Provenance: The illuminated presentation leaf is neatly inscribed to Miss Anna J. Belden “by her friend F.W. Geissenhainer [Jr.?],” dated 1850; in addition to that presentation leaf, there are three other gilt-stamped and chromolithographed illustrations as well as nine additional black-and-white engraved plates.

•  BAL 16156 & 4805; not in Reese, Stamped with a National Character.   Original morocco “executed by Altemus” according to the preface, covers with recessed, blind-stamped decorative title within gilt-stamped frame, spine gilt extra; edges, joints, and extremities rubbed. Some pages foxed; plates in unusually bright good condition.  (13052)

Click the images for enlargements.

•  19th-century German boards, with black mottled paper, spine with inked paper title label; paper rubbed and abraded, spine chipped at head. All edges stained red. Ex-library with 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, call number in black on spine and in pencil on verso of title-page, paper shelf label (with call number blacked out) on lower left corner of front cover, and four-digit number in ink on p. [iii]. No stamps and, withal, Very Good.  (19255)

Provenance:  First in the University of Miami Library, deacessioned; then in the library of Robert Chamberlain and later in that of France V. Scholes, both noted scholars of the Yucatán. Their signatures are on the front free endpaper and their notes are penciled in the margins of many pages.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

This copy has the two preliminary leaves bound in at the back (mispaginated as vi as seen in most copies) , but it is lacking the final advertisement leaf. The catchword on p. 7 is “allow'd.”

•  ESTC T31966; Allibone 411–12.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page with author's name inked in an early hand and with very elegant institutional pressure-stamp; title-page verso with shadows of pencilled numerals, first text page with inked numeral in lower margin. Final advertisement leaf lacking. Light offsetting and faint spotting (mostly confined to margins), pages otherwise clean. (20740)

If you were heading “West” in 1839 or the early 1840s, you probably had a copy of this to help you travel safely and expeditiously.

•  Sabin 82931; Howes S-615; Checklist of printed maps of the Middle West to 1900 1-0816; Karpinski, Bibliography of the printed maps of Michigan, 146.   Publisher's green ribbed cloth covers stamped in blind with a plaque and lettered in gold. Old water crinkling to text block and some associated soiling. Map backed with Tengoju Japanese paper and the case binding with minor repairs using Japanese paper toned with acrylic. A delicate book and a very delicate map, now not delicate at all and housed in a blue cloth clamshell case with leather spine label. A good ++ copy of an important and scarce work.  (24796)

This includes, among other interesting morsels historical, moral, and agricultural, a long essay onshooting stars.

•  Later sewing; spine reinforced with archival tissue. Title-page and last page with shallow tears in blank area of outer margin. Shallow dog-ears, occasional edge chips. Small hole on pp. 27/28, touching but not costing three letters. Light foxing.  (27818)

There are two states of this edition; in the present state p. 1 has the words “Introductory dialogue” set in solid roman capitals, and the first line of the poem reads “Father Time! ’tis well we are met” rather than “Father Time! ’tis well we’re met.” The paper in vol. I is watermarked with the dates 1813, 1814, and 1815, while in vol. II the watermarks are 1814 and 1815.

Binding: Signed binding by Riviere & Son: 19th-century mottled calf, covers framed in gilt triple fillets with gilt rosettes at corners; round spines with raised bands, the whole gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels; double-rule gilt fillets on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  Abbey, Life, 263; NSTC 2C32764. Bindings as above, carefully and neatly rebacked preserving original spines, corners and joints showing slight wear. Vol. I with short edge nicks to upper margins of two leaves, not touching text; last few leaves and plates of vol. II with small area of light staining to outer margins, not touching text and not obtrusive in images. A beautiful set.

Binding: Signed binding by Riviere & Son: 19th-century mottled calf, covers framed in gilt triple fillets with gilt rosettes at corners; round spines with raised bands, the whole gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels; double-rule gilt fillets on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  Abbey, Life, 264. Tooley 410;.NSTC 2C32763. Binding as above, neatly rebacked preserving original spine, showing only very minor traces of wear. Without the advertising leaf. Some faint offsetting and spotting surrounding plates, otherwise clean.

The advertisement on the back cover of this volume notes that William G. Comstock (the author's son and publisher) offered for sale 100,000 white Italian mulberry trees; 10,000 Chinese mulberry plants; and 2,000,000 “silk worms eggs,” among other items of sericulture.

•  American Imprints 36859.   Publisher's quarter brown cloth and printed paper–covered sides, moderately rubbed and soiled; spine sunned and a strip of black cloth tape across its head. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on pastedown, front free endpaper with inked number covered over by black tape, pressure-stamp on title-page. No other markings. Pages clean.  (26271)

Binding:  Very handsome but unsigned publisher's green cloth stamped in gilt and black with attention to geometry, upper board graced with flowers, birds, and a gilt vignette in a circle of a girl reading and watching the sun rise over water from her perch beneath a tree on a hill. Spine with elegantly embellished title and author’s name also in gilt and black. Floral endpapers. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  Presentation from author to Capt. John M. Tobin (presentation on front fly-leaf).

Evidence of readership: (At least) one word added in early ink, p. 79.

•  Bound as above. Extremities lightly rubbed and the lower board mildly scuffed; minor waterstaining in the upper and outer margins of some leaves, visible at the fore-edge. Lovely.  (29948)

Binding: Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt; cover with handsome vignette of “Holy-Cross Abbey” seen from across the water.

Provenance:  Gift inscription of Christmas, 1892; C.J. O'Callaghan to Thomas F. Donahue. 20th-century bookplates of Francis Massey O'Brien (Portland, Maine), bibliophile and bookseller.

Evidence of readership: O'Brien's extensive notes on the blank endpapers and fly-leaves.

•  Bound as above; spine faded. Interior clean. A good ++ copy.  (30065)

a Chartist poet, author, and proponent of political and sexual freedom for women

Provenance:  Residue of the stock of Seven Gables Bookshop (1930–79), via the son of Michael Papantonio (2009).

•  Very good condition. Tipped onto a slightly larger sheet. With the integral blank.  (25726)

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Sabin 16279.   Publisher's textured teal cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; sides and edges clean and showing virtually no wear, spine with head pulled, title dimmed, and small rubbed spots. Ex–social club library: number on endpaper in a good 19th-century hand, rubber- and pressure-stamp on title-page, several other pages faintly stamped. Front free endpaper lacking. A nice, clean, sound copy with its paper holding up beautifully.  (26266)

The volume is illustrated with alovely copper-engraved frontispiece depicting tree-fellers at work and with four folding plans showing how to calculate the scale and design of landscape features. At the back of the work is a brief overview of the rules for making cider, and an additional recipe for birch beer (alcoholic) is given in the chapter on birches.

•  ESTC T131054; Goldsmiths’-Kress no. 6265.   18th-century calf, covers framed in double blind fillets with blind roll along joint, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and date labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; joints and portions of spine leather unobtrusively repaired, edges and extremities rubbed, sides with a bit of light scuffing, gilt mildly rubbed. Scattered faint foxing, most pages clean.  (30312)

This copy bears the full-page woodcut portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf, which is not found with all copies. Additionally, the title-page bears an interesting 14-piece composite woodcut border and the verso of that page has a stunning full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, to whom the letter is addressed. The coat of arms is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes; the lay-out is elegant and there is one large, handsome woodcut initial.

As usual, the letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et insulis noviter repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered islands of the West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost Cortés letter.

One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico and of the first encounter of the West with the Aztec civilization, this is a work of bedrock importance to the New World. No complete copy has appeared for sale since 1985.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 524/5; Sabin 16947; Harrisse, BAV, 125. Sanz 933–34; Medina, BHA, 70; Church 53; Burden 5; JCB, German Americana, 524/4; Streeter Sale 190.   18th-century half vellum and sprinkled paper over boards, gilt red leather label. Map supplied in expert facsimile; blank leaf H8 lacking. Bookplate of John Carter Brown (Library) on front pastedown, with deaccession stamp. Occasional very minor soiling in the text, else very good — a copy clean and even crisp.  (26808)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Sabin 16953.   Contemporary treed calf, front joint (outside) starting at top to open. A good+ copy — in fact, a rather nice one.  (20510)

Other works by Corvinus († ca. 1680) include Iurisprudentiae Romanae Summarium, and Ius Feudale.

•  Willems 1301.   Contemporary vellum, soiled; two small pieces of spine vellum missing. Engraved title-page starting to loosen; pages generally clean.  (30089)

The added engraved title-page is signed “F.H. Van Houe fecit,” marking this as the earlier state of the engraving.

•  ESTC R18563; Wing (rev. ed.) C6388.   Full period-style Cambridge mottled calf, covers framed and panelled in blind fillets and dotted rolls with blind-tooled corner fleurons, board edges with gilt roll, spine with gilt-stamped title, etc., and spine compartments gilt extra. All edges marbled. Pages mildly cockled and gently age-toned, otherwise clean. A very attractive copy, and a nice snapshot of period pomology.  (30099)

48 wood-engraved illustrations

Binding:  Publisher's dark gray-green vermiform cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped cattle-herding vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title and eagle design. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with early pencilled inscription of Frances Stephens of Pennsylvania.

There is quite a lot of how-to, here!

•  See Welsh, Miniature Books, 2053 for 1840 London edition.   Binding slightly cocked, showing minor wear (only) overall. Front free endpaper with inscription as above, back endpapers with additional pencilled inscriptions. Soiling, generally light; spots, generally small; a solid and pleasing copy of a book that was often loved to pieces.  (29676)

•  Very Good condition. Original printed wrappers, spine lightly sunned. Pages browned from cheapness of paper. (3406)

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Cowley’s Pindaric odes are present here, as are the Davideis and Davideidos;also set forth are the “delightful little prose Essays (with verse interwoven)” for which The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature believes Cowley will most ultimately be remembered. Some sections have separate title-pages, bearing the same publisher and date information as the main title-page but lacking the printer attribution.

Provenance: Front pastedown with small armorial bookplate and with bookseller’s ticket from Cambridge, England.

•  ESTC R29730; Wing (2nd ed.) C-6652. On Cowley, see: Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 351–52. 17th-century mottled calf, rebacked at some point in the 19th century and again more recently with hinges carefully reinforced (inside); spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title label, covers showing the predictable acid-etching. Varying degrees of browning to pages; scattered incidents of worming in lower inner and outer margins, almost never affecting text. A handsome book in a binding both sturdy and attractive. (7716)

Bindings: Publisher's plain light blue paper–covered sides with tan shelfbacks, spines with printed paper labels; uncut.

•  NSTC 2C41665; NCBEL, II, 611; Shaw & Shoemaker 47741.   Spine paper darkened and cracked, joints and spines of both volumes restored with long-fiber tissue; inner margins of first and last few leaves unobtrusively repaired; as noted, page edges uncut.. Vol. I with front cover waterstained and back cover inkstained(?); title-page of vol. II with pencilled ownership inscription in upper portion. Foxing variously; one pencilled correction.  (30085)

•  Bennett, American Nineteenth Century Color Plate Books, 138–39. Not in Reese, Stamped with a National Character.   Bindings as above, joints and extremities mildly rubbed, gilt with a few minor spots of rubbing, front joint of vol. I with small area towards head just starting to split (volume still solid). Hinges (inside) unobtrusively reinforced. Vol. I: one page of contents with outer edge browned; list of illustrations with short tear from outer edge, just touching one number. Vol. II: back free endpaper and fly-leaf with short tears at inner margin; one leaf with short tear from outer edge, not touching text. A few other instances of very minor smudging or spots of browning (to corners or outer margins), pages and plates overall clean. A beautiful set, enjoyable and highly giftable.  (28380)

This is numbered copy 972 of 2000 printed, signed at the colophon by the illustrator; the appropriate LEC newsletter and prospectus, in an unstamped and unmailed LEC envelope, are laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 479; BAL 4068; Williams & Starrett 1.   Binding as above, in original glassine dust wrapper and publisher's slipcase; binding very clean and fresh, wrapper with spine chipped, slipcase showing very minor shelfwear only. A nice copy.  (30127)

Binding:  Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, front cover with elaborately blind-embossed arabesque brazier design and gilt-stamped title, spine with blind-stamped strapwork and gilt-stamped title.

•  NSTC 0163385.   Binding as above, very slightly cocked with minimal wear to extremities. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean. A nice copy of a once very popular reference work.  (30271)

•  NSTC 2C42639; Goldsmiths’-Kress 26080; not in Maggs, Bibl. Asiatica. On Crawfurd, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Publisher’s dark green cloth, blind-stamped, spines with gilt-stamped title; spines very slightly sunned and showing faint traces of now-absent paper labels, cloth lightly rubbed at corners and spine extremities. Hinges cracked (inside). Front pastedowns rubber-stamped (no other institutional markings). Title-pages with pencilled owner’s name in upper margins; contents pages with inked owner’s name dated 1865. Frontispiece, plates, and a few pages in proximity to plates lightly to moderately foxed; one plate in vol. II torn from inner margin, tear not touching image. Absorbing reading, evocative images.

Written in Law French with some Latin, and with extended passages entirely in English in the section on “forrest” law; printed in black letter.

Provenance: Contemporary inked signatures to fly-leaf of Henry Wynn/Wine (Middle Temple?).

•  ESTC S109077; STC (2nd ed.) 6050; Lowndes, I, 558.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties. Pinhole or small worming throughout to top margins, touching a few letters in headings; light waterstaining to margins/corners of first/last leaves; one preliminary with just a very little bug-spotting. Paper flaws in margins of ff. 45, 164, and 172; last leaf a little tattered. Overall, very good. (21344)

•  Schoenberg, Jesuit Mission Presses, 74.   Stitched in original blue paper self-wraps with title and ornamental border in black; corners of wraps and pages variously a little bumped or (at lower outside) chipped or dog-eared. Two old and faded round rubber-library-stamps of the “Bibl. Scholasticatus Pro. Oreg. S.J.” (on front wrapper & first leaf); three-digit number in white on front wrapper and a longer one minutely to pp. 2 and 10. Small repair to rear wrapper. A clean, decent copy.  (29305)

Signed Binding: Publisher's teal pebbled cloth, front covers with striking chariot and armorial scene in light blue, tan, and gilt. The “Cibeles” statue found in Madrid's Cibeles Plaza and the coat of arms (and gilt monogram) of the city of Madrid appear with de la Cruz's name stamped in gilt below; spines offer gilt-stamped title and black-stamped griffin decoration. Cover of vol. II is signed “J. Orba.” All page edges are stamped in a Greek key pattern in blue and gilt.

Provenance:  Half-titles each with old-fashioned rubber-stamp of José Carmona y Ramos.

•  Palau 65340.   Bindings as above, edges and extremities showing minor shelfwear, back cover of vol. I with small spots of faint discoloration, front joint of vol. II rubbed. Collector's stamp as above, each front pastedown with small paper label bearing hand-inked numeral. Pages age-toned; edges slightly embrittled, occasionally with small chips or short tears. Scattered light smudges in vol. I; vol. II with mild to moderate foxing. A peacocky set.  (29262)

Binding:  Contemporary deep reddish-brown sheep in imitation of morocco, exuberantly flourished in gilt both as to both covers and the spine; front cover gilt extra with arabesque and floral designs surrounding a vignette of a girl bearing a basket of flowers on her head, spine with gilt-stamped title and similar motifs, back cover with blind-tooled foliate decorations and gilt-stamped arabesque motifs. All edges gilt. This binding is illustrated as “lamina XXVIII” in Manuel Romero de Terreros' Encuadernaciones artisticas mexicanas, siglos XVI al XIX.

•  Palau 66293; Sabin 65337 (for 1847 & 1852 eds.).   Binding as above, mild rubbing overall, especially to spine; front joint just starting from head. Hinges (inside) cracked across paper, with text block starting to pull away. Pages gently age-toned, with some light foxing generally to or around plates and a few corners crumpled. One plate with ragged outer edge, not touching image. Silk bookmarker laid in; many guard leaves still present. More solid than description might imply, and an all-around remarkable, beautiful volume.  (29091)

Father Cuoq (1821–98) was an extremely accomplished linguist as evidenced by his becoming fluent in both Algonquin and Iroquois; Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 93) writes glowingly of his mastery of these languages. His life as a missionary of the Order of Sulpitians, notably among the Nipissing at Lake of Two Mountains, certainly aided in his scholarly achievement.

•  Pilling, Algonquian, 100-101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 952; Field 391; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Algonkin-14; Sabin 17980. Not in Banks; not in Evans, Masinanhikan. Original printed green wrappers, spine reinforced some time ago, edges chipped. Half-title with pencilled annotations. First text page rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution; pages otherwise clean.

•  NSTC 2C47117. Publisher’s cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine embossed and with gilt-stamped title; front cover detached, cloth chipped at spine extremities and rubbed at edges. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper and title-page rubber-stamped, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1870. Early inked marginalia to one page.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 6317.   Recent quarter brown cloth and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Title-page spotted and creased; title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper portion and added authorial identification, two trials each with similar inscription in header; one leaf with inscription in outer margin and one likewise in lower margin; one leaf with inscription overlying text. A few early pencilled corrections and annotations. Foxed; some corners creased or chipped. Title-page and last leaf with inner portions repaired. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, not touching text.  (29996)

Click the title-page image for an enlargement.

The main title-page is printed in black and red, the text in black letter (i.e., gothic, fraktur) and the footnotes in roman.

•  Contemporary vellum over paste boards; later paper spine label with hand lettering; small area of lower spine with black spots. Vellum loosening at the turn-ins. Board edges soiled. Few stray stains in some margins. Private bookplate.