Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author, two folding maps (one showing the distribution of brothels), and a folding table.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Edwin A. Dalyrymple on front pastedown.

•  William Osler, Bibliotheca Osleriana: a catalogue of books illustrating the history of medicine and science, 3615 (first edition).   Contemporary half calf with marbled paper-covered sides, spines with blind-accented raised bands; gilt-stamped title on a red leather label; another compartment with gilt-stamped author's name and volume number; spine compartments framed in blind and each with a blind-tooled center device. Marbled endpapers. Fore- and bottom edges stained red. One folding map chipped at top edge and with shallow tear along two folds, without affecting map; folding table with shallow tear along one fold, just touching one letter. Overall, a very good set.  (24480)

The copper-engraved, oversized frontispiece map shows Baffin's Bay, Barrow's Straits, Prince Regent's Inlet, and the North Georgian Islands, as well as the bay named after Parry's two ships.

•  Arctic Bibliography 13145; Hill (2nd ed.) 1311; Sabin 58860. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, and gilt-stamped anchor decorations in compartments. Title-page and a few others, plus reverse of 1 map, lightly stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages gently age-toned, with occasional offsetting from engraving and the odd spot or smudge. One map with small portion of inner margin reinforced; final two leaves with inner margins reinforced; one plate with tears into image and mounted. Final advertisement leaf bound in before final text leaf. All edges marbled.

Click the images for enlargements.

Some of the science is now of questionable authority (and may have been even at the time of this publication), as in the answer to “What is supposed to be the proximate cause of sleep?” — “An impeded motion of the nervous fluid to the brain, produced by a mechanical compression or collapse of the nerves” (p. 176).

Provenance: Front and back pastedowns rubber-stamped by the Railroad Mens' Reading Room of Sayre, Pennsylvania (“Contributed by Henry C. Davis”); bookseller's label of a firm in Glasgow. Faint oval rubber-stamp on fly-leaf of Richard Hutchinson(?), New Brunswick (probably in England), with pencilled date, 1858.

•  NSTC 2P15178.   Publisher's green moiré cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped candle vignette surrounded by blind-stamped title and arabesques, spine with gilt-stamped title and back cover blind-stamped; binding lightly rubbed, with spine somewhat sunned and covers with streaks of discoloration. Front hinge (inside) tender; paper across back hinge cracked. Pastedowns and fly-leaf markings as above and two text pages rubber-stamped by the Railroad Men; two leaves of publisher's advertising affixed at front.  (23715)

•  Wellcome Catalogue, IV, 412; Graesse, Trésor de Livres rares, V, 398; Alden & Landis 725/158; not in Sabin; ESTC T111989; Pritzel 7258n; Junersforgg & Hasenkamp, Coffee, 1177– 1179.   Recent full calf antique-style with gilt concentric panels on covers and gilt corner devices on same; round spine with raised bands, each accented by gilt rules. Some plates closely trimmed at foremargin. A very pleasing copy.  (21774)

"Porta's system . . . leads him constantly to conclusions of analogies between plants, animals and men. Similar humours are found in various apparently unrelated organisms. Plants and animals that correspond in shape are interrelated. A leaf formed like a stag horn shares the character of the deer. The horse is a noble animal, therefore it is a sign of nobility to walk erect with the head held high. Men who resemble a donkey are like that animal: timid, stupid, nervous. He who looks like an ostrich is akin to it in character: he is timid, elegant, vicious, stolid. A man who reminds us of a swine is a swine, eating greedily and having all the other characteristics, such as rudeness, irascibility, lack of discipline, sordidness, lack of intelligence [and] modesty. In a similar way, men who look like ravens are impudent; those who resemble oxen are stubborn, lazy, irascible; men who have lips shaped like those of a lion are hearty, magnanimous, courageous; others who make us think of a ram are timid, malicious and humble. When practising medicine, Porta had many occasions to observe his patients, and to study their character and complexion; the results of this studious inquiry are laid down in his book." (Seligmann)

This work was written in Latin and first published in 1586 under the title De humana physiognomia. It saw 19 editions before 1701, and has been translated into Italian (1598; translation by Salvatore Scarano), German (1651), French (1655), and English (1817). This tenth Italian edition is replete with a large number of intriguing (and humorous) woodcuts. The first is a portrait of Porta, and, while some of the rest show anatomical figures, the vast majority contrast the shapes of faces and bodies of animals and men. The title-page vignette is of Aesculapius, the Greco-Roman god of healing.

Appended to Della fisionomia humana are the Fisionomia naturale of Giovanni Ingegneri († 1600), the Physionomia of Polemon (ca. a.d. 88 – a.d. 145) in an Italian translation, Porta’s Della celeste fisionomia (a repudiation of astrology), and two short related treatises by Livius Agrippa and Luigi Settala (1552–1633). Della celeste fisionomia has a number of interesting woodcuts showing pagan gods and constellations.

•  Seligmann, The History of Magic, 319. On physiognomy, see: Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, VII, 448 & following. On Porta, see: Webster’s New Biographical Dictionary 811. Vellum over paste boards, soiled and cockled with a little chipping and front joint opening. Ex-library: paper labels on spine and rubber-stamps, including one on title-page. Pages cockled with traces of soiling on top edges; a few edges bumped. Plates in very clear, strong impressions.

So many of the miracles being cures, this has medical connections — if not, exactly, medical “content.”

•  Publisher's printed cream paper covered boards with cloth spine; corners a little bumped and cover a very little bit age-toned and soiled. Title and contents page only show a bit of foxing. Clean and complete — a very nice copy.  (21700)

In addition to the dedication page, and prefaces to the first, third, and fourth editions, these volumes also include “additional notes and essays, a collection of new tables, a history of the sinking fund, a state of the public debts in January 1783, and a postscript on the population of the kingdom.” First published in 1771.

•  ESTC T12986; Goldsmiths-Kress 12495.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, edges of boards tooled in gilt. Joints cracked and weakly holding. Covers darkened along top and outer edges; leather lost on corners. Light foxing to a few early and later leaves, including title-pages; offsetting from leather affecting only first three and final three leaves, at edges. Each volume pressure-stamped on the title-page and one other page. Title-page rectos marked with small inked initials in upper right corner, versos rubber-stamped with a five-digit number. Penciled notation at bottom margin of p. xxx (vol. I). Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box with gilt-stamped leather labels.  (24415)

Provenance: The first work's title-page has “Ex dono Autoris” inscribed in the upper margin in an early hand.

•  Pycroft: ESTC T144698; Allibone 1712. Addenbrooke: ESTC T88427.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pycroft half-title lacking; title-page with annotation as above. Pages slightly age-toned, with light spotting to final leaves of Enquiry and throughout Essay. (20760)

Single-click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Goldsmiths’-Kress 8461 (for first ed.); not in Garrison & Morton. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label; leather rubbed at edges and joints, spine a bit scuffed, joints just starting at front foot and back head. Front fly-leaf with student’s inked ownership inscription dated 1768. Some instances of light spotting and age-toning, pages mostly clean. All edges marbled.

Click the images for enlargements.

•  NSTC 2R15787. Recent moiré cloth–covered boards. Title-page with small inked numerals in upper outer corner and with minor chipping to outer edge. Short edge tears to outer margins of many leaves, not touching text.

Garrison and Morton say of the first edition in English: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work 'the most progressive which had yet been written;' it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics.”

Translator Murray (1740–91) was a Swedish student of Linnaeus and later a professor of botany and medicine at Göttingen.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Adamus Elias Schmidt, dated 1784.  Early 19th-century signature of a Philadelphia doctor (erased) at top of title-page.

•  G&M 6323.   Contemporary half calf, well worn: leather dry and gone to red with joint leather lost, cords holding, paper of covers worn through to boards in some places. Text with age-toning. Not a pretty copy but complete, and solid for now. Housed in a red cloth clamshell case.  (22256)

Rare.

•  Stapled in wrappers as issued. Four small spots on front wrapper. (20870)

Provenance:  Ink signatures of “Mesange de St. Andre,” dated 1784, appear on front free endpaper and at top margin of title-page; gift inscription on front fly-leaf reads “Henri de Mesange St. Andre offr. au regt. de Barrois.” Later from the library of Helen de Guerry Simpson.

•  Pichon 2075; Coumont, Demonology and Witchcraft, S3.1.   Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt extra and with gilt-stamped label; spine chipped at head and foot, joints open. Marbled endpapers. Ribbon placemarker. Edges stained red. Faint waterstain at lower margin of some leaves. Chip at lower outer corner of pp. 145/146. Slight loss of paper at lower edge of pp. 289/290. Ownership markings include a bookplate on the front pastedown and early ink inscriptions on the front free endpaper, front fly-leaf, and in the blank area of the top margin of the title-page.  (24562)

Quite rare: Via OCLC and RLIN we locate only three copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 1680.   Contemporary stiff vellum, binding stained and lacking ties. Text starting to loosen. Occasional stray stains to title-page and in text. Withal, a good+ copy of a scarce and important early Mexican medical related item.  (14649)

plague’s symptoms are poetically described in all their horrific agony

•  ESTC N11495; Foxon S663; NCBEL, II, 485. On Sprat, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, LIII, 419–23. Uncut copy. Removed from a nonce volume, with sewing mostly gone, now in a Mylar folder. Some age-toning and spotting ranging from mild to moderate.

Single-click the interior image for an enlargement.

The publisher’s authentifying signature is present on the final leaf, the “Avis des Éditeurs.”

•  Not in Garrison & Morton. 19th-century quarter cloth with paper-covered sides, spine with inked paper label; spine sunned and with call number label, edges and sides slightly rubbed. Original front pastedown and free endpaper bound in, endpaper with inked presentation inscription dated 1865. Title-page and first page of preface rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages clean.

•  Good in printed paper wrappers, lacking back cover, light waterstaining to front cover and first and last few leaves.  (927)

•  Sabin 51791; NSTC 2USA3337.   Removed from a nonce volume. Original printed wrappers, chipped. Two instances of blue crayon marking, in top right corners of front wrapper and top right corner of title-page. Now in a mylar folder. (8963)

•  Bitting 117 (second ed.); Cagle 1132 (first ed. of Davini only); Osler, Biblotheca Osleriana, 2428 (first ed.); Vicaire 250 (second ed.); not in Hünersdorff, Coffee. Contemporary vellum, darkened, with a few pinholes of insect damage and some minor spots of staining. Title-page with inked ownership inscription in Latin, dated 1728. Pages a bit cockled, with edges darkened; most mildly to moderately foxed.

•  Removed from a volume of pamphlets and in later wrappers.

•  NSTC 2W25743.   Removed from a volume. Very good condition. (8451)

All early editions are scarce, including this one: OCLC and ESTC report only three U.S. institutional holdings of this elaborated third edition, counting this (now-deaccessioned) copy.

Provenance:  This copy was apparently used by a clergyman; the back free endpaper has a list of hand-inked annotations beginning “March 12 1734 Baptiz'd Rich'd Son of John Bagsby of Broughton & Alice his wife” and ending with a private baptism in April of 1750. Six manuscript pages on “Churching of Women” and inditinga prayer to be used “when there appears but little hope of recovery” have been added at the back of the volume.

•  ESTC T84836.   Contemporary calf framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, rebacked with speckled calf, inner fleurons on front and back covers retooled, original leather rubbed. Front pastedown with private collector's bookplate, front free endpaper lacking, dedication page with early inked ownership inscription, back pastedown with inked annotations as above, back free endpaper with pencilled numerals. Pencilled bracketing; occasional inked corrections and additions in the same hand as the 18th-century inscriptions. Paper browned but strong.  (23706)