•  Publisher's purple cloth, front cover and spine stamped in silver. New. (14036)

•  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.

Galatino first published this work in 1516 at the request of the pope; it went through a number of editions. The Arcanis Catholicae is followed by Reuchlin’sDe Arte Cabalistica as issued, and the whole is bound with an Estienne printing of Mercier’s commentary on the minor prophets — a scarce book that is puzzling as regards its date of publication. Searches of OCLC, RLIN, & NUC locate only the copies at Oxford, Cambridge, University of Chicago, New York Public, and Harvard. The Americans date the work to 1583, following Renourd’s lead, while Oxford says 1570 and Cambridge says 1565.

All three texts are given in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek.

Provenance: Front pastedown with inked inscription reading “Ex Bibliotheca Hebr. & Judaica / H.A. Ader 1886.”

•  Galatino: VD17 1:083777H, or VD17 32:631273P. Mercier: Renouard 149; Adams M1318. 18th-century vellum with yapp edges, spine with gilt-stamped title; vellum moderately soiled, with front joint just starting from top. Waterstaining to front free endpaper and fly-leaf. Pastedown with inscription as above. Front free endpaper with early 19th-century inked inscription in upper corner; front fly-leaf with annotations and with affixed early cataloguing slips; booklabel of “Muehlbauer & Behrle, Publishers Importers & Booksellers . . . Chicago.” One leaf with pencilled marginal annotations.

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.

Click the images for enlargements.

Offered here is a circular letter that the Holy Office sent all over New Spain saying that it had been a long time since there had been a General Inquisitorial “Visit,” and that consequently many law breakers are going unpunished. The Inquisitors call on everyone, no matter status or social condition, to denounce the following categories of criminals: Jews, Muhammadans, Lutherans (i.e., Protestants), “alumbrados,” abusers of the confessional, bigamists, astrologers and necromancers, witches and warlocks, devil worshippers, collectors of astrology and witchcraft books, peyote and marijuana users, and a number of other specified offenders and heretics. Tips on how to “spot” the various malefactors are given in detail and there are extended explanations of why the offenses are serious.

The explanations were undoubtedly given as a balm to ease the consciences of those worried about “turning in” a friend, neighbor, or relative. In the 1770s and 1780s the power and influence of the Inquisition in Mexico was at a very low ebb, and, indeed, it was on the verge of being suppressed. This publication shows just how desperate the institution was to justify itself.

Very rare.  Medina did not know of this and we only trace copies to the John Carter Brown and Cushing libraries. Our dating of the piece is based on the typography, the paper, the historiated initial on p. 1, the very large woodcut device of the Holy Office that appears above the beginning of the text, and most importantly, the in-text manuscript date of 1713 in the copy at the Cushing Library.

This copy bears a manuscript completion date of 14 November 1807, showing clearly that a large remainder of this early-18th-century printing was available a century later for reissue at a time when the earlier concerns had resurfaced.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; nor González de Cossío, Cien; nor González de Cossío, 510.   Light to noticeable waterstaining in margins, darkest in upper margins of last two leaves. A good+ copy.  (21766)

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

Binding: Roxburghe-style binding of contemporary quarter straight-grain morocco with dark red paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title. Upper edges gilt.

“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)

Also accompanying the main text are a few of Rabanus's shorter writings (opuscula) on such topics as marriage, penitence and punishment, and magic. The treatise De ortu, vita, & moribus Antichristi ends the volume and is attributed to Adson, abbé of Montierender.

The work is printed in a cramped roman with side- and shouldernotes and a scattering of woodcut initials — mostly small, one large. A woodcut on verso of the title-page depicts a bishop writing and has the inscription: “Rabanvs Mav. Mogvn. arch. DCCCLV.” The handsome printer's device is found on the verso of the final leaf.

Provenance:  Several early (contemporary to ca. 1755) ownership inscriptions, some overwriting earlier ones. Decipherment is left to scholars with greater skills and apparatus then possessed by this cataloguer.

Evidence of readership: Some very early lining through; some marginal markings, not extensive; a good deal of writing on blanks.

•  VD16 H5269; Adams R2 (lacking last 60 leaves). Not in Coumont, Demonology and & Witchcraft.   Recent full dark brown calf, old style by Grace Bindings; raised bands, blind ruling above and below the bands as accents, gilt beading on the bands, blind-stamped center devices in spine compartments. Modest double fillets in blind on covers. gilt rules. Scattered waterstaining and age-soiling. Leaf A3 torn with loss of text; H6 with deckled bottom margin; I5 with lower outside corner torn out costing two letters of the catchword, & S6 with a natural paper flaw not affecting text.  (22531)

•  Barbier, II, 171; Weller, Falsche Druckorte, II, 197.   19th-century boards covered with German mottled paper, spine with inked title-label; binding abraded, spine label darkened. Ex-library with lined-through call number label to spine, front pastedown with institutional bookplate, first text page with inked numeral in lower margin. Front free endpaper with inked inscription in Greek. A few instances of light foxing, pages mostly clean.  (19717)

Stated second edition for the Divine and Spiritual Communications, but actually the third edition. The first edition was 1803; the second being 1809. This pamphlet consists of an introduction by William Sharp and letters on the above topics as it relates to her claims.

Bound (but not issued) with the third edition of An Explanation of the Parables of 1804, first published in 1806. The edition statement appears at the foot of p. [1], the imprint at the foot of p. 64.Signed in type on p. 64: “Taken from Joanna Southcott's mouth by me, Ann Underwood. Jane Townley.”

•  Publisher’s red cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black and gilt; binding a bit darkened and faintly spotted, with head of spine chipped. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription. A few pages with short edge tears, not touching text.

The title-page is printed in red and black; three full-page diagrams depict Tartarus, the Islamic paradise, and a world map showing where each religion is practiced.

•  ESTC R6111; Wing (rev.) T3347; European Americana 695/199. On Turner, see: Dictionary of National Biography.   Contemporary mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and old-style white-painted call number; leather a bit rubbed at corners, joints, and spine extremities. Front pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp, introduction with stamped numeral in lower margin, first and last text pages each with rubber-stamp in lower margin, all edges rubber-stamped; all stamps faint. Light waterstaining and occasional pencilled letters in outer margins of a few leaves. One leaf with closed tear; one with outer corner (no text) torn away. (21093)