The present example is numbered copy 254 of 400 printed.

•  Chanticleer 55.   Publisher's red cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; dust-wrapper lacking, spine darkened, extremities very slightly rubbed, cloth with light wrinkling over back cover. Pages clean.  (28212)

•  Publisher's embossed cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; corners and spine extremities showing minor wear, with gilt oxidized. Front free endpaper with pencilled inscription; some page edges with small blotches. Binding very handsome in its subtle way. Impossible! to get a good image of!  (12986)

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The Comunero Revolt in Argentina (ca. 1723–35) was a prolonged episode of uprising against the colonial government by residents in northeastern Argentina (Corrientes) and an adjacent part of Paraguay who felt marginalized by the Jesuit domination of the Guarani Indian labor pool and the Society of Jesus’s near monopoly of the yerba mate and tobacco trade with Buenos Aires.

•  Very good condition. Margins a little irregular; paper a little rumpled. Written in a clear, easy to read hand.  (24647)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with ownership inscription by Henry Binkly, dated 1833; several laid-in slips of paper include a recipe for hair dye and a concoction involving sulphur, sugar of lead, and bay rum.

•  Shoemaker 8591; First Century of German Language Printing in the U.S., 2565. Contemporary sheep framed in blind, spine with blind-ruled raised bands, abraded but solid. One clasp lacking, one present and working. Moderate foxing; one sectional title with pencilled annotations. Clearly a volume that saw both use and reasonable care. Plain, and pleasing.

This offering contains original documents touching on many of these and other matters.

•  NSTC E263.   20th-century plain green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine sunned, binding otherwise unworn. Title-page with early pencilled ownership inscription, one other page inscribed “John Robinson”; one page with pencilled calculation. Title-page dust-soiled with margins slightly ragged; first two leaves each with a repaired tear from inner margin. One leaf with lower outer corner torn away, not touching text. Scattered light spots of foxing.  (30021)

•  NSTC 2E4979.   Removed from a nonce volume.  (11085)

“nothing had been published in regard to the subject” before the present work

Illustrated with10 full-page stipple-engraved plates done by J. Erxleben, this guidebook covers efficient tank construction, freshwater aquarium inhabitants readily obtainable in the wild (goldfish, sticklebacks, sunfish, minnows, crawfish) as well as likely marine candidates (crabs, anemones, gobies, blennies, pipefish), and the basic overall principles of balancing species (fish, plants, snails, etc.) so that the tank seldom needs to be cleaned or have its water changed. It should be noted that the author is not wholly reliable in his identifications of American vs. British natives — but then again, the fad of aquarium-keeping was brand-new at the time, very few people could lay claim to more than Edwards' two years of aquarium experience, and all previous published works on the subject had been thoroughly British.

Binding:  Publisher's textured olive-green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and publisher; front cover framed in blind around a gilt-stamped central medallion offering a decoratively lettered title accented with images of small swimming fish, shells, and seaweeds.

•  NSTC 2E5035.   Bound as above; extremities rubbed and spine slightly sunned with small area of discoloration around paper shelving label at head. Ex–social club library: shelving label as noted, call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on endpapers and two pages (not title-page), no other markings. Back pastedown with small ticket of New York bookseller, partially effaced. A few leaves with very short tears from outer margins, not touching text; pages clean.  (29024)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 2175; Allibone 547.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Last page institutionally pressure-stamped; title-page with traces of paper adhesions to inner margin. Uncut copy; pages lightly age-toned, with a bit of soiling and light to moderate spotting.  (25830)

•  Graesse 467; NSTC 2E6790.   Period-style quarter brown cloth with light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Intermittent small pencilled marks of emphasis, pages otherwise clean. All edges stained red.  (24872)

Click the image to the left or right
for an enlargement.

The Selectae dissertationes mexicanae was planned as a three-volume work but only this volume was published, the other two having been left in manuscript. It was printed by the widow Hogal, who continued to maintain the high standards of printing that she established with her husband; more than one bibliographer has compared the Hogal output favorably with that of the best European contemporaries. The title-page is in black and red with the text in double-column format in roman and italic, and the whole has decent margins. The volume was intended as a university level text for the study of certain theological concepts.

Provenance:   Marca de fuego on top and bottom edges of the closed volume of the “Convento Grande de Nuestra Señora de la Merced” in Mexico City.

Very uncommon. We trace only three copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3763 Palau 78637; Beristain, I, 216–21. Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of button and loop ties. Marca de fuego as noted previously. Some worming into text on pages 361–94, costing letters but not impairing sense.

The present two works of preachings are scarce in the U.S., with only two institutions reporting ownership of Sechsz Christlicher Leichpredigen (one copy now deaccessioned) and only one reporting ownership of Ein Christliche predig (that copy also deaccessioned). The Sechsz Christlicher Leichpredigen ends with a two and a half pagepoem by the Dutch humanist and poet Hannard Gamerius, Eisengrein’s colleague at Ingolstadt, where Gamerius taught Greek.

Each work has its title-page printed in red and black; the printing throughout is neat and typical.

•  Sechsz: VD16 E817; Index Aurel. 159.363. Ein: VD16 E789; Index Aurel. 159.362.   Full dark modern calf old style, with simple blind double fillets bordering covers and a chain rule as vertical accent towards spine; spine without labels and with gilt-touched raised bands accented by blind rules extending onto covers to terminate in trefoils. Text unmarked; light overall age-toning.  (26143)

•  Gallup, T. S. Eliot: A bibiography (rev. & ext. ed.), A59a.   Publisher's blue wrappers. Very nice copy.  (27445)

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English Association pamphlet no. 80.

•  Gallup, T. S. Eliot: A bibiography (rev. & ext. ed.), A68.   Publisher's green wrappers, spine darkened, and a little rumpled. A decent copy.  (27448)

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Provenance:  Ownership signature of critic and Eliot enthusiast W.J. Rooney on title-page.

•  Gallup, T. S. Eliot: A bibiography (rev. & ext. ed.), A40 for the first edition.   Stiffened blue-gray wrappers, edges a little chipped and front wrapper faded as are spine area and edges of rear one; rear wrapper dust-soiled. Rooney's ownership signature in pencil on title; his marks of readership in margins and occasionally in text. Good+ copy.  (27433)

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•  Gallup, T. S. Eliot: A bibiography (rev. & ext. ed.), A63a.   Publisher's cream wrappers printed in green and wire stitched. Lightest soiling to wrappers; a clean copy.  (27432)

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The authorial attribution is tentative; WorldCat notes that the present text “is not the poem published under the title “My Brother” in Mary Elliott's Grateful Tributes (1819). Text of issue is designated as an 'uncertain ascription to Mary Elliott' by Mary Elliott's bibliographer Marjorie Moon.”

Provenance:  Inside front wrapper with beautifully inked inscription reading “Samuel Gara his Book Bought in Lancaster August the 23rd, 1827 by his Mother.”

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, age-toned, paper splitting along spine and sewing loosening; inside front wrapper with inscription as above. Pages age-toned, with mild foxing. In delicate condition, but a very appealing item.  (30251)

Four volumes in one as issued; each piece was printed in a limited edition of 900 copies.

•  Publisher's blue-green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped Art Nouveau-style title and mermaid decoration; dust jacket lacking, binding a little soiled and slightly cocked with edges and extremities lightly rubbed, corners and center of back cover at top bumped, spine darkened. Pages gently age-toned, otherwise clean. A decent “used” book.  (29695)

•  Uncut, partially unopened set. Publisher's light brown cloth, partly sunned, covers stamped in blind, spines lettered in gilt; corners and spine extremities rubbed with black tape at top of each spine extending onto covers and one volume rubbed in places to the boards. Ex–social club library: each volume with a 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings.  (28760)

Although Sternick says the first edition appeared in 1864, this appears to be erroneous — the copyright page here gives 1866, and WorldCat fails to locate any copies anywhere printed prior to 1866.

•  Sabin 64917; cf. Sternick 589.   Publisher's textured oxblood cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with decorative gilt-stamped title; extremities a bit rubbed. A clean, attractive copy of this romanticized Western American story.  (30359)

•  Publisher's quarter sheep with printed sides; neatly respined with cloth tape. Signed by previous owner on front pastedown.  (4182)

Schreiber calls this uncommon work “a volume of major importance to the history of Western thought, which rightly belongs on the same shelf with the first editions of Plato and Aristotle.”

Provenance:  Title-page with early inked inscription in upper margin, “Sum Joannis Forestij,” and additional early inked inscription mostly inked over; first fly-leaf with two early words inked, one also “Forestii.”

•  Adams P1682; Brunet, II, 1080; Renouard 140.8; Schreiber, Estiennes, 187; Schweiger, I, 104.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, spine with remnants of early paper shelving label; minor dust-soiling. No pastedowns, and front fly-leaves with outer edges slightly ragged, scraped by turn-ins; front turn-in at top with affixed printed numeral (early) on small slip of paper. Title-page with old rubber-stamp; a few leaves with mild waterstaining to lower outer portions, pages otherwise quite clean. All edges sprinkled red. A nice copy of a desirable work.  (29094)

Bibliographically interesting. Wing records four different issues of this ordinance, the telling points being on the title-page: the spelling of “classical” or “classicall” and the form of the date, whether “12 Novemb., 1645,” or just “1645" and combinations thereof. ESTC fails to distinguish them.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) E1894A; ESTC R176130.   Removed from a nonce volume and dusty; in modern wrappers. All edges a bit chipped and lower margins of leaves A2 and A3 with loss of blank paper. All leaves age-toned.  (20454)

This volume’s oversized, folding frontispiece shows the front facade of the “new East India House now building in Leadenhall Street”; there is also one in-text engraving of Lethington House in East Lothian, residence of the Maitland family.

Provenance: Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.

•  Disbound with front cover, front free endpaper, and frontispiece separated; back cover lost, and signature sewing exposed/going, with many leaves loose. Now contained in a simple, acid-free phase box. Edges untrimmed. Minor offsetting and a few stray marks; mostly clean.

There were American versions of “Humphrey Bluster” letters; in 1818 two such items respecting the Boston election were printed. At this writing RLIN, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956list no holdings of the present, Anglo Bluster.

•  Not in NSTC. On Graham, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XXII, 328–32. Creased, with corners bent, otherwise good. A few early, lightly inked marginalia.

The Explicationes was a serious attack on the Trinity and all its editions, beginning with the first of 1598, were surreptitiously printed and circulated. It was on various lists of banned books.

Click the images for enlargements.

The imprint of this edition is from Johann Fabricius' Historia Bibliothecae Fabricianae, V, 51; the title-page device is particularly lovely.

Evidence of readership: A lengthy note in an 18th-century hand on the front fly-leaf, apparently citing Johann Vogt's 1738 Catalogus historico-criticus librorum rariorum, labels this work “Liber perniciosus” and has much to say about it and its early editions. An earlier hand has recorded a list of books/citations inside the front cover.

•  Szabó, Régi magyar könyvtár, III, 4237.   18th-century English calf in the Cambridge style, leather at joints (but not sewing) starting; call number neatly in white in one lower spine panel. Private library bookplate; 18th-century ownership inscription partially erased from verso of title; handwritten notes as above. Title-page with a bit of dust-soiling and off-setting from binding at edges; otherwise, spotting never dark and mostly marginal.  (27172)

Click the image for an enlargement.

This work appeared with three different title-pages and there are even internal differences. In this copy the setting of quire B has line B3v with “Deliberations” spelled with the capital letter “D.”

• STC (rev ed.) 22058; ESTC S116980.   Removed from a nonce volume and in modern wrappers. First and last pages dust-soiled; tea (?) stain to last leaf. Ex-library with the not unattractive stamp of the Union Theological Seminary on the verso of the title and in the bottom margin of the last text page. Blank area of foremargin of B4 torn with loss. In modern wrappers. (21000)

•  ESTC N31610. On Knox, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and board edges gilt; binding rubbed, irregularly darkened, and chipped, with front joint open (sewing presently holding) and back joint starting. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, inked call number on endpapers, title-page pressure-stamped. No other markings. Collation matches ESTC's description. Varying degrees of foxing/browning, with most leaves unaffected or only a little so. All edges saffron.  (26377)

The book begins with Lingua ("On Language"), wherein Erasmus complains that humans abuse their gift of language and twist it to make a mockery of God's world and word. This is followed by the Principis Christiani Institvtio ("The Christian Education of a Prince"), directed primarily at the young Emperor Charles V Hapsburg, instructing him in, among other things, the benefits of passivism. This is considered to be one of the greatest contributions to the genre of the education of a Christian prince. The Querela Pacis ("Complaint of Peace"), next, was written in 1517 when the "Congress of Kings" met, hoping to preserve peace throughout Europe during a period of religious and social strife. Here Erasmus pleads for toleration, in some ways (but definitely not others) foreshadowing modern concepts of multiculturalism and diversity.

The volume's final work is the famous "Praise of Folly," which Erasmus claims he wrote on a journey from Italy to England while thinking about his friend Thomas More (hence the pun More -> moriæ). Here Folly, personified as a woman (of course), speaks in her own defence, pointing out the merits of the un-Christian practices of the day. That is followed by two of Erasmus's letters: "De Ratione Studii," intended for Petrus Viterius, and "De Instituendi," intended for Erasmus's students.

All works are given in the original Latin, annotated, and followed by full indices. The resulting thick little volume is a pleasing one—Maire printed it nicely—and this copy is an exceptionally crisp and clean exemplar.

•  On Erasmus, see: Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 145–47. Full vellum with yapp edges. Round spine with author and title handwritten at top in sepia ink; yellow head- and tailbands well preserved. Tiny initials ink on front fly-leaf. Very little foxing. Overall, excellent.

It is notable that despite its light theme and touch, this book offers serious instruction to men wanting seriously to achieve real competence in its era's arts of entertaining. Those seeking a gamesmanship guide suggesting ways merely to appear competent, or those cheerfully assuming that it is charming for men to be incompetent in this realm, had best look for support elsewhere.

•  Brown, Culinary Americana, 3337 (for first ed.).   Publisher's black cloth, front cover with eggplant- and gilt-stamped vignette of a mustachioed man hoisting a drink tray, spine with eggplant-stamped stripes and gilt-stamped title; dust jacket lacking, minor shelfwear to extremities and lower edges. A clean, solid copy.  (30269)

•  ESTC T22250; Foxon E519; NCBEL, II, 547. Recent marbled-paper wrappers, front wrapper with paper label. One page stamped by a now-defunct institution. Some early inked marginalia, one page with first few letters of each line hand-supplied where the printer erred. First and last pages with extremely light foxing.

•  Wing E3513 (first ed.) On Evelyn, see: Dictionary of National Biography, XVIII, 79–83. Contemporary speckled sheep with red gilt-stamped morocco spine label; some little chipping to edges, with joints and spine lightly abraded and cracking (not disastrously). Early inscription reads "Evelyns Sculptura compiled originally the elder Faithorne." Pages unspotted for the most part, and plates in good condition save for slight offsetting to frontispiece. A pleasing book!

Provenance:  Inscribed by the author: “To B.F. Pyle, Esq. [?] from his friend the author.”

•  Publisher's textured violet cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; faded, especially over spine, tear to cloth along front joint with corners and extremities a bit rubbed. Front fly-leaf with inked inscription as above. Endpapers, frontispiece (“The Rhine”), and title-page lightly foxed. In fact a clean, nice copy.  (23195)

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Publisher's textured brown cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine sunned with stain at head, lower corners bumped. Front hinge (inside) slightly tender. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label on spine, 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, no other markings. Pages clean; in fact a nice copy.  (28344)