Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black and white; designed by Thomas Watson Ball and with his “B” cipher. The cover depicts a richly dressed man at a tickertape machine. Top edge gilt.

•  Bound as above; black stamping showing light wear: a solid, clean copy.  (22208)

A leaflet accompanying the set tells us: “These volumes are an official publication of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York. We would like to extend our appreciation to David D. Ryus, Alan Ternes, and Louis Bilka for their contributions to this work. Editor: Barry L. Kessel and project editor: Philip R. St.Clair.”

•  Publisher's full tan calf, round spines, raised bands, gilt tooling in replication of an 1830s binding. Silk place marker in each volume. All edges gilt. With original prospectus and some advertising matter laid in, and in a brown cloth open-back slipcase. Both books and slipcase in excellent condition.  (22188)

Also included is a woodcut map showing Europe, the Atlantic, and the New World.

•  Palau 159680; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 609/77; Medina, BHA, 123. Old vellum; red leather, gilt-lettered spine label; some staining, and chipping to edges and label. Old, careful repairs to interior worming occasionally cost individual letters (but never sense) or a little loss to an illustration. Old rubber-stamps and red and black ownership label on title-page; inked notations on title-page and front pastedown. All edges speckled red.

Elegant, lithographed vignettes and devices serve as head- and tailpieces.

This work is rare: No copies were found via RLIN, OCLC, or NUC Pre-1956.

•  NSTC 2M23757; Yale University Library, Speck Collectioin of Goethe's Works, 240. Recent quarter nut-brown calf over marbled paper; spine with beaded raised bands, compartment devices, and a red leather gilt title-label. Shallow chipping to some leaves’ edges, traces of soiling and age-toning around same, and a few places with small brown spots. Rubber-stamps from a now defunct library, including on title-page. All edges gilt. Overall quite handsome.

with a suite of proofs

•  Bound by M. Lortic in red morocco, gilt extra with accents of black; original wrappers bound in; rubbing to joints at top and bottom. Wide turn-ins with gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

•  Abbey, Life in England, 427; NSTC M2209; Graesse, IV, 513; Brunet, III, 1692.   Binding as above, edges rubbed. Pages and plates clean. A beautiful copy.  (22473)

The binding is full rusty-brown Nigerian goat, stamped in gold on the spine. The etchings are by Leonard Baskin, a series of five portraits tracing the downward spiral of Willy Loman — a powerful complement to Miller's portrait of a salesman at the end of his career and at the end of his rope! The plates, printed by Bruce Chandler, are each protected by a brown paper tissue guard. The book is designed by Benjamin Schiff, who chose a Bulmer font for the text.

This offering includes the monthly newsletter but not the mailing notice.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 540.   Binding as above. One of the tissue guards is loose but otherwise undamaged. Fine, in the original slipcase. A handsome production of one of the most performed plays in the world!  (21754)

TWO nicely accomplished pen-and-ink drawings of ships

One leaf bears a number of small photographs of young men, labelled “1915” — possibly classmates from St. Paul’s?

•  Publisher’s cloth wrappers, front cover gilt-stamped “Autographs”; edges and extremities chipped. Text block partially separated from spine. Some fading to colored pages, with occasional very slight offsetting or ink smearing.

For more MANUSCRIPTS,  click here.

Binding: Contemporary olive morocco, covers framed in gilt single fillet, spines with gilt-stamped title. All edges gilt.

•  NSTC T1207 (for 1801 and 1809 eds., not citing this ed.). Bound as above; spines darkened (not unattractively), some corners bumped. Front pastedowns each with armorial bookplate, one volume with additional private collector’s bookplate affixed and others with that bookplate laid in. Occasional small spots of faint foxing; one page with two drops of spilled wax.

The illustrations are full-page watercolors, six in all, by Edmund Dulac. The LEC Bibliography says they were "printed in process offset," but this is in error: The mailing notice asserts they were "reproduced in six printings by the Sun Engraving Company," and a member of the family that owned that enterprise observes to us that it did not in fact have offset presses—while it was noted for its color letterpress productions, including the original (1940) Szyk Haggadah.

The design is by John Dreyfus, who chose a monotype Bembo font printed by the University of Cambridge Press; the engraving of the music was done by G.T. Friend. The binding is quarter gold-stamped vellum with marbled paper sides; top edges are gilt. Since Hubert Foss and Edmund Dulac both died during the production of this book, a one-page photo-print from The Times of London's obituary section summarizing the achievements of these two men has been included with this offering. The monthly letter and mailing notice are also present.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 250. Two tiny stains on the fore-edge, a penstroke marking p. 54, and two other pen-point spots. With the original slipcase.

•  Lipperheide, Katalog der Freiherrlich von Lipperheide’schen Kostumbibliothek, 285m. Contemporary quarter morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; joints and edges rubbed, joints cracked and leather chipped at spine extremities. Front free endpaper separated but present; front pastedown and free endpaper institutionally rubber-stamped. Pages clean. Absorbing.

This first edition has an engraved vignette showing a man setting fire to a tower representing Babylon, a portrait of the author engraved by L. Gaultier, and a double-spread engraved plate showing an image of Pope Paul V receiving idolatrous worship from representatives of the four corners of the earth. The text is printed in roman, italic, Greek, and Hebrew, with a few woodcut and typographic headpieces and woodcut initials. A French edition appeared the same year; a number of subsequent editions followed in the 17th century.

Some vandal! has neatly excised two initials, from A1v and B1v (p. 1), with loss of text on both sides of each leaf. A librarian’s ballpoint inking of the title-page has added insult to that injury—price adjusted downward, accordingly.

Click either image for an enlargement.

•  On Mornay, see: Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., XVIII, 848–49. 20th-century black cloth with marbled endpapers; call number in white ink at base of spine, and library bookplate on front pastedown. Paper over hinges (inside) opening. Two initials excised, as above; modern inked call number, name, and date on title-page. Title-page with a heavily creased fold across the center of the leaf, lightly soiled and browned along outer edge; a tear just into the vignette is repaired with tissue. Wormhole to gutter of later leaves, not approaching text, and light waterstaining variously throughout. Faults notwithstanding, yet worth having.

Provenance: Inscription to Ellie Bond Robinson (from her cousin Elizabeth); elegant small booklabel, “Gardner.”

•  Publisher’s textured cloth, framed in blind, front cover with gilt-stamped title; covers and corners showing very slight traces of wear. Front free endpaper with small booklabel and with inked gift inscription dated 1887. One flap (“Circumspection”) lacking, with all other flaps present and working. An attractive copy of an uncommon item.