PRINTING & THE MIND OF MAN

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Chiswick Press — Limited Edition

•  Sir Thomas Browne's popular, personal, and searching musings on the Christian and scientific life were originally published (in authorized form) in 1643. His large mind, broad curiosity, and extensive learning are well served and presented in this attractive edition printed by the Chiswick Press (limited to 500 copies).

Binding: Publisher's quarter vellum and cream-colored cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; spine and board edges a bit darkened. Top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed.

•  Front free endpaper with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item; frontispiece browned around edges. Pages clean.  (20609)

BURKE Published by Gaine — Copy with Provenance

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•  First U.S. edition, and printed by Hugh Gaine. In this, Burke’s best-known work, the author expounded “his distrust of the ‘Perfectibiltarians’ and of mere destructive criticism of institutions. . . .” He felt that “any revolution that did not bring real liberty, which comes from administration of justice under a settled constitution without bias from the mob, was no liberty” (PMM). Click any image where the hand appears on
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Provenance: Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription of prominent Philadelphia lawyer and Pennsylvania legislator Horatio Gates Jones, Jr., inscription dated 1854. Front free endpaper with earlier signature of Samuel Duffield.

•  ESTC W36398; Evans 23238; Printing and the Mind of Man 239 (London ed.). Contemporary sheep, covers framed with gilt single fillet, spine with gilt-stamped decorative bands; slightly sprung, abraded, and spine with inked call number. Front pastedown with old institutional bookplate, title-page pressure-stamped, preface with inked numeral, bottom edges rubber-stamped; ownership instructions as above, plus inked initials in upper margin of title-page (partially shaved). Pages age-toned, with some mild to moderate spotting and with instances of early inked bracketing and marks of emphasis.

“The Best BookEver Written”

•  Originally printed in 1621, this treatise on depression in all its forms continues to be read (and beloved) today for its far-ranging philosophizing on human nature and thought, as well as for Burton’s extensive quotations of prior writers and for his sly sense of humor. Boswell famously quoted Dr. Johnson as saying of the Anatomy that it was “the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours earlier than he wished to rise” (the quotation in the headline above comes from Nicholas Lazard, who also describes the work as “the book to end all books” in his Guardian Review essay). The present edition, which prefixes the work with a brief biography of Burton, isthe first and only 18th-century printing following the several 17th-century editions, which culminated in the 1676 issue.
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Among the innumerable topics touched upon herein are food and diet; the chapter on diet compiles the opinions of so many authors that the list of “disallowed” foods encompasses more or less every foodstuff generally consumed in western Europe. Burton does go on to note that “custom doth alter nature it self” and that various nations live quite comfortably on foods that other nations find distasteful — for instance, in America “their bread is roots, their meat Palmitos, Pinas, Potatos, &c. and such . . . There be of them too that familiarly drink salt Sea-water all their lives, eat raw meat, grass, and that with delight” (pp. 109–10).

Provenance:  Front fly-leaves inscribed by the Rev. M.A.F. Holmes, dated 1899.

•  ESTC T109284; Garrison & Morton 4918.1 (first ed.); PMM 120. 19th-century half morocco over marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped title and volume numbers; corners and edges lightly rubbed, with extremely faint traces of institutional shelving numbers on the spines; that area slightly abraded. Some pages mildly age-toned, with light foxing mostly confined to the first and last few leaves.

The INSTITUTES in aSwiss, 1577 Edition

•  “The first systematic statement of a Reformed Church . . . the most important doctrinal work of the Reformation as a whole,” as described by Printing and the Mind of Man. Calvin’s magnum opus, originally published in significantly briefer form in 1536, was revised throughout the remainder of the author’s lifetime; theuncommon present printing follows Le Preux’s 1576 edition, with the printer’s bear device on the title-page.

Provenance: From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christianity.

Binding: Near contemporary limp vellum tooled in black, with date of 1585 on front cover; all edges gilt and gauffered.

•  Adams C364 (for the 1576 Le Preux edition); PMM 65. Bound as above with joints open or partially so, cords yet strong, and covers with instances of shiny tape residue; gilding of gauffering dulled but effect handsome. Back free endpaper excised; front free endpaper separated, with extensive annotations dated 1773 and with the Neander bookplate. Intermittent inked underlining in red and brown; light waterstaining to lower portions of some leaves. A sound, overall pleasing volume.

Elegant Two-Volume Abridgement — With the Grammar

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•  Eighth edition of Dr. Johnson’s famed dictionary, printed shortly following the author’s death. Wit and wisdom are combined in interesting proportions in this most famous lexicon, here in one of the two-volume abridgements and preceded by Johnson’s “Grammar of the English Tongue.”

•  ESTC T83956; Brunet, III, 553; O’Neill J-65; Vancil 123; Printing and the Mind of Man 201 (for the first edition). Contemporary speckled calf, spines gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; both front joints open and bindings otherwise showing only light wear overall. Front pastedowns with bookseller’s stamp; title-pages with upper margins excised. An attractively bound abridgment of Johnson’s magnum opus.

Humane Understanding

•  Locke’s great work, one of the formative influences on empiricism and philosophical thought in general. This two-volume set is the seventh edition, following the first of 1690; this copy matches the description given by ESTC: “Vol.1 is dated 1716; Vol.2, ‘An essay concerning humane understanding,’ is without an edition statement and bears the imprint: London: printed for A. and J. Churchill, and S. Manship, 1715.” Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Provenance: Each front pastedown with the armorial bookplate and title-page with the early inked ownership inscription of John Waldie. A blue paper slip below the bookplate shows that this was shelved with “Natural History, Science &c.” being “No. 64.”

•  ESTC T65491; NCBEL, II, 1837; Printing & the Mind of Man 164. Contemporary speckled calf, covers framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments; front joints cracked, back joints starting, leather chipped at spine extremities and rubbed along board edges, spines with faint traces of inked call numbers visible. First text pages each with stamped numeral in lower margin; lower edges institutionally rubber-stamped; one back free endpaper with slip. Frontispiece of vol. I lacking. Occasional early marks of emphasis in margins, some inked and some pencilled; one pair of leaves with rough edges from awkward cutting. Occasional light spotting, pages generally clean. One page with lower outer corner torn away, not touching text. Last index page adhered to back free endpaper. Actually, attractive!

A BIG Handsome“Gentleman’s Library” Production

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•  Uncommon first edition of Luigi Marini’s highly illustrated Italian edition of Pollio’s important treatise De Architectura, one of the earliest extant works on the subject. Vitruvius was appointed as a “superintendent of balistae and other military engines” during the reign of Augustus, “a post which he says he owed to the friendly influence of the emperor's sister, probably Octavia” (Encyclopædia Britannica). The initial books of his celebrated work focus on the science and theory of architecture as well as the practical use of materials and the proper use of many classical styles and orders of design. Other books discuss methods of decoration, hydraulic engineering, and the use of machinery; there are even a chapter on architecture's relationship to astronomy and a section on its relationship to music.

Printing and the Mind of Man says of this major treatise: “This handbook on classical architecture is the only Roman work inspired by Greek architecture that has come down to us. It is therefore important as our prime source of many lost Greek writings on the subject and as a guide to archaeological research in Italy and Greece.” It was its advice on effective design and practical building that led to Vitruvius’s being “the chief authority” studied by neoclassical architects — not always with perfect understanding, but with perfect faith and enormous enthusiasm — “from the early Renaissance down to a comparatively recent time” — according to the Britannica, which adds, “the influence of his treatise has been remarkably great.”

The third volume of the present set contains140 plates engraved by Ph. Trojani, I. Fontana, P. Fontana, Ph. Ferrari, A. Fornari, Carol. Ruspi, A. Pesenti, and others, depicting architectural elements, plans, elevations, views, and details.

This large-format, lovely production is surprisingly little held, in libraries.

•  Printing and the Mind of Man 26 (for the first ed.); this edition not in Brunet. On Vitruvius, see: Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., XXVIII, 151–52. Contemporary half sheep over marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped decorative bands and motifs within compartments; paper and leather rubbed. A minority of pages showing faint to mild foxing, otherwise clean and fresh; some plates with similar foxing, in all but a very few cases confined to margins. Set attractive and imposing, despite above qualifications.

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The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company