He details the arms and armaments captured and records that in one engagement he not only obtained two fine bronze cannons, but also one of Bolívar's portable presses!

•  Posada, Bibliografía bogotana, II, 322. Very fine condition. (3118)

•  Sweet & Maxwell, A Legal Bibliography of the British Commonwealth, I, 602. Quarter green sheep over marbled paper, somewhat rubbed and front free endpaper partially detached. Scattered foxing and age-spotting, occasional pencilled marginalia. More than presentable!

In a marginal note in his own hand, Serna agrees to the request.

•  Very Good condition, clearly written and easy to read.  (27625)

Paul Hogarth's eight full-page watercolors and over a dozen black-and-white vignettes vividly illustrate the bomb-churned landscape of no-man's land, the explosions of rifle and gunfire, and the irony of well-fed generals enjoying life behind the lines. Dennis J. Grastorf designed the book using a 12-point Baskerville font with two points leading space in between the lines. The binding is a natural-tone rough linen, stamped in black on each cover with a bugle design. David Daiches wrote the introduction.

This edition is limited to 2,000 copies and this offering includes the monthly newsletter. The colophon is signed by the artist.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 519.   Binding as above; slipcase with two short scratches on back. Fine, in a fine slipcase.  (22078)

•  Palau 307020. Wrappers stencilled in green with manuscript title on paper label affixed to front wrapper; all edges speckled red. Wrappers with a few tears and a little tattering. Small wormhole in front fly-leaf. A few pencil marks. Inked number on verso of front fly-leaf.

Click the images for enlargements.

Presentation copy:  Front free endpaper inscribed “Compliments of the Author. To Dr. Franklin Feb. 19th 1930.”

•  Starr, Baptist Bibliography, S2241.   Publisher's maroon cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; insignificant wear to corners and spine extremities, foot of spine with small area of faint discoloration. Title-page institutionally pressure-stamped, dedication page with inked notation along inner margin and rubber-stamped numeral in lower margin. Back pastedown with traces of now-absent bookplate. Sewing starting to loosen. Pages and plates clean.  (26041)

All images were drawn and etched by the author himself.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription of Fairman R. Furness, of the prominent Furness-Bullitt family. Title-page with earlier signature of “A.G. Findlay.”

•  Hill, Collection of Pacific Voyages, 1563; Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration, II, S42; Sabin 80483; NSTC 2S19683.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding rubbed and abraded overall, spine head and label chipped. Front pastedown with small booklplate bearing no name; ownership inscriptions as above. Lower outer corner of title-page torn away; list of Briton officers with small tear repaired some time ago, tissue now lifting from repair. Pages and plates browned at edges with moderate spotting, staining, and dust-soiling; four pages with ink blurred from press. A fascinating book, an interesting copy.  (28374)

ten oversized, folding maps

•  Sabin 81135; Howes S461; American Imprints 44-5635.   Publisher's plain paper–covered boards, recently rebacked with olive green cloth, spine with new antiqued printed paper label; paper rubbed and stained. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page and sectional title, no other markings. All leaves affected by an unusual sort of very light and remarkably even waterstaining that left the upper outer corners (only) untouched and even bright, with a variously wavy line of light to moderate brown marking the “border”; otherwise a few other pages with other soiling or staining; one page with smudge of green ink, touching but not obscuring text; one leaf with short tear from upper margin, not extending into text; and a bit of cockling. An excellent example of a good book that has suffered accidents but also is “better than it sounds.”  (29420)

•  Sabin 86487; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 1773n; Palau 318693; European Americana 724/165. Recent quarter calf, antique style: Round spine with raised bands accented with gilt rules and beading; gilt center devices; marbled paper sides. Ex-library copy with stamps. First few leaves crumpled in lower margins; last dozen leaves foxed, sometimes heavily. Lacks all plates and maps except one map—yet pleasing to the reader.

Click the images for enlargements.

Binding: Publisher's ribbon-embossed green geometric-patterned cloth of Krupp's style Gt2; original printed paper labels.Do please click to enhance the image of this handsome American binding cloth— it's hard to show, but worth trying to see!

•  American Imprints 49627. On the binding, see: Krupp, Bookcloth in England & America, 1823–1850, Gt2.   Bindings as above, cocked; edges, extremities, labels rubbed, chipped, spotted — far from fresh, but also far from devastated. Ex–social club library: bookplate on each front pastedown, call numbers in a 19th-century hand (lined through) on pastedown and front free endpaper, title-pages and a few others rubber-stamped. No other institutional markings. Front hinge (inside) of vol. I starting, text block pulling away from spine, first few leaves starting to separate. Front fly-leaf with pencilled numeral and pencilled doodle/sketch of a chubby child; occasional faint pencilled annotations. A few scattered spots of staining, pages mostly clean.  (26294)

•  Lightly in later wrappers; small ownership stamp eradicated from title-page. A very good exemplar.  (24386)

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•  Not in Medina, Mexico.   Very good condition.  (27952)

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; not in González de Cossío, Cien; not in not in González de Cossío, 510.   Removed from a nonce volume. Left margin irregular.  (25824)

•  Not in Palau. Fold of outer bifolium mended with tissue. Disbound. (3656)

•  Palau 256896. Fold of outer bifolium mended with tissue. (3655)

Click the image for an enlargement.

ESTC and OCLC locate only six U.S. institutional holdings of this item.

•  ESTC R203631; Wing (rev. ed.) S5005. On Spittlehouse, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Later plain paper wrappers, spine reinforced with cloth tape. Title-page, first text page, and two other pages institutionally pressure-stamped; first text page with inked annotation in inner margin and numeral in lower margin. Light offsetting and spotting; first and last pages dust-soiled.  (25970)

•  ESTC N1989; Sabin 92070. Removed from a nonce volume, with sewing holes; now in a Mylar folder. Half-title with small numerical stamp, pencilled notations, a bit of staining and two smears/blots of old red ink. Interior slightly age-toned but clean.

The two volumes are illustrated with six steel-engraved portraits, an oversized representation of the “Talk with the Indians at Buffalo Creek in 1793,” and an oversized, folding map.

Brant had famously translated the Book of Common Prayer into Mohawk; in 1784, he led his tribe into Canada to live by the Grand River north of Lake Erie.

•  American Imprints 53125; Howes S1040; Sabin 92139.   Olive-brown cloth, covers framed in blind, spines with gilt-stamped title; vol. II in publisher's original binding and vol. I in recent reproduction of same (vol. I shorter than vol. II; vol. II with extremities rubbed, back cover discolored, back joint repaired and front joint starting). Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, rubber-stamp on each engraved title-page, pressure-stamp on each printed title-page, no other markings. Vol. I: Several early and a few subsequent pages with faint spotting; ten leaves with inner margins waterstained and subsequently slightly fragile, one with resulting tear extending into text without loss. Vol. II: some early outer margins waterstained. Folding plate with short tear from inner margin, touching image without loss. A more than serviceable copy of an essential work of American history, priced to reflect its previous service.  (29415)

The final page of the chapbook contains an anecdote about soldiers from an American regiment making fun of a hunchback who gets back at them with a dig about Bunker Hill where the regiment suffered heavy losses.

•  Not located in RLIN. Very good. Original self wrappers (unbound; removed). (17584)

•  TPL 5826.   Publisher's printed paper–covered boards, outer corners chipped and a lighter spot to front cover where there once was an old label of some sort affecting one word of type (“Price”); old, light waterstaining (with a darker edge) and some soiling to same cover, with evidence of the onetime moisture visible also to back cover and intermittently in the interior (especially to early leaves). Fragile. (25512)

Click the images for enlargements.

A pencilled annotation in one margin of this copy reads “The author is not aware that the people in the Southern States are not called Yankees”; one particularly anti-American remark later in the volume has been lined through in pencil.

•  Sabin 27570; Howes S1115.   Publisher's speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; covers sunned unevenly, edge/extremities rubbed, head of spine showing traces of now-absent label. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, front free endpaper lacking, pressure-stamp on title-page. Title-page with supposed author's name inked in upper margin. Waterstaining to lower outer corners of first few leaves; scattered spots of foxing and staining; one signature much browned, showing the different effects of time and “life” on different papers.  (26376)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 24555; Sabin 393 (not listing this ed.); Howes A77 (not listing this ed.). Half morocco over marbled paper sides, worn and front cover off; library paper shelving label on front cover. Binder's ticket on back free endpaper. Title-page and one other stamped by a now-defunct institution; back free endpaper with pocket. Pages untrimmed, with some browning.

•  Publisher's grey marbled paper–covered sides, front cover with gilt-stamped coat of arms, spine with black-stamped title; spine a touch sunned with unobtrusive small scuff towards foot, sides very slightly sprung, slipcase lacking. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Volume clean and unworn, beautiful and uncommon.  (30597)

•  Not in Sabin. Quarter buckram over paper-covered sides. Without the original mourning wrappers. "Mercantile Library Co." blind-stamped on both sides. Paper call number label on spine. Edges and corners worn, tips of spine pulled, with loss. Ownership signature on front fly leaf, and charge pocket and card on rear free endpaper. Dog-eared. (3722)

For more POST-1820 AMERICANA,  click here.

The book is profusely illustrated with pen drawings by Eric Palmquist, who has signed the colophon; of these, some are full-page, and some are spread across two pages with the text printed beneath. Most are smaller in-text drawings, including an extensive series of decorative tailpieces.

This edition was prepared under the supervision of Ragnar Svanström at the Royal Printing House in Stockholm, Sweden, and is limited to 1500 copies. Designer Karl-Erik Forsberg used a hand-set Berling Roman font which he himself designed; Forsberg also drew uncial letters, printed in red ink, for use on the title-page and for the canto-opening initials.

The binding is half natural Swedish linen stamped on the spine in red and black; the sides are covered with Swedish paper hand-grained to look like wood, and bear a small gold-stamped design of a warship, the Norse drakkar.

This is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed; it wassigned by the illustrator.  The relevant Club newsletter is laid in.

Binding:  Quarter tan Swedish linen with streaked red paper–covered sides, front cover with gilt-stamped Viking ship, spine with decorative title in black and red, in the original matching slipcase with printed paper spine label.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 232.   Binding as above, spine slightly sunned, slipcase with moderate shelfwear to edges and one edge opening. A solid, attractive copy of a handsome book.  (29946)

•  Publisher's color-printed cloth; creased across middle, sewing starting from extremities. Upper and lower edges slightly frayed. A few small smudges, mostly confined to lower portion of front cover and one other page. An unusual survivor in pleasing condition.  (30310)

Binding: Mid- to late-19th-century binding, with binder’s ticket of the True American Bindery of Trenton, NJ.

•  Half morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles and blind-stamped decorative devices; edges and sides moderately rubbed with a bit of paper skinned from cover of vol. II. Most pages with some degree of foxing.  Handsome on shelf, solid in hand.

The volume is extensively illustrated in color and black-and-white; this is a work of art reference as well as historical reference.

•  Publisher's terra-cotta cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, corners bumped yet cloth pristine, in dust-jacket; wrapper with wear at corners and spine extremities, one short edge tear to upper front edge. Pages age-toned; clean and unmarked.  (26183)

The prosecution of the War of 1812 had left the U.S. in debt and, invited by committee chairman John W. Eppes to opine, the Secretary of the Treasury A.J. Dallas here offers an extended analysis of how the national debt was incurred, notes that “it becomes the object first and last in every practical scheme of finance, to re-animate the confidence of the citizens,” and observes it as a state of things that must not continue that specie is being hoarded, banks are not lending, and a regularized national currency is lacking, so that “the monied transactions of private life are at a stand; and the fiscal operations of the government labour with extreme inconvenience.” Fortunately, he says, there are solutions, and he outlines these in a series of proposals including “taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,” reaching even unto “addition[s] of 100 per cent. on the present auction duties . . . [and] on the existing duties upon carriages.”

Occupying pp. 21–22 is record of the “schedule of new taxes referred to in the letter of the secretary of the Treasury . . . in which the taxes proposed . . . are principally adopted.”

But Secretary Dallas realized that the solution was not as simple as raising taxes or even doing that and instituting new ones. It would be necessary to issue bonds, and to do that the U.S. needed to establish a national bank: These propositions are canvassed here.

The act incorporating a national bank passed Congress in 1816.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 33249.   Disbound and now laid into marbled paper wrappers, pamphlet age-toned and foremargins with noticeable foxing and staining; paper good and the whole readable in several senses.  (29861)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14058. Removed from a nonce volume. Librarian's lightly pencilled notation on title-page. Stray brown spots. Very good. (18017)

•  Folded, never bound; with additional fold lines as to fit in an envelope or pocket. Dust-soiling; stray ink marks on p. 4. Edges tattered and dog-eared. In all a fair/good copy.

•  Very Good condition, in recent wrappers.

The present volume (XIV) covers 2 January 1808 through 16 April 1808, in other words till just before news arrived of Napoleon's treachery in Spain, with coverage of the war in Europe; British military actions in the Caribbean, Uruguay, and Argentina; ship arrivals; cargoes unloaded; notices from the provinces; Miranda's revolt in Venezuela; and even a comet seen in Europe.

Provenance:  Ex-John Carter Brown library, properly deaccessioned.

•  Sewn, removed from and now loosely laid into its original Mexican mottled sheep binding, this with a modestly gilt spine bearing a green leather gilt title-label and with an old paper label on its front cover. Some issues lightly soiled or with a bit of spotting/staining, else generally clean and very good.  (29691)

Bindings: Contemporary mottled calf, spine compartments defined with elegant rules and rolls and bearing handsome center-devices; gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels.

•  ESTC T81010.   Bindings rubbed and acid-pitted, with loss of tilt to top device on each spine; spine heads refurbished, vol. I with joints repaired and volume label supplied (subtly), other joints unobtrusively reinforced with toned long-fiber tissue. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates (largely obscuring private bookplates in three volumes), call numbers on endpapers (overlaid with affixed paper slips in vol. I), pressure-stamp on title-pages, no other markings. Four front pastedowns with ticket of Dublin bookseller W. Figgis. Some light spotting, pages mostly clean.  (27578)

Although touted as “Primera parte” on the title-page, there were no further parts; this Historia is complete, “all published.”

•  Palau 366681; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2051; Sabin 99643; Leclerc 1546; Salvá 3422; Heredia 3407; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 701/262. On Villagutierre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1019, frames 213–16. 19th-century Spanish sheep (“pasta española”), covers abraded and with pinhole-type worming to spine; loss of lower inch of spine leather to insects. Browning to text due to impurities in water during paper manufacture. Small insect damage to margins of first four leaves, not touching any text; similar small damage in inner margins of last four leaves. Over all, a decent copy of a scarce work.

•  Bengesco, Voltaire, 514; Cohen & de Ricci 1035; Graesse 393. Not in Ray, Art of the French Illustrated Book.   Mid-19th-century half dark green morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges with gilt fillet, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine faintly sunned, minor wear to corners and spine extremities. Top edge gilt. Front pastedown with unidentified dolphin and anchor bookplate. Tissue guard present following frontispiece but not elsewhere. Original ribbon bookmarker present and intact. A very few instances of small, light spots, most pages and certainly the “figures gravèes”) clean and fresh.  (28347)

Click the image for an enlargement.

After a brief respite back in the U.S., where he was welcomed as a hero, Walker, the quintessential filibusterer, returned to Central America wanting to capture Honduras. He died there trying.

The map (14" x 16") is in four colors and is titled “Colton's Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador & Costa Rica.

•  Publisher's brick colored textured cloth stamped in blind. Top and bottom of spine pulled and frayed. Some foxing at front and rear. Newspaper articles at front and rear of volume. Some added owner's notes about Walker on blanks. Clean.  (21372)

•  ESTC T36741. Now in a Mylar folder; edges uncut. Some creasing, with ink markings from press.

Click the image for an enlargement.

• Wing (rev. ed.) W792; Thomason E.413[7]; Sabin 101330; ESTC R21688.   Removed from a nonce volume. Old two-digit number in upper outer corner of title-page. Sewing starting to separate. In modern wrappers. (20998)

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 18239; NSTC W529. Recent paper wrappers. Some instances of light foxing and offsetting.

The last page here, while hoping for peace and amity based on a British change of mind and attitude, makes it very clear what a serious militia (such, for example, as Rhode-Island has) can do against great armies!

•  Evans 13764; Alden, Rhode Island, 530; Drake, Almanacs, 12842; ESTC W22707. Not in Adams, American Independence, but that conceivably was deliberate.   Uncut; stitched as issued. Browned, tattered, handsoiling, bug-spotting and an inkblot at lower edge; small piece torn from title-leaf and same leaf with pin-prick holes not affecting readability. Looks like a survivor of the American Revolution, which it is.  (30423)

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In the document at hand, Whitcomb in his capacity of justice of the peace attests on the verso of the leaf to the authenticity of the document on the recto. His attestation is approximately 1.5" high by 8" wide, with a clear signature.

The document on the recto is a printed legal form by which Artemus How of Bolton, Worcester County, Massachusetts Bay Province, sells 50 acres of land to Bezeleel Hale. Interestingly, both Artemus and his wife Abigail signed the instrument of sale.

•  On Whitcomb, see: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia. Good/Good+ condition: short fold tears. Three small areas of discoloration from old tape used to tip item into an album. With old pencilled dealer’s code (Sessler’s).

With an advertisement on the back for "Wilkes's Spirit of the Times. The American Gentleman's Newspaper. A Chronicle of the Turf, Field Sports, the Army and the Stage."

•  Miles 485. Original wrappers. Removed from a nonce volume.

Appended to Xerez's account (fols. [43v] to [55r]) is a translation of Miguel de Estete's account of Pizarro's army's journey from Cajamarca to Pachacamac and then to Jauja. Estete too was present at Cajamarca and is said to have been the first Spaniard to lay hands on Atahuallpa.

•  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.