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Provenance:  Inked inscriptions of James Mack of Windham, VT (1784–1860) on front free endpaper and rear fly-leaf. Although both inscriptions are dated 1840, one gives “Col. James Mack” and the other “Major James Mack.”

•  American Imprints 25154.   Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; joints, edges, and extremities rubbed, spine leather darkened and cracked, boards very slightly sprung. Inscriptions as above. Light to moderate age-toning and foxing, more pronounced to frontispiece and title-page. Now housed in a cloth clamshell case with gilt-stamped leather spine label.  (25116)

Advertisements on the last page, notably forpatent medicines.

•  Drake 13678.   Uncut copy; later stitching; corners cut. Slight dog-earing, title-page a little tattered. Early inked ownership signature at top of title-page and some marginalia or interlineations.  (9959)

•  Bindings as above, joints and extremities with spots of mild to moderate rubbing. Added engraved title-page with pencilled ownership inscription dated 1882 in upper portion. Scattered small smudges and spots of foxing, occasional mild offsetting. Vol. I with offsetting to two pages from laid-in item; vol. II with pages gently age-toned.  (30080)

On 4 July 1776 only two signatures were affixed to the unanimously adopted Declaration of Independence — those of John Hancock, president of the Congress, and Charles Thomson, secretary, in order to authenticate the document that had been voted on and approved.  Yet by a curious twist of fate (read rather, surely, of a political enemy's knife), when the calligraphic copy that is so well known to every school child was ready shortly after 19 July, authenticator Thomson was not invited to sign it!

Its printer was the daughter of Robert Aitken, who had printed the first Bible in English in America. A major edition of the English Bible, this isessential for any Bible collection, not just for collections of American Bibles — though as an American Bible and simple Americanum it has a revered place.

•  Rumball-Petre, Rare Bibles, 184; Hills 153; Herbert 1514; O'Callaghan 91–92; Shaw & Shoemaker 14486; Hedak, Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 20–42. On Thomson, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 481–82.   Recent quarter brown calf with stone-pattern marbled paper sides; a lightly tanned set with occasional light spotting only.  A solid and very good set.  (32628)

•  WIng (rev. ed.) B3843; ESTC R19524.   Removed from a nonce volume; very good condition, very clean and nice.  (32236)

Those copies with the Kilkenny impirnt (Killkenniae: ex typographi Jacobi Stokes) are far fewer than those with the Cologne imprint, but it is clear that all copies were printed at Kilkenny by Stokes.

Not a common work:  NUC Pre-1956 and OCLC combine to locate only eight copies in U.S. libraries.

Provenance:  On title-page, ownership inscriptions of the Revs. Thomas Qualy (1829) and Jacob Cleary. Additional Cleary ownership inscriptions on p. 1 (1873) and iii (1891), the latter a gift inscription on the occasion of that owner's giving the volume to a Rev. Thomas Kelly.

•  Bradshaw Irish Coll., nos. 5222-5223; ESTC t036179.   Recent full brown calf with covers panelled in the Cambridge style, author/title/etc. lettering in gilt directly to spine; spine with gilt rules above and below bands and gilt devices in the compartments. Title-page soiled and small portion of lower inside blank margin torn away and repaired; same page has old library call number in ink and the date of publication in ballpoint! Ownership notes as above. Very light waterstain in lower blank margins of preliminary leaves. Generally a very nice, clean copy.  (24805)

TheIrish-born Burnside, then treasurer of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, was later a justice of the Pennsylvania state supreme court.

A notary’s seal is affixed to the document, which was signed by both Burnside and Patton.

•  Creased and slightly age-toned, with the folios separated and some offsetting from seal; a few small holes, touching text without notable loss.

An Englishman through and through, Carr seems sincerely to have liked Ireland and the Irish he met. His book is full of extended and very readable detail — some original, much quoted — on (e.g.) language matters and Irish poetry, Irish agriculture and industry, Irish management of charities, Irish “sights” and ruins, Irish marriage cust marriage customs — and the implications of a potato-based diet.

Provenance: Contemporary inked inscription reading “Tho.s Wynne.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 10096. On Carr, see: The Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped title-label; leather moderately rubbed, joints cracking and spine label dimmed. Title-page with owner's name as described above; title-page and one other stamped. Pages, except for central leaves, with waterstaining in lower margins; two pages with smeared spots of ink. (11960)

The work is printed in roman with liberal use of italic, a scattering of woodcut headpieces, and a decorative woodcut initial at the beginning of each chapter. At a time when English typography was in decline, this work is characterized by better than average composition and imposition.

Shelton was an interesting character. According to the DNB online he “was probably the third of seven sons of Henry Shelton (d. c.1605), a Dublin merchant” and most probably was “the ‘Thomas Shelton, Dublinensis’ in the 1597 student list of the Irish college at Salamanca.” He was the author of several minor literary pieces before publishing his translation. Politically he wasan active opponent of the English in Ireland, as was his father.

Quixote is a canonical work with an incredibly wide and deep readership appeal, as is testified to by its large number of editions, translations, adaptations, theatrical renderings, television serializations, and graphic novelizations.

There are two states of the title-page of this edition: 1) with the printer information as above (less common by far) and 2) with “at the Green Dragon” after Crooke's name.

Provenance:  “Ex D[on]o E.H.” in an 18th-century hand on title-page, along with ownership signatures of “T(?).E. Humphr[e]y” in an 18th-century hand and Robert Davies in a 19th-century hand; on same page, “h x” over “c.” Shelving label at base of spine: half-moon paper with spiked edges and manuscript location of 17 over 89.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) C1776; ESTC R3484; Rius 608; Palau 52463; Printing and the Mind of Man 111 (for the original Spanish edition); Grolier, Langland to Wither, 213; Pforzheimer 140.   Contemporary calf; modest blind tooling with a triple fillet on the perimeter of the boards, gilt double rules above and below each spine band, front endpapers of 19th-century paper. Instance of minor worming in early margins, instances of light waterstaining mostly also marginal, waxstain in upper margin of three leaves, inkstain in one margin, and one natural paper flaw noted. One inner margin neatly repaired. All edges stained red and speckled. Now housed in in a brown cloth custom clamshell box and adecidedly satisfactory copy of a book often “read to death” in its early editions.  (31193)

Binding:  Publisher's diamond-textured charcoal gray cloth, covers stamped in blind. Front cover with a gilt center device of a harp with shamrock and a quote from Exodus; rear cover with a center cartouche of the initial of the American Tract Society embossed in blind.

Provenance:  20th-century signature of Francis Massey O'Brien (Portland, Maine), bibliophile and bookseller.

•  Bound as above, spine extremities and corners rubbed; otherwise very nice indeed. Scattered brown stains in some margins and occasionally into text.  (29951)

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)

•  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)