr. for J. Debrett,, 1786. 8vo (19.5 cm; 7.5"). [1] f., vii, [1 (blank)], 97, [1 (blank)] pp.
$950.00
The Earl of Buchan (1742–29) writes convincingly in defense of Warren Hastings (1732–1818), the former governor of Bengal, against charges levelled against him by Burke. Buchan was impeached on several charges, others were added in later months, and the trial
dragged on from 1787 to 1795, when he was ultimately found not guilty of all charges. What a nightmare!
Attributed to the Earl of Buchan by Halkett & Laing (vol. 9 [1962 ed.]).
Goldsmiths’-Kress 13204; ESTC T143537. Recent full brown speckled calf, covers gilt-tooled in the Cambridge style. Raised bands on spine accented with gilt beading on bands and defined by gilt rules above and below each band. Title-page printed aslant or trimmed somewhat askew, and with a few small old inkspots; pamphlet otherwise clean, with occasional light instances of foxing. (21735)
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Buckingham & Chandos, Anna Elizabeth Grenville, Duchess of, Respondent. [drop-title] Appeal from the High Court of Chancery. ...Anna Eliza Dutchess of Chandos..., appellant, ...Anna Eliza Brydges [& others]..., respondents. The case of the respondents. [London, 1795]. Folio (45.1 cm, 17.75"). 13, [1] pp. [bound with] Chandos, Anna Eliza Brydges, Duchess of, Appellant. [drop-title] House of Lords. ...Case of the Appellant. [London, 1795]. Very tall folio (45.1 cm, 17.75"). 3, [1], 4 pp.
$200.00
An appeal from the High Court of Chancery to the House of Lords concerning the will of James, Duke of Chandos, the appellant being his wife, and the respondent being his daughter. This case bears a few manuscript notes, including one on the last page of the case for the respondents, “Le Roy le Veult/Soit Baillé aux Segnieurs” (“The King wills it; let it be delivered to the Lords”)—denoting a judgement in the respondent’s favor (judgment was given on 20 November 1795).
ESTC T214094 & T214093. Removed from a nonce volume: Sewn edge guillotined halfway down and the whole once folded in half; tearing and a little soiling along the fold with loss of individual words, and, in the second work (the Case of the Appellant), the upper half of p. 13 fully detached. Shallow tattering and soiling along edges. Manuscript notes as above.
(Bullfight Program). [drop-title] Programma. Domingo 18 de fevereiro...em a nova bem construida praça no largo de Santo Antonio de Bomjardina.... [Porto: Imprensa Constitucional, 1838]. 4to (20.4 cm, 8"). [2] ff.
$200.00


Program for a bullfight in Porto at the new bull-ring; with a woodcut of a bull above the drop-title.
Rare. No copies traced via the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal’s online catalogue, nor via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, and RLIN.
A little light spotting and soiling. Inked numeral on first page.

NOT the Progress — The Pharisee & Publican & the Dying Sayings
Bunyan, John. A discourse upon the Pharisee and Publican. Wherein several weighty things are handled ... the twelfth edition, corrected. To which is added his last sermon; as also his dying sayins [sic]. London: John Marshall, 1725. 12mo (14.7 cm, 5.75"). 166 pp. (lacking final blank f.).
$900.00

Uncommon early 18th-century edition of this important theological work, originally printed in 1685. All of Bunyan’s works, not just his Pilgrim’s Progress, were widely read and often reprinted in his day; this 1725 printing is described as the 12th edition, but ESTC locates only three editions (in 1704, 1705, and 1706) between the initial appearance and the present example. The 1704–25 editions are all scarce, surviving in only a few copies each.
Click the images for enlargements.
John Marshall also issued this work in the same year as the present example with a slightly different title-page, reading “Wherein several great and weighty things . . . ,” this being a copy of the issue with a cancel title-page.
The text is illustrated with one woodcut scene. A few copies are described as having a frontispiece, which would not be integral to the collation; presumably it was added later and so not original.
Provenance: John Kinsman, jun., 1760; Edwin P. Farnham, 1903.
ESTC T58485. Recent speckled paper wrappers. Free endpapers and first and last leaves with worm damage to edges; final blank leaf lacking. Front free endpaper and dedication page with rubber-stamped numerals (no other markings). Lower outer corners waterstained in first portion of volume; some darker stains from laid-in plant matter, with several leaves having words obscured or lost due to botanical adhesions — in the worst case, one leaf with hole affecting about 30 words from having adhered to plant matter, subsequent leaf with about 15 words obscured. Some headers just shaved but no catchwords touched. Title-page verso and back free endpaper with inked ownership inscriptions as above. (20618)
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“Water of Life”
Bunyan, John. The water of life: Or, a discourse shewing the richness and glory of the grace and spirit of the Gospel, as set forth in Scripture by this term, the water of life. Leeds: J. Binns, 1791. 12mo (13.5 cm, 5.4"). 108 pp.
$400.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Although Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is his best-remembered
work today, all of his works enjoyed a wide audience in their time. This treatise
on the nature of divine grace went through numerous editions following its original
publication in 1688, the year of the author's death; this example is the seventh
edition, with all of the intervening 18th-century editions being fairly scarce
in institutional holdings.
The
present edition is scarce as well: Only
one U.S. institution reports ownership (two reported copies having been deaccessioned,
and one apparent other being a duplicate report).
ESTC T58617. Recent full calf, absolutely plain with
no spine label. Title-page and back free endpaper institutionally rubber-stamped;
last page and back free endpaper with a few early inked letters and the date
1899. Pages browned, with intermittent staining. (20675)
Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques. Principes du droit naturel. Geneve: Chez Barrillot & fils, 1747. 4to (24.3 cm, 9.55"). XXIV, 352 pp.
$850.00
First edition of this lucid examination of the philosophy of natural law, written by a Swiss jurist. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says of Burlamaqui that “his fundamental principle may be described as rational utilitarianism” (IV, 836); his writings served as important source material for the political theory underpinning the Declaration of Independence.
This may be a later issue of the 1747 first edition; the last line of p. 7 here begins with “de l’esprit” and the first line of p. 223 with “tage au préjudice.” A companion volume to the present work, Principes du droit politique, was to be printed posthumously in 1754 and it is not present here — this volume being a very satisfactory stand-alone, arriving at a conclusion describing the “heureux accord de la lumière Naturelle & Révélée.” (Conceiving of the two works as vols. I and II of a larger whole is an anachronism in period to 1766 when de Felice was to bring them together for the first time.)
Quérard, I, 570; not in Brunet. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather labels and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. Pages age-toned, with light foxing in spots; outer and lower edges of title-page showing offsetting from original turn-ins.
Burnside, Thomas. Document Signed. Clearfield, PA, 1811. Double folio (39.5
cm, 15.5"). [1] f.
$125.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Deed from the Hon. Thomas Burnside to Benjamin Patton, transferring the rights to a 559-acre property in western Pennsylvania previously owned by David Curry, deceased, which land became the property of the county upon default of payment of taxes. Two years later Patton sold the same tract to the George Curry, executor of David Curry’s estate. Patton had paid $14.65 in 1811 and sold in 1813 for $200.00.The Irish-born Burnside, then treasurer of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, was later a justice of the Pennsylvania state supreme court.
A notary’s seal is affixed to the document, which was signed by both Burnside and Patton.
Creased and slightly age-toned, with the folios separated and some offsetting from seal; a few small holes, touching text without notable loss.
Burton, Robert. The anatomy of melancholy, what it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostics, and several cures of it...the ninth edition, corrected; to which is now first prefixed, an account of the author. London: Vernor & Hood et al. (pr. by J. Cundee), 1800. 8vo (22.2 cm, 8.75"). 2 vols. I: Frontis., xxiv, 121, [1], 461, [1 (blank)] pp. II: Frontis., [4], 601, [1 (blank)], [14 (index & adv.)] pp.
[SOLD]
Originally printed in 1621, this treatise on depression in all its forms continues to be read (and beloved) today for its far-ranging philosophizing on human nature and thought, as well as for Burton’s extensive quotations of prior writers and for his sly sense of humor. Boswell famously quoted Dr. Johnson as saying of the Anatomy that it was “the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours earlier than he wished to rise” (the quotation in the headline above comes from Nicholas Lazard, who also describes the work as “the book to end all books” in his Guardian Review essay). The present edition, which prefixes the work with a brief biography of Burton, is
the first and only 18th-century printing following the several
17th-century editions, which culminated in the 1676 issue.
Click the image at left for an enlargement.
Among the innumerable topics touched upon herein are food and diet; the chapter on diet compiles the opinions of so many authors that the list of “disallowed” foods encompasses more or less every foodstuff generally consumed in western Europe. Burton does go on to note that “custom doth alter nature it self” and that various nations live quite comfortably on foods that other nations find distasteful — for instance, in America “their bread is roots, their meat Palmitos, Pinas, Potatos, &c. and such . . . There be of them too that familiarly drink salt Sea-water all their lives, eat raw meat, grass, and that with delight” (pp. 109–10).
Provenance: Front fly-leaves inscribed by the Rev. M.A.F. Holmes, dated 1899.
ESTC T109284; Garrison & Morton 4918.1 (first ed.); PMM 120. 19th-century half morocco over marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped title and volume numbers; corners and edges lightly rubbed, with extremely faint traces of institutional shelving numbers on the spines; that area
slightly abraded. Some pages mildly age-toned, with light foxing mostly confined to the first and last few leaves.
Büsch, Johann Georg. Versuch einer Geschichte der Hamburgischen Handlung, nebst zwei kleineren Schriften eines verwandten Inhalts. Hamburg: Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann, 1797. 8vo (17.7 cm, 7"). x, [2], 288, 60 pp.
$875.00
First edition: Economic history of trade in Hamburg, written by
the author of Grundriss einer Geschichte der merkwürdigsten Welthändel
neuerer Zeit in einem erzählenden Vortrage.
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.
Butler, Charles. Reminiscences of Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln’s Inn, with a letter to a lady on ancient and modern music. New York: E. Bliss & E. White, and Collins & Hannay (pr. by H.C. Sleight), 1825. 12mo (20 cm, 7.9"). Frontis., viii, 350 pp.
$250.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
“Second American, from the fourth London edition”: Essays on literature, music, religion, law, politics, education, and other topics. In addition to being a prolific author, Butler (1750–1832) was a lawyer and religious rights activist who — following the Catholic Relief Act of 1791 — became the “first Catholic barrister since the revolution of 1688” (DNB).
NSTC 2B62711; Shoemaker 19905. On Butler, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spine with printed paper label; sides with spots of light discoloration, paper split and cracked along joints and spine, paper shelving label on spine. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate; front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1828; front free endpaper, title-page, and dedication rubber-stamped. Back free endpaper affixed to back pastedown. Sewing loosening. Pages untrimmed.
Butler,
Samuel. Hudibras, in three parts: Written in the time of
the late wars... First American edition. Troy (NY): Wright, Goodenow, &
Stockwell, 1806. 12mo (17.7 cm, 7"). xi, [1], 286, [14 (index)] pp.
$100.00

First American edition of Butler's “pungent observations and jingling satirical rhymes [strung] into a long heroi-comic poem” (Dictionary of National Biography, VIII, 74–76). A brief biography of the author precedes the poem.
Shaw & Shoemaker 1178. Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and rubbed; joints cracked, spine with cracking gilt-stamped leather label and chipped paper shelving label. Front pastedown with small institutional bookplate.
One “somewhat immodest”proverb carefully excised from footnotes, with no other loss of text.
Buxtorf, Johann. Florilegium Hebraicum: Continens elegantes sententias, proverbia, apophthegmata, similitudines.... Basileae: Impensis Haered. Ludovici König, 1648. 8vo (16.7 cm, 6.55"). )(8A–Z8Aa–Bb8; [16], 390, [8 (index)] pp.
$600.00
Sole edition of this gathering of brief literary excerpts in Latin and Hebrew, alphabetically arranged by motif; the texts were collected and edited by Buxtorf the younger. The title-page bears a woodcut printer’s device.
VD17 12:128413B. Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, spine with early inked title; some light discoloration, with cut to vellum across spine. Pastedowns loose from inside covers, with bits of old manuscript used in the binding structure, showing; 19th-century bookplate attached to exposed paste board and endpapers creased. Shadow of old shelf number on verso of title-page. One leaf with small stain and hole affecting about four letters. Foxing ranging from mild to moderate.
Buys, Jan. De statibus hominum. Moguntiae: Apud Ioannem Malbinum, 1613. 4to (25.4 cm, 10"). )(4 )()(4 )()()(2 A–Z4 Aa–Zz4 Aaa–Zzz4 Aaaa–Gggg4 Hhhh2; [10] ff., 610 pp., [1 (blank)] f.
$750.00
Jan Buys, better known by his Latin name, Joannes Busaeus (1547–1611), was one of three brothers all of whom joined the Jesuits and became professors. Jan taught theology at Mainz for more than 20 years and authored numerous works, the best known of which is Enchiridon piarum meditationum in omnes Dominicas, Sanctorum Festa . . . (A Handbook of Pious Meditations for all the Sundays and Saints’ Days). His De statibus hominum is a discussion, arranged in alphabetical order, of the different states of life, starting with abbots, moving on to adolescents and nobility, and ending with virgin, widows, and those vowed to holy things. Buys discusses the requirements, duties, and rights of each state, and how those in it may obtain holiness and fulfill their roles in Christian society. An appendix is also given, on the life of rustici or peasants. Quotations throughout, most from Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, are thoroughly referenced in the sidenotes.
This work was first published in 1613, and the title-page of the first edition exists in two states, of which this—with the author’s name after the title and “Apud” before the publisher’s name—is apparently the less common. The title is printed within an engraved architectural border depicting the theological and cardinal virtues, while the text is decorated with a few woodcut initials, woodcut and typographic headpieces, and a simple tailpiece at the end. A further edition was issued in Lyons in 1614.
DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 439. Vellum over paste boards, covers sprung and moderately soiled; remnants of paper shelf label at base of spine. Bookplate and shelf label affixed to front pastedown; endpapers lightly soiled and pastedowns tearing along turn-ins. Text lightly age-toned with a very light old waterstain to lower and outer margins. Two shallow tears into the engraved border of the title-page, one with a little loss; a few leaves shallowly tattered on the top edge and a few with small holes in the margins. All edges red, faded.
Bynaeus, Anthony. De calceis hebraeorum, sive antiquitates hebraicae vindicatae .... Lugduni Batavorum: Joh. Arn. Langerak, 1724. Format (21.1 cm, 8.3"). [18], 267, [29 (index)] pp.; 3 plts. [with the same author’s] Somnium, recitatum
trajecti ad Rhenum, in acroaterio majore .... Dordraci: Theodori Goris, 1695. [8], 24 pp.
$650.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Uncommon edition of this treatise on shoes of the ancient Hebrews, accompanied by a briefer work on sleep, both by theologian and classical scholar Bynaeus. Originally published together in 1682, these two works are often but not always found together in later editions; the main title-page here, printed in red and black, does not mention the second work. Calceis Hebraeorum is illustrated with three engraved plates and a number of in-text wood engravings.
Somnium not in VD17. Contemporary vellum, covers framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled central medallions, spine with early inked title; binding sprung, vellum darkened and a bit scuffed, spine with traces of an inked call number. Lower edges institutionally rubber-stamped, title-page with unobtrusive pressure-stamp, dedication with inked numeral in lower margin. Pastedowns starting to crack and peel; front and back pastedowns each with signs of a now-absent bookplate. A few scattered light spots, pages otherwise clean.
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