•  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and affixed color-printed illustration; spine and corners showing light wear, otherwise a beautiful copy.  (23636)

•  Publisher's quarter vellum and paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; top corners bumped (one crumpled), sides with a few faint smudges, spine irregularly darkened and with indistinct remnant of old inked call number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate noting presentation from Morgan himself, and rubber-stamp; title-page and two others pressure-stamped; one preliminary leaf with inked numeral and provenance note. Back pastedown with traces of now-absent pocket, offset onto endpaper. Pages clean. Upper edges gilt. An ex-library copy, but also one offering an interesting suggestion in the provenance; an elegant production full of interest and pleasure for reader or reference-seeker. (21052)

•  Publisher's red cloth; dust jacket. Top of dust-jacket is a little frayed with tiny tears with slight loss of paper; short tears to front crease of the dust jacket at base of spine. A very good copy.  (21998)

Valentina Wasson’s upbringing in mushroom-loving Russia inspired this work, although directly Russian-related material is scant compared to the masses of international lore compiled here. Befitting a labor of love, the volume was handsomely printed by the prestigious Stamperia Valdonega (following Hans Mardersteig’s design) on heavy paper with deckle edges. Its pochoir plates reproduce beautiful life-sized watercolor paintings of mushrooms done by naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre, and other numerous plates depict other works of interest such as Gainsborough’s “Mushroom Girl.”

Provenance: From the library of chef and culinary collector Louis I. Szathmary, with the laid in, retained carbon of a letter from him to Ralph Geoffrey Newman (the late, noted, Chicago bookseller); this thanks Newman for “the interesting information on the Mushroom book.” A duplicate copy of Newman’s purchase invoice, with Szathmary’s cheque photocopied onto it, is also present.

This is copy number 412 of a limited edition of 512.

•  Green publisher’s cloth, spines with gilt-stamped labels, housed in the original neat buckram-covered slipcase. Corners and spine extremities show slight traces of wear with bindings otherwise crisp and clean; slipcase likewise shows only the faintest of wear. (In our rather bad photograph, the slipcase looks a tad bowed; in real life, it is NOT.) Glassine wrappers present (somewhat yellowed, a bit short as issued, and one with a bit missing at top of that spine). Top edges gilt. Pages and plates clean. A lovely association copy of this significant and uncommon mycological text.

•  Publisher's quarter sheep with printed and illustrated paper sides. Slightly shaken; partial separation at front hinge (inside). Back hinge opening between pp. 70 and 71. Spine, edges, and corners lightly worn. Light foxing. Ink inscription on front free endpaper. (1135)

Parson Weems (1756–1825) is best known for this highly readable biography of Washington, the one which contains the famous story of the cherry-tree. Weems was a great storyteller whose technique was to use anecdotes as a window into the moral character of his subjects. He has since fallen into disfavor, especially among academic historians who dismiss his work as mere hagiography and question the accuracy of some of the incidents. Perhaps this work's most enduring legacy is how it reflects the nearly universal esteem and awe in which Washington was held during the 19th century.

Illustrator Robert Quackenbush, whose signature appears on the colophon page, created the book's seven full-page two-color plates (blue and white), 12 half-page woodcuts (mostly black and white, with at least one in red and white), and the two-page blue and white color spread of Washington crossing the Delaware. The monthly newsletter (included with this offering) states that these evoke “a combination of the formal style of the early Byzantine period of Constantine and the woodcuts of Dürer.”

Henry Steele Commager, author of numerous works of American intellectual, political, and cultural history, wrote the introduction. Richard Ellis designed the book choosing a 12-point Modern 8A font with three points leading-space between the lines. Encircling each chapter title is a wreath of 13 stars, with the initials “G W” printed above.

Binding:  Full American white cotton printed with a “colonial-style” pattern of eagles and stars in blue. Gilt-stamped leather spine label.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 475.   Binding as above. Slipcase covered in blue paper; title label on spine. Fine, in a fine slipcase.  (22081)

The book first appeared in the late 17th century, and while it may well have been reprinted more than once, neither NUC nor RLIN shows any edition other than one of 1695. Moreover, apparently the 1695 copy that appears in both those bibliographical sources is the same incomplete one. This magnificent collection of engravings is clearly rare.

•  Front hinge starting (inside, only); gluestains on front pastedown; priced accordingly. Top edge gilt.

•  NSTC 2W12242.   Publisher's maroon pebbled cloth, covers and spine gilt-stamped, rebacked preserving original spine; corners rubbed, spine darkened, covers institutionally pressure-stamped. All edges gilt. Title-page and first text page faintly rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. One plate with tear from upper margin extending into image and two other leaves each with a tear not reaching text; some instances of damage where one leaf sometime adhered to another; general soiling. Faults obvious and to be noted, but — amazing.  (23862)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, spines with gilt-stamped titles; lacking dust jackets and front free endpaper of vol. I with affixed publisher's blurb clipped from same; spines with inked call numbers. Neat institutional rubber-stamps on front pastedowns, first text pages, and lower and outer page edges of closed books (not title-pages). Pages clean. (20791)

With an engraved frontispiece portrait of Santa Anna,
and numerous in-text engravings as well as seven plates.

•  Publisher's blind-stamped textured cloth, gently worn with discoloration to back cover and gilt-stamped spine faded. Front free endpaper with ownership inscription dated 1856. Front pastedown, free endpaper, and fly-leaf with some staining, otherwise clean.

Married set: The two contemporary bindings are similar but not identical; both are of mottled leather, one more coarsely grained (and acid-etched) than the other, while one has floral and the other pomegranate motifs gilt-stamped in spine compartments. The match was made by a previous, Spanish-speaking collector, who has left pencilled notes in Spanish in both volumes.

•  Sabin 106261; Palau 379641. Contemporary mottled sheep and calf as above, corners and edges worn, all joints cracking, both volumes with minor worming to front covers and pinholes to spines; vol. I with loss of leather over spine head (half of top compartment). Pencilled check marks scattered throughout; front free endpaper and recto of last text page of vol. II with annotations.

•  Sabin 106266; Palau 379645. Volumes bound in paper wrappers, back wrapper lacking in both cases; front wrappers reinforced with printed papers taken from other items. Reverse of frontispiece in vol. I and front pastedown in vol. II with small bookplates of private collector. Edges untrimmed. Scattered spots; pages and plates generally in good clean condition.

The engraved frontispiece was done by Philipp Jacob Leidenhoffer after a design by Johann Asem; one of the engraved in-text emblems attributes its design to “I.C. Banaivir,” about whom no information could be found, while the others are unsigned.

The title-page bears an inked inscription reading “SanCto MarCo / In aVgIa DIVIte,” dated 1714; a few small scraps of paper with notes in an early inked hand are laid in.

•  Landwehr, German, 660; Praz 543. Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind triple fillets, spine thickly blind-stamped with arabesque motifs; binding rubbed and abraded with leather cracked over joints and spine, spine stamping dimmed, and shelving number inked on spine. A few spots of pinhole worming to front cover, front free endpaper, and first few leaves; front pastedown with old bookseller’s ticket. Some pages with light foxing; one leaf with an old repair to the upper corner and one with a short tear from the lower margin. An interesting rarity, and one worthy of study.