NEWEST ARRIVALS
NEWEST ENTRIES 27 FEBRUARY 2015
As a CATALOGUE formed partly BY CHANCE,  this does not represent ALL our strengths!

[ PART I — PART II ]

“For God So Loved the World”

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•  This British and Foreign Bible Society “souvenir” prints this Bible verse in more than 250 living languages and dialects including those of American Indian tribes and African, Asian, and Pacific island nations, as well as the usual European ones and unusual European ones (Romansh, Manx, Wogul). There are even a few dead languages represented (Latin, Classical Greek). The title-page heralds this an “enlarged edition.”

In some instances the verse presented is from a different Gospel because John had not yet been translated in a given language.

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

•  Publisher's limp dark blue or purple cloth, lightly discolored in places. All edges gilt. Ex-library with one number stamp in one margin; library pencilling erased. Fascinating.  (34782)

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Women'sMysteries

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•  Interesting compact, hand-holdable, 16th-century edition of this gathering of medieval natural philosophy, medicine, and lore regarding women, sex, and reproduction, attributed at the time to St. Albertus Magnus but likely written by one of his disciples. Topics include the influence of the planets over the formation of the fetus, the signs of chastity and the loss thereof, and impediments to conception. The Secretis Mulierum is followed by De secretis naturae, which adds chapters on anatomy, menstruation, lactation, heat and frigidity in women, etc. Both works cite astrological and alchemical effects.

WorldCat and NUC locateonly two U.S. institutional holdings of this edition.

Provenance:  Latin donation inscription of the late 16th or early 17th century indicating the book was given by “friend and brother” Thomas Berthbark.

•  Adams A537; Coumont, Demonology and Witchcraft, A21.78; Durling 87; Graesse, I, 55-6; Index Aurel. 102.639.   Contemporary calf, spine with raised bands, covers framed in blind single fillet and each with a blind-tooled central foliate diamond; mild wear overall, one spine band rubbed, spine head and lower back cover with tiny spots of pinhole worming. Endpapers excised, front fly-leaves creased and with early inked annotations. Most of volume with spots of worming in lower inner margins, occasionally touching a few letters without loss of sense. Light waterstains to outer portions of a few early leaves; two facing pages with slim stains in upper inner portions, across but not obscuring a few words; one signature loosening but still attached. Intermittent inked underlining and Latin annotations in an early hand. Two intriguing treatises focusing on medieval perspectives of women's physiognomy and nature, in a contemporary binding, with evidence of readership — altogether, worthy of study.  (34550)

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Ruskin's Own Copy

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•  Ruskin's own copy, with his modest bookplate: “Ex Libris / John Ruskin / Brantwood.” The edition is the fifth, including Ruskin's preface of 1880 lamenting that since he first published this work in 1849 the buildings he essayed had either been knocked down or been done over in unsavory ways.

Ruskin himself (1819–1900) drew all of the illustrations in The Seven Lamps; however he noted in his preface to the second edition that “[t]he plates . . . have been . . . re-etched by Mr. Cuff . . . remedying the defects . . . in the first edition from my careless etching. . . . The ninth plate . . . [was] engraved by Mr. Armytage.”

Provenance:  John Ruskin; later in the Brantwood estate; purchased by Thomas H. Telford, an antiques and book dealer; sold in 1933 to Mrs. W.S. Bowen of Westfield, N.J.

Evidence of readership: Scattered pencil marginalia and notation in the margins of interesting passages.

Binding:  Rebound by Ruskin in very dark blue calf, bevelled edges tooled in blind; spine lettering in gilt but gilt mostly flaked off. All edges gilt.

•  Wise, Ruskin, I, 8.   Binding has old scuffs; front joint tender and open a small distance at the top. Pencil marks as noted above. Else very good.  (34780)

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“The Name of Upper California is Given to the Extension of Coast
        Between the 32nd and 42nd Degrees of North Latitude . . . ”

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•  The original manuscript of this 1828 report by José Bandini resides in the National Archive of Mexico and a near contemporary copy rests in the Cowan Collection of the Bancroft Library; both, of course, are in Spanish. Bandini, a native of Andulacia, Spain, who settled in California in about 1818, was a cultured, well-educated, and forward-thinking leader of the Californios, and he seems to have prepared his well-written and detailed essay for the new republican authorities in Mexico City in hopes of convincing them to aid the territory to grow and prosper, to the benefit of the Californios and the Mexican nation as well. He was also the father of Juan Bandini, of whom more later.

The cataloguer at the Bancroft Library describes their Spanish-language manuscript copy in these terms: “Draft of report describing Alta California, its government, presidios, missions, Indians, settlements, ports, trade, roads, revenue, flora and fauna, and topography. With recommendations for its future development, notably the opening of the port ofSan Diego to foreign vessels.” The contents are clearly the same in this present translation, which was made probably between 1838 and 1846 from one of a few Spanish-language manuscript copies of the Bandini report that circulated in California in the 1830s and 1840s.

Who made the translation is not known, but it is highly likely that it was made for Thomas Larkin (1802–58), an early-arrived American settler in Alta California (April 1832), a signer of the original California constitution, and the first and only U.S consul to the California Republic.

The information in Bandini's report would have been powerful ammunition in Larkin's reports to Washington encouraging American interest in California and its settlement by Anglo-Americans.

Despite the importance of the information contained in Bandini's account of California in the period to ca. 1830, it remained unpublished until 1951, when the Friends of the Bancroft Library published a transcription of the Spanish and a translation into English. This present translation remains unpublished still.

Curiously, while Hubert Howe Bancroft was able to track down and acquired the manuscript history of California written by José Bandini's son Juan (“Apuntes para la historia de la Alta California desde el ano de su fundacion en 1769 hasta el ano de 1845"), he betrays no knowledge in his own history of California of José's work.

Provenance:  The Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  See: Bandini, José. Description of California in 1828. Tr. by Doris Marion Wright. Berkeley, CA: Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1951.   Written in a clear secretarial hand on wove paper watermarked “Casa de Vall,” using sepia ink, now faded but evenly so and still readable. Outer wrappers tattered and bug-stained. Document folded three times as to fit in a a pigeonhole storage box; paper somewhat relaxed and flattening, but still notably wavy. Now in a quarter blue morocco clamshell case.  (34728)

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First Edition of the Bridgman-Culbertson Revision of the Pentateuch inCHINESE

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•  Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801–61) and Michael Simpson Culbertson (1819–62) were pioneer Protestant missionaries in China. Bridgman was the first American Protestant missionary sent to China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and one of only a handful of Protestant missionaries in China before the First Opium War. Culbertson was trained at the U.S. Military Academy and served in the army for two years before resigning his commission to study for a divinity degree at Princeton; the American Presbyterian Mission sent him to China in 1845. From 1851 to 1862 he was in Shanghai, where he acted as member of the Committee of Delegates on the revision of the Chinese translation of the Bible. Dissatisfied with the work, he withdrew from the Committee and co-published a variant of the “Delegate's Version” with the Rev. Bridgman beginning with the N.T. in 1855.

The Old Testament books, however, were published from 1861 to 1863, with this volume and two others not published till 1863, i.e., after the deaths of both Bridgman and Culbertson.

This is the first edition of the Bridgman-Culbertson translation of the Pentateuch in Chinese.

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

•  Harvard University Libraries, Protestant missionary works in Chinese, Bible, B35; Darlow & Moule 2539; Spillett, Scriptures in the languages of China, 104.   Publisher's dark blue silk covers, sewing renewed and with brick-red paper label almost entirely intact. Some chipping of paper pastedowns and endpapers; rear pastedown no longed pasted down. Small tear in margin of title. A good++ copy.  (34759)

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With a Masthead Device inENGLISH — A Production of Arequipa

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•  This was Arequipa's first newspaper, established on 26 November 1825. Present here are ten issues or extras: Tomo 4, num. 26 (27 June 1829, lacks last two pages), Extra (20 December 1830), 4:18 (2 May 1829), 4:28 (11 July 1829), 4:29 (18 July 1829, lacks last two pages), 4:34 (22 August 1829), 4:36 (5 September 1829), Extra to 4:52 (December 1829), 5:52 (25 December 1830), 6:1 (1 January 1831).

The masthead device of this publication offers an example of the movement of the materials of presswork in this period as well as the movement of ideas; the handsome block used depictsa radiant printing press floating a banner-ribbon blazoned, “THE TYRANTS FOE, THE PEOPLES FRIEND.”

•  Charno 544.   Disbound, worming in text costing letters but not words. Some stray stains, bug spotting, light foxing. Two issues incomplete; a very few foremargins closely cropped.  (34207)

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Gilt Goat forthe Pocket

Bible.

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•  Darlow and Moule and Hebert describe this from a copy lacking the title-page; STC knew of only the Schiff copy and described it as a 32mo in 12s. It is asmall, slim, definitely pocket-size printing of Tomson's revision of the Geneva translation of the New Testament.

Binding:  Mid-18th-century red goat elaborately tooled pointillé style on covers and richly gilt on spine. Marbled endpapers.

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

•  Darlow & Moule 255; Herbert 329; STC (rev. ed.) 2911.5.   Binding as above; joints and corners rubbed with upper half inch of front joint (outside) starting to open. Very good.  (34787)

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First GUIDEBOOK toMarian Shrines in Mexico
Very Early Florida Author
Added Engraving of the Virgin of Guadalupe

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•  Noted Jesuit author Francisco de Florencia (1619–95) has the distinction of being one of the earliest known Florida-born authors. His writings are numerous and his best focus on Mariology.

The work at hand is the first published survey of shrines in Mexico relating to Mary and her Apparitions. The manuscript remained unpublished at Florencia's death and it fell to fellow Jesuit and Mariologist Juan Antonio de Oviedo to update, edit, and publish it for the first time in 1755.

Provenance:  18th-century signature on title-page of “Zelana,” and early 19th-century one of “Dr. Osorio” on same page. Late 19th- or early 20th-century booklabel of a Mexican bookstore (obliterated); remnants of an early 20th-century American label stating the book had been disinfected before importation.

This copy has added to it a full-page engraving of the Virgin of Guadalupe, dated 1763, from the burin of early Mexican engraverJose Benito Ortuno. It has been pasted to the obverse of the title-page.

•  Sabin 24819; Medina, Mexico, 4246; DeBacker-Sommervogel, III, 799; Grajales & Burrus, Bibliografia guadalupana, 169; Palau 92355.   19th-century quarter leather Mexican binding with blue and black mottled paper sides, heavily rubbed on the paper areas; spine leather dry and missing a small piece at base of spine with front joint slightly rubbed. Title-page sometime removed, image of the Virgin pasted to back as above, and the whole tipped back in with attachment to next leaf. Occasional spotting or staining in some margins; worming in inner margins at middle of the text block, not costing any letters. A good copy with a very pleasing graphic addition.  (34560)

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“I Can Tell of Myself a Tale That Is True”

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•  George T. McWhorter's translation of the Anglo-Saxon lyric poem known as “The Seafarer”: the original was recorded in the famous Exeter Book, the 10th-century anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. This edition from theKing Library Press was printed in only 100 copies in Hammer Samson uncial type accomplished in black and red, with “composition / presswork / binding by David Oldham, Carolyn Whitesel, and Sallie Ruff (apprentices to Carolyn Hammer and Margaret Williams)” as per the colophon. The medieval birds on the title-page, cover, and wrapper were drawn by Calvert Guthrie.

Although it is not mentioned in the colophon, it was recounted in a prospectus that only 80 copies were for sale, of which five had the title-page hand-colored stained glass–style and illuminated. This is the regular issue, being copy number 16, and it issigned by the translator as the special copies were NOT!

Provenance:  Laid in is George McWhorter's business card with this on the verso: “8-18-75 Dear Dave — Here is a gift copy of my book with my very best wishes! Hope you are improving with each day. Love from all of us — George.” Also laid in is a card of the Monastery Hill Bindery.

•  Casebound in boards covered with gray and white marbled paper and with a matching dust jacket; jacket with creases, small chips, and short tears. Volume in excellent condition and with evocative accompaniments.  (34790)

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The First One-Volume Edition in Swiss German — Illustrations Attributed to Holbein
Title-Pages & Illustrations Hand-Colored

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•  While Luther was toiling to bring forth his German translation of the Bible, other Reformation figures were doing the same. In Zurich Zwingli completed a translation of the entire Bible five years before Luther: He did so by taking what Luther had published, modifying it to Swiss German, and then concentrating on translating the books of the Old Testament that Luther was still to work on. Such was the nature of the Zurich Bible, first published in 1529 in five volumes.

This edition of 1531 is the first single-volume andgloriously illustrated edition of it. In this copy, 154 of the woodcut illustrations and 31 of the large historiated initials are all hand-colored. The woodcuts include some which are ascribed by some to Holbein.

This and the second single-volume edition have new elements, with both having new translations of the books Job through the Song of Solomon, and this one, of course, having the illustrations. Many believe that the preface and summaries are from Zwingli's pen. The text is printed in gothic type, double-column format, with sidenotes and summaries in smaller type. The main and the sectional title-pages have their multi-compartmentedwoodcut borders printed strikingly in black and red and embellished in this copy with hand-coloring. Curiously, the sectional title-page is not before the New Testament as usual, but before the book of Job!

The 1531 and the 1536 editions are famous for their typography as well as their textual excellence and illustrations. Both are rare. Of the five copies of the 1531 that we found reported as owned by U.S. libraries, two are incomplete.

Binding:  Contemporary calf over wooden boards, bevelled edges, plain spine (no label) with raised bands accented by blind-ruling extending onto covers. Covers elaborately blind-embossed with rolls, rules, and fillets. One roll features busts of Faith, Hope, Charity, and Justice.

Provenance:  Signature of Johann van Lindh dated 1634. Later in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

Evidence of readership: Some early marginalia scattered here and there. Notes on the endpapers by Lindh.

•  VD16 B2690; Darlow & Moule 4196; Reinitzer, Biblia deutsch, 124.   Bound as above, with ordinary scratching and rubbing; joints (outside) cracked and large volume yet holding strongly; remains of two clasps present, and signs that the volume once bore bosses. Main title-page hand-soiled and backed; second title-page also backed and with one leaf of manuscript music opposite it. Many margins with repairs of different ages to tears; a few leaves with margins excised and replaced at a later time; folios CCXX to CCXXIII and a few others torn in lower inner area into text with some little loss; and one leaf (CXCII) with repairs and reinforcements to page edges blanking one character of the foliation and taking parts of 11 lines on one side (10 on the other). Some finger-soiling and some other age-soiling. Annotations as above. In sum, a copy with some manifest flaws but with a very good binding, interesting provenance, and added color.  (34651)

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A CelticTrouvère Story

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•  First publication of this novel in England, and a Nonesuch limited edition: a languidly poetic tale of the wanderings of a bastard knight and his faithful harper companion, set in 14th-century Scotland and Ireland. The volume was printed on japon vellum for the Nonesuch Press by T. & A. Constable Ltd. at the University Press, Edinburgh; the copperplate frontispiece (not opposite but following the title-page) was designed and engraved by Stephen Gooden, and the cover design was by Marion V. Dorn. This isnumbered copy 559 of 1250 printed, with the dedication signed by the author.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.

Binding:  Publisher's creamy tan cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title, in original brown paper dust wrapper with heraldic design printed in red on front cover and spine title in red; wrapper very stiff, like vellum, and smaller than the volume, as is generally seen.

•  Dreyfus, History of the Nonesuch Press, 31.   Bound as above with spine extremities very slightly darkened, wrapper with spine darkened and chipped at head; one tiny dark spot on front cover, upper inner flap corners chipped. A clean copy. A very attractive example of modern medievalism.  (34093)

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“The Conveyancers Light” — Pleasing Property Law Provenance

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•  Uncommon first edition of this guide to conveyancing for the 17th-century legal practitioner. The additional engraved title-page (signed by Fross) gives the title “The Conveyancers Light or Exact Presidents for All Manner of Instruments and Conveyances as They Have Occasionally Beene Composed by the Advice of Many Eminent Lawyers Both Antient & Moderne”; the bulk of the volume is dedicated to providing actual examples of documents such as “a Covenant to suffer a Recovery of Copy-hold Land by a Plaint in a Court Baron, after the order of a Recovery at the Common Law” (p. 321) as well as texts for wills, warrants, debt collections, “very good” mortgages, etc. ESTC and WorldCat locate only 10 U.S. institutional holdings of this useful and important reference work — now, also, an interesting work of social history.

Evidence of Readership: An early hand has crossed out the “and Scriveners” line on the title-page and added “conveyancers,” similarly altering the title at the head of the first chapter. Two instances of early inked annotations in outer margins and one additional text supplied in an early hand at the bottom of the last text page; one phrase lined through and a few underlined.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Eric Poole, almost certainly the law professor who published English Property Law.

•  ESTC R205341; Wing (rev. ed.) C5633; Sweet & Maxwell 480.   19th-century half vellum and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands; paper slightly faded and rubbed, back cover with paper repaired along spine and marbling pattern painted ( with impressive care) onto repair. Pages age-toned, with portions notably darkened and spotted; first and last sections with edges tattered, pinhole wormwork or slim tracking in lower margin of most leaves, and one leaf with short tear from upper margin touching header. Front pastedown with bookplate as above.  (34732)

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A Basque's (Mexican) University Oral Defense 
NO COPIES FOUND REPORTED
  [ Invitation, Theme, Engraving, Binding ]

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•  Zubicoeta was a native of Lazcano in Guipúzcoa and this is the four-leaf official announcement of his oral defense for his university degree in canon law. It begins with the printed invitation to attend, the invitation being made by Zubicoeta's godfather José de los Heros. This is followed by the title-page, then an inserted (unsigned) engraved plate of Joseph holding the Christ Child, then a neo-Latin poem about the defense (in which one bit of Latin has been corrected), and finally by a leaf telling us that Zubicoeta's defense involved propositions contained in the first two volumes of Juan Sala Bañuls' 1780 Opera.

Binding:  Contemporary mottled sheep (Valenciana style), covers modestly tooled in gilt with a rope-design roll to form a central panel; the same tool used at the periphery of the boards but inside a single gilt fillet in combination with a gilt dentelle roll. Gilt flowers tooled on spine. Marbled endpapers.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, CCPB, CCILA, and the OPACs of the national libraries of Mexico and Spainfail to find any reported copy.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; not in Ziga & Espinosa; not in González de Cossío, 510; not in González de Cossío, Cien.   Bound as above; text block loosening from binding, fore-edges chipped, staining in upper inner and inner margins with dust-soiling to others. A noteworthy survivor. Possibly unique.  (34799)

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CREE

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•  First edition of one of the first Cree grammars in English. Horden, who began his life as an ironworker, received his calling in 1851 and was sent to Canada with only two weeks notice — during which time he was expected to find a wife. He succeeded in finding both a wife and a fruitful career, eventually becoming the first bishop of Moosonee, diocese of Rupert's Land.

Horden's approach here is rooted in descriptive grammar and is expressed in terms of classic Latin-based structure. He urges his language-learning students to begin with his grammar, but to “use the living voice of the Indians as much as possible” as their guide (p. vi).

•  Pilling, Algonquian, 237; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Cree-73 (giving incorrect page count); Pilling, Proof-Sheets, 1853; Evans 090; Banks p. 40; NSTC 0353034. Not in Vancil, Cordell Collection.   Publisher's green cloth with modest decoration and “Cree Grammar” stamped in black; dark grey discoloration (smoke?) to spine and adjoining one inch on each cover. Text block edges darkened, discoloration to endpapers, fly-leaves, and occasionally another page, with a slim crescent of grey to top of title page. Otherwise, occasional foxing only and a good, sound copy.  (34349)

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Christo Shares Space withJames Byars

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•  Beginning in either 1966 or 1967 Surrealist artist William Copley asked 73 other artists to collaborate in a series of innovative portfolios. These were titled S.M.S. (“Shit Must Stop”) and were to be published every two months, but only six ever appeared. Among the invited artists were Roy Lichtenstein, Joseph Kosuth, Marcel Duchamp, Christo, and Ray Johnson.

The aim of S.M.S. was, as Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art curator Tricia Van Eck wrote in her 2004 exhibition, to “[embody] artists’ desires for freedom from galleries, critics, and curators and to dissolve boundaries between types of art.”

S.M.S. No. 1 contains very mixed media: “Project for a bridge” by Su Braden; “Black dress” by James Byars; “Store front” by Christo; “Chicago project” by Walter de Maria; “A postal card - for mother” by Richard Hamilton; “Pharmaceuticals” by Julien Levy; “Photograph - Hottentot apron” by Sol Mednick; “Little box of earthquake and cotton” by Irving Petlin (i.e., the portfolio cover); “Luggage labels” by Nancy Reitkopf; and “Two propositions in black” by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.

The art is loose in the portfolio, some folded.

•  As issued. Lacks “My country 'tis of thee, West Germany 1968" (4 views) by Kasper König. The colored empty capsules that accompany Julien Levy's piece are somewhat damaged, as usual; priced accordingly. Very good condition.  (34708)

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Economic Development throughBetter Roads — CUBA, 1795

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•  Jáuregui (d. 1809) was the “primer consul del Real Tribunal del Consulado” in Cuba, and it was the Consulado's “Junta de Gobierno” that ordered this report published — although his was the minority report. At the crown's urging, such Consulados had been created throughout the Empire to aim at economic development and commercial improvement of the various regions of the New World under Spanish control, in good Enlightenment fashion.

Public works and land use are traditionally fraught with concern and intransigence on the part of the various parties involved, and in the Cuban case at hand, this was certainly so; the Junta had appointed a four-member committee “para meditar los arbitrios que conceptuasen mas oportunos y menos gravosos para la formacin de caminos” (“to decide the tax rates that will be least burdensome but still will bring about the most timely creation of [good] roads”). Jáuregui's opinion was clearly and concisely expressed and shows a progressive tax structure differentiating users of the roads and the wear each category was most likely to create.

Handsomely printed on extremely good quality paper.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, CCPB, and the OPACs of the national libraries of Mexico and Spain locate only three copies: two in the U.S. and one in Chile. One of the U.S. copies is incomplete. How many copies may be in Cuban libraries is unknown.

•  Sabin 35823; Trelles, Bibliografía cubana de los siglos XVII y XVIII (2nd ed.), 166; Medina, Habana, 130.   A fine copy in original plain wrappers. Housed in a quarter dark red morocco clamshell case.  (34735)

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“The Grisly Form ofStar-Chamber Tyranny Stared Me in the Face”

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•  Sole edition of this strongly worded epistolary examination of constructive contempt (contempt of court which occurs outside of the court's actual presence) and its role in Sheriff Henry Steevens Reily's case — the disposition of which the author considered an attempt to subvert the rights of free Irish citizens. The dedication to Prime Minister William Pitt makes particular note of the "independent situation of Irish courts" (p. vii).

While this work is certainly held in the expectable Irish libraries, it islittle held in British or American libraries. In fact, searches of NUC, ESTC, and WorldCat locate only two copies in the U.S., both in the northeast.

•  ESTC T179610.   Period-style half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title. Half-title lacking; title-page with early inked inscriptions in upper portion (one inked over), lower corners torn away, and edges chipped as next few leaves' are; first dedication page with early 20th-century inscription in inner margin. Pages darkened, especially at edges, and a good many bumped; last four leaves tattered with old repairs to lower corners taking a few letters but not sense, and once-separated final leaf with repairs also to upper and inner margins. A copy with some rough aspects, but one now sound anda book that's scarce.  (34108)

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Very Early Mexican Printed Notarial Form — 1562

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•  This leaf contains one notarial form, extending from the recto to the verso. The characteristics of the recto are: Type face: gothic. Imprint area: 220 x 153 mm. Number of lines of text: 35. First line: Sepan quantos esta carta vieren como yo First line of main text: paraque por mi y en mi nombre podays pedir y demandar auer recebir y cobrar Last line: quieran mi presencia o mas especial poder Otrosi vos doy este dicho poder para Blanks: at end of line 1. Blank space between lines 1 and 2: 49 mm.\

The specifications of the verso are: Imprint area: 42 x 153 mm. Number of lines of text: 9. First line: que e[n] vuestro lugar y e[n] mi nombre podays hazer et sostituyr este poder en vna per Last line: la clausula judicium sisti iudicatum con sus clausulas acostumbradas Blanks: at the end of lines 4 and 9 and the beginning of 5.

The document was sworn in Puebla on 16 January 1562, before the notary Juan de Bedoya, and in it Martinez de Iturriaga, a ship's master temporarily in Puebla, gives his power of attorney to Antonio Lopez de Erquinigo.

The date of printing of this form is based on the exemplar in the Beinecke Library at Yale, where the earliest manuscript date on the carta is 9 October 1565.

Valton (see below) attributed this formulary to Juan Pablos. It bears no relation to the examples of his job printing that we have seen; it does, however, bearthe hallmarks of Ocharte's craftsmanship. Our assignment of printer is based on approximate date of printing and on types and ornaments; we will observe, however, that the type used here is the type Ocharte inherited from Juan Pablos via Ocharte's wife, Juan Pablos' daughter.

This exemplar of a Mexican incunable predates the exemplar at Yale by three and a half years and is the earliest Mexican printed power of attorney we have ever seen.

•  Szewczyk & Buffington, 39 Books and Broadsides Printed in America before the Bay Psalm Book, 6 (for the exemplar now at Yale), fully illustrated. Appears to be Carpenter's type 4, attributed by Valton to Juan Pablos.   Removed from a bound volume of notarial documents and irregular along one margin. One wormhole in the lower margin. Light waterstain in upper margin. Overall very good.  (34554)

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“The Flower & Choice of Fine & Judicious Thoughts”

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•  When Pufendorf's classic De jure naturae et gentium appeared in French, the translation was the work of Jean Barbeyrac, who also supplied a preface. The present work, paragraphs VI–XI of Barbeyrac's preface, is a translation “from the French by a Gentleman of Gray's Inn; with a preface by the author of the Independent-whig.” In fact, the “Independent-whig” was pamphleteer Thomas Gordon.

The paragraphs “fully shew, in a small compass, the spirit and parts of the fathers of the primitive church, so much extoll'd, and so little deserving it” (leaf A2r). Babeyrac is aligned with Locke and Pufendorf, “but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation. . . . [And] the principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and combats, in so doing, opposes many of the positions taken up by Grotius” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 ed.).

This is attractively printed, with two charming headpieces and one pretty tailpiece, all well impressed..

•  ESTC T087662.   Recent boards covered with stone-pattern marbled paper; paper spine label. A clean, very good copy.  (34683)

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Biblical Law, Debated

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•  First edition, translated from the original French “by a member of the American Bar”: John Pickering (1777–1846), a lawyer and philologist. Salvador's Histoire des Institutions de Moise et du Peuple Hebreu included a chapter in which he concluded that as a court proceeding, the trial of Jesus was in accordance with Jewish law; Dupin here rebuts that chapter's arguments, while continuing to express admiration for Salvador as a scholar and author — and while focusing on legal issues rather than theological ones.

Binding:  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title. Cloth is ribbed and fits Krupp's Rb3 pattern.

Evidence of readership: One pencilled footnote, arguing that capital punishment is the will of the divine.

•  American Imprints 55455. On the binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, p. 40.   Binding as above; spine and board edges gently faded, extremities rubbed. Mild to moderate foxing throughout. An interesting book in a good example of an early American cloth binding.  (34765)

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“But Make Haste to Newgate”

Gay, John. 

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•  One of 1000 copies: This one is not numbered. Edited and with an introduction by Oswald Doughty, “with28 plates in collotype and a facsimile title of the first edition,” this was printed at the Chiswick Press with its title-page in black and red and using a type evoking the style of English books of the early 18th century.

Includes bibliographical references (pp. xxxiii–xxxiv) and bears illustrated endpapers.

Binding:  Publisher's quarter white linen with blue-green paper sides, printed paper label on spine; the variant binding without the embossed medallion on the front cover and bearing instead a paper label that gives full publication details and describes the book as in “imperial 8vo” costing “two guineas net.” Top edge gilt, others deckle.

•  Bound as above, without the d/j. A very good copy.  (34706)

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Limited to25 Copies

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•  First edition, limited to 25 copies, printed on Japon vellum, signed by the author. The work is a life of Isabelle de Charriere (1740–1805), writer and friend of Benjamin Constant (1767–1830).

•  Publisher's white cloth; lightly soiled; top edge gilt, other edges deckle. A little age-toned, as expectable from nature of paper; a very good copy.  (34719)

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A Missionary Book for Use amongthe Chinese of California

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•  Condit was a “missionary to the Chinese” and in this case the Chinese were in California, in the Bay Area. A native of Mercer Country, PA, he had been educated in several colleges and seminaries before being sent to China in 1860 by the Board of Foreign Missions as a Presbyterian missionary. He worked in Canton for five years before returning to the U.S. due to his wife's poor health.

He returned to missionary work in 1870 in San Francisco and the Bay Area and continued there until his death in 1915, rising to be Superintendent of the Presbyterian Church's work among the Chinese in Alameda and Oakland.

His preface explains, “This reader contains nearly 1500 different words. The lessons are graded as slowly, as the limited space, and introduction of as many new words as possible, would allow. The lessons are on a variety of subjects, and include a great many sentences used in ordinary conversation. Gospel truths have been introduced as far as practicable. The Chinese portion is in the Canton dialect, which is the spoken language of the Chinese in America, Australia, and the Sandwich Islands. The object of using this dialect, instead of the more elegant style of their language, is to give the learner the meaning of the English in plain and simple words, such as he himself would use in expressing the same thing.”

The bilingual lessons are illustrated with appropriate, in-text, wood engravings and the work ends with the Lord's Prayer in English and Chinese.

Provenance:  19th-century ownership inscription in pencil on front pastedown of the “A.C. Chinese Sunday School, Chelsea.”

•  Publisher's quarter green cloth with plum-color paper sides bearing title in Chinese characters; binding worn, a bit abraded, and skewed. Some old pencilling in text. For a schoolbook, a very good copy.  (34726)

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BRITISH Antiquity, Printed at theSign of the UNICORN

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•  One of the most widely used English history textbooks of the 17th century, here in its second edition (following a first of 1679). This edition opens with anadded engraved title-page depicting Britannia contemplating her coastline; another plate, titled “The Habits of the Ancient Britaines,” representsa heavily tattooed couple with both the man and woman holding spears, and the man additionally carrying a severed head. Both copperplates were done by Frederick Hendrick Van Houe (1628?–98, sometimes given as Van Hove), a native of The Hague who studied under F. Bouttats in Antwerp, later worked as a draughtsman and engraver in The Hague, and only lived and worked in London late in life, arriving perhaps in 1692.

Binding:  Contemporary calf with covers framed in gilt double fillet, spine with gilt-stamped title-label and gilt-stamped acorn and foliate decorations in compartments, board edges with gilt roll. All edges red.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with black and red shelving location bookplate of the Dalton Hall library, reading “See writ below the shelf I claim / Replace me Reader whence I came.”

•  ESTC R41002; Wing (rev. ed.) H3140A.   Bound as above, covers reattached via Japanese long fiber method; edges and extremities rubbed, spine with leather cracked and head chipped, head and tail of spine also stabilized with Japanese paper. Front free endpaper and frontispiece with small hole, touching image; frontispiece with upper corner torn away, just touching corner and banner title of image. Pages closely trimmed, affecting some shouldernotes and headers; one leaf torn across without loss; two pages with ink blots, partially obscuring letters but not sense. Two early inked corrections, one annotation, occasional tiny dots of emphasis. Pagination jumps from 214 to 225, text and signatures uninterrupted. Not a perfect copy, but very readable and offering much of interest; in all waysquaint.  (34339)

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Gout?  or Scarlet Fever?  BOTH Are Covered Here

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•  Endter (1693–1783) was a mostly self-educated medical man who started in the humors tradition and partially embraced the new approach of the Enlightenment. Among his patients were a few minor nobles but his practice was chiefly among the middle and lower classes, and his books were written for them. The present one deals with treating gout, arthritis, and nerve-related pains.

Storch (1681–1751) was a well-respected physician and 1735 he was appointed to serve as such at the Russian court; he later left Russia to become the chief military doctor in Gotha. The present work on scarlet fever containsstudies of 190 cases, then presents conclusions on causes and proposes new treatments.

Provenance:  Ownership inscription dated 1762 of “R.P. Eugenius Peters” on front free endpaper. Two names inked of old on title-page, one “Jacobus Cramer” and another not deciphered, with a third entry inked over.

•  Contemporary half vellum with marbled paper sides; soiled, worn, and rubbed with loss of much paper on rear board. General age-toning, occasional faint waterstaining in some margins, title-page with small spot of paper lost at the end of that “deleted” inscription; overall, very good copies of the texts, in a solid but used binding.  (34734)

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Presentation Copy fromCrispin Elsted

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•  First edition of Skelton's translation of Rufinus. The text used for the translation was that found in the Loeb Classical Library edition of the Greek Anthology, vol. 5. The translation is illustrated withwood engravings by Wesley Bates and the work was printed at the Barbarian Press in an edition of 200 copies, of which 26, lettered A to Z, were issued in clamshell boxes and accompanied by a portfolio with a suite of engravings. This is copy 72 of the regular issue, signed by Skelton at the colophon.

The type used is “Van Dijck, with Cancellersca Bastarda & Open Kapitalen for display, and the papers are Zerkall White Wove and Zerkall Cream Laid. The books are hand sewn onto vellum slips, and set into washed and printed covers of Opus Watermedia paper. The engravings are . . . printed from the wood. Design, hand composition and binding are by Crispin Elsted. Jan Elsted printed the book” (colophon).

Presentation copy: On the front free endpaper, “To Eric [Ormsby, Canadian poet], for all the birthdays. [one word in Greek, meaning, “This Book”] Crispin [Elsted]. September 1997.”

•  As issued. Fine copy.  (34705)

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Christian Meditations — Pretty Binding

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•  “The following papers were in substance delivered by the author in a series of addresses at the Northfield Conference of 1895, but later rewritten and revised by him for this permanent and authorized publication.”

Binding:  Publisher's grey-tan cloth, front cover with navy-stamped Art Nouveau–inspired motifs and red-stamped title; spine stamped in navy.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate reading “Presented in accordance with the Will of the late Henry H. Mosher by New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.”

•  Bound as above, with board edges and spine slightly darkened and two small darker flecks. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Pages clean.  (34761)

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MARLOWE inFine “16th-CENTURY” Style

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•  Handsome fine-press edition of the “Troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the Second, King of England: with the tragicall fall of proud Mortimer.” The volume, which reproduces the 1594 text, opens witha striking double-page display of richly colored and illuminated heraldic coats of arms, and reintroduces the shield motifs to mark character entrances.

The text was hand-set by “I.W.S.” (with “Sibthorp” pencilled in this copy) in Caslon Old Face and printed by hand on Maillol hand-made paper, with the decorative shields drawn by Alexina Ogilvie and emblazoned by A. Alexander and sons, and the binding done by James Burn & Co. This isnumbered copy 244 of 500 printed.

Binding:  Publisher's vellum, front cover with Edward's coat of arms stamped in red, black, and gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title; top edge gilt.

•  Bound as above, vellum very slightly sprung; spine gently darkened with gilt dimmed and small scuffs to extremities, front cover shield with two minute spots of rubbing to gilt. Four leaves with unobtrusive creasing from outer (untrimmed) edges. A very attractive copy of a very atmospheric work.  (34085)

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Popular & Notably Practical

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•  A much-relied on classic of 19th-century everyday cookery, this cookbook and domestic guide was originally attributed to “an experienced lady” and published under the title The American Housewife. This is the revised and enlarged edition, first printed in 1855; the very first edition having appeared in 1839. The section at the back, on the art of carving, is illustrated with16 in-text wood engravings.

•  Bitting, 516; Cagle & Stafford 30; Lowenstein 760.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages browned (though in some sections not) with occasional spotting; title-page with edges chipped. Despite darkening and those spots, this copy does not appear to have seen heavy kitchen use, and is thus a very untattered, safely readable example.  (34525)

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“Mr. Holmes Played Old Men & Character Parts — Same as I Did”

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•  Gorgeous presentation copy of an interesting collection of short stories. Kellogg gives us six short stories set in California, Mexico, and Alaska, with prefatory matter including a printed short laudatory letter from Joaquin Miller, reproducing his holograph signature and dated November 7th 1903.

Presentation/Provenance: The presentation is on the dedication page and reads: “For Mr. James L. Carhart. With the best sentiments of the author. Eugenia Kellogg. (Mrs. E. B. Holmes). June 2nd 1918. San Francisco.” And the recipient has written in pencil, “Note: Mrs. E. B. Holmes is the widow of Mr. Edwin B. Holmes, a fellow actor with me in the celebrated American comedian, John E. Owens' company, which played at the Vanities Theater, New Orleans, La, the season of 1874-5.”

Carhart secured a second copy of the frontispiece portrait of Kellogg and on the verso has written: “E.B. Holmes was a member of John E. Owens' company, which played at the Vanities Theater, New Orleans, La, the season of 1874-5. Mr. Holmes played old men and character parts — same as I did.”

Binding:  Publisher' green ribbed cloth, stamped in gilt on front cover with the author's name, a shortened version of the title, and the image of Telegraph Hill in the era when it was surmounted by a “castle” — “Poccalito” in his pauper's rags framed between flourishes below this. A very interesting cover.

•  Not in Wright.   Bound as above with cloth and gilt fresh and bright; a clean, obviously always treasured, little volume. Very good condition.  (34675)

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Forty-Seven Ronin

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•  Fourth edition, revised, of Jukichi Inouye's translation of Kanadehon chushingura, Japan’s most famous loyalty-revenge story. The translated title is roughly The Treasury of Loyal Retainers: the play, the collaborative work of three playwrights, is based on true events in 1701 to 1703 in the province of Ako. It was first produced in 1748 as a puppet play.

The first edition of this translation appeared in 1910. This edition, printed and bound in the traditional style, is illustrated with12 full-color fold-out plates and black and white in-text illustrations.

•  Sewn in the traditional fashion, with wrappers; housed in a trifold chemise case with imitation ivory closures, slipcase somewhat faded and soiled, with small abrasions to cloth. Volume with a bit of spotting to rear cover and text with upper outer corners a tad bumped, yet in generally very good condition with the paper clean andthe plates lovely.  (34677)

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LIMA Mourns Charles III — Engraving by VAZQUEZ — A RARE Type of Volume
from anINTERESTING PRESS

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•  Fr. Rico, an Oratorian, describes the memorial services in Lima on the occasion of the death of King Carlos III, as well as the commemorative art work and its Neo-Latin epigraphs. Fray Bernardo Rueda's “Oracion funebre que en las solemnes exequias del Rey nuestro señor don Carlos III” has a sectional title-page and its own pagination.

The folding plate is ofthe funeral monument erected in the king's memory. It is an extremely well executed, large engraving, signed by Vazquez and dated at Lima, 1789.

NUC and WorldCat locate only two copies in the U.S. Searches of CCPB and the OPAC of the Spanish national library locate three Spanish libraries reporting ownership; COPAC finds no copies in Britain.

The number of “splendid ceremonies” books produced in colonial Peru is small: There is no census but we suspect the number to be around 20.

Other interesting aspects of the work are that it is an important source on the social and artistic life of Lima in the decade following the Tupac Amaru rebellion and that it is from one of Latin America's famous presses of “orphan children.”

•  John Carter Brown Library, Catalogue, 1493-1800, III,324; Medina, Lima, 1697; Sabin 73902; Vargas Ugarte, Impresos peruanos, 2546.   Contemporary limp vellum with neatly inked title on spine; all edges inked decoratively. Old blurred stamp on front free endpaper, old single numerals very faintly on title-pages. Small tear in margin of plate, not into image. Overall a very good copy, very clean and with wide margins.  (34668)

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Color-Printed Plates & Captivating Text — A Prize Binding

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•  Invertebrate zoology for the older juvenile audience. Thebeautiful, complex, artistic illustrations are by Coleman and were printed in color by Evans, with multiple images per plate; additionally there are wood-engraved, in-text illustration in black and white. Despite the author's having been a clergyman, there is no religious overtone to the text or its explanations; his first-person presentation is conversational, anecdotal, and entirely engaging.

Binding:  A Denstone College prize binding of green calf, richly gilt on the spine with one compartment having a red leather gilt label reading simply, “The Country”: and with the school's motto and coat of arms in gilt on the front cover. All edges marbled.

•  Binding as above, lightly rubbed at edges and joints; printed prize award with name of recipient removed from front pastedown. Paper age-toned, with a very little light spotting or foxing only; a very good copy.  (34663)

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Bruce Rogers Designed This — An Uncut, Unopened Copy

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•  Hay's letters and poetry written to Nora Perry while he was a law clerk in Warsaw, IL, in an imagined “exile” from Providence (1858–60); the last letter begins perhaps just to touch on what was to be the great event and change in his life, his move to Washington first as one of Lincoln's private secretaries and later as one of his most intimate friends.

The text was edited by Caroline Ticknor and the volume wasdesigned by Bruce Rogers.

Issued in an edition of 440 copies, 400 of which were for sale. This is copy 158: It retains the prospectus and the spare label.

•  Work of Bruce Rogers 199; Warde 102.   Publisher's brown paper–covered boards. A fine copy, uncut and unopened.  (31244)

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“There IsNo Treasure Like Honesty”

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•  According to F.J. Harvey Darton (Children's Books in England, 3rd ed., 1982, p. 74, quoting Kendrew's grandson), “The woodcuts for [Kendrew's] publications were done freshly in York itself, by 'Mr Carrall, a Celebrated Wood Cutter'” (i.e., Michael William Carrall, engraver and printer at York). In this case there are five cuts in the text and one opposite the title-page plus two smaller devices, all charming.

Our caption quotation appears under the frontispiece cut and is part of a presentation that suggests the item's purchase could be a good investment! “He who buys this book for a penny, and lays it up until it is worth two-pence . . . “

Back cover advertisement, “Penny books printed and sold by J. Kendrew, Colliergate, York.”

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, lightly soiled. First and last leaves pasted down, as issued. Tiny ink stain on back cover. Delightful. (34453)

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Jays, Buntings, Wrens, & “Birds Every Child Should Know”

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•  Blanchan was the wife of Frank N. Doubleday, the founder of the Doubleday publishing firm. A nature writer who published several books on wildflowers and birds, she first published the present one in 1917, the year prior to her sudden death while travelling in China.

Offered here in the series “Little Nature Library” are selections from the author's writings nicely illustrated with24 color plates.

Binding:  Publisher's green cloth with a large on-lay to the front cover of a color illustration of bluebirds (male, female, and immature).

•  Binding as above, gilt lettering faded; hinges (inside) cracked and very loose. A (young) “Alice V Welsh” has printed her name in pencil across the top of the cover on-lay and an (even younger?) hand has contributed a few pencil-scribbles, including embellishment to one plate-leaf on both sides. A used copy but an enjoyable one and priced accordingly.  (34604)

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AVOID “Decayed,” Fraudulent, or Misguided MEDICINES
byStudying the GENUINE ARTICLES

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•  First edition of the first appearance in English of Pomet's famed catalogue of pharmaceuticals, originally published in French in 1694. In his capacity as “Chief Druggist to the late French King Lewis XIV,” Pomet (1658–99) gained a highly favorable reputation for his knowledge and use of botanical and other drugs, and in 1694 he presented as much of his knowledge as he thought wise in his Histoire générale des drogues. This English edition adds material from the works of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708) and Nicolas Lémery (1645–1715), and was translated by Joseph Browne (1673–1721), a Lincoln College–educated physician and satirist.

Highly influential in its time, this materia medica covers botanical, zoological, and mineral sources and is illustrated with86 etched plates, mostly with four specimens per plate; but there are also full-page images of a silk factory, a fishery, and of “negro's [sic] making Roucou.” Other plates are of unicorns, whales, rhinos, and elephants. The volume is printed in roman type with some italic in double-column format, with its plates close to the texts that refer to them; the main title-page and that of vol. II are printed in red and black.

TheAmericana content is noteworthy, with discussion of cacao, chocolate, “guinea pepper,” “long American pepper,” tobacco, and so on. Two surprising sections are devoted to glass manufacture and achieving color in glass, and soap making.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with small ex-libris reading “Wisdom of God in Creation” on a garter, encircling a portrait, with a heraldic lion above. Front free endpaper with attractively inked inscription: “Worcestershire Natural History Society / Presented by O.J. Floyd, Esq. / March 11th 1848"; endpaper and first few leaves with pressure-stamp of Worcester Public Library.

•  ESTC T113762; Wellcome Catalogue, IV, 412; Graesse, Trésor de Livres Rares, V, 398; Alden & Landis 725/158; Pritzel 7258n; Hunersdorff & Hasenkamp, Coffee, 1177– 1179; Hunt Botanical Catalogue 428; Johnson, Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 328.   Contemporary reverse calf, covers framed and panelled in blind rolls; leather rubbed with small cracks near extremities. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription, lined through. Front pastedown and free endpaper as above; plates (and first few leaves, as above) institutionally pressure-stamped, generally unobtrusively. Plates trimmed closely at upper edges, occasionally touching caption or very uppermost edge of image. Pages faintly age-toned with scattered small smudges or tiny spots. A solid, more than serviceable copy with nice provenance.  (34556)

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A LONG-POPULAR! ILLUSTRATED Work onAncient Mythology

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•  First published in 1556, Cartari's work brings together a wealth of information about Classical mythology: idols, rites, ceremonies, and practices. It was first issued with illustrations in 1571, those being by Bolognino Zaltieri, and the many in-text engravings of this edition are derived from his.

Although this was not the most rigorous of studies, its engaging style, its being in Italian rather than Latin, and its illustrations have made Cartari's Imagini popular and given it a long and successful run of editions.

Provenance:  Pressure-stamp of private collector Colossio Solari of Cremona.

Brunet labels this “une des plus belle editions de cet ouvrage.”

•  Graesse, II, 56; Brunet, I, 1601.   Mid-19th-century quarter cloth with marbled paper sides. Some staining; some gatherings probably supplied or damaged and now tipped to stubs. Light waterstaining here and there. A less than perfect copy priced very much according to its faults and still a worthy copy for an impoverished collector or a person who just doesn't need “perfect”!  (34647)

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Handsome Binding, Many Illustrations, Lots of ADVICE

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•  First edition of this heavily illustrated children's volume, sold by subscription only.

Binding:  Publisher's cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt and black, all edges marbled.

•  Lightly soiled; binding showing only very minor rubbing. Pages and plates clean.  (13053)

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The Inquisition & Father Hidalgo's “Manifiesto”

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•  Approximately two months prior to Father Hidalgo's capture by the Royal Forces, the Holy Office issued this decree condemning a publication of the Father of Mexican Independence as seditious, Lutheran, and anti-Catholic. Other writings circulating in manuscript are also condemned: One beginning, “Hemos llegado a la epoca” and ending, “De una Patriota de Lagos” and another beginning,“Es posible. Americanos!” and ending, “será gratificado con quinientos pesos.” Copies of each were burned by the public executioner and all citizens are warned of the penalties — excommunication and fines — for owning or reading these writings, or failing to denounce those who do.

Printed on two sheets precisely glued together to form a seamless whole, in double-column format and with the woodcut seal of the Inquisition in the lower right corner of the lower edge.

Garritz located only the copy in the Biblioteca Nacional and WorldCat locates only seven U.S. institutions holding copies.

•  Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 1137. Not in Palau; Medina, Mexico; Ziga & Espinosa, Adiciones a la imprenta en Mexico; González de Cossío, 510, or González de Cossío, Cien.   Old folds; a few small wormholes touching or costing a very few letters and one larger hole costing five letters, but not impeding reading sense. Slight discoloration along the area where the two sheets are pasted together and at points on vertical fold.  (34599)

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Fuchs's Herbal — First Appearance of Boussy's Illustrations

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•  Early edition of one of the most important botanical works of the 16th century. Fuchs's standard-setting Historia emphasizes the pharmacological qualities of the plants described and provides over500 woodcut illustrations remarkable for their accuracy and reliability, compared to many previous herbals. A number of the plant descriptions herein are the first known to have been published, including those ofNew World plants such as chilli pepper, pumpkin, marigold, and tobacco; the plant names are given in Latin, Greek, French, and German.

The work was first published in 1542 in folio form, with this smaller format being brought out as more convenient for work in the field and elsewhere. This is the second Lyons edition and the first illustrated Lyons printing, featuring smaller woodcuts specially commissioned by Arnoullet from Clément Boussy, after the Albrecht Meyer and Heinrich Füllmaurer originals from the Basel printings. The title-page bears Arnoullet's seahorse and sword device.

Binding: 18th-century speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped foliate compartment decorations between gilt-ruled raised bands.

Evidence of Readership: Intermittent early inked underlining and occasional annotations; final page (colophon) with substantive early inked annotation in Latin.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Tess M. Hope; title-page with inked ownership inscription of Vitus Herremann, dated 1633; title-page verso with small bookplate “Biblioth. Bosian. Hortens.” (the Leipzig Botanical Garden).

•  Adams F1102; Nissen, Botanische Buchillustration, 667; Baudrier, Bib. Lyonnaise, 102–03; Brunet, II, 1415; Pritzel 3138; Alden & Landis 549/9; Hunt 61. Not in Johnson, Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections.   Bound as above, leather pitted and scuffed, joints and spine rubbed with spine leather showing small cracks. Bookplate and inscriptions as above, front free endpaper and back pastedown with later pencilled annotations; other annotations as noted above. Title-page with lower portion excised, mounted some time ago. Margins of first and last few leaves darkened; occasional light spots and smudges. A solid and interesting copy of a landmark herbal, with evidence of early reader engagement.  (34532)

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An EARLY Strawberry Hill Press Book

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•  First edition and sole Strawberry Hill edition, limited to 200 copies.  Cherbury — diplomat, philosopher, traveller, and occasional poet (1583–1648) — left this account of his life unpublished at his death. Horace Walpole discovered it among his papers and with the permission of his heirs published it for the first time at his Strawberry Hill Press.

•  Hazen, Strawberry Hill Press, 11; ESTC N33713.   19th-century full brown calf, modestly tooled, rebacked, offsetting from binding to first and last leaves; gilt-tooled turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Some browning and embrittlement of paper with leaves of the preliminaries loosening; some margins chipped with small loss of paper, and tears from margins of several leaves including portrait and folding table (the latter repaired, from rear, with archival tissue). A hurt copy priced for the busted bibliophile yet ready, with faults noted, to give much pleasure.  (33450)

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UNexpurgated by the Mexican Inquisition
  MS Notes in NAHUATL in Addition

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•  Mexico saw a major rebirth of scholarly interest in Nahuatl during the first half of the 18th century, and Fr. Avila was a contributor to it. In his introduction here (“Al pio lector”), he explains why, despite the existence of the works of Molina, Carochi, Ribera, and Manuel Perez (whose enthusiastic endorsement [“Sentir”] is part of the preliminaries), he has decided to write and publish this grammar: “solo quitar algunas dificultades, que he reconosido [sic] en los que aprenden por el discurso de veinte anos.” The work achieves this aim well. Moreover, Fr. Avila's extremely notable introduction has much to say about the physical and spiritual condition of the Indians at the beginning of 18th century and about the economic and social debt of the Spanish population to them. Sra. Leon-Portilla points out that among the “chats” (i.e, “platicas”) that form the appendix, “las destinadas a lograr una buena confesion” are of“gran importancia.”

This copyescaped the Inquisition censors who after its publication insisted that the section on folio 34r-v, “Instruccion para ensenar lo que se resive [sic] en la Hostia” be lined through.

Evidence of Readership? Or, frugal management of paper? Or, something else entirely?? A singular quality of this among all the copies that we have ever seen is the presence oftwo additional leaves (four pages) at the end containing18th-century manuscript notes in Nahuatl for a sermon on the theme of “they who acquired divine happiness” and on conducting a confession.

Provenance:  Sold by the Linga Library of Hamburg as a duplicate. Pencil notes of a Spanish bookseller.

•  Medina, Mexico, 2478; Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 9; Vinaza 271; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl 18 (incomplete, lacking title-leaf); H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 240.   Recased in modern vellum with button and loop ties, some few leaves strengthened at inner margins. Last leaf of text torn in lower margin and expertly repaired, costing small portion of two letters; a bit of staining at some edges, particularly in early part of volume. Small round old stamp “BS” to front free endpaper, leaves filled with manuscript annotation at end as above. Very good, and very interesting.  (34576)

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A DUTCH Artist's BookMade & Printed in NEW YORK

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•  Arnon Yasha Yves Grunberg (b. 1971) is a Dutch writer, investigative reporter, radio and television personality, and occasional artist, as specifically exemplified by this artist book. It was printed in only 16 copies, 15 of which are signed by Grunberg and were for sale.

The work consists of three booklets with small, business-sized cards pasted one or two to a page, printed on paper or wood, with different designs, different messages, and different imagery; all are facetious, e.g., Grunberg, Magician for Children; Grunberg, Owner of Whore C.; Grunberg, Owner of Grunberg Catering; etc.

Searches of WorldCat, COPAC, and KVK locateonly one copy worldwide  (in the National Library of the Netherlands).

•  Original red clamshell box with spine label in silver metal holder; author, title, and imprint date on handmade paper adhered to front board. All contents in very good condition.  (34731)

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Squash Breakfast Cakes, Squash Indian Cake, Squash Rolls, & Fayal Buckeye Cake

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•  Stated “third edition,” following the first of 1882 and the second of 1883. Eleanor and Bob Brown point out that the work was printed in Whittier's birthplace, and many of the recipes are attributed to members of the Whittier family; the introduction invokes another famous name, that of Hannah Dustin, a Haverhill local remembered for her bravery — after being abducted and tormented by Native Americans, she and a young fellow captive killed their captors and scalped them before making their escape.

This unusually successful regional effort is nicely printed and embellished with flourishes and food-related quotations. In addition to recipes, the collection offers laundry and household hints, as well as a few home remedies; the mostly locally placed advertisements include pitches for “Edward A. Mitchell, registered apothecary,” the Eagle Laundry (“Good work at Short Notice. Starch work a specialty”), and “A. W. Cram, dealer in stoves, ranges and furnaces.”

Title-page printed in red and black.

Provenance:  Signature on front free endpaper of “Buckman Charles” [sic].

•  Brown, Culinary Americana, 1293.   Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, title handsomely stamped in gilt on front cover in an ornate type face. Very clean. A copy in excellent condition.  (34603)

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An ANGRY “History of Independency” — Anarchia Anglicana

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•  First edition under this title of the first two parts of thisanti-Puritan history of the rivalry between the Presbyterian and Independent factions of Parliament, with early printings of the third and fourth parts. The brief introductory portion, originally titled The Mystery of the Two Juntos, was first published in 1647; after the second part (Anarchia Anglicana) appeared in the following year, Walker wassent to the Tower and died there shortly thereafter. The third (The High Court of Justice; or Cromwells New Slaughter House in England) and fourth part (History of Independency) are present here in 1651 and 1660 printings, respectively.

This variant reads “II. Bookes”on line 7 of the title-page; R4 is cancelled and not present here, as is the case in most copies. The second portion has a separate title-page printed in red and black, giving Anarchia Anglicana: Or, the History of Independency as the title and the pseudonymous Theodorus Verax as the author.

The famous double-page plate showing the felling of “The Royall Oake of Brittayne” at Cromwell's command is present in a good crisp impression, with its “Inspiratio Diabolica” just slightly shaved at the bottom.

Relations: ESTC R205117; Wing (rev.) W334A. Appendix: ESTC R233193; Wing (rev.) W321A. Anarchia: ESTC R27579; Wing (rev.) W317. High Court: ESTC R207365;Wing (rev.) W325. History, fourth part: ESTC R18043; Wing (rev.) M81B. Fourth part: Issued as part of Wing W324, “and possibly separately” as well according to ESTC. Contemporary calf, covers framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, sometime rebacked with first leaves tipped (back) in; spine with new gilt-stamped title, sides rubbed and abraded. Front free endpaper lacking. Front pastedown with old institutional bookplate and pencilled notations, title-page with faded rubber-stamp (and with author’s name added in an early hand), back pastedown and lower edges of closed book rubber-stamped. Two title-pages with one short tear from outer edge each, not touching text; title-page verso with shadows of pencilled numerals. Lower and outer margins trimmed closely, in some cases touching catchwords, signature marks, or shouldernotes. (20259)

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Post-Incunable Augustine — Chalcographia Ascensiana

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•  First Ascensius edition of St. Augustine's correspondence; the text was first published in 1470. The title-page here is framed in a woodcut architectural border incorporating beasts and grotesques, with Jean Petit's lion and leopard printer's vignette; each letter here begins with a decorative capital.

Binding:  Contemporary blind-tooled calf with brass clasps and edge guards, covers framed and panelled in blind with rose and leaf motifs, upper front panel with early inked title on affixed paper label. Very similar to Oldham's “Netherlandis design.” The wastepaper used by the binder for the pastedowns came from a medieval Latin manuscript in notarial cursive, neatly inscribed but much abbreviated, with the text rubricated in red and blue; this manuscript matter is nowwell exposed and available for study inside each cover.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf and title-page with early inked inscriptions of St. Jacob's abbey in Liège, verso with inked inscription “Ex libris Ledoux 1792,” title-page with rubber-stamped Ledoux ex libris. Later in the Holbrook Library, Pacific School of Religion (properly released; front fly-leaf rubber-stamped).

•  Index Aurel. 110.129; Renouard, Badius Ascensius, II, 60–61; Moreau, Editions parisiennes du XVI siecle, II, 1014. On binding, see: J. Basil Oldham, English Blind-stamped Bindings, plates IV & V.   Binding as above, rebacked expertly, hinges (inside) cracked but holding; front panel label rubbed and darkened with text partially obscured, leather cracking and pitted overall with spine much worn and spine head pulled, six (of eight) edge guards intact with two partly unfastened (one now protruding from upper outer corner). Original clasps with two anchors and one catch plate intact, one catch plate and the straps now lacking. Marks of provenance as above, with “Epistolarum” inked in an early hand on the outer (closed) leaves. Front fly-leaf with edge chips and small older repairs. First eight leaves with small dent in lower margins, enlarging to short tear for last affected leaf; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into lowest six lines of text without loss. Pages slightly age-toned, with a handful of leaves more notably browned. Nine leaves with small areas of pinhole worming, mostly but not entirely confined to inner and upper margins, with loss of a few letters. One lower outer corner torn away. Foliation occasionally erratic, text complete. An interesting volume for multiple reasons, including binding and provenance.  (34337)

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Learn to SpeakARAUCANIAN

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•  Uncommon first edition of this important book for the study of the Araucanian language of Chile (i.e., Mapuche or Mapudungun). The contents are a grammar, a dialogue in Araucanian, a short Spanish-to-Araucanian dictionary, the Araucanian alphabet and dipthongs, and Catholic prayers, doctrine, and a brief catechism in Araucanian, plus extended Spanish–Araucanian and Araucanian–Spanish dictionaries. Febres, a Jesuit, was a native of Cataluña who arrived in Chile at a young age. His work among the Araucanian Indians led to his acquiring a great command of their language, and this work still stands as a monument to his erudition. Medina's researches discovered that when the Spanish authorities made their inventory of the Jesuits' library in Chile in 1767, only 255 copies of this book were found, leading him to suppose that the total press run was only 500 copies.

The title-page and the rest of the initial half-signature of the copy in hand are printed in red and black, but according to Harper (American Iberica, item 476A) some copies do exist printed in black and gold(!), while Medina (Bibliotheca hispano-chilena) says he has seen copies printed in black and green, or perhaps just green. The final leaf here displays a typographic sampling of the press's fonts. There are a few tailpieces — one unusual and a charmer.

•  Medina, Lima, 1228; Medina, BHC, 461; Viñaza 345; Palau 87065; Sabin 23968; Vargas Ugarte 1923; DeBacker-Sommervogel, III, 576. On Febres, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal e Iberoamérica, fiche 309, frames 216–49.   Contemporary stiff vellum, lacking ties, spine with old inked title and engaging embellishments; all edges mottled with red and green approximating a floral effect. Recased in binding with new endpapers; hinges (insides) cracked and text block starting to loosen, but solid. Very good.  (34559)

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“How to BrewGood & Wholsom Beer
without Any Hops at All”
    (ALL You Need to Know)! 

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•  Formulas, recipes, precious stones, agriculture, and industrial arts are a few of the topics addressed in The Jewell House. First published in 1594, this appears here in its second edition, which curiously has two variants of the title-page, with some spelling differences and each listing a different printer: One listing Elizabeth Alsop, the other Bernard Alsop! Same collation for both “editions.”

The title-page tells us the work is “Faithfully and familiarly set down, according to the authours own experience. By Sir Hugh Plat of Lincolns Inne, Knight. Wherunto is added, a rare and excellent discourse of minerals, stones, gums, and rosins; with the vertues and use thereof. By D.B. Gent.”

The DNB online summarized the contents of the work: “The first part lists103 experiments, ranging from the practical to the fantastic. These include recipes for preserving fruit, flowers, meat, and water, and for a tooth-cleaner; a cheap way to erect a small bridge without the need to place supports in the water; a chafing dish to keep food warm without coals; how to keep garments free from moths; how to dispose of wasps and rats; a cement for mending glasses; and how to know what cards your opponent is holding. The second part deals with soils and manures, the third with distillations, the fourth with moulding and casting metals, and the fifth, entitled ‘An offer of certain new inventions which the author proposes to disclose upon reasonable considerations’, covers a diversity of topics such as the brewing of beer without hops, the preservation of food in hot weather and at sea, mnemonics, and fishing.”

The Jewel House is illustrated with a good scattering of engaging in-text woodcuts.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) P2390; ESTC R12749; Hunt Catalogue 261; Krivatsy 8011; Crahan, One Hundred Sixteen Uncommon Books on Food and Drink, 83; Cagle, A Matter of Taste, 87; Bitting 373.   20th-century medium brown calf, plain sides; round spine with raised bands, black spine label, blind-tooled center devices in four compartments. Age-toning, some brittleness to paper; a volume solid, useable, and fascinating.  (34533)

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Polenta before It Was Made with“Turkey Wheat”
& Woodcuts from theMoretus Press

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•  “When reading Gerard we are wandering in the peace of an Elizabethan garden, with a companion whohas a story for every flower and is full of wise philosophies” (Woodward, p. viii). And indeed, Gerard's herbal is written in “glorious Elizabethan prose, [with] the folk-lore steeping its pages'” (Woodward, p. vii), these factors going a long way towards making it one of the best-known and -loved of the early English herbals. The “herbs” surveyed include plants aquatic and terrestrial, New World and Old, embracing shrubs, plants, and trees, each with a description of its structure and appearance, where it is found (and how it got there), when it is sown and reaped or flowers, its name or names (often with engrossingly exotic etymologies), its “temperature,” and its “vertues” or uses (often curious).

The story is famous: John Norton, Queen's printer, wished to bring out an English language version of Dodoen's Pemptades of 1583 and hired a certain “Dr. Priest” to do so, but the translator died with the work only partially done. A copy of the manuscript translation made its way into John Gerard's hands and he seized the opportunity, reorganizing the contents, obscuring the previous translator's contribution, incorporating aspects of Rembert and Cruydenboeck's works, and commandeering the result as his own.

Gerard abandoned Dodoen's classification, opting for l'Obel's instead, and, in a stroke of ambition and brilliance, illustrated the work withmore than 2500 woodcuts of plants. Many of these are large and all are attractive but more than a few were of plants he himself did not know, thus leading to considerable confusion between illustration and text in the earliest editions, this being third overall and the second with Thomas Johnson's additions and amendments. For both Johnson editionsa large number of the woodcuts were obtained from the famous Leyden printing and publishing firm of Moretus, successors to the highly famous firm of Plantin. As Johnston notes: “Most of the cuts were those used in the botanicals published by Plantin, although a number of new woodcuts were added after drawings by Johnson and Goodyer” (Cleveland Herbal . . . Collections, #185).

The large thick volume begins with a handsome engraved title-page by John Payne incorporating a bust of the author, urns with flowers and herbs, and full-length seated images of Dioscorides and Theophrastus and of Ceres and Pomona. Replacing the missing initial blank is a later leaf on which is mounted a large engraving of Gerard. The text is printed in italic, roman, and gothic type.

There is, to us, a surprising and very interesting section on grapes and wines. The first part of our caption delights partly in discovery that maize, the “corn” of the U.S., is here called “turkey wheat” — with further note that you can make bread of it, but that the result is pleasing only to “barbarous” tastes! The entry as a whole showsGerard at his characteristic best, at once scientifically systematic and engagingly discursive.

Provenance:  Neatly lettered name of “W. Younge” at top of title-page; it is tempting to attribute this to William Younge, physician of Sheffield and Fellow of the Royal Linnean Society, whose online correspondence shows him to have been an eager collector of botanical books.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 11752; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 636/25; Nissen, Botanischebuchs, 698n; Pritzel 3282n; Johnston, The Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 185; Woodward, Gerard's Herball: The essence thereof distilled (London, 1964). On the source of the blocks, see: Hunt Botanical Catalogue and Bowen, K. L., & D. Imhof, The illustration of Books Published by the Moretuses (Antwerpen, 1997). For “Turkey Wheat, “ see: Gerard, p. 81; for polenta, p. 71.   Late 17th-century English calf, plain style; rebacked professionally in the 20th century, later endpapers. As usual, without the first and last blank leaves. Three leaves with natural paper flaws in blank margins. A very good copy.  (34500)

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History of the Hospitallers — First English Edition

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•  First edition in English. In 1715 the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta appointed the Abbé de Vertot as historiographer of the order, and in 1726 Vertot published the Histoire des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem — an influential and oft-cited work, although the order itself felt certain portions not entirely to its taste. This is the first English translation, illustrated with71 portraits of Grand Masters et al. engraved by Laurent Cars, Jean-François Cars, and others; themaps of the area, fortifications, and the Hospitallers' military exploits were done by Guillaume Delisle and Charles Amadeus de Berey. Also present are Vertot's “Dissertation on Zizim” and “Proofs of the History of the Knights Hospitallers” (which include document texts in Latin and French) and his “Discourse upon the Alcoran,” originally presented at the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres in 1724.

•  ESTC T53873; Lowndes, VI, 2765.   Recent quarter calf over marbled paper sides, old style: round spine, raised bands, gilt beading on bands and gilt double rules above and below each; gilt leather spine labels and gilt center devices in five compartments. Vol. I: occasional light smudges or spots of staining, some plates with mild to moderate foxing; one leaf with short tears from upper margin, touching header but not text; one leaf with tear from upper edge extending into text without loss; one plate with short tear and resulting crease at lower inner corner, not touching image; one plate with a few early inked doodles on reverse. First map with two short edge tears not touching image, one small closed hole touching outer border only. Vol. II: many leaves with mild to moderate foxing mostly confined to margins; two leaves with worming in lower margins, not touching text; one lower outer corner chipped. Paper variously age-toned, with intermittent creasing or cockling. A strong, agreeable set of this significant, and significantly well-illustrated, work of religious, military, and social history.  (34268)

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The Kingdom of the “Abessines” — Englished & Illustrated

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•  First English edition of the Historia Aethiopica, translated by J.P. (“Gent.”). Ludolf (1624-1704), a German orientalist and linguist who specialized in Ethiopian studies, also published the first Amharic grammar. The original Latin rendition of the present work was first published in the year before this appearance.

Curious about nearly everything, Ludolf here recounts observation and history both accurate and fabulous as to Ethiopia's climate and terrain, exotic wildlife and human folkways, and religious and political and trade history; he offerslots of amazing stories. Illustrated withnine copper-engraved plates, this English edition has its tables and illustrations an “Ethiopic Alphabet”; a folding botanical study of “the Indian Figg”; another folding plate of an “Eastern sheep” whose tail is so fat it needs to be drawn behind him in a cart; and renditions of elephants, apes (i.e., monkeys) eating ants, and hippos with entertainingly implausible teeth.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate “Acquired for the Blumhaven Library,” the rare book and manuscript collection of Philadelphia textile magnate Herman Blum; this plate notes that the book was at the Bethlehem, NH, “branch” of the Library, i.e., Blum's summer home.

•  Brunet, III, 1225; ESTC R9778; Library Company, Afro-Americana (rev. ed.), 6132; Wing (rev. ed.) L3468.   Later brown buckram, spine with gilt-stamped cloth title-label; cloth with streaks of light discoloration, extremities mildly rubbed. Map and one other plate lacking. Front pastedown with bookplate as above, bookplate with scuff at center, endpapers with residue from long-absent cellophane tape; front fly-leaf with extensive pencilled annotations, title-page with three, both leaves with edges browned and chipped. Generally age-toned with mild to moderate foxing and offsetting, one leaf with lines of light brown staining in outer portions; one leaf (55/56) with old tear repaired some time ago affecting several lines without loss of text or readability, one leaf with paper flaw touching catchword and three letters of text without loss of sense. Pagination erratic, but signatures consistent and text complete. Intermittent pencilled underlining and a few instances of pencilled annotations, most notably in a section on female circumcision. An imperfect but solid copy of an important work in its field, with interesting provenance andfascinating.  (34408)

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“A is for Axe”

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•  “Seventh series — No. 1" from Bailey & Noyes, publishers of numerous children's toy- and chapbooks, this example featuring a small wood engraving and couplet for each letter of the alphabet. The firm was listed in extant Portland, ME, directories between 1860 and 1875.

•  Not in Bloch, not in Osborne.   Publisher's blue-green printed paper wrappers, sewn as issued, in excellent condition save for very slight fading at lower and outer edges. Pages clean and fresh.  (27271)

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The Boise Penrose Copy

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•  Daniel (1562–1619), a poet and historian, was educated at Oxford but left without taking a degree. During his life he had several patrons, served several lords, and only obtained financial security early in the 17th century when Queen Anne became his Maecenas. His early poetry varied in style but by the early 1590s it was solidly in the dolce stile.

In 1612 Daniel brought out his first important prose work, The First Part of the Historie of England. The present work completes that earlier one and after recapitulating the earlier history in just 22 pages, takes the story from the Conquest to the end of the reign of Edward III.

The title is printed within a woodcut “arabesque” border and the text is in roman within line borders defining space for sidenotes.

Evidence of Readership: Occasional pencil marks in text; final blank with old pencil notes and an inked couplet of yet greater age: “To make poor mortalls more in Love with breath / The Gods conceale the benefitts of Death.”

Provenance:  Signature on front free endpaper of “Thos. Hekt”(?) dated 1822; older ownership note on inside rear board of “Fransisci Heyct”(?); 20th-century bookplate of the famous collector Boies Penrose II.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 6251; ESTC S107343.   Contemporary calf over paste boards, modest blind double-ruled border on boards, gilt beading on board edges; binding worn, lacks pastedowns, hinges (inside) open but binding strong. Inner margin of title-leaf discolored from old glue. Text generally clean with only light waterstains in some early leaves' upper inner parts, a few stray stains or pencil marks as noted above in text, one leaf with a short closed tear. Without the imprimatur leaf preceding the title and lacking the dedication leaf, which was an insert between A2 and A3 and is frequently lacking; final blank leaf, also usually missing, present here with notes as above. Ownership notes as noted. On the whole, a good copy.  (34472)

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A Look atTHREE Fine Presses

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•  First edition of this illustrated account, enlarged from the similarly titled 1976 exhibition catalogue. This isnumbered copy 213 of 250 printed, signed at the colophon by the author. Tucked into the pocket of the back pastedown is a facsimile copy of the marvelous color-printed, folding broadside invitation to the Ditchling Horticultural Society 98th Annual Show of 1920 that the Saint Dominic's Press originally produced.

•  Publisher's three-quarters green cloth, front cover with color-printed floral bouquet design on white paper, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title. Very slight traces of wear to lower front edge, otherwise a crisp, clean copy.  (34436)

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“PAY orI'll Tell the Truth About You”

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•  Renaissance collector, writer, and rascal, Giovio's most important writing is his “Lives of Illustrious Men.” Written in what is often called “law style” and clearly in part an outgrowth of his passion for collecting oil portraits of the great, it has among its nearly 200 biographies a judicious sprinkling of reports on contemporaries who were solicited for financial contributions, which solicitations were thinly disguised blackmail demands. Those who paid had much embellished biographies; those who didn't were treated harshly and faults and sins were exposed ruthlessly. Among the booty Giovio thus obtained were two houses and much gold and silver.

Added to this edition is Francsco Negri's Latin translation of Giovio's Commentario de le cose de' Turchi (“De rebuvs et vitis imperatorum Turcarum usque ad Solymanum”; vol. 2, pp. 390–[472]).

Provenance:  17th-century ownership signature of “Ant. de Sedorne” on title-page; two 19th-century stamps on same, one unidentified and the other of the “Seminarium Sancti Nicolai de Cardueto”; and stamp on verso of same, of the Redemptorist Fathers of the Mount St. Alphonsus Seminary (deaccessioned).

•  VD16 G2077; Adams G666.   Early vellum with precursor yapp edges, author/title inked old-style on top page edges as well as on spine; text block recased and new ties attached. Text browned in places, light waterstaining in some lower portions, stamps as noted above, else a good++ copy andan impressively thick fistful of book.  (34405)

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Ultra MINIATURE Book

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•  As one would expect with such a super-small miniature book, the number of surviving copies are few. WorldCat locates only two, COPAC none, KVK one, and Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico none. Another aspect of survival (or not) is exemplified by the fact that both of Miss Adomiet's copies (now both at the Lilly) lack at least one of the woodcut plates.

•  Adomeit, Thumb Bibles, C34.   Contemporary blind-embossed calf, much worn; lacks three plates. Some fore-edges closely trimmed costing initial or final letters of words. Somewhat well-thumbed but solid and charming. Good++.  (34445)

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Legalese Has Always BeenJoke-Worthy

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•  Early, uncommon edition (first printed in 1630) of the tremendously popular Latin-language academic farce that introduced the title's modern English usage. First produced in 1615 in Clare College, Cambridge, the play, which took six hours to perform at its premiere, mocks a foolish lawyer prone to particularly inept use of legal jargon in Latin. The copper-engraved frontispiece here features the protagonist in front of an array of reference books and case documents such as “Proude Buzzard contra Peake Goose.” This is the stated “editio quarta, locis sexcentis emendatior.”

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription of Richard Wattel; back free endpaper with inked note: “H.h Price ex dono Rich. Wattel 17 June 1810.”

•  Gregg, Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, L8d; ESTC R8556; Wing (rev. ed.) R2214; Sweet & Maxwell 241.   Contemporary sheep framed in double blind fillets; rubbed, especially at spine and extremities, with sewing starting to loosen and text block separating from spine, back joint just starting from foot. Frontispiece with small smudge in lower portion (not touching main figure); pages lightly age-toned.  (34493)

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Learning to SPOT aReally GOOD Facsimile

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•  These excellent display items forma nice cautionary tale in collecting autograph material. For all the world each appears to be an example of a Field or a Stevenson autograph manuscript or autograph letter. However, under magnification it is clear that these are excellent facsimiles.

One appears to be a signed autograph manuscript copy of the fourth verse of Field's “The Wanderer” provided to a fan or friend as a “souvenir” (No place: 22 April 1894. Small 8vo, 20 x 12.5 cm; 7.75" x 5". 1 p.). Another reproduces an autograph letter signed by Field to Francis Wilson in which he thanks Wilson for an unexpected gift of “the Thackeray.” Field asks if Wilson and Miss Harriet might “fall into Rector’s after the show tonight and take a farewell nip with me” (No place [N.Y.?], 1 February 1889. 4to, 25 x 20.5 cm; 10" x 8". 1 p.).

The last would seem to be an autograph letter to a Mrs. Ehrich from Stevenson, in which he writes that he is in bed, sick. “Though I have never written to thank you, I have been punishing your cakes” (No place, no date. 12mo,1 x 10.5 cm; 6.75" x 4.25". 1 p.).

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

•  All very good with some old folds and one with evidence of having been mounted in an album.  (34473)

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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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Land that Once Belonged toLaetitia Penn

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•  Via the terms of this large indenture on parchment John Mifflin, a yeoman of Philadelphia County, and Lionel Britten, a shopkeeper in the city of Philadelphia, deed to Daniel Ridge, a weaver in the city of Philadelphia, a parcel of land on Front Street that William Penn had originally granted to his daughter Laetitia. Its exact location is specified as so too are its subsequent conveyances and the sale price to Ridge.

Signed by Ridge and three witnesses, but not by Mifflin or Britten.

An interesting paleographical example of a very early Philadelphia deed.

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

•  Folded, as usual. Neatly indited. Portion of lower left twelfth demonstrating imperfection in preparation of vellum, not affecting reading; one old wax seal present. Very good.  (34455)

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English Black Morocco, Gilt Extra

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• Two issues occur of this Bible, this being the one without the engraver's name on the title-page and with the printer's name spelled out and not abbreviated; the issues are the same after the first two leaves. This copy is without the Apochrypha, but with the final two leaves of the 1655 Psalms, which leaves are lacking in some reported copies.

Provenance:  On blank leaf before Psalms, “William Ingram His Booke 1660.” Later in the Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

Binding:  18th-century black morocco, spine with raised bands. Gilt-tooled on covers with concentric frames incorporating foliate corner devices and particularly elegant, delicate side toolings; these last notably well complement the similarly refined tools used to compose the gilt-extra spine. Gilt rolls on turn-ins, French combed endpapers, all edges gilt.

•  Whole Bible: Darlow & Moule 469; Herbert 606; Wing (rev. ed.) B2225; ESTC R43605. Psalms: Wing (rev. ed.) B2458; ESTC R39598.   Binding as above, lightly rubbed. Ex-library: Bookplate, small rubber-stamp in lower margin of engraved title, charge pocket at rear. Three leaves torn and repaired; some upper and lower margins closely trimmed affecting or costing captions, catchwords, signature marks, etc.; some foxing, dust-soiling, age-toning; waterstain to rear endpapers and faintly into final four leaves of the Psalms. Contemporary ownership note as above. Faults noted, this is yet a handsome mid-17th-century Bible — and, solid.  (34195)

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A Worried Philadelphia Lawyer Worries Evocatively

Sergeant, John.

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•  When Price (1797–1884) decided to make law his profession, he became a student of the Philadelphia lawyer and politician John Sergeant (1779–1852). Sergeant writes his former student, “I looked into all the courts for you this morning but did not find you there. It seems to me material we should have a meeting. Some things have occurred since our interview which cause me anxiety. Let me know whether you can call today or this evening, and name the hour.”

In addition to both men's being very prominent lawyers, both were members of the American Philosophical Society (Sergeant, 1813; Price, 1854).

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

•  Written in a very easy hand. Light age-toning. Very good condition.  (34474)

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Gruesome Deaths, Horrible Tortures, Painful Fascination

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•  English printing of the 1640s was very much at a nadir as to quality of illustration and presentation of text on the page: Remarkably, this multi-volume, large-format edition of Foxe's “Book of Martyrs” (as it generally known) offers very good levels of illustration, composition, and imposition of type. It is printed in double-column format on high quality paper, in mostly gothic type (i.e., “black letter”) with some roman and italic. The woodcut illustrations are at once charmingly naive and arresting in both their simplicity and their ability to convey the artists' intentions, with a few of the142  in-text woodcuts or initials lookingquite remarkably modern. There are 37 in-text woodcuts, one very largehistoriated woodcut initial showing Elizabeth splendidly enthroned, one woodcut plate, and onehuge engraved folding plate showing a grand variety of martyrdoms in vol. I; 29 in-text woodcuts and two woodcut plates (one folding) in vol. II; and 76 in-text woodcuts and two woodcut plates in vol. III. The engraved plate in vol. I is by George Glover and he has signed one of the large woodcuts as well; at least one other woodcut is signed by another artist, John Droeshout.

This was clearly a luxury production.

It was on 20 March 1563 that the first edition of Actes and Monuments appeared , and it was an immediate success. A second, corrected, edition appeared in 1570; many subsequent editions were issued; and the text is still being published in the 21st century. It is without a doubt the best-known English work of martyrology.

This edition containsthe first printing of Simeon Foxe's biography of his father, the author; it was written in 1611 but not published for thirty years.

Provenance:  Round ownership stamp of “Iltyd Nicholl” on the fly-leaves. Later in the collections of the Pacific School of Religion (properly released), though without its usual markings; small bookseller's label of “John Howell Importer” on rear pastedowns.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) F2035; ESTC R29862; Graesse, II, 623.   Late 18th-century acid-mottled calf, Cambridge-style binding, rebacked with original gillt-extra spine reattached. Covers tooled in blind to form concentric panels, one panel with corner devices; edges of covers tooled in gilt with a roll, board-edges tooled in gilt with a different roll, and turn-ins tooled in blind with yet another roll. Marbled endpapers of a combed pattern. All edges carmine. As usual, without the half-titles; each volume with a stamped number on verso of title-page; ownership indications as above. Vol. I with title-leaf subtly reinforced at fore-edge (with a limited number of other such subtle repairs to be found scattered in the set), slim wormtracks to a few lower margins, last leaf backed, and large folding plate backed with top line of text a little faded/abraded; vol. II with a natural paper flaw or two and folding plate backed; vol. III with very faint signs of old dampstaining to some top margins; otherwise, only the most occasional spot or smear to suggest age and use. Clean and crisp.  (34242)

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A Reference forIrish Justices, UPDATED

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•  The first published treatise dedicated to Irish law, here in its authoritative, expanded and updated edition. The author was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer at the time of the work's first publication in 1638, and later became Lord Chancellor of Ireland; the updated statutes, index, and table of precedents were compiled and supplied by Irish barrister Michael Travers, whosewidow Margaret wrote the dedication and apparently shepherded the book through publication after Travers's death. Details include two extremely specific tables of measurements and prices for white, wheat, and household breads. The second book, “containing the description and method of holding the general sessions of the Justices of the Peace,” has a separate title-page, with the same publication information; the final section, “Precedents of Committals, Summonses, Convictions, and Warrants, for Several Offences within the cognizance of Justices of the Peace for Ireland” also has a separate title-page, but continuous pagination with the previous section.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of Thomas Cobbe of Newbridge, County Dublin, with “Moriens cano” motto; title-page with Cobbe's inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner.

•  ESTC T117728.   Contemporary calf, spine with raised bands and recent gilt-stamped leather title-label; corners and spine extremities unobtrusively refurbished. Front pastedown with bookplate as above and with early inked numeral; title-page with inscription as above. Some signatures slightly age-toned; one page with line of discoloration in upper margin. Printing license, title-page, and a few others creased; a few corners dog-eared A clean, solid copy of an important reference work for Irish statutes and legal practices.  (34380)

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The Largest Book Produced inColonial America

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•  First American edition, here in German translation by Johann Peter Miller (1710–96) from the original Dutch, of the famous “Martyrs' Mirror” (Martyrer Spiegel der Tauffs-Gesinnten oder Wehrlosen-Christen), a history of baptism century by century alternating with accounts of Christian martyrs who suffered for their faith under both pagan and Christian governments.

This translation and printing were done at the behest of the Pennsylvania Mennonite community and done at the famous Ephrata Cloister in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Cloister was a pietistic community that separated from the Schwarzenau Brethren movement of Alexander Mack of Schwarzenau in Germany, and was established in Pennsylvania in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel. Book I chronicles events from the 1st to 15th centuries and II surveys the 16th and 17th centuries to 1660.

Evans tells us that “The Ephrata Brethren were three years engaged upon its printing and binding. . . . The engraved frontispiece [not present in this copy], representing the army of the martyrs marching to Heaven is generally missing, as the design was offensive to the Mennonites.” Others have suggested that the frontispiece was suppressed and that many copies were bound and issued without it. (It was not engraved in the New World, but rather in Germany and possibly by M. Eben.)

Provenance: 18th-century ownership signature of David Worther on title-page of part II. In 1869 a gift of the Shallenberger family to the Crozer Theological Seminary; faint library pressure-stamps on main title- and last leaf of the defunct Crozer Library.

•  Hildeburn 1050; Evans 6256; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., T96; NAIP w019947.   Contemporary brown sheep over bevelled wood boards, rebacked sympathetically without labels; new endpapers and fly-leaves. Brass corner bosses and evidence of brass and leather closures. Waterstaining in many margins, occasionally into portions of the text; stray brown stains (sometimes heavy and into text), occasional foxing; otherwise, minor rents or holes in some lower margins, and finger soiling in lower margins from turning of pages. Old ink stains into text on 6 pp. obscuring the text a bit. Ownership indicia as above, with an instance or two additionally of library pencilling. Clearly a copy that was used, read, and loved enough to survive in good strong shape into the 21st century.  (34266)

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Pershing for President

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•  In this corrected typed carbon copy, with Smith's signature, he addresses Pershing and offers support in securing Pershing's nomination for president in the next election. He requests the general's permission to use his name in organizing branches throughout the United States of the “General Pershing Presidential Campaign League.”

Composed only eight days after the signing of the Armistice ending the Great War.

Pershing failed to secure the Republican nomination.

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

•  Some smudging and pencil corrections. Very good.  (34475)

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A High Spot of Science — One of the Most Useful Editions — A HANDSOME Set

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•  First Glasgow printing of LeSeur and Jacquier's annotated edition, originally published in Geneva in 1739. Sometimes known as the “Jesuit edition” (although the two editors were actually Minim friars), this production of Sir Isaac Newton's seminal work of mathematics and physics incorporates extensive commentary, with consideration of Leibnizian calculus; Brunet describes this printing as particularly “belle et soignée, avec les figures insérées dans le texte.”

Binding:  19th-century calf, covers framed in acanthus and shell–motif blind roll and panelled in double gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spines with gilt-framed compartments and gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, board edges with gilt roll, turn-ins with gilt roll. All edges marbled.

Provenance:  Both volumes with early 19th-century inked ownership inscription of James Gallichan, St. John's College, in upper outer corner of front fly-leaf.

•  Babson 32; Brunet, IV, 49.   Bindings as above, spines sunned (evenly and not unattractively), spines and edges with minor wear. Vol. I with original silk bookmark separated, laid in; one leaf with lower outer corner torn away. Both volumes with occasional mild offsetting and intermittent light to moderate foxing. An elegantly (and very soundly, strongly) bound example of a scientific landmark.  (34077)

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A “Soufleuse”Bids Her Theatre Goodbye

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•  Beautifullysilk-bound souvenir edition of the calendar of performances of the Bamberg National Theatre for the year 1837, along with the staff and cast list, privately printed for Lida Bornhagen in commemoration of her retirement as the house prompter in that year. A charming poem presumably written by Bornhagen, celebrating her delight in her quiet contributions to “Thalia's Temple,” opens this little volume, dedicated to theatrical patron (and father of Empress Elisabeth of Austria) Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria; an affectionate and slightly melancholy farewell verse closes it. The elegant binding seems to indicate that this was the dedicatee's copy, with the author's name inked on the front cover as seen on other volumes in his library.

Emphatically this is not “just” a keepsake: It detailsa particular year's worth of a particular theater's administrative and performance data in a nice neat “microcosmic” way that's seldom found.

Binding:  Contemporary cream silk framed and panelled in gold appliqué with attached gilt corner fleurons, front cover with central teal medallion lettered “Aus Ehrfurcht gewidmet.”

No copies located via WorldCat, NUC, KVK, or COPAC.

•  Binding as above, Bornhagen's name neatly inked in upper portion of front cover, front cover with small portions of appliquéd medallion-edge and borders lacking; back cover with short gap in gold appliqué at one corner and with one leaf broken off from one fleuron. Clean, crisp, and with a small repair to inner corner of front fly-leaf, this is avery pretty association item.  (34155)

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PLEASE GO ON, TO Part II . . .

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