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•  Sabin 55624. Original printed paper front wrapper (only, and detached; back wrapper lacking); wrapper torn, with inked inscription in upper margin. Wrapper, title-page, and next four leaves gnawed by a rodent with loss to printed border of wrapper and a letter or two on the title-page — main text not affected. Pages creased, with some instances of light spotting.

Signed binding: Contemporary half tan morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with raised bands each accented above and below with single gilt rule and single black rule; gilt-stamped title, spine compartments framed in gilt with gilt dots in each corner and each with gilt center device. Front free endpaper stamped “Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.” Top edge gilt; silk ribbon place marker.

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•  Binding as above, spine slightly sunned, corners and extremities showing minor rubbing. Front pastedown with private collector’s armorial bookplate. Pages clean.

The subject of this work is the rivalry between Spain and France for political and religious supremacy in the Catholic realm of Europe, but the author also discusses national traits, as he sees them, such as manner of dressing, walking, eating, and talking.

•  Palau 97802.   Recent boards covered with marbled paper; leather spine label gilt with title. Some lower margins irregular due to natural paper flaws. All edges speckled red. A very good copy.  (25812)

This edition is limited to 2,000 copies, was translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa, and carries an introduction by Alastair Reid. The colophon page issigned by both Rabassa and Reid, and also by the illustrator Rafael Ferrer.

Rafael Ferrer, a native Puerto Rican, created eight full-page oil paintings and 25 in-text ink drawings, well reproduced here — plus a full-page original graphic, laid in at the back (i.e., not bound into the book) and most suitable for framing. Ferrer's images, with their bold lines and colors, often pack an emotional punch. His style belongs to the New Image school of painting, which bears the unmistakable influences of neo-expressionism, surrealism, and Dada.

Binding:  Three-quarter leather, stamped in gold on the spine, over straw-colored textured Chinese silk.

This offering includes the monthly newsletter.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 532.   Binding as above. Book clean and bright, in slipcase with small scrapes at the lower spine and at the mouth. Fine, in a near fine slipcase.  (21791)

Provenance:  Pencilled ownership inscriptions of W. G. Benton.

Rare in the first edition, with only one copy located via OCLC and none added by NUC Pre-1956.

•  Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; rubbed overall, edges darkened, spine extremities chipped. Front hinge (inside) cracked; front pastedown and free endpaper with pencilled ownership inscriptions; front fly-leaf partially excised. Light foxing variably throughout.  (24377)

The frontispiece portrays a small but elegantly composed octagonal structure, labelled “Theatrum Cutlerianum.”

•  ESTC T34564; Foxon G21; Wing (rev.) G273 (first ed.). Recent marbled paper wrappers, front cover with printed paper label. Two pages (not including title-page) stamped; one page with two pencilled corrections. Margins untrimmed and occasionally showing a few spots or light staining, pages otherwise quite clean.

•  De Renne, II, 630; Parrish & Willingham 2777. Recent blue-gray boards. Old library stamps in some margins. A clean, tight copy.

Gerard's observations cover botany, linguistics, culture, and commerce, as well as geography. The area of his travels is depicted by an oversized, folding map of his own design.

•  NSTC 2G5453; Howgego, II, G7.   Contemporary brown cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; rebacked and 95% of original spine reapplied, with the publisher's name at the foot of the spine chipped. Front pastedown and back of map each with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings), front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated [18]49. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Last preface page with small inked annotation. Pages slightly age-toned; map with light offsetting and one short tear starting along fold, not touching image.  (24291)

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Not widely held:  ESTC, OCLC, Wing, and NUC Pre-1956 find only 10 U.S. institutional locations, one of which has now been deaccessioned.

In its way, a handsome little production, being very much in “the character of an old English” imprint of its era — complete with sidenotes, busy type ornamentation, and exuberant font variation.

•  ESTC R227244; Wing (rev. ed.) G589. On Geree, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent marbled paper wrappers. Pages clean and notably wide-margined.  (25007)

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•  ESTC R200633; Wing (rev. ed.) G603.   Recent marbled paper wrappers. Pages very slightly age-toned with one early inked marginal annotation, else clean and crisp.  (25024)

•  Boards covered with German-style black-flecked brown paper, spine with printed paper label. Paper edges speckled red. Very good condition.  (25319)

The two woodcuts (title-page and opposite A1r) are copies of illustrations appearing in Brant's famous work — the first, a version of the Ship and the second, of “The Corrupt Way to Live of Those Who Are Ruined.” The volume is, as one would expect, printed in gothic type (except for the biography). There are spaces with guide letters for capitals; the side margins have letters and numbers to aid in finding passages.

Of this edition, in the U.S. we locate only the copies at the New York Public and Cornell University libraries.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 510/5; VD16 G777 (& ZV 6437 for the Life); Adams G315; Ritter, Strasbourg, 955.   18th-century German boards covered with black-mottled paper; paper spine label. Portion of front free endpaper cut away; small blank area of top of title-page cut away and repaired long ago. Light waterstains and occasional instances of worming (in margins). The final section, i.e., the Vita, is loose in the binding.  (25378)

The most striking feature of this piece is the first of the two plates, a lifelike portrait of the book’s subject engraved by Heinrich Wehymer after Antonio Davide. The other plate, an unsigned etching, depicts the statue of Our Lady of Consolation in the Augustinian church at Genoa. Also present is an engraved title-page vignette depicting the arms of Pope Benedict XIII, the work’s dedicatee, and there are a few initials and woodcut head- and tailpieces, the tailpiece on the last page being especially large and handsome.

This is apparently the sole edition of this biography, and it is rare: A search of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 revealed no copies, and the Italian Library Service union catalogue lists only one holding, at the Central Library in Turin.

•  Vellum over paste boards with staining on front cover; pastedowns torn along turn-ins and puter edge of front free endpaper somewhat tattered. Lightly foxed throughout, a few pages more heavily so, with a light waterstain on the bottom edge and/or lower outer corner of most leaves (barely visible, on some). Small hole in outer margin of half-title and hole with tear (from a paper defect) in the margin of pp. 51–52. The second plate with two closed tears into the engraving, without loss. All edges mottled red and blue.

The work was additionally printed in Dublin and Basil in the same year. OCLC notes that a third volume was printed almost ten years later, by J. Murray; that supplementary volume is not present here.

Signed binding: Contemporary treed calf, covers framed in gilt rolls, beautifully rebacked with gilt-stamped spines preserving handsome original gilt-stamped, two-color leather title and volume labels, turn-ins with gilt rolls. Front pastedown of vol. I with binder's ticket: “Pigge Binders, Lynn.”

A charming silhouette of Gibbon serves as frontispiece to volume I.

•  ESTC T79696; Allibone 663; Brunet, II, 1586; Norton, Gibbon, 131.   Bindings as above with original leather showing some scuffs and abrasions; gilt on original spine labels a little (but a little only) dimmed. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Final page of each volume, back pastedown of vol. I, and title-page of vol. II institutionally rubber-stamped; no other such marks. Intermittent spots of light foxing. A lovely, wide-margined, archetypically “18th-century” quarto production for this quintessentially 18th-century writer.  (23770)

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•  ESTC R24103; Lowndes 888; Wing (rev. ed.) S6383 (noting the true publication date). On Gibson, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations, leather edges tooled in blind. Lower (closed) edges and title-page recto and verso institutionally rubber-stamped; last page with affixed printed errata slip. Back fly-leaf with early inked annotation; text with a very few instances of inked bracketing in an early hand, pages otherwise clean. All edges speckled in red and brown.  (25422)

•  The report is illustrated withnumerous plates and in-text illustrations depicting views of geographic features and cross-sections, as well as with five maps, one color-printed.

•  Publisher’s cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title attractively oxidized and with now-repaired tear in cloth; cloth rubbed at extremities and split along portions of the front joint (with joint remaining solid). Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped (no other markings), front free endpaper with affixed label as described above, front fly-leaf with lower corner once folded in (now flattened). Pages clean.

Binding: Publisher's blue straight-grain morocco, covers framed in gilt double fillets, front cover with gilt-stamped lyre vignette; spine gilt extra with musical motifs, gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. All edges gilt. In the original blue cloth slipcase.

•  Binding as above, spine slightly rubbed and sunned to a very even, attractive cocoa brown; slipcase faded, with minor shelfwear. Pages clean. A bright, beautiful volume.  (25896)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 10485. Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and abraded; back cover with slices to leather, title label on spine almost entirely rubbed away. One leaf torn; pages age-toned throughout, with staining/spotting. Back pastedown with calligraphy practice inked in an early hand.

Rare in the U.S.: We trace only the Getty copy of this edition, and earlier editions are no less rare.

•  Landwehr, German Emblem Books, 317. Boards covered in music-printed paper from an 18th-century antiphonal, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Engraved title and pp. 49/50 (emblem VII) lacking. Title-page and next leaf with long-ago repaired holes, one on the latter affecting an initial on the verso; title-page with old inked device(?) and 19th-century institutional stamp on verso, showing through in part to recto; a small hole in a third leaf, taking perhaps a letter or two. Final blank leaf and two other leaves also stamped. One leaf torn from margins into text, repaired with Japanese tissue. Pages slightly age-toned, some with mild foxing or the odd spot. Faults noted, this is yet a worthwhile and studyable/enjoyable volume.

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mouse-over, for an enlargement.

Founded by Sara Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, Girton was originally known as the Hitchin College for Women before its relocation and renaming in 1873. Although the women students were not granted the full rights of Cambridge degrees until 1948, “Girton girls” quickly achieved numerous academic successes, many of which are vividly commemorated in songs or verses present in this volume. One such piece—sung to the tune of “The British Grenadiers”—honors the Girton Pioneers, the first three women to sit the Tripos exams (these are the university’s honor examinations, and one of the first three Gifton champions was C. L. Maynard). Another entry, a rousing take-off on “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” celebrates the“Charge of the Five [Girton] Students” who nobly passed the “Little Go” in December, 1872: “Papers to right of them, Papers to left of them, Papers in front of them Rustled and threatened. Pelted with questions round, bravely they stood their ground . . .”

The controversy over women’s degrees was raging hotly at the time of this book’s creation, and is reflected in a number of the songs, with less political entries including “Auld Lang Syne,”“Gaudeamus,” “The Great God Cram,” and “Farewell, dear Friends, Farewell ye comrades dear.” There is much to smile at, much to think about, and much to admire, in this Victorian keepsake volume.

Provenance: Front cover gilt-stamped “A.E. Tuthill”; one page bears the ownership inscription of Katherine V. Woodward of New York.

•  Contemporary limp morocco, front cover gilt-stamped as above; extremities rubbed, with leather cracked and partially lost over spine. Several leaves partially excised or affixed deliberately to one another; some instances of light offsetting and a few instances of verses struck lightly through with pencil (we cannot venture why). Otherwise clean.

•  Publisher's cloth, dust jacket, and contents as new. (6107)

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Held in most of the expectable libraries but currently uncommon in commerce.

•  Sabin 70769. Recent black moiré cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page and several others rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages clean.

•  A copy in lovely condition, imperceptibly rebacked with the original spine retained. Original wrappers bound in. Protected in a crimson morocco-edged slipcase.

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Click the title-page for an enlargement.

•  NSTC 2F18403; Sabin 71523 (series described in note). Later pebbled cloth, spine with printed paper label; cloth slightly worn over extremities and just starting to split over front joint, spine label darkened and with upper portion chipped. Spots of faint to mild foxing.

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•  Publisher's teal cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title and decorative floral motifs; back cover and corners showing very slight scuffing. Back hinge cracked and front hinge starting; front free endpaper excised. Still, an attractive copy. (18393)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of George L. Daily, Jr. compiler with James Alfredson of A Bibliography of Conjuring Periodicals in English, 1791–1983. Gilt-stamped name, Albert Edward Colegate, on front cover. Signature of R.D. Veoh(?) on front free endpaper.

•  Publisher's red roan in imitation of morocco, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, front cover with gilt-stamped name as above (and front free endpaper with small inked inscription as above); cloth split along joints, joints starting, edges and extremities rubbed, covers with small spots of discoloration. (The binding color in our picture above awaits correction:  The leather is decidedly burgundy in tone.) Lock and key slightly tarnished, but (to our rather amazed delight) present and functional.  Intermittent light foxing.  (25418)

•  Cary 216. Printed wrappers. Collotype plates and illustrations. A fine copy. (17734)

•  Publisher’s quarter tan cloth over black paper–covered sides, front cover with black- and red-printed paper label, in original glassine dustwrapper; clean and unworn. An elegant book.

Handsomely printed, the volume begins with a fine engraved frontispiece opposite the title in black and red. Engraved head- and tailpieces appear in expected places; each page is heavily laden with printed notes.

•  Brunet 759; Schweiger, II, 328. Contemporary vellum over paste boards with blind-embossed center device on covers; that on front cover slightly loose due to a vandal’s attempt to excise it! Top of spine pulled (uncommon on a vellum-bound book); vellum soiled and binding a little sprung. Bookplate removed and glue residue visible on pastedown. The odd spot or small stain only; some light foxing and dust-soiling.

•  ESTC T8304. Contemporary full calf, covers framed in blind using double fillets on three sides and a floral roll on the fourth; rebacked and corners redone at some point using lighter calf, gilt-stamped leather title label. Abraded and worn, with front hinge(inside) tender. Pages age-toned, some more so than others; yet the volume almost entirely free of spotting. (Our image is a bit distorted, above right — Nutt & Gosling could print in straight lines, and did!)

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RLIN and OCLC report only one holding of this item in the U.S.

•  Not in NSTC. Removed from a nonce volume, now in a Mylar folder; title-page and final blank lightly dust-soiled. Sewing mostly gone. Title-page with short tear from inner margin, not touching text; some leaves with small edge chips.

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for an enlargement.

Uncommon: ESTC locates only four copies, none of which are in the U.S.

•  ESTC T26238; Goldsmiths’-Kress 7877.5. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages age-toned, with some dustsoiling.

•  NSTC ENG385. Recent paper wrappers. Title-page with rubber-stamped numeral and shadows of now-absent pencilled annotations. Three leaves with upper outer corners torn off and reattached/repaired without loss of sense. A few faint spots of foxing to title-page, otherwise clean. 

The author, a pastor and educator, was one of the most determined abolition activists in the United States; the DAB notes that while his dedication to the cause led to the closing of many doors in his career, his sermons on the subject “attracted wide attention,” contributing greatly to the catalyzing of American Christian opposition to slavery.

•  On Green, see: Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 539–40. Sabin 28512. Recent wrappers. Foxing throughout.

It is unclear how much of Eldridge's biography has here been romanticized (there now seems to be little available evidence regarding her career), but the story nonetheless provides an important perspective on the lives of African-American women prior to the Civil War. Also of interest is the group of women described as helping to rescue Eldridge by way of this literary endeavor, undertaken through the auspices of Green, a Rhode Island–born author, reformer, and spiritualist who went on to publish several abolitionist works.

A woodcut frontispiece depicts Eldridge in cleaning-woman guise, holding a small broom.

•  Sabin 22102 & 103303 (for earlier eds.); Library Company, Afro-Americana, 3446. On Green, see: Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 542.   Later wrappers. Light spotting; some pages crumpled. Plate in a decent impression (as it sometimes is not).  (25550)

Signed in type: “Chauncey Gridley, David W. Childs, Joshua Hathaway, Leavit Fox, Calvin Guiteau, Francis A. Bloodgood, and Samuel Wetmore, } Committee of Correspondence. Oneida County, April 23, 1806.”

Rare.  Not located via OCLC.

•  Not in Shaw & Shoemaker.   As issued, with some later folds; a little irregular at top edge. Underlining of two sentences (the ones quoted above), in pencil.  (24630)

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The volume is illustrated with five steel-engraved plates and an additional engraved title-page.

Binding:  Contemporary maroon morocco, covers framed in gilt single fillet and blind-stamped with arabesque designs, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-stamped raised bands, board edges gilt-tooled, all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Front cover with gilt supra-libros of A.M. Pratt.

•  BAL 6681; Sabin 28893; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 4386 (for a much later edition); Allibone p. 745; Poe, “The Female Poets of America,” Southern Literary Messenger, Feb. 1849; .   Bound as above, spine and edges gently sunned; edges lightly rubbed. Front cover gilt-stamped as above. Pages slightly age-toned, with offsetting around plates and scattered spotting; plates with spots of foxing. A very nice copy.  (25126)

Brunet calls this a “belle édition, la seule où l'on ait donné l'élégante traduction de l'Anthologie par Grotius,” with the present example beinga particularly nice, wide-margined copy. Each engraved title-page has a vignette done by R. Vinkeles.

•  Brunet, I, 309; Schweiger, I, 31. Recent black moiré cloth, covers framed in blind rolls, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-labels. Vol. I with one signature separated. Title-page of vol. III with upper inner corner waterstained; scattered spots of light foxing to be noted, but in fact the whole very clean and nice. All edges marbled.

Both the first and this second edition are little held in the U.S.: We trace three copies of the first and three of the second, one of which has been deaccessioned.

Provenance:  Three 18th-century ownership inscriptions on title-page: Jehoua Portis, Lib. Richbach, and Joh[ann]is Buys. 19th-century pressure-stamps of a Pennsylvania theological library, deaccessioned.

•  Full modern calf old style: Spine with raised bands, accented with gilt beading and blind rules, rules extending onto boards to Vs and ending with trefoils; blind double fillets beyond. Gilt center device in each spine compartment and a green title label lettered in gilt. Waterstaining in inner margins, extending into text on pp. 136–61; otherwise, expectable age-toning only. All edges red.  (25847)

•  This ed. not in Brunet.   Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title; vellum showing minor spots of discoloration and spine with call number. Front pastedown and bottom page edges with institutional rubber-stamp; back pastedown with stamp of a 19th-century Dutch bookseller; front fly-leaf with early inked annotation. First dedication leaf with inked numeral in lower margin; some instances of early inked underlining and marginalia, confined to early part of volume. First few leaves with light waterstaining to outer portions. First part skips pp. 1/2 (between preface and first text page), with this collation matching that reported online. (19564)

The text (on infant baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandments, etc.) is in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, with a title-page bearing the expectable copper-engraved vignette of the Sheldonian Theatre.

•  ESTC T94730; Graesse 162; Lowndes 950.   Period-style quarter calf and marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments, binding signed by Starr Bookworks. All edges lightly marbled in brown. Title-page and first text page institutionally pressure-stamped. Pages crisp and clean.  (24793)

No copy traced via OCLC.

•  Not in Banks. Not in Evans.   Original printed cloth–covered stiff wrappers. Fine.  (14756)

Binding: Publisher's brown suede, front cover with embossed Celtic designs, signed by Galwey & Co. of Dublin (with their ticket on the front pastedown).