NEWEST ARRIVALS
NEWEST ENTRIES 11 APRIL 2014
As a CATALOGUE formed partly BY CHANCE,  this does not represent ALL our strengths!

[ PART I — PART II ]

Jost Amman, Tobias Stimmer, & Johann Bocksberger ILLUSTRATIONS
Lavishly Arrayed, LAVISHLY HAND-COLORED

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•  A marvelously hand-colored copy of this illustrated, corrected, late 16th-century edition of Luther's translation of the Bible, with notes and summaries by Petrus Patiens (i.e., Peter Gedultig). There are 146 illustrations, plus three title-pages with elaborate historiated woodcut boarders, the in-text cuts ranging in size from 27.5 x 19 cm (10.5" x 7.5") to 10.5 x 15 cm (4.25" x 5.875"). The illustrations are by Jost Amman and his workshop, and after drawings by Tobias Stimmer and Johann Bocksberger. The workshop artists' initials include “HS,” “SHF,” and “CM.”

The hand-coloring is exquisite, detailed, and nuanced. To our eyes it appears contemporary or near contemporary. The palette includes white, brown, black, red, green, blue, yellow, with considerable shading of those colors.

Binding:  Contemporary calf over bevelled wood boards, elaborately tooled in gilt, with binding date of 1594 on front board and initials of early owner as well. Brass corner bosses and closures. All edges gilt and gauffered.

Provenance:  Supra-libros initials of G.W.A. dated 1594; late 19th-century engraved scenic bookplate of Heinrich Stiebel of Frankfurt am Main (his library dispersed at auction in 1930); in the 20th-century in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Not in Darlow & Moule; Reinitzer, Biblia deutsch, 160; VD16 B2808; USTC 616659; Graesse, I, 378.   Bound as above, rebacked and much of original spine reapplied. Scattered waterstaining, old finger soiling; short tears in some margins and two or three lower outer corners torn away.  A remarkable, complete, handsomely enhanced copy in very happy condition.  (34014)

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A Pioneering Work inCoptic Studies

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•  Egyptian hieroglyphs were the key to one of the ancient storehouses of knowledge that remained locked to the inquiring minds of the Renaissance. Several attempts were made at deciphering them, one of the most famous being that of the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), who was so taken with the riddle of the hieroglyphs that to study it he resigned the position that his patron Cardinal Barberini had secured for him as mathematics professor at the Collegio Romano. While his work fails to even guess at the basic phoneticism of the writings, and though it lacks an essential critical platform, the Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacuswell served the cardinal function of any pioneering work: It stimulated interest and further research by others. As such it is foundational in the field of Egyptology and language decipherment.

There were two issues of this work: This copy is of the issue with the Barberini coat of arms on the title-page.

Provenance:  19th-century stamps on verso of title of the Masodlat A.M.N. Museumi Széch[ényi] Orsz[ágos] Könyvtárbol; later 19th-century bookplate of the Hartford Seminary.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, IV, 1047. On Kircher, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 204; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., XV, 827.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards with slightly yapp edges, all edges red. Small puncture holes (nail?) through the front cover and into the inner margin of the text block, not touching text. Modest 19th-century library bookplate on front pastedown and old stamps on the verso of the title-page: No other markings.  (34069)

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ZAPF onMORRIS

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•  “11. Band der Monographien künstlerischer Schrift”: First edition of this monograph on Morris's body of work, written by the famed type designer and with a handsome frontispiece portrait of Morris by A. Rosenberger. This essay, “intended to make the Germans more closely acquainted with William Morris the man and with his longing and striving for the truth of art and for a more fortunate existence for mankind, ennobled and blessed by art” (p. 5), is illustrated with 30 black-and-white illustrations reproducing Morris's paintings, wallpaper and stained glass work, and book designs. The art captions are in English and the first few paragraphs of the introduction are in both German and English (as quoted here), with the bulk of the text in German; Morris's own “Prologue of the Earthly Paradise” appears both in English and in German translation.

Binding:  Publisher's brown paper–covered boards with tan cloth shelfback, front cover with affixed printed paper decorative title in the Morris style, spine with brown-stamped title.

•  Bound as above with spine cloth spotted perhaps by its own underlying glue, a small old ink(?) spot to lower edge of back cover, corners and spine head slightly rubbed; without the d/j. First and last few pages with faint spotting; corners bumped with a few creased. A solid copy and a good, pleasant one despite faults noted!  (34081)

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“The Mind ofCatharine was . . . Well Proportioned, & Delicately Balanced”

Catharine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee nation

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•  Anderson (1796–1880) was the Assistant Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (i.e., A.B.C.F.M.) and a strong proponent of the “Indigenization” of missions: That is, that Western missionaries should establish the churches and initiate the conversion of foreign populations to Christianity, then turn the further and continuing work of maintenance and further conversion over to indigenous Christian leaders.

The present biography, here in thescarce first edition (i.e., without “second edition” on the title-page and longer in length than the second), is of Catharine Brown (1800?–23), the Brainerd Mission School’s first Cherokee convert to Christianity. The Brainerd Mission was established in 1817 by the A.B.C.F.M., and Brown was not only its first convert but its school's first native missionary and teacher. She died very young of tuberculosis. The Memoir contains the expected biographical information but also weaves into the narrative selections of her writings, that is, her diary and letters: It enjoyed great contemporary popularity, with at least 10 editions appearing before 1860, including two in England and one in Scotland.

The frontispiece engraving of Brown in her sick bed was drawn by John Ritto Penniman (1782–1841) and engraved by William Hoogland (1794 or 1795–1832).

Provenance:  Signature of E.D. Martin, 1848, on front free endpaper.

•  Howes A-235; Field 32; Sabin 1420.   Contemporary quarter red roan with mottled brown paper sides; spine leather with old tear, at top, repaired; text block with later interesting stitching, through the covers, to secure the binding.  Foxing and brown staining as common to all copies seen. A good++ copy.  (34008)

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A Medieval Legal Landmark *WITH*1618's Working Updates

Laws, statutes, etc.

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•  The Magna Carta began the long process in English law of putting explicit legal limits on royal (and hence, by later extension, governmental) authority and of granting explicit rights to the ruled, a process that has led by circuitous and varying routes to many of the key provisions of the present British and U.S. constitutions. This compact, originally just between the king and his discontented barons, has been invested by time and later interpretation with real and mythological power far beyond its original intent and far beyond any other single document in English law. Magna Carta remainsthe most significant single milestone in the common Anglo-American legal tradition.

Appended here to the Magna Carta are“the most necessarie of those old Statutes, and divers later and newe Statutes most convenient to be had” (f. ii), all printed in the original Latin, legal French, or English. One of the lengthiest of these is the statute of Henry VIII confirming the suppression of the monasteries (Anno 31, Henry VII, Cap. 13); others relate to Women, Wills, Forcible Entry, Usury, and “Fraudulent Deeds.” Like many English law books of the period, this is printed in a mix of black-letter, roman, and italic types, with one decorative capital marking the Magna Carta in the table of contents and another, larger, at the beginning of its actual text.

Provenance:  Title-page with early inked ownership inscription of Richard Almack in upper portion, back fly-leaf with early inked inscription “This Book was given to me by Mr. Richard Relham of Cambr[idge]” and, in another hand, “Hugh Davies.”

•  ESTC S122651; STC (2nd ed.) 9285; Lowndes 1449; Sweet & Maxwell, 21.V.9.   Contemporary sheep framed in blind, unobtrusively rebacked, spine with gilt-stamped title and date (incorrect: given as 1611); sides showing signs of earlier wear, back cover with spots of mild discoloration, upper outer corners rubbed. Inscriptions as above. Outer page edges (closed) with early inked title and date; text with a handful of instances of early inked underlining. Mild to moderate waterstaining to upper or lower portions of a number of leaves; two pages with spots of light staining; small section of volume with chip to lower edges. A solid, respectable copy of a venerable work as set forth for and integrated with the needs of the “modern” practitioner.  (34003)

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“Aristotle Said MELANCHOLY MEN of All Others Are MOST WITTY”

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•  Burton's classic early 17th-century treatise on depression in all its forms, which continues to be read (and beloved) today for its far-ranging philosophizing on human nature and thought, as well as for Burton's extensive quotations of prior writers and for his sly sense of humor. Boswell famously quoted Dr. Johnson as saying of the Anatomy that it was “the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours earlier than he wished to rise.”

This edition, limited to500 copies, “now for the first time with the Latin completely given in translation and embodied in an all-English text, edited by Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith,” was “composed after the style of the XVIII Century, and the paper is Aurelian Dull Wove Natural made by the Worthy Paper Company. The typogrpahy, presswork, and binding . . . are by The Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts.” This is copy number 485.

•  Publisher's quarter vellum with dun-colored paper sides, top edge gilt. Bindings dust-soiled, not unpleasantly, with very light overall wear; one chip to paper of vol. II. A good++ set.  (34058)

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The Most Immediate Literary FormSpaciously Represented — MANY Special Copies

•  Some enterprising Spanish dealer or collector assembled this considerable gathering ofSpanish 19th-century plays (including zarzuelas, sainetes, monologues, etc.) and then bound them uniformly in 33 quarter leather bindings with between 10 and 19 plays per volume. An impressive project and accomplishment even when it was carried out, this amassing of this era's popular, primary theatrical texts would be at least daunting and probably impossible today.

These images of the books on the shelves show something of the variety of individual items.   First, marked with pink slips extending upwards, the total number of plays (473);

second, marked with white slips extending upwards, the number of plays marked for performance (69);

third, marked with pink slips extending outward, the number of plays that are either 1) presentation copies from the playwrights (21), or 2) showing they have been read by censors (2), or 3) plays written specifically for an actor (2).

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Among the playwrights represented are Manuel Fernández Caballero, the Duque de Rivas, Enrique Prieto Enríquez, José Zorrilla, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga, Miguel Ramos Carrión, Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, Ventura de la Vega, Pelayo del Castillo, Antonio María Segovia e Izquierdo, Francisco Macarro y Gallardo, Luis Mariano de Larra, Manuel Tamayo y Baus, Jose López Silva, Joan Palou i Coll, Pantaleón Moreno Gil, Juan Belza, Antonio Gil de Zarate, José Sanchez y Albarran, Enrique Zumel, Vital Aza, Alejandro Rinchan, Jacinto Benavente, and Benito Perez Galdos.

Provenance or Evidence of Contemporary Use/Readership:  69 plays have evidence of having been marked for performance, 21 are presentation copies, two were read by local censors and approved for performance (one requiring a small revision that is carefully noted), and two are specifically stated as having been written for a specific actor (e.g., a three-act verse version of Hamlet for actor Antonio Vico).

Historians of the book will find the plays' array of bookseller's labels and stamps of considerable interest for documenting Spanish and even Argentine firms that specialized in theater.

•  Condition is highly variable from browned and brittle to white and clean, with other plays being closely trimmed in the foremargins costing final letters at line ends. A very few plays have pages loose. In present bound form, all is very safe and very usable.  (33214)

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An American Travels up the Nile: Victorian-Era Orientalism
inIts Most Golden, Glowing Fancifulness

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•  First edition of the author's first book: a romantic, poetic travelogue by a popular writer and speaker who spent several years in Egypt and Syria. A contemporary reviewer described this as an account of “the thorough transformation of a bustling Yankee into the very embodyment [sic] of dreamy Orientalism,” and “one of the most amusing books of travel of the day” (Church Review, Vol. IV, pp. 300–01).

Binding:  Publisher's navy cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped Egyptian vignette; spine with decorative gilt-stamped title. The vignette is, with slight differences, reproduced from the engraved frontispiece by the Lossing-Barritt company.

•  BAL 4259; Smith, American Travellers Abroad, C144.   Binding slightly cocked, front cover gilt subtly oxidized in portions, extremities rubbed. Front free endpaper with early inked initials and with pencilled ownership inscription dated [18]59. Moderate foxing throughout; a few leaves with marginal chips, not touching text. A very enjoyable text, in a pleasingly appropriate contemporary binding.  (33630)

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“Outward Beauty Stirs the Heart to Inward Loveliness”

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•  First edition: Poems inspired by Lyman's passion for gardening, interspersed with prose meditations on why to have a garden, visiting other people's gardens, and the irksome question of whether to cut flowers for importunate guests — plus acomplete list of all the plants that made up the Lyman gardens. The text is illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author's husband, Moses Lyman, and four other photographic plates.

Provenance:  Inscribed by the author “To my friend Maude Early Hogan with love Christmas 1924"; also with a laid-in manuscript letter on paper affectionately written by Mrs. Lyman, the letter bearing an affixed copy of Lyman's poem “Thankfulness,” from American Poetry magazine.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title; extremities rubbed. One early leaf with tiny scratch and hole, not touching text. A nice copy of a charming little gardening book, with endearing provenance.  (33909)

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Among Other Things, William's Mary Was aCapable Multi-Tasker . . .

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•  Funeral sermons for Mary II, Queen of England; the detailed reminiscences, though of course put to religious uses here, are of someone who knew her. Title within mourning border.   Sole printing in Ireland.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and ESTC locate only three copies in the U.S.

•  ESTC R219182; Wing (rev. ed.) T721.   Disbound. One corner of one leaf torn away, with loss; text completed on accompanying slip.  (33854)

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Rockwell Kent'sMoby Dick

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•  First trade edition, following a three-volume limited edition that sold out immediately upon release: Rockwell Kent's powerfully illustrated rendition of Melville's epic sea story, as printed at the Lakeside Press under William A. Kittredge's supervision.

Paying tribute to the impact of Kent's design of the volume and theclose to 300 images he provided, the bindingonly gives the artist's name, rather than the author's!

•  Publisher's black cloth, front cover and spine pictorially stamped in silver; dust jacket lacking, back upper outer corner bumped, spine and corners showing very slight shelfwear, front cover with small, unobtrusive scuff. Some page corners bumped, without soil or breakage; internally clean. A nice copy of the trade edition, more accessible than the limited while still displaying most of that printing'scharms.  (34028)

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A 20th-Century Fine-Press Printing . . .
of a 16th-Century Edition . . .
    of an Ancient Greek Romance . . .

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•  First printing of this edition of what's sometimes spoken of as a sort of protonovel; based on Thomas Creede's 1597 printing of the first English translation, it is here edited by Stephen Gaselee and H.F.B. Brett-Smith. The volume was printed at Stratford-upon-Avon by the Shakespeare Head Press, on Batchelor's Kelmscott handmade paper with untrimmed edges; the title-page is printed in red and black.

This isnumbered copy 459 of a total of 503 printed (394 for sale in Great Britain, 104 for sale in America, and 5 special copies on vellum), signed B.G.G. on the limitation.

•  Publisher's quarter tan cloth and brown paper–covered sides, front cover and spine each with printed paper label; corners bumped, spine darkened, spine label chipped. Pages clean; edges deckle with a very few signatures uncut.  (33816)

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Rubricated, Decorated, &ALL Initials Completed in Manuscript

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•  A nice, textually complete, incunable Bible from the Venetian press of Reynaldus de Novimagio and Theodorus de Reynsburch. It is printed in gothic type, double-column format, 53 lines to a full column, and ALL of the initial spaces with guide letters have been either simply completed in either red or blue or given more elaborate initials of red or blue or both. The latter, sometimes, are embellished with fine pen work extending into margins, as for example the “F” beginning the Prologue and the “I” of Genesis.

In addition to the text of the Bible, printed here are St. Jerome's introduction, a letter to Jerome on the book of Solomon, and another letter to Pope Damascus on the Gospel; at the end is added a 29-leaf manuscript “Vocabula Biblie Secundum ordinem librorum,” copies of which are found in other Bibles of the era.

Binding: 16th-century dark brown calf over bevelled wood boards, covers tooled in panels in blind using a variety of rolls and fillets, one roll resulting in a frame of embossed busts. Heavily worked brass corner devices and a central boss of a later date; remnants of brass and leather closures at the fore-edges.

Provenance:  19th-century bookplate of James Wyllie Guild; later in “The Braidwood Collection” with its late 19th-century label on front pastedown and manuscript note on front free endpaper; 1888 signature “Miss Hunter” on front free endpaper; early 20th-century bookplate of John Howell; after ca. 1954 in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Goff B-556; BMC, V, 254 (IB.20643); GKW 4231C; ISTC ib00556000.   Bound as above, rebacked, with leather (especially rebacking) showing wear; joints and hinges open but boards holding; lacking first and last blanks (as is so commonly the case). Old damp- or waterstaining to page edges and/or well into most margins; on manuscript leaves, this fades ink to affect legibility. Worming in margin of ff. pp2 through qq12 and in text area of ff. A1 through CC11 and final 29 manuscript leaves costing some letters. Otherwise, the expected soiling and some dust-smudging; a volume that has seen its hard times, but survived them!  (33720)

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An Insider's Guide toBATH

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•  Tunstall was aBath booster big-time. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, he was physician to the Eastern Dispensary of Bath and seven years resident medical officer of the Bath Hospital; his guide book to his city first appeared in 1847, with subsequent editions in 1848, 1851, 1856, 1876, 1888, 1889, and 1900. Besides the locale's follies, Roman ruins, chapels, farms, overlooks, etc., he offers considerable information on the hospitals, baths, and healing wells.

This would have beena definite must for hydrotherapy and other tourists. Nicely illustrated, it bears a great map.

Provenance:  Ownership signature of Mrs. Edward Brown, Belmont House, 1884. (This may well be the Mr. & Mrs. E. Brown whose “Belmont House” dates from ca. 1880 and is located in Browns Cove, Albemarle County, VA).

•  Publisher's green cloth, stamped in blind on covers and lettered in gilt on spine; text clean. A nice copy.  (33529)

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The ART of Engraving & Printing inGUATEMALA, 1794 through 1823

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•  This is a great and eye-pleasing assemblage for the study of Guatemalan art, specifically that of engraving, etching, and typography. Announcements of university degree defenses are arare printing genre; for example, none of the 61 items in this collection are held in the John Carter Brown Library. Additionally, only 16 were discovered by Medina.

Of the 61 items, 37 are in the smaller folio format (appx. 29.5 x 20 cm; 11.75" x 8.875") and 24 in the larger folio format (42 x 30.5 cm; 16.5" x 12"). Each has an engraving or etching in the top area: The very attractive images include saints and Madonnas, including three instances of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but also coats of arms and, very interestingly, portraits of living individuals. The typography is always center-justified above a final paragraph or two that is right justified; and the printers have used a variety of ornaments to create interesting borders.

There is one case of an image being used twice: once on a small format broadside and also on a large one. The etched text has been eliminated on one of these; and when one looks carefully at the other images it is clear that engraved text has been masked or removed from some of them also — further evidence of recycling as having been a printshop practice.

Remarkably, one of the broadsides is bilingual (Latin & Spanish) and is a publicationnot of a university defense but a publication of that Enlightenment development, the social organization “La Sociedad Economica,” in this case La Sociedad Economica de Guatemala. It announces that it has been reborn, and will not let the authorities “suffocate” it. Another is aeulogy for a retired university professor.

Among the defense announcements, some give the actual questions/topics that will be asked/defended. The date range of the items is 1794 to 1823 and the engravers include Juan Jose Rosales de Santa Cruz, Narcisco Rosal, Juan Pedro Larrabe, Garci-Aguirre, Francisco Cabrera, Valladolid, and Jose Casildo Espana. Notably one is by the Mexican engraver Villavicencio. Finally, the printers are the usual admirable suspects: Bracamonte, Beteta, and Arevalo. It is interesting to see them represented by such UNusual ephemera!

•  Medina, Guatemala, 761; 814; 852; 1523; 1525; 1557; 1577; 1580; 1596; 1613, 1626; 1758 1898; 1806; 1918; 2138.   All items are in very good condition, in Mylar sleeves, the entire collection in a quarter morocco clamshell case.  (33845)

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BACON onAll Types of TREASON

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•  First edition: His Majesty's Solicitor General sets forth the law on treason, including sections on felony, abjuration and exile, and heresy. The title-page bears More's “Deus providebit” publisher's device, and the text is decorated with two headpieces and one decorative capital.

Evidence of readership: The section on “Cases of Felony” isannotated in an early and rather challenging hand, on three pages.

•  ESTC R16590; Gibson, Bacon, 198; Pforzheimer 25.3; Wing (rev. ed.) B272.   Contemporary tan calf framed in triple blind fillets, later rebacked with brown sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; sides and spine with small scuffs, edges and extremities worn. Front pastedown with London bookseller's ticket, slightly offset onto free endpaper. Title-page darkened and stained, with two early inked notations; text generally age-toned and waterstained though not weakened. Variable worming from p. 14 on, in some cases touching letters without generally obscuring sense; upper edges of several leaves ragged and chipped, some lower edges untrimmed. A classic.  (34004)

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Basquiat: Words as Information as Power

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•  First edition: A retrospective of Basquiat's word paintings and drawings, illustrated with 65 images of finished works and sketch book pages. His short career started when he received notoriety as part of SAMO, the informal graffiti group that wrote enigmatic epigrams in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and then he moved on to Neo-expressionism and Primitivism. Designed by Reed Seifer, the volume opens with an introduction by Richard D. Marshall and closes with a recollection of the artist by family friend Annette I. Minkalis.

Only 1500 copies were printed, on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title at Cheim & Read in 2005.

•  Publisher's linen-covered boards, front cover and spine with title stamped in red and black, back cover with text reproduced from a Basquiat page. A clean, crisp copy.  (34019)

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Friendship That WouldSoon End

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•  Cass, a U.S. senator from Michigan and professional politician, tells Kane, brother of the Arctic explorer and a lawyer and ardent abolitionist, that Kane’s pamphlet (on the Mormons, a lecture he had delivered before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in March) has not reached him yet. There are expressions of friendship and esteem.

One suspects a great change in their attitudes toward each other occurred after the Compromise of 1850 that Cass supported and Kane despised so much that he resigned his clerkship in the District Court in eastern Pennsylvania, so he would not have to return slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act that was part of the Compromise. Incidentally, Kane’s father, a U.S. district judge, had his son imprisoned for the resignation, alleging contempt of court. The Supreme Court disagreed with papa.

Provenance:  Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, rproperly deaccessioned.

•  Very good condition.  (33948)

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Gen. Cruz's FIRST Rebellion AgainstPres. Cerna

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•  President Cerna announces that Mariscal de Campo Serapio Cruz has raised a rebellion in the jurisdiction of Sanarate for personal reasons and not for any that would justify a true revolution. He calls on the citizens to remain calm while the government brings the situation to a peaceful and just resolution.

This rebellion was the first of two that Cruz led against the government of Cerna, the heir of Carrera regime. The second one in 1869 led to Cruz's death in battle.

Searches of NUC, and WorldCat locateonly two copies in U.S. libraries.

•  As issued.  (33990)

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LUTHER's Bible Illustrated byLucas Cranach

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•  The Bible in Low German, based on Lufft's 1544–45 edition of Luther's High German version, that is, thelast edition to bear Luther's corrections and revisions. The volume's numerous, often large, and decidedlygorgeous woodcut illustrations are by Lucas Cranach (the elder).

Appended to the text of the Bible are J. Bugenhagen's “Summaria” on various books of the Bible and “Summaria auer dat Olde Testament” by M. Vitus Theodorus. The text is printed in double-column format in fraktur type (i.e., black letter), with prologues, notes in text and margin, references, etc.

•  Darlow & Moule 4198 (in the long note).   Late 18th-century German binding of diced brown morocco with all edges paste-painted in blue. Title-page repaired on four sides on the verso and tipped in. Many margins in first portion of volume defective and repaired, with some loss of marginal notes and/or a word or part of a word of text; one repaired leaf with a good deal more taken towards bottom of outer column; instances intermittently throughout of close “shaving.” Old water- and other staining; lacks two leaves of the aftermatter (l1 and l4 of Theodorus' “Summaria”). Substantial inked “evidence of readership” of various sorts; Cranach's contributions happily unaffected by faults noted. A strong, in sum a rather nice copy of an uncommon and beautiful Bible.  (33851)

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Vermifuge for Your Children

Death on worms!!!

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•  Promotional leaf for Dr. Snyder's “concentrated oleaginous extract of red cedar,” guaranteed one of the most efficacious remedies for worms, dyspepsia, habitual costiveness, and derangements of the stomach and bowels in adults as well as children. The suggested publication date is based on the publisher's address.

•  Slightly age-toned, particularly at edges; a few tiny flaws in paper. A nice bit of patent medicine ephemera.  (33829)

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Three Classic Poets, Two Languages, One Miniature Collection

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•  Pocket-sized, even miniatureScottish edition of Anacreon in Greek, followed by the same in Latin along with fragments fromSappho and her contemporary Erinna. Present here are both the half-title and the sectional title-page (the second portion is entitled “Anacreontis, Sapphus, et Erinnæ carmina. Interpretibus Henrico Stephano, et Elia Andrea,” i.e., based on the editions of Henri Estienne and Helie Andre).

Only500 copies of this were printed, with Robert Hunter, Prof. of Greek at Edinburgh University, employed as the scholarly editor (W. McDougall, Hamilton, Balfour and Neill, v. 2, p. 284.)

Uncommon: WorldCat and ESTC locate only one complete copy in U.S. institutional holdings. Those sources do locate a copy at the Newberry of only the first part, i.e., the text in Greek, that was printed on silk!

•  ESTC T200306; Schweiger, I, 24.   Contemporary calf framed in gilt double fillets, neatly rebacked preserving much of the original spine (which is plain without labels); edges rubbed, sides lightly scraped, nicely refurbished and with new endpapers. Pages faintly age-toned with some occasional light spotting, largely confined to outer portions of first and last few leaves. A solid and satisfying copy.  (33923)

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King Alfred & “Trial by Jury”Celebrated to Boot

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•  “Engraved by T. Trotter, from an Original Picture painted by Cornelius Jansen, in the Hall of the Inner Temple.” Image measures 7.5" x 4.75" and is inlaid to a sheet measuring 11.25" x 8.5".

•  Very good image.  (33873)

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On theNature of Things

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•  Uncommon pocket-sized rendition of this Epicurean-inspired poem. Lucretius's materialistic, anti-superstitious philosophy was much favored by the disciples of the Enlightenment.

The Plantin Press first published this work in 1566, and the title-page here bears Christopher Plantin's “Labore et constantia” compass device. The edition is rather rare, being reported in only three U.S. institutions.

Binding:  18th-century mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped red leather spine label and gilt floral decorations in compartments. Marbled endpapers and all edges red.

•  Schweiger, II, 574. This edition not in Brunet or Graesse.   Bound as above, extremities rubbed; back free endpaper with old repair and front fly-leaf affixed to front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription showing through on verso. Pages age-toned with mild staining; a few small, early inked marks of emphasis and one early inked marginal annotation. An elegant little production in a sound and pleasant copy.  (33944)

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Inscribed Copy fromTHE Robert of Robert's Rules

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•  First edition of this standard reference work from the military engineer responsible for Robert's Rules of Order.

Provenance:  Presentation copy, inscribed to Dr. M.N. Roe with the author's compliments.

•  Publisher's dark green cloth, front cover with embossed title, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine title dimmed, extremities slightly rubbed. Pages gently age-toned, otherwise clean. A pleasing copy; one eminently suitable for giving either informally OR ceremonially tosomeone appreciated  as “THE CHAIR”!  (33921)

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LEC: 50 Rilke Poems

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•  The Limited Editions Club takes on “Germany's greatest modern poet”: 50 poems from Rilke's early career, selected, translated, and annotated by Carlyle Ferren MacIntyre, with a preface by Harry T. Moore. The poems areprinted in English and German on facing pages, with mutedly melancholy, gray-toned, stippled full-page and in-text illustrations (four of the former, six of the latter) done by Robert Kipniss and lithographed by George C. Miller & Son. Katy Homans designed the volume; the text was printed in Dante type (both roman and italic) on Mohawk eggshell wove paper, and the binding was done by A. Horowitz & Son.

This is numbered copy 1496 of 2000 printed, signed at the colophon by the artist. Both the LEC newsletter and prospectus are laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 518.   Publisher's quarter navy buckram and blue paper–covered boards, spine with author stamped in silver, in original matching slipcase; spine and slipcase sunned, otherwise clean and crisp.  (33728)

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Wycliffe's New Testament — 150 Copies Printed?

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•  This is theearliest printed edition of Wycliffe's New Testament, that text itself occupying the 156 pages following an initial 108 pages devoted to a dedication to “the Right Honourable Thomas Lord Malton, “the editor [John Lewis]'s “History of the English Translations of the Bible,” “Corrigenda & Addenda,” an index, “A Particular Account of the . . . MSS of the Bible,” and “The Names of the Encouragers of this Work.”

The tall, upright folio volume bears two portraits, mezzotint engravings by George White of the editor and of Wycliffe, and offers a bright crisp engraving of the gorgeous and elaborate border of the “frontispiece [i.e., title-page] of Cranmer's Bible,” shown with the area for publishing data left blank.

The N.T. is neatly printed in double-column format, paragraph style with a single rule between the columns. In the top margin of the even-numbered pages is the name of the book of the Bible, while the upper margin of the odd-numbered pages contains the chapter number. The typeface is roman without any special characters (e.g., no “thorns'), but with nine-line woodcut initials at the beginning of each book and two-line bold-face initials at the beginning of chapters.

Different sources give the press run at either 150 or 160 copies.

Provenance:  18th-century note on front pastedown, “C. Willis, the gift of Mrs. Hewitt.” Later in the Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  ESTC T95000; Darlow & Moule 777; Herbert 1011; Graesse (1867 ed.), VI,2, 87.   Contemporary plain calf with modest gilt ruling on boards and spine, spine label partially missing; front joint (outside) open and board mostly detached. Title-page of N.T. browned from the engraving opposite; engraving of Cranmer Bible leaf extending beyond the text block. Despite the provenance, no library markings.  (33785)

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GORGEOUS!

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•  A fine, illuminated Ottoman Turkish Qur'an, dating from the first decades of the 19th century. It is written in black ink, 15 lines to the page, verses separated by gold roundels of varying designs (stars, flowers, geometrics) pointed in blue, green, and/or red, surah headings in white on a gold field; text is contained in a double border of gilt frames outlined in black. Bearing elaborate illuminated blue, red, green, and gold marginal devices on many pages, the volume has catchwords and some calligrapher's marginal additions.

Theilluminated double-page opening is composed of an interlace of monochrome and polychrome scrolling flowers within geometric borders, against a rich gold ground.

The calligraphy is very good but unsigned.

Binding:  Contemporary brown morocco, with concentric panels, one of which is colored red; the panels were created using various rolls and fillets to tool the boards in gilt Red pastedowns and doublures, elaborately tooled in blind. All edges gilt and decorated in gilt.

Provenance:  In the 19th century owned by George W. Scott; given ca. 1900 to the Pacific School of Religion; properly released.

•  Binding as above; rebacked and without the flap. Some smudging of the text at the time of inditement. Bookplate on front pastedown; rubber-stamp on preliminary blank leaf. Overall very good; indeed, quite beautiful.  (33828)

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Landmark Works in the STRUGGLE forReligious Tolerance

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•  Locke's letters on toleration were widely read and served as major philosophical support for freedom of worship by all, including Jews, Muslims, and pagans. His influence extended north across the Scottish border, east across the Channel influencing Scottish and Continental Enlightenment thinkers, and west across the Atlantic, having demonstrable influence on the likes of Jefferson and other American Founding Fathers and being a major part of the underpinning of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Present in this volume are copies of the first three of Locke's letters on toleration, the only ones published during his lifetime. The volume leads off with the second edition in English, corrected, of the first letter, this having first appeared in 1689 in Latin (Epistola de tolerantia) and in the same year in English in a quarto edition of 61 pages. Translated by William Popple, it is here in 12mo format. That is followed by Locke's Second Letter, in quarto, written in reply to Jonas Proast's The Argument of the Letter concerning Toleration considered and answered (Oxford, 1690), and then by his Third Letter, also quarto, which continued the debate with Proast by reply to the Oxfordian's own Third Letter.

A fourth letter was left in manuscript at Locke's death in 1702; it was first published in the Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke (1706) but seems never to have appeared in a free-standing edition of its own.

Provenance:  Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  I: Wing (rev. ed.); L2748; ESTC R21477. II: Wing (rev. ed.) L2755; ESTC R5484. III: Wing (rev. ed.) L2765; ESTC R5673.   Contemporary plain calf with modest blind-tooled floral corner devices on the boards; rebacked. Ex-library as above, with bookplate; stamp on front free endpaper and on title-page of The Second Letter only, otherwise unmarked. Without the half-title to The Second Letter. A very nice gathering. In a quarter brown morocco solander case with brown cloth sides; raised bands accented by gilt rules above and below each band; gilt center devices in spine compartments.  (33772)

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“Be Prepared, to Give MePersonal Satisfaction”

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•  A challenge to a duel!  Clarkson was captain of the ship America. Low was a merchant and real estate developer. Low had published a public “Protest” critical of Clarkson and to the captain’s eye it was slanderous. He demands Low “Publickly recall your malignant Protest, or be prepared, to give me personal satisfaction.”

Provenance:  Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, properly deaccessioned.

•  Written in a clear hand. Paper age-toned and with dampstaining but overall good++ condition.  (33952)

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Tyndale *&* Coverdale

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•  Tyndale's version is printed from the only known copy, belonging to Lord Arthur Hervey, who discovered it in 1861,in a volume of tracts. The original was printed probably at Antwerp in 1530 or '31 by Martin de Keyser; it is here coupled with the Coverdale version that appeared in the 1535 folio Bible.

Both typographically and in itsintroduction by Francis Fry, this is an interesting “period” homage.

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Contemporary quarter leather over drab boards. Despite provenance, one rubber-stamped five-digit number to verso of title-page only; no other library markings. A very good copy.  (33671)

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Perishable Press Poetry

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•  First edition: “Adornment of Body,” “The Jane St. Poem,” and “Autumn,” preceded by a collage illustration that Hamady (who called this production a personal favorite) described as “a 'lady-out-of-the-map' rising die-cut from a grommetted card pocket with a red halo.”

This isone of 228 copies “manually printed in this farmhouse parlour on various shadwell papers hand-formed in the barn,” according to the colophon, which also mentions that “sultry august is when we finish” [sic].

•  Two Decades of Hamady and the Perishable Press Limited, 103.   Publisher's sparkly “flesh-glitter & sequin” paper wrappers, spine with “Joel” pressure-stamped in reverse. A beautiful copy.  (33821)

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ENGLISH EMBROIDERED BINDING

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•  A near-miniature printing of the Sternhold and Hopkins metrical version of Psalms, with the Geneva version in the margin, the whole in an embroidered binding. The text is printed in two small point sizes of roman, the smaller being used for the Geneva text in the margins. The music is present.

Binding:  Deep blue, rose, gold, and blue-green silk threads embroidered on cream silk, within an overall chain design in gold and silver wire thread incorporating some florets; mostly sunned to dull brown or dull green on covers butvibrantly viewable “as was” on rear turn-in. Evidence of silk ties now perished. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  Late 17th- or early 18th-century stencilled armorial device on the front pastedown of a griffin surmounting a cornet; bookseller's label (first half 20th century) of John Howell, San Francisco; afterwards The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

Scarce edition: Searches of NUC, WorldCat, ESTC, and COPAC locate only three copies in U.S. libraries, this being one of the three (now deaccessioned), and five copies in the rest of the world (two in England, one each in Scotland, Australia, and Germany).

•  STC (rev. ed.) 2573.5; ESTC S116798; Wilson, Bibles, Testaments, Psalms ... in English, III, 71.   Binding as above; use of a magnifying glass is advised as exceptionally rewarding. Housed in a quarter red morocco open back case with a red cloth chemise. Lacking one leaf. Very good condition.  (33819)

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Recipes from theReaders

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•  First edition: Practical, everyday recipes and household suggestions collected and published by the “Home” department of the Chicago Daily Tribune. Although many of these entries were sent in by Chicago readers, others are marked as from Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Indiana, Ohio, and elsewhere.

Provenance & evidence of readership: Very large, in pencil, on rear endpaper: “Churchill Allen / Bainbridge / Indiana.” Endpapers and dedication page with all-over early inked and pencilled annotations: “Dear friend,” several times. Numerous numerals and calculations. “Miss Massie”(?).

•  Brown, Culinary Americana, 550.   Publisher's green cloth, front cover with black-stamped title, binding shaken and hinges (inside) cracked; corners and spine rubbed, spine with small tear in cloth, back cover with patch of discoloration. Annotations as noted above. Pages age-toned with occasional faint foxing — not kitchen-related staining.  (33825)

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Dante in aPoet's “Medieval” Binding

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•  “Edizione simplex” from the eminent Florentine publishing house, and an excellent example of a binding fashion created with an eye to the books' beingsnapped up as suitable souvenirs by visitors to Italy.

Binding:  Medieval-style contemporary vellum with yapp edges, done by Alfonso Dori & Figli of Florence, front cover with calligraphed title and illuminated manuscript–inspired foliate design painted in blue, green, rose, sepia, and gold. Front cover, in this case, additionally personalized with owner's name.

Provenance:  Front cover calligraphed with “M.H. Penick”; front fly-leaf with inked inscription, dated 1932, of Margaret H. Penick: very plausibly the poet Margaret Henry Dabney Penick (later M.H. Penick Nuttle; 1879–1962), author of Beauty's Snare and Coins of Memory.

•  Binding as above, tie now largely absent, vellum darkened (particularly the spine, all attractively). Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription as above and a small “device”; back free endpaper with Dori & Figli's attractive book-shaped ticket. Endpapers with small edge chips; pages age-toned, with edges darkened and slightly embrittled; one leaf with tear from lower margin, extending into text without loss. Half-title with small spots of staining. A suggestive and very giftable Divine Comedy.  (33676)

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“Our Trees Rise inCones, Globes & Pyramids”

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•  First edition: “An historical diversion” on the development of artistic treatment of vegetation from the time of the Garden of Eden up through Victorian curiosities (and a few modern surreal “survivals”), illustrated with colored engravings by Peter Barker-Mill. Produced and printed by Christopher Sandford atthe Golden Cockerel Press, this edition was limited to 500 copies, of which the present example is numbered copy 101.

Provenance:  This copy isinscribed by the artist “to Maude,” dated 1956.

•  Cock-a-hoop 198.   Publisher's half orange buckram with cream and green patterned handmade paper, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine slightly sunned, one corner a bit bumped, back cover with small indentation and bubble in cloth. A clean, handsome, inscribed copy of a charming look at the eternal question of art vs. nature in the botanical realm.  (33817)

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“Looking back on the whole ghastly affair . . .”

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•  First edition.  Issued only in paperback. Hilarious, a la Wodehouse or Sturgis. “Meet Gilbert and Moira — the strangest couple ever to marry for other people's money.”

•  Paperback. Cover illustration by Daniel Torres. Fine.  (33906)

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A Booth-BarrettShakespeare Revival — In Dallas!

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•  An unusual piece of theatrical ephemera, featuring two great American actors: a printed-silk playbill for a Dallas performance of the 1888 touring production of Julius Caesar, starring Edwin Booth (whose fame is regrettably now linked with that of his brother John Wilkes Booth) and Booth's longtime friend and business partner Lawrence Barrett. It was in the same year as this production that Booth founded the Players' Club in New York.

Other members of this cast include John A. Lane, Minna Gale (one of Barrett's favorite leading ladies), and Elizabeth Robins (later a prominent women's rights activist).

•  Printed silk, as issued; faint creasing, edges very slightly ragged, two small spots of light staining (one each to the outer margins). A marvelous souvenir of a high spot of American theatre.  (33692)

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ITALY Learns about theAmerican Continental Congress & Revolutionary Politics

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•  Guillaume Thomas François Raynal (1713–96) wrote his seven-volume account of the European colonies in the East and West Indies with the help of the coteries of philosophes whose salons he frequented: Indeed Diderot is credited with the authorship of up to a third of it, and Holbach, Pechméja, and Paulze also contributed.

This Italian translation is of Books 17 and 18 of the original seven-volume work (first published Amsterdam, 1770, and an anonymous continuation); dealing strictly with North America, it has much to say about the political turmoil of the English colonies, the Continental Congress, etc., but also about Canada, native Americans, the border regions of Florida and Louisiana, and French interests.

A third volume that appeared in 1780, but is not present here, carried the story “fino alla primavera del 1779 nella quale, oltre alla guerra civile trà la Gran Bretagna, e le Colonie Unite, si descrive anche quella trà la prima, e la Francia.”

•  Echeverria & Wilkie, French Image, 778/67.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, gilt caramel-colored spine label, all edges blue. Some gatherings of leaves browned from impurities in the water during the paper manufacture, and occasional foxing or other light staining. Without vol. 3, later published, and, that aside, arather nice copy.  (33614)

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A Dear Baby Boy

Easy reading for the little ones.

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•  The story of a little boy with a German mother and an American father, starting his life in Germany before moving to New York. The text hyphenates multisyllabic words for the convenience of novice readers, and is illustrated with a total of40 pictures, including 9 plates. Written by the author of the “Rose Dale” books, this appears to be one of Mrs. Sanford's less common productions: WorldCat fails to locate any institutional holdings.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription reading “To Harry Lloyd Born from his Mama [/] 1882.”

•  Publisher's dark green cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title and black-stamped decoration, front cover with affixed chromolithographic illustration; binding slightly cocked, extremities rubbed, front cover illustration with small scuffs. Pages age-toned with occasional faint spotting.In hand and under the eye, very appealing.  (33631)

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“Books Are Communicative Instruments”

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•  First collected edition: five essays by a man described by the publisher as “the embodiment of what it means to be a literate hand-printer in a world dominated by mindless commercialism.” The volume was designed by Carol J. Blinn at Warwick Press, and printed by Daniel Keleher in monotype Perpetua on Frankfurt Cream paper; it was bound by Sarah Creighton and Blinn using paste paper handmade by the latter.

325 copies were printed (of which 300 were for sale) andsigned by the author at the colophon. The prospectus is laid in.

Binding: Publisher's quarter Niger blue-grey goatskin with cream and blue paste paper–covered boards and leather-tipped corners, spine with gilt-stamped title..

•  Bound as above, spine slightly sunned; without slipcase but with prospectus and offering a particularly pretty variation of the paper used for the covers.  Pages clean and crisp.  (33787)

The Art of the Printed Book — ANOTHER COPY

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•  First edition: Essays on book design and printing by a famed typographer, book designer, and hand-printer. This is one of 325 copies (300 for sale) printed; the edition was designed by Carol J. Blinn at Warwick Press, printed by Daniel Keleher at Wild Carrot Letterpress, bound by Sarah Creighton and C.J. Blinn in quarter olive Niger goatskin and paste paper–covered sides (paper made by Blinn), andsigned at the colophon by the author.

•  Binding as above, inoriginal terra-cotta paper–covered slipcase; leather very gently sunned, slipcase with lower edge rubbed and each side with a small unobtrusive spot/mark or two to paper, otherwise clean. Informative and attractive. (30560)

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RatherRadical Grammar

Cobbett, William. 

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•  First edition of this extraordinarily popular, oft-reprinted grammar, addressed to the author's 14-year-old son and written on Long Island by this political lightning rod and pundit. Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides and proprietor of the Political Register, wrote the work while temporarily in political exile in the United States; the ODNB notes its connection to his ongoing political interests, as, e.g., he “cheekily drew his examples of faulty grammar from the writings and speeches of such renowned political leaders as the duke of Wellington, Lord Castlereagh, and George III himself.”

Copies of this true first edition are now uncommon on the market in any condition.

•  Gaines, Cobbett, 78a; NSTC 2C27721; Vancil 53. On Cobbett, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Contemporary treed sheep, rubbed and spine label now absent; covers reattached using the long-fibre method and then toned with hinges (inside) stengthened. Title-page with inked ownership inscription dated [18]93; front pastedown with inked date (Nov. 1, 1888) and pencilled annotations. Pages age-toned and foxed, two signatures towards the back darkly browned; still, strong and untattered and interesting.  (33300)

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Le Carré: “An Eye Already Charged by Peril”

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•  The G. Harry Pouder Memorial Lecture delivered at Johns Hopkins University on 20 May 1986: Le Carré talks about spy novels and George Smiley, and how they interacted with his own life.

One of 260 copies (including 10 hors commerce copies) printed by Claire Van Vliet at the Janus Press, this issigned at the colophon by Le Carré. The work was set in Times New Roman, printed on Arches Text paper, and bound by Linda Kohl in paper marbled by Pam Smith.

•  Fine, The Janus Press 1981–1990, 18.   Publisher's marbled paper wrappers. A clean, fresh copy of an uncommon item.  (33629)

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Love with the Complication ofT.B.

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•  First edition (correct code).  Frontispiece in color by Walter Biggs. The author was a native of Virginia and anardent suffragist.

Much of the action here takes place in atuberculosis sanitarium.

Binding:  Signed by Bertha Stuart with initials “B.S.” Olive cloth with image on front cover of a house and garden in pale yellow, dark green, and purple.

•  Rubbed at extremities, top of spine a little faded; text block a little skewed and front hinge (inside) cracked; yet a clean, attractive copy of a book in a nice signed binding.  (33907)

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The Editio Regia — A Scholarly & TypographicMASTERPIECE of the Renaissance

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•  “Robert Estienne's 1550 edition, his third edition of the New Testament in Greek, established the textus receptus for subsequent editors. His documentation of collations of fifteen manuscripts (including the Codex Bezae) resulted in the first critical apparatus for an edition of the Bible” (Pelikan).

In addition to being a major scholarly achievement, Estienne's work is universally hailed for its typographic beauty: It is printed in the largest of the three fonts of Greek type that Claude Garamond designed, the famous Royal Greek type — the grecs du roi that Robert Estienne ordered on behalf of King Francis I of France. Their design was based on the handwriting of the Cretan copyist Angelo Vergecio. This is the very first use of this size of the Garamond Royal Greek type.

Adding to the visual beauty of the typography and aiding the reader in navigating the text is the printer's use of two sizes of foliated and grotesque Greek initials, headpieces of similar design, and a divisional title-page for the second section that begins with the Epistles of Paul.

As previously mentioned, the volume offers critical apparatus: This is printed in the inner margin of the text and gives variant readings and additions from manuscripts that Estienne had consulted for collating against the printed text; and the outer margin contains references and the ordinary chapter-numbers and division-letters, A, B, etc.

Two versions ofthe Estienne printer's device are used in the work: The coiling snake and vine (Schreiber B1) on the main and divisional title-pages and the man standing under an olive tree (Schreiber 10) on the verso of the colophon leaf.

Binding:  18th-century red crushed morocco, round spine, no raised bands, spine richly tooled with an overall, elaborate vine pattern “gilt-extra.” The covers have an outer border formed by a triple and single fillet, three of the four tooled in blind and one in gilt, and an inner frame also of a triple and single fillet, but with two in blind and two in gilt; the resulting panel is graced with gilt corner devices and a large gilt center device. All edges gilt and top edge with old ink lettering under the gilt (“Novum Testamentu[m]”).

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Schreiber, Estiennes, 105; Adams B1661; Darlow & Moule 4622; Renouard, Estienne, 75, no. 1; Mortimer; French, 78; Rumball-Petre 228; Pelikan, Reformation of the Bible, I.18.   Binding as above, evidence of ties at top, bottom, and fore-edges of boards; a little rubbed. Text with red ruling through p. 43. Occasional light, small stain in upper margin and very occasionally some other spot; perhaps six leaves towards end with old light waterstain across lower outer corner. Very minor worming in some lower margins, not near text. Definitely a very good copy of a sumptuous book.  (33610)

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First Edition of a DICKENS CLASSIC, with Phiz Engravings

Little Dorrit.

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•  First edition: the original 19 monthly partsin wrappers, issued from December 1855 through 1857. Incorporating some of Dickens's own experiences as a child of an imprisoned debtor, this novel — his eleventh, and the best-selling of his works to that date — offers scathing mockery of bureaucracy's ill effects and of governmental incompetence, as well as introducing the epically self-sacrificing Little Dorrit herself.

Each installment features two illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne, a.k.a. “Phiz,” for a total of40 steel-engraved plates, including an illustrated title-page for the set. Vol. XVI includes the tipped-in errata slip regarding the confusion between Rigaud and Blandois, marking the first state. Extensive advertising material, including the “Little Dorrit Advertiser,” is present at the front and back of each part.

•  NCBEL, III, 803.   Publisher's printed blue paper wrappers, housed in green cloth-covered clamshell case; case with one corner discolored and cloth starting to split along spine extremities, still strong. Paper wrappers with expectable wear to edges and extremities, some minor spotting, generally clean and in good shape; front inside wrappers each with institutional sticker (three with sticker on first advertising page instead), these not unattractive and the only library indicia. Vol. IV with small 19th-century bookbinder's ticket on front wrapper; vols. XVII and XIX with early inked ownership inscription in upper outer portion. Occasional light foxing, including to some plates; two plates in vol. XIV/XX with small area of waterstaining to inner portions. Desirable Dickensiana.  (33605)

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The FIRST Bible with aTITLE-PAGE, a Famous INCUNABLE Bible

Bible.

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•  The first Bible with a “title-page,” leaf a1 having the words “Textus Biblie” in a large gothic font elegantly placed, highlighted with contemporary red inked tracery. The text is the standard Latin Vulgate, printed in double-column format in gothic type with guide letters, generally 48 lines per column, with a type area (with minor variations) of 21.7 x 13.8 cm. As is not usual, ALL of the volume's guide letters have been accomplished in red or blue or both, the neatly penned initials being all handsome and typically of 3 lines, sometimes rising to so many as 8 lines, in height. Some are embellished with tracery extending into margins, and ALL pages have their sentence-beginnings touched with red or, on a few occasions, blue. The thoroughness, the consistency of this adornment, is remarkable.

A much coveted incunable Bible, this is little held in U.S. libraries: Searches of NUC, WorldCat, Goff, and ISTC locate only 10 copies in the United States, no copies in Canada, one in Mexico. One of those 10 has been deaccessioned and is the present copy.

Provenance:  Bookseller's label of John Howell, Bookseller, San Francisco. Later in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Goff B-583; Hain-Copinger 3093; BMC, I, pp. 119–20 (IB 1582); GKW 4260; ISTC ib00583000.   19th-century brown morocco over bevelled boards with raised bands; Victorian-style gothic gilt ruling in spine compartments and on boards, with gilt turn-ins; vellum pastedowns and free endpapers. Binding lightly rubbed in spots; old waterstaining from light to noticeable in margins throughout and sometimes into text, at times causing loss of some coloring of the initials. Very minor worming in a very few margins. NO library markings or bookplate, despite provenance; overall a good+, complete copy of a sought-after incunable.  (33652)

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I Wish I Had More Time

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•  Senator Lodge thanks Joslyn, Associate Editor of the Buffalo News, for his kind letter about liking Lodge’s memoirs Early Memories (NY: Scribner’s, 1913). Lodge would like to continue them, he says, but doesn’t know when he will find time.

Written on Senate letterhead — “Committee on Private Land Claims, H. C. Lodge, Chairman” — with a nice, dark, bold signature.

Provenance:  Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, recently deaccessioned.

•  Very good. Old folds; evidence on verso of having been mounted in an album.  (33775)

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Martha Graham's Teacher's Autobiography;  A Gift fromSt. Denis to Lisan Kay
(A Significant Exchange of Letters Laid In)

St. Denis, Ruth.

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•  A much personalized copy of this modern dance pioneer's autobiography that Ms. St. Denis (1880–1968) signed with her name in full in 1939 and that she later inscribed to ballerina Lisan Kay Nimura (1903–2006) in 1955.

This first edition (correct code on the copyright page) has the following aspects of personalization by “Miss Ruth” as St. Denis was known among dancers, in addition to the signature: a photograph of St. Denis and her husband and fellow dancer Ted Shawn (taken by Williamina Parrish) is tipped to the verso of the dedication page; three related publicity blurbs and a biographical blurb from the dust jacket are pasted to the blank areas of pp. x and xi (with the d/j having been discarded as was typical!); a dramatic half-tone image of St. Denis on a red background is pasted on the leaf preceding p. 1; two half-tone photographs of St. Denis in dance poses are pasted below the text on p. 113; a typeset explanation of Tillers of the Soil is pasted lengthwise in the foremargin of p. 211; a newspaper photograph with caption is pasted below the text on p. 225; and a half-tone photograph of St. Denis with Rabindranath Tagore is pasted below the text on p. 357.

Also present and laid in is a typed letter signed (“Lisan”) to St. Denis dated “Sunday April 23, '61" in which she says that Miss Ruth has hurt her in unspecified ways but “terribly” on the occasion of Lisan's having treated her to a performance of “Clytemnestra” that Lisan thought had “obvious Denishawn influences.” “I don't hold it against you --- but for the moment, it does hurt terribly.” St. Denis wrote back immediately and her autograph letter signed, written in blue pencil, is also present: “Lysan Dear! Try to forgive me!! I am in the middle of one of those crises that come to us all at times. I must appear — Rude & ungratefull {sic] — it was not meant in that spirit at all. I am truly grateful that you went to the trouble of getting the tickets & I am sorry beyond words for my bungling.”

Provenance:  St. Denis' gift inscription on the half-title in green ink: “To Lisan Kay — with all delightfull [sic] memories — past present [and?] sure to come!” Dated, '[19]55"; signed, as the letter is, with the writer's initials.

•  Publisher's cloth, without the d/j. Small chip out of fore-edge of front free endpaper. Text block slightly skewed. A truly special copy.  (33446)

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Defoe'sLondon, Illustrated

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•  Handsome rendition of Defoe's text from the original edition (1724–1726), here edited and annotated by Sir Mayson M. Beeton and E. Beresford Chancellor. The volume is illustrated with a frontispiece portrait done after the 1706 engraving by Van der Gucht, a variety of maps “specially drawn to delineate the London of Defoe's time and his circuit thereof,” and “reproductions of drawings, maps, and prints mostly contemporary with the period of [Defoe's] life.” The letterpress was composed and printed at the Westminster Press, the photogravure plates engraved and hand-printed by A. Alexander & Sons Ltd., and the collotype plates printed at the Chiswick Press, on Basingwerk parchment paper.

This isone of 350 copies printed, of which only 300 were for sale.

Binding: Publisher's brown cloth in remarkably convincing (and therefore rather interesting) imitation of a Cambridge calf binding, covers framed and panelled in gilt double fillets with scalloped gilt roll and gilt-stamped corner fleurons. Spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with skull and “What Do We Know” bookplate of Dr. Charles W. Burr, the first Chair of Mental Diseases at the University of Pennsylvania.

•  Bound as above, slipcase lacking; joints, extremities, and spine bands rubbed, spine slightly darkened. Pages and plates clean.  (33617)

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In theDayak Language of Borneo — Revised with Native Assistance

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•  The second printing of the New Testament in Ngaju (a.k.a. Bideyu, and sometimes identified as Land Dayak). This printing is a revision of the first N.T. in this language: That edition (printed in 1846) was translated from the Greek by J.F. Becker and A. Hardeland of the Rhenish Missionary Society, with references to Luther's version and Richter's “Hausbibel.” Hardeland revised this second printing of the Dayak New Testament with the assistance of two natives of Borneo, Timothy Marat and Nicodemus Tomogong. It is printed in roman type in double-column format.

In the same year, 1858, Hardeland published the first complete Bible in Dayak, the Old and New Testaments being issued as separate volumes. Searches of NUC and WorldCat locateonly two copies in the U.S. of the N.T. alone.

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Darlow & Moule 3460; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 311.   Publisher's brown textured cloth, all edges speckled blue; library bookplate, old library rubber-stamp on title and in margin of table of contents, charge pocket and date slip at rear. Most attractively clean, even bright, with a very occasional spot or bit of foxing only; a very nice copy.  (33606)

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Deluxe Signed Limited Edition PUBLISHER'S COPY:  Life of a Science Fiction Pioneer

BRADBURY: An illustrated life.

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•  First, limited edition thus of a visual record of the great Ray Bradbury's career in comics, movies, television, theatre, and literature. This profusely illustrated limited edition includes32 pages of material not present in the trade edition (incorporated here after the William Morrow title-page dated 2002, marked first edition): the volume opens with the previously unpublished “The Ghosts of Forever: A Film Fantasy,” illustrated by Joseph A. Mugnaini, and “Switch on the Night,” a reproduction of portions of Bradbury's original manuscript bearing his own illustrations. The foreword is by Donn Albright, and the introduction by Bradbury.

Binding:  Crimson “snakeskin” leatherette, front cover and spine with decorative gilt-stamped title and creature vignette, housed in matching clamshell case with front cover and spine similarly gilt-stamped.

A total of 26 lettered copies were issued in the binding described above. In addition to beingsigned by Bradbury and Weist on the title-page, the present example is anout-of-series copy marked (in red ink, on the title-page) as the publisher's copy.

•  Binding as above. A beautiful and unique copy of a striking tribute.  (33416)

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Tice IllustratesVoltaire

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•  Sole edition illustrated by Clara Tice, the illustrations numbering ten, printed in color, and definitely of an erotic nature. This copy (no. 130) is one of 250 copies “on special deckle-edge Pannekoek paper.” The title-page, printed in black and red, announces this is an “Exact reprint of the earliest English text” and tells us that it was “printed in Holland by Joh. Enschede en Zonen for the Bennett Libraries, Inc.”

In the early decades of the 20th century, Tice was a sensation because of her provocative art and as the embodiment of bohemian Greenwich Village — gaining, indeed, the sobriquet “The Queen of Greenwich Village.”

Binding:  Publisher's black goat, round spine with raised bands lettered in gilt and with a gilt-stamped female nude figure in center area of spine; front cover with two gilt-stamped reclining female nude figures reminiscent of those on big-rig mud guards! Elegant gilt turn-ins, top edge gilt and other edges deckle. Housed in a brown paper–covered open-back case.

•  Case rubbed but sound; binding as above with spine a little pulled, corners a little bumped, and front joint (outside) a little abraded. First leaves separated and tipped in; possibly, cancels? All illustrations eye-popping in several senses; all tissue guards present.  (33447)

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Garrick, Cromwell, Addison, Locke, Raleigh, et al.

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•  Third edition, “revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged, by the Addition of New Lives”: great figures of U.K. history, from a variety of fields. The first volume's frontispiece was engraved by James Caldwall after William Hamilton.

Binding:  Contemporary cream-colored sheep, covers framed in gilt floral roll, spines with gilt compartment decorations and gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; turn-ins with gilt roll of a vine design, blue endpapers, all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Front pastedowns each with rather attractive 19th-century institutional bookplate, rubber-stamped “withdrawn”; title-page rectos each with rubber-stamped numeral. The set isfrom the collection of noted historian and military critic John Watts de Peyster: the title-page versos (or, in two cases, the contents pages) bear his affixed printed curriculum vitae.

Evidence of Readership:  In vol. I, two (helpful!) inked notes or reminders of where to look for pages bound in out of order; vol. II's front pastedown with inked inscription from Petrarch, “Solo e pensoso i piú deserti campi,” and its back free endpaper with first four lines of Gaetana Passerini's “Genova mia.”

•  ESTC T107371.   Bound as above, spines rubbed and darkened with labels variably chipped and one compartment variably lightened from now-absent shelving label; sides scuffed, edges and extremities rubbed. Pastedowns and title-pages as above; some endpapers showing light waterstaining; back endpapers with old paper adhesions; age-toning throughout. Vol. I: one leaf with lower margin repaired, not affecting text; a number of leaves from pp. 100–20 bound in out of order (see above); final text page with lower margin neatly excised. Vol. II: Inscriptions as above, back pastedown with a pencil sketch. Vol. III: small area of worming to final portion of volume, obscuring a few letters on some pages. Vol. IV: title-page with old staining; small areas of worming to front endpapers and to inner and outer portions of some pages with loss of a few letters. Vol. VI: title-page with small area of offsetting from affixed slip on reverse. A respectably (even endearingly) aged, complete set of interesting provenance.  (33397)

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The Young Adventurer as an“Old Buffer” — Signed by Waugh

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•  Limited edition of Waugh's final piece of fiction, originally published in Esquire in 1962: a short story featuring a protagonist of several earlier novels, once an enfant terrible and now a fat, wealthy, complacent reactionary. The work is nicely printed on very heavy paper, with a tipped-in, color-printed frontispiece by Kathleen Hale.

This is the first American edition, using the English sheets; the present example is numbered copy 561 of 1000 for sale in the United States, and issigned on the limitation leaf by the author.

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped Pegasus and rider vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine slightly sunned, acetate wrapper not present. Pages clean and crisp. All in allQUITE! JOLLY!?!   (33505)

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An Appreciation of GOUDY fromTypophilic WOMEN

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•  Sole edition: A tribute to the great type designer by way of a variety of short pieces, many highly decorative, from a group of women dedicated to fine printing. The volume opens with a fold-out “Happy birthday to our Valentine” plate printed in red, drawn by Susanne Suba; it also features a hand-colored floral bouquet plate designed and stenciled by Lucina Wakefield; a statement from the president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, printed by Helen Olson; a poem by Edna Beilenson; an entertainingly Twain-esque greeting written and printed by Madeline Forgue; a poem written by Edwina Peale, illustrated by Maude Langtree, and printed by Elizabeth Wood; a reprinting of D.B. Updike's “The Black Art,” printed by the Press of the Woolly Whale; and a wide variety of other typographic and literary accomplishments. Many of the leaves are French-folded, and an impressive range of types, paper colors, and illustration techniques are represented.

This isnumbered copy 36 of 195 printed.

•  Original quarter tan buckram with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with title stamped in blue; edges and extremities rubbed, spine slightly darkened. Frontispiece with small tear at central folding point. Some pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean. Simply, a JOY.  (33512)

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A Noble Book for Your House in Tuscany?
      (Smith's Patron Was the Second Earl of Warwick)

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•  Smith is remembered in art circles as a very accomplished water color artist and it was that work that attracted the attention of George Greville, second earl of Warwick. The earl became Smith's patron and sent him Italy where he produced such works as “Outside Porta Pia, Rome” (now in the Tate collection) and “Interior of the Coliseum” (now in the British Museum); “his Italian pictures . . . are considered Smith's best” (ODNB).

Toward the end of the 18th century (1792–1799), Smith produced the first edition of this work, laden with72 engravings (by various artisans) after his original watercolors. This second edition of his Select Views in Italy was not issued with a title-page, although some copies have a copy (reprinting?, remainder sheet?) of the first edition's; it begins instead with a splendidly calligraphicengraved dedication leaf reading, “Italian scenery. To the Queen's most Excellent Majesty this Collection of Select Views in italy is with Her Majesty's gracious permission Humbly dedicated by Her most obedient and devoted Servant, John Smith.” Dated in text 18 January 1817, the leaf was designed by Tomkins and engraved by Ashby; at its bottom, as on a title-page, is “London[,] J. Smith, W. Byrne, & J. Edwards.”

The text in this edition, bilingual inEnglish and French, is the same as that of the first edition; but it was entirely reset and the plates are restrikes of those of the first edition, with the original imprints removed and the numeration moved to the top of the plates. This is, therefore, a particularly interesting object toset beside an example of its first edition!

Provenance:  No bookplates or inscriptions, but spine with initials “G.O.B.” tooled at base.

•  20th-century cordovan-color calf, modestly tooled in blind, spine sunned and lightened with darker streaks and patches evident; joints (outside) with excellent repairs. Text with only an occasional age-stain or instance of foxing; plates remarkably unblemished. Blue silk placemarker. OVERALL A VERY NICE COPY.   (33233)

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Abbott'sIllustrated Biographies

Abbott, Jacob, & John S.C. Abbott. 

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•  20-volume set: Accounts of some of the greatest names of history, written primarily by Jacob Abbott, a clergyman and educator as well as a prolific children's author, with Abbott's brother John Stevens Cabot Abbott contributing four of the 20 lives. The series was aimed primarily at readers aged 15 to 25 and originally published in 1848 under the title Illustrated History, becoming a great and oft-reprinted hit in its day. This is the first Superior Printing Company edition; represented here are Romulus, Alfred the Great, Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes, Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus, Cleopatra, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Nero, William the Conqueror, Genghis Khan, Henry IV, Hernando Cortez, Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Peter the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Josephine.

Each volume opens with a frontispiece portrait, most volumes having three additional plates with a few offering two or four instead.

•  Publisher's cream paper–covered boards, spines with stamped titles and heraldic rampant lion decorations; spines darkened (uniformly so), some spines chipped or scuffed. Preface and last text page of each volume with pencilled ownership inscription of J.C.B., dated 1923, except vol XV, marked as read in 1959 by J.D. Bowman. Vol. VI with newspaper clippings affixed to free endpapers, offset onto pastedowns. Vol. VIII with frontispiece separated and laid in, first few lower outer corners bumped, small pencilled marks of emphasis. Vol. IX with small scuff to front cover, small pencilled marks of emphasis, newspaper clipping affixed to back pastedown. Vol. XI with lower portion of one leaf torn away, with loss of portions of eight lines. Vol. XIII with front joint cracked and spine paper partially detached, reinforced some time ago with cellophane tape. Vols. XIV and XIX with back endpapers bearing inked and pencilled annotations. An enjoyably readable tour of famous lives in a “period” edition.  (33428)

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Lowell's Letters, Edited by a Friend

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•  First U.S. edition (per the Bibliography of American Literature) of this extensive collection of the poet's correspondence.

•  BAL 13228.   Contemporary half calf with marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges with single gilt fillet, spines gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; spines and extremities rubbed, spine labels chipped, leather with minor discoloration, joints starting from heads. A few signatures opened roughly, some unopened (most in vol. II). A worn but still distinctive set.  (33162)

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Lily's First Appearance

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•  First edition of Wharton's first significant novel, illustrated with eight plates done by A.B. Wenzell. This is the third state of the first edition, on wove paper with advertisements at the back.

•  Garrison A12.1.c.   Publisher's red cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title and author; without the dust jacket. Top edge gilt. One leaf with short tear from lower margin, extending into text without loss; one page with a streak of discoloration along gutter (associated with bindery glue?). A very nice, clean, crisp copy.  (33105)

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“The Sitting Bull Legends . . . Have No Relation to the Facts at ALL”

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•  First edition of this classic, sympathetic biography: “a fresh attempt at a portrait of Sitting Bull” (p. viii).

•  Luther 92; Howes V82; Rader 3534; Smith 10543.   Publisher's maroon cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped bull vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title, dust jacket lacking; spine with gilt dimmed and extremities a bit rubbed. Fore-edges of closed book with staining that occasionally encroaches on the outer edge of a margin and on a few leaves appears at “light to moderate” level farther inward; otherwise, expectable age-toning only with the occasional spot. A solid, good copy.  (33168)

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Starting with, “How First Love May Interrupt Breakfast”

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•  First number of the first U.S. edition of this charming, humorous Bildungsroman, here in the publisher's original wrappers. 16 in-text wood engravings adorn the text; like the illustration on the front wrapper here, they are based on theoriginals done by Thackeray himself. The front wrapper states “To be completed in seven numbers,” although in actuality it took eight. A nice example of a “part” of a book issued in parts.

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers; wrappers darkened with corners bumped, front wrapper with small ink spots, short edge tears, and faint rings of discoloration. Faint intermittent foxing with one signature (only) more notably age-toned.; final leaf with portion torn out of outer margin, not touching text. A pleasing touchstone for Victorian literature and its “production.”  (33259)

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An Imposing Fellow — An Imposing Portrait

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•  Engraved by John Hall after Gainsborough's 1774 painting. Image measures 7.5" x 4.75" and is inlaid to a sheet measuring 11.25" x 8.5".

•  Very good image.  (33880)

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“Just 25 Yards of Sail toCarry TWO People Across the ATLANTIC OCEAN!”

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•  Awhaler's account of his life and times, culminating with the voyage he and his wife made from New Bedford, MA, to Penzance, England. Joanna Crapo was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a dory boat, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. This is a reissue of the first edition, with a postscript written by Mrs. Crapo sometime after the captain's death in 1899.

•  Forster 32; Toy 156.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers stamped in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities slightly rubbed, spine with small spots of discoloration. Pages faintly age-toned, otherwise clean; a nice copy.  (33301)

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Slavery of Indians as Well as of Blacks — Facts Often Now Forgotten

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•  Moore apprenticed as a librarian under his father, Jacob Bailey Moore, the librarian of the New-York Historical Society, and succeeded him in that position in 1849. His tenure as such ended in 1872 when he became the Society's first superintendent of the Lenox Library (now part of the New York Public Library).

His Notes covers slavery of both Indians and blacks, the laws allowing and regulating it, the practices, movements against it, and other institutional and social aspects. It is most occupied with the colonial period to 1775.

•  Sabin 50381; Library Company, Afro-Americana (rev. ed.), 6776.   Uncut copy and mostly unopened. Publisher's dark red cloth, covers embossed in blind and spine lettered in gilt; joints (outside) slightly rubbed. Slim crescent of light amber–colored stain to outer margin of first few leaves only. An excellent copy.  (33285)

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The New French Classicism — Le nouveau classicisme français

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•  First edition of this influential treatise on the five orders of classical architecture, written by the physician and scientist generally credited with the design of the eastern façade of the Louvre. Perrault's theory of proportion introduced a lasting debate over ideas of positive and arbitrary beauty.

In addition to thesix leaves of plates done by Pierre Le Pautre, Louis de Chastillon, and Sebastien Le Clerc, the work is illustrated with several in-text uses of a woodcut diagram comparing the five types, as well as a title-page vignette of the arms of Louis XIV and a distinctively rendered headpiece (signed by Chastillon) of the Colbert serpent coat of arms supported by a dog and a unicorn.

And yes, Claude was related to (brother, in fact, of) Charles Perrault, the fabulist and reteller of the Cinderella story and other tales.

•  Brunet, IV, 507; Graesse, V, 207; Cicognara, I, 607.   Contemporary speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations, board edges with gilt roll; joints and extremities carefully and unobtrusively repaired and refurbished, edge gilt rubbed. Pages slightly age-toned, with scattered spots; last few leaves with margins a bit darkened. Small area of pinhole worming to outer margins, not touching text (three plates each with tiny portion of one line touched); some instances nicely refurbished with long-fiber tissue. A clean, wide-margined, attractive copy of an attractive book.  (33221)

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The Feast of a MARTYREDSoldier & Patron of Hunters

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•  Handsome manuscript rendition of the Proper for the festival of St. Eustachius or Eustace — who converted after seeing a vision of the crucifix between a stag's antlers, and was eventually roasted alive along with his family — and his companion martyrs. Possibly commissioned for the Church of St. Eustache in Paris, this manuscript offersFrench and Latin parallel texts nicely accomplished in double columns of neat text in brown withred and blue accents, ruled in blue and red with some inked flourishes; one column (along with a scattered handful of words elsewhere) is done in oblique script, while all others are upright roman.

•  Contemporary mottled sheep, spine compartments with gilt-stamped floral decorations; binding scuffed with small areas of insect damage, spine with label now absent and leather lost at foot. Preliminary leaves with pinhole worming; pages slightly age-toned, with scattered mild spotting and some small smudges to letters and lines. All edges red. AN ENGAGING THING.  (32913)

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One of theGreat EARLY Chaucerian Collections

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•  Early edition of the first comprehensive collection of Chaucer's works — along with several spurious pieces. This is the fourth edition of the Workes, following the first of 1532, which included the first printed appearances of a number of Chaucer's verse and prose pieces, among them the Book of the Duchess and the Legend of Good Women. Editor William Thynne examined a number of manuscripts and printed versions in order to provide what he considered the most accurate renditions possible of the texts; his work helped to shape and direct the Renaissance perspective on Chaucer and his canon.

That the text is printed in double columns ofblack-letter — this being late for that, except in realms of serious law or theology — will have lent it an air of “auctorite” and, perhaps, of pleasantly suitable archaism for its original readers; the printer has also supplieddecorative woodcut initials in a variety of sizes, some historiated, some signed “I.R.,” and one with a backwards “N,” while the “Knight's Tale” opens witha large woodcut of the armored knight, mounted and with jousting lance in hand. The Romaunt of the Rose is marked by a separate title-page with an elaborate border depicting the genealogy of Henry VIII using the tree motif. As the title-page and prologue are not present in this copy, it is difficult to ascertain which of the two variant states of this edition is represented here.

•  ESTC S107207; STC (2nd ed.) 5076.   Period-style mottled calf framed in double blind fillets, spine with raised bands and gilt-stamped author and date; front free endpaper with recent pencilled annotations. 6 preliminary leaves (including title-page), first part of text through “General Prologue,” and final leaf (CCCLXXVIII) lacking, the latter supplied both in facsimile of original printing and in 18th-century inked manuscript! First four leaves with upper portions repaired, with loss of two paragraphs of “Eight Goodly Questions” (which is bound in between two leaves of the preface), two and a half paragraphs of Hoccleve's “To the Kings Most Noble Grace,” about 14 lines of Thynne's dedication to Henry VIII, and upper portions of the table of contents; tear to first page of the “Knight's Tale” neatly repaired from rear. Pages age-toned, some from the midpoint onwards with waterstaining across text, noticeable but never dark nor obscuring; otherwise the mostly marginal inksmear, chip/tear at an edge, or expectable soiling only. Several paper flaws, one significant and with the printing accomplished over it in instructive fashion; in some sections, apparent bad inking for the press with light spots and dark ones scattered; pagination notably erratic, with some numerals skipped and some repeated. Occasional instances of early inked annotations and marks of emphasis, particularly in the Romaunt, including long lines drawn marginally and across text. Imperfect (“read hard,” when young?) and priced to reflect that; but still a Chaucerian high spot featuring all the tales of the Canterbury Tales and many other important pieces, withthe array set forth in the 16th century's “antique” style.  (32721)

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The Last of the 17th-Century Editions ofSIDNEY

•  Handsome folio printing of the Arcadia, opening with a strongly impressed copper-engraved portrait of Sidney done after Elstrack, and accompanied by a “Life and Death; a brief Table of the principal Heads, and some other new Additions.” Along with the title work, this stated 13th edition contains Sidney's sonnets, “The defence of poesie,” “Astrophel and Stella,” “Her Most Excellent Majestie walking in Wanstead Garden,” “A supplement [not by Sidney] to the third book of Arcadia,” and “A remedie for love.” Richard Bellings's sixth book of the Arcadia, originally published separately in 1624, here appears with a separate title-page, also dated 1674; the pagination and register are continuous.

Provenance:  “Judith Tichborn her book given me by my most renowned and beloved knight Stephen de la Stanly 1713.”

•  ESTC R21446; Wing (rev. ed.) S3770.   Period-style mottled calf, covers framed and panelled in blind fillets with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spine with raised bands and gilt-stamped title. Pages age-toned and foxed with occasional small inkspots; some paginations trimmed and frontispiece edges slightly ragged. One early leaf with tear in lower margin, extending into text, repaired with two words from opposing page partially lifted by adhesion; one leaf with small hole affecting about eight words; one leaf with tear in outer margin touching final letters of seven lines; occasional edge chips, one upper outer corner torn away. A very readable copy in a dignified binding; a romantic tale with a romantic inscription.  (33123)

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CRIMINAL LAW — An Italian “Take”

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•  Caballo (d. 1616) was a Florentine judge and legal writer who saw his “Resolutionum criminalium” achieve great acceptance upon publication in 1606 and as attested to by the several later editions in the 17th century. This dense work on criminal law begins with a title-page in red and black with type in a great variety of point sizes of roman and italic. The text is printed in double-column format and each “century” begins with a large woodcut headpiece and ends with a small woodcut tailpiece.

This edition, “Hac quarta editione pluribus mendis expurgatae,” has several very good indices of “arguments,” words, and “things.”

•  Later limp, but rather stiff, vellum. Inkstains on bottom edge of closed volume; some captions a little shaved, half-title a little tattered. Remarkably solid andclean.  (31616)

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For “Workmen & Laborers” & Including Ruskin'sAttack on Whistler

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•  Facsimile printing of the 1886 Frank F. Lovell & Co. edition: pamphlets presenting Ruskin's perspective on contemporary moral and social issues.

•  Publisher's teal cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; spines with gilt slightly dimmed and minor extremity wear, front cover of vol. II with a small light smudge. A solid and pleasant set, with its pages very crisp and clean.  (33164)

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“The Modern Reader's Chaucer”

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•  First edition of this beautiful production, illustrated with32 color-printed plates by Warwick Goble. The texts (slightly expurgated) were put into modern English prose, with occasional verse interludes, by medievalist John S.P. Tatlock and poet-playwright Percy MacKaye.

Binding:  Publisher's navy cloth, front cover ornately gilt-stamped with wide vinous floral border and ship-at-sea vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title and coordinated vine-and-flower motifs; top edge gilt.

•  Bound as above, spine slightly dimmed and rubbed, back cover with one wrinkle in cloth in upper outer corner, one corner bumped. One page with small scuff where top of page was adhered to previous plate; a few signatures not entirely cut. Lovely front cover bright and beautiful, pages clean: a very nice copy.  (33110)

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EntirelyENGRAVED 18th-Century LYRICAL DIALOGUE

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•  The first edition of thefirst work published by M. Arnaud Berquin (1747–91), thisentirely engraved dialogue between Lamon, Lysis, and “La femme” was issued together with the Pygmalion, scène lyrique, which Berquin translated into verse from the original by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As in the instance of a copy at Texas A&M University, the Idylle in hand has been separately bound — in our copy's case finely bound, well highlighting the vignette and tailpiece engraved by Charles-Étienne Gaucher (1740–1804) after Clément Pierre Marillier (1740–1808), and the text engraved in an attractive italic “hand” by Droüet.

The two-part text was not reprinted until 1883, by J. Lemonnyer in an edition of 525 copies.

Binding:  Fine olive brown morocco gilt, ca. 1910 and very much expressing that era's style. Each board double-ruled in gilt and finely framed with a canopy of elegant gilt garlands, title gilt at center of front cover. Spine gilt extra from top to bottom in a leafy vine pattern. Board edges single-ruled in gilt, turn-ins double-ruled in gilt with a rule of delicate gilt beads between, french combed marbled endpapers in an exceptionally pretty and precise pattern.

•  Cioranescu 11517.   Bound as above, second part only of two; binding a little rubbed (only) at joints, edges, and one corner of front cover. Paper chosen for blank endpapers unevenly bleached, in production, to now-spotty but not unpleasant effect; text with a little age-toning at upper edges and some light dust-soiling at deckle edges.  (32768)

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“A Fair General View of theMost Important Characters”

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•  First U.S. edition of detailed biographies of the most notable 17th- and 18th-century actors to grace the English stage — Charles Hart, Edward Kynaston, Mrs. Elizabeth Barry, Susanna Centlivre, Lacy Ryan, Charles Macklin, Mrs. George Ann Bellamy, and John Philip Kemble, among many others — with many and often pungent details of their personal and stage lives, and including significant roles played.

Scottish author John Galt (1779–1839) pursued legal studies, business, travel, politics, and prolific writing in London and Glasgow before joining the Canada Company. Traveling back and forth to North America in the late 1820's, he was appointed superintendent of the Company and founded the city of Guelph, Ontario, in 1827. Galt continued writing to support his family throughout his life and published many books, including an autobiography documenting his experiences abroad and a biography of Lord Byron, whom he knew personally. His Lives of the Players was first published in London, also in 1831.

•  American Imprints 7212.   Publisher's brown cloth over boards, printed paper label on spines, cloth stained and worn; hinges repaired with brown tape. Ex–social club library: bookplate and call number in ink on front pastedowns, pressure-stamp on title-pages and sticker on upper spines. Corners creased and one tip lost in vol. I; and one leaf in vol. II creased across middle horizontally in the press. Foxing and staining of expectable sorts. A good set.  (30842)

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PhotoplayLost World

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•  First National Pictures tie-in edition of the 1912 novel, illustrated with four black-and-white photographicstills from the 1925 silent film.

•  Publisher's dark red cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, in original dust jacket; spine gilt dimmed and extremities slightly rubbed, jacket darkened with extremities chipped (touching last letter of title, spine lettering, and border of back panel), back panel with a narrow scrape costing two letters, joints and folds rubbed. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated [19]31. Pages faintly age-toned, otherwise clean.  (34083)

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All the News THAT FITSWe Print

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•  Messrelationen were published beginning in the 16th century in conjunction with the Leipzig and Frankfurt bookfairs: They recount the political and military events since the last fair. Present here is the issue for “Herbstmesse” (i.e., Autumn) 1790. The frontispiece is an engraving of Gustavus III of Sweden. The title-page is in black and red.

WorldCat reportsprecious few holdings of any issues of the Frankfurter Mess-Relationen for the 1790s.

•  Never bound; spine with faded marbled paper as shelfback. Dust-soiling, dog-earing, light spotting to last leaves; last leaf with a short tear (repaired) in foremargin.  (33124)

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For BOOKS IN GERMAN,  click here.
For more of MILITARY/NAVAL
      interest,  click here.
This is also in the GENERAL
          MISCELLANY — click here.

PLEASE GO ON, TO Part II . . .

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