•  Vollkommene: Jantz Collection, 3334. Neither work in Coumont, Demonology and Witchcraft.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, with slightly yapp edges; all edges red. Text unmarked and untattered. A very nice pair of uncommon books.  (26955)

•  Lipperheide 1341; Abbey, Travel, 244.   Binding overall rubbed and somewhat rough, front joint (outside) starting and back hinge (inside) likewise. Offsetting from plates, instances of light foxing and occasional soiling throughout. Plates 16, 29, and 39 excised some time ago, with faint pencil marks on contents list indicating their absence. An imperfect copy, still offering an array of engaging images and elegantly bound, with its sociologically intriguing text intact.  (28807)

WorldCat and Lindsay & Neu combine to locate only three copies in the U.S.

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Lindsay & Neu 3437.   Recent paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. All four leaves pressure-stamped. Clean.  (27779)

Printed in Fraktur with occasional roman for foreign words, this bears large handsome woodcut initials and an engraved plate that shows Adam standing in Heaven and Earth, as explained on the following leaf (in our copy, ff. 2–3, although others have the illustration and explanation preceding the title-page).

•  VD17 online 12:101402A; Buddecke, I, p. 10; Dünnhaupt, p. 678, no. 3; Bruckner, 513; for the first edition (1677), see: Faber du Faur, 113.   Modern beige paper over boards, with the title, author, and date printed in gothic on the spine. Very mild foxing just visible on some leaves.  (29923)

This volume is also of interest typographically; some of the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic types subsequently used in productions by Hendrik Wetstein and others make their first appearances here. The text is predominantly in Latin, with quotations in Hebrew and the above languages. The title-page is printed in black and red.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with inked inscriptions of the Rev. A.W. Miller of Charlotte, N.C., dated 1871, and of H. Ader of Assumption Hills, dated [18]92; front free endpaper with early inked inscription of Henry Joseph Thomas Drury. Drury was a master at Harrow School (where he taught Byron), and an original member of the Roxburghe Club. His inscription notes the book's passage from the Bibliotheca Heathiana “thro' Dr. Raine's hands, and Cuthell's to mine”; Drury's mother was Louisa Heath, daughter of the great collector Benjamin Heath, but most of Heath's library had originally gone either to his two sons or to auction following the death of his wife.

•  Rosenthal, Bibliotheca magica et pneumatica, 1614. Not in Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes; not in Coumont, Demonology & Witchcraft.   Contemporary speckled calf framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, inner edges of covers ruled in gilt double fillets, neatly rebacked; spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-stamped raised bands, and blind-tooled compartment decorations; original leather with edges abraded, corners repaired. Hinges (inside) reinforced some time ago. Lower (closed) edges institutionally blind-stamped. Front pastedown and free endpaper with inscriptions as above, title-page with small ownership inscription in upper portion. Pages age-toned with small amounts of light foxing. Nice margins, all edges (once) saffron.  (25848)

This example particularly showcases the “True Relation,” as the separate title-page for that item is the first leaf present here; the title-page and preface for the Defence are absent.

•  ESTC T189434; Lowndes 616–17; Allibone 490.   Recent quarter mottled calf and marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges blind-tooled, spine with gilt-stamped leather labels, gilt-dotted raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. First three pages institutionally pressure-stamped, lower (closed) edges rubber-stamped; title-page with inked and rubber-stamped numerals in lower margin. Frontispiece, main title-page, preface to Christian's Defence, and final leaf lacking (the last interrupting the text of a brief account of Drelincourt's life). Title-page stained with inner margin reinforced and tear repaired some time ago. Pages browned, foxed, and stained, first and last few with edges tattered; some corners dog-eared. Two leaves torn, without loss of text; one leaf with outer margin chipped, affecting four words without loss of sense. A book often “read to death” . . .  (25807)

•  NSTC 2S31074. Removed from a nonce volume. Clean save for some smudging to outer margin of one page. (16760)

•  Steineschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum, 5085. Contemporary paste paper–covered boards, spine with hand-inked title label; binding rubbed and abraded, spine with stamped shelving number. All edges stained red. Front pastedown with 19th-century private collector’s bookplate.

Also contained here is the famous Oracula Magica Zoroastris cum Scolliis Plethonis et Pselli as edited by Johannis Opsopoeus.

•  STCN 168904; Brunet, II, 1465; Caillet 10165; Hoffmann III, 396; Landwehr, Hooghe, 72; Schweiger, I, 287 .   Contemporary half brown calf with mottled paper sides; spine with gilt-accented raised bands, red leather gilt label, and gilt devices in compartments; all edges interestingly marbled. Binding worn and top of spine pulled. Without the added engraved title-page, and a small, early paper repair on title-page; not a perfect copy, but certainly a decent one and priced accordingly.  (26691)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Brunet, III, 39; Osler, Biblotheca Osleriana, 5950 (first ed.). 19th-century quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and raised bands ruled in gilt fillets; edges and spine moderately rubbed, paper chipped over corners, corners bumped. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean.

ghost

•  This ed. not in NSTC. Removed from a nonce volume. Page edges slightly darkened, otherwise clean. (16757)

This author enjoyed great success among feminine (and young) audiences with his gothic tales of horror and woe, most notably with his one novel, The Monk, a youthful production that earned him his nickname. Shelley was especially fond of Lewis's work, although Byron mocked the author's “gibb'ring spectres” and “infernal brain” in the poem “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”

•  NCBEL, III, 743 (first ed.).   Later 19th-century half sheep in imitation of morocco over marbled paper sides, worn and abraded; leather chipping over head of spine, covers pressure-stamped by a now-defunct institution, spine with paper shelving label. Title-page and several others stamped; endpaper and final blank separated but present (former with date slip); many pages, not unexpectedly, show light to moderate spots of foxing, and there is some staining. Last leaf torn across outer corner taking top author's name in ads on verso (it was John Beckmann) and most of three words of the last poem's last verse (“herte should breke”).  (5414)

Uncommon. A search of ESTC, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956 finds only four U.S. holdings of this title. ESTC notes that this is a false imprint and that the work was likely printed in the Netherlands; one source suggests Lausanne.

•  ESTC T112988; Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes..., 7879.   Recent quarter calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles. Title-pages each with inked ownership inscription dated 1804 in lower margin, name lined through; first page of preface with inked numeral in lower margin. Upper outer corners rounded, with most of these (and some margins) browned in vol. I. All edges speckled blue and brown.  (23261)

“A new edition, with the citations translated, and notes by P. Borthwick . . . of Downing College, Cambridge.”

•  Publisher's quarter green cloth with paper-covered boards. Rebacked in sympathetic cloth and new paper label (antique style) applied. Boards show age-stains and wear but are solid. Old library pressure-stamp on title-page. In an open back slipcase of green library cloth; spine of box with author, title, and call number in gilt. A nice copy, sound for reading.  (21773)

•  This ed. not in NSTC. Removed from a nonce volume. Title-page with upper margin trimmed a bit closely, just touching “The” of title. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean. (16780)

The volume begins with a most handsome emblematic engraved title-page signed C. De Mallery involving a ship at sea against a sky labeled “Lutetia” (for Paris) surmounting an elaborate architectural frame containing the title and incorporating elegant symbolic ladies and more, followed on the next leaves by a dedication to the esteemed French collector Jacques-Auguste de Thou (Thuanus, 1553–1617). Beautiful floriated woodcut initials, factotum initials, head- and tailpieces decorate the text, which is anexquisite example of printing.

It seems that there were related texts printed at the same time that are sometimes found bound with this in a variety of combinations, but this not universally.

•  Adams S1061; Schweiger, I, 287.   Period-style full dark brown mottled calf tooled in blind, gilt title and tools to spine, red edges. Small hole from natural flaw in upper corner of title-page and one other leaf; oval-shaped spot in lower margin of title-page from an erasure (?), offset onto the front fly-leaf; light age-toning and occasional foxing in some margins, with a few stray ink marks from printing and maybe two or three dots from oxidization of the paper. Accounting for these minor expectable flaws, the present volume isreally very, very nice and the portraits areterrific.  (30177)

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

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

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Drake 4017.   Uncut, stitched, partly unopened.  (21434)

Additional volumes continued to be published for many years, under the stewardship of other editors; Stenzel was responsible for I through V.

•  Recent black-flecked paper–covered boards, spines with printed paper title and volume labels. Some upper edges in vol. I and lower corners in vol. II bumped; all edges stained red except for vol. III, which has speckled edges. Vol. III (only) with light offsetting/show-through from print; in fact a clean, nice set. (25346)

Click the images for enlargements.

The second edition's “Postscript” promises “additional facts connected with this interesting subject, equally wonderful,” or even “more so.”

William Leete Stone (1792–1844) was a journalist, editor of the “Commercial Advertiser,” advocate of slave emancipation and Greek independence, historian of colonial New York and New England, and first superintendent of public schools in New York City.

Very scarce.

•  NSTC 2S41964; Sabin 92135. See: Dicitonary of American Biography for much on Stone.   Removed from a nonce volume; mildest foxing to first and final leaves with crescent of lost paper to foremargin (only) of one leaf not nearing text. A very good copy.  (11023)

killed and scalped by Indians at Fort Niagara in

Click the image for enlargement.

Scarce edition.  No. “13" at foot of title.

•  Original self wrappers (unbound; removed). Good (slightly darkened).  (17590)