Smith endeavored to provide an extremely literal, word-for-word rendition to enhance her and her sisters' understanding of the text. Regarding the rather tangled results, she notes in her preface that “readers of this book may think it strange that I have made such use of the tenses . . . It seems to me that the original Hebrew had no regard to time, and that the Bible speaks for all ages.”

•  Herbert 2002; Hills 1918; Rumball-Petre 201; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 234–35. On Smith, see: McHenry, Famous American Women, 383 (under entry for Smith, Abby Hadassah).   Publisher's pebbled brown cloth, title and translator's name simply gilt-stamped within blind-stamped panel; recently rebacked and original spine reapplied (spine slightly rumpled), one corner restored, other corners mildly rubbed. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Front pastedown with affixed newspaper clipping on the Smith sisters. One page with short tear from lower edge, not extending into text; pages clean. A nice copy of a very desirable Bible.  (27574)

Provenance: Fore-edge painted with “Elizabeth Smith, 1680"; front fly-leaf with inscription recording the birth of William Rice in 1681 and with inscription of Charles Knowlton, dated 1738; fly-leaf verso with early inked genealogy describing the Smith-Rice-Knowlton descent.

Binding: Elaborate Restoration binding: black morocco framed in gilt semi-circle and strawberry rolls surrounding a broken panel design of red-inlaid scalloped corners decorated with floral-dotted volutes, containing a bouquet of tulips and other flowers with red and citron morocco inlays; the upper- and lowermost tulips each with a smaller gilt-stamped flower and leaf tool inside, spaces filled with small flowers and dots. Spine gilt extra using cover rolls and additional floral decorations, with two decorated compartments of red morocco; board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. The tools used do not appear to be an exact match to any binder represented in Bennett, Nixon, or Maggs: Bookbinding in the British Isles, although the tulip with superimposed small flower is reminiscent of the binder Nixon identifies as the Small Carnation Binder. All edges gilt. Fore-edge painted with name as above, surrounded by hand-painted floral decorations.

•  BCP: Wing (rev. ed.) B3659B. Not in ESTC; not in Griffiths (see 1680/5 for a very close example). Bible: ESTC R215858; Wing (rev. ed.) B2308A; Herbert 758. Psalms: Not in ESTC, not in Wing.   Binding as above, front joint cracked (sewing holding) with corners/edges rubbed; spine leather with small cracks and head chipped, small area darkened. BCP lacking A1, either a blank or a licence and much more likely an initial blank; title-page repaired at one corner. Elsewhere, one leaf with tear from outer margin, extending across one column without loss; page edges with occasional small smudges from fore-edge decorations; some faint spotting and foxing. Now housed in a café au lait morocco slipcase mistakenly giving 1630 as year of publication, based on misleading print impression on title-page. A good and interesting book apart from its extraordinary binding, charming fore-edge treatment, and multi-generational provenance.  (25925)

Diego Bringas de Manzaneda y Encinas was a Franciscan and his epitome of Abad's work is written in “octava rima”: as such it holds an important place in Mexican colonial-era poetry, especially in the subgenre of Christian poetry.

The work's chief themes are the Immaculate Conception and the attributes of God, but it also delves into the relation of science and our understanding of the cosmos: Newton and Huygens are specifically mentioned in the section on knowledge.

•  Palau 258 & 35854; DeBacker-Sommervogel, I, 3; Medina, Mexico, 7400.   Contemporary vellum over light boards. All edges green. A very nice copy of a significant work of early Mexican poetry, religion, and, at points, science.  (29433)

Binding: Publisher's red cloth imitating pebbled morocco, covers blind-stamped, spine gilt-stamped; all edges gilt.

•  Cloth rubbed over corners and spine extremities, with spine slightly darkened. Front pastedown with old (Catholic) institutional bookplate. Pages age-toned.  (14203)

The text is in Latin printed in italic, but with some passages in Greek and others in German (the latter printed in fraktur). One final section is entirely in Greek.

There were only two editions of this printed, one year apart. This is the second (1584) and is apparently much scarcer than the first (1583): It is not listed in VD16 and WorldCat finds only two copies worldwide, one of which has been deaccessioned.

•  VD16 A184 (for 1583 ed.).   Recent ebony-brown calf old style: Round spine, fillets extending onto covers terminating in trefoils, and covers framed in blind double fillets. Very good condition.  (26755)

This is the original first edition, not a modern reprint.

Binding:  Publisher's light blue straight-grained cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, front cover with desert vignette stamped in black and green.

•  Binding as above, minimal wear to extremities, spine with small area of light discoloration. Light pencilled underlining and marks of emphasis, including a star and a wing (all removable). A nice copy of an interesting volume.  (28604)

•  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)

Thissole edition is ornamented with a woodcut printer’s device and a woodcut headpiece and initial; the text is referenced with sidenotes.

Rare: Only two copies traced in the U.S. via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956.

Provenance: Bookplate of Virtue & Cahill Library (the library of Portsmouth’s Catholic Cathedral) no. 8783, with a large overlaid rubber-stamp thereon starkly, blackly noting the dispersal and eventual sale of the library “following enemy action”—the cathedral having been bombed by the Germans in 1941.

•  On Allix, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, I, 334–35. 19th- or early 20th-century half calf over marbled paper, spine with gilt title; edges of leather with a dog’s tooth roll in blind. Leather rubbed, especially on joints and edges. Some soiling and waterstaining, mostly light and most notable on early leaves, with some small wormholes in the margins; a little fine chipping and some shallow dog-ears. Old inked ownership inscription on title-page, crossed out but still legible.

Our title and imprint statement are transcribed from the front wrapper, which bears a wood engraving of King David playing his harp (supporting it on a very Victorian-looking footstool) — the only illustration.

The American Sunday-School Union was located at the address above only between the dates noted above.

It is notable thatthese hymns really are FOR children — chosen for their particular circumstances and often referring directly to children and childhood.

•  Publisher's pale rose wrappers, chip missing from one corner of rear one; foxing and one page only with a bit of staining additionally.  (28393)

The American Tract Society was first located at 150 Nassau St., New York, in 1833, and a new typeface was introduced in 1848; hence our dating. This is one of the American Tract Society's Children's tracts, Series 1, no. 24.

•  Original printed and illustrated wrappers. Some spotting. Good++.  (28392)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper and fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscription of James [Brown?]; title-page with pencilled inscription of Mary M. Bancroft.

•  Shoemaker 23503; Pomeroy, Alexander Anderson, 777.   Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; moderately rubbed overall, spine moreso, leather tender at front joint. Vol. I only (of 12), though, of course, complete as “what it is.” Ownership inscriptions as above. Light to moderate foxing and spotting/staining; one leaf with paper flaw resulting in ragged lower outer portion.  (29705)

A disciple of William Perkins (1558–1602), Ames ran into trouble preaching extreme Puritanism at Cambridge. When his nonconformity prevented his obtaining a preaching license in England, Ames moved to the Netherlands, where he was chaplain to the commander of English forces 1611–19 and wrote many treatises in support of strict Calvinism. Although he hoped to obtain a professorship at Leiden after the Synod of Dort, Ames was prevented by King James himself, who opposed the appointment to such a prestigious post. Ames moved again, to Franeker, where he had been invited by the curators to teach. It was there he composed the present text, a theological treatise against Bellarmine from the Calvinist point of view (first published at Amsterdam in 1625–26). Ames wasinvited to America by John Winthrop in 1628 but accepted a post at Rotterdam instead. His family traveled to New England in 1637, a few years after his death.

Four parts compose this single volume, which is paginated continuously in the third and fourth part; a separate title-page introduces each section, with the imprint date 1632 on parts II–IV. The text is printed in Latin — Bellarmine's points in italic and Ames's counter-points in roman, supported by citations in italic — with decorative ornaments on the section titles and at the end of the first part. ESTC notes the ornament on general title-page exists in two forms: a bunch of fruit, or the Jesuit mark of a burning heart with “IHS”; ours is the latter.

•  ESTC S116616; STC 551. On Ames, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, title and date inked early to spine; lightly soiled, ore to spine, dark top edge, . Library bookplate on front pastedown, pressure-stamp on title-page and last printed leaf, old inked control number. A few spots, a few small tears, one lower corner torn away without loss; the springy binding and good overall condition suggest this book was little-used, which is confirmed by a number of uncut pages.  (30206)

No copy located via NUC Pre-1956 or WorldCat.  PROBASE locates only one copy in the more than 170 Portuguese libraries that participate; no copy found in the OPAC of the Portuguese National Library.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Slim short wormtrack in lower margin of last leaves; light soiling to edges. A nice copy indeed of a rarity.  (28603)

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

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

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•  ESTC R30642; Wing (rev. ed.) S3598.   Later plain paper wrappers with edge wear and chipping at spine. Title-page with very old institutional pressure-stamp and early inked numeral in upper margin. Outer corners stained, edges ragged; one leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; title-page darkened and last page stained; still a good, usable copy.  (25531)

•  ESTC T96164.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages slightly age-toned, else clean. (20770)

This is thesole edition, and scarce. OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only two institutional holdings, one at the Chicago Historical Society.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with early pencilled (youthful?) ownership inscription of William Davidson.

•  W.P.A., Chicago Ante-Fire Imprints, 864.   Publisher's navy textured cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding slightly faded overall, extremities rubbed. Sewing loosening. One leaf torn, with loss of a few letters. Pages age-toned, with scattered smudges and spots of foxing.  (29452)

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The anonymously published work is signed “An Antiepiscopalian”; the title-page here bears a hand-inked attribution to Matthew Wilson.

An important entry in the literature of the “American Bishops” controversy in the lead-up to the American Revolution.

•  ESTC W13420; Evans 10947; Felcone 126; Hildeburn 2370; Sabin 11876.   Recent binding: boards appealingly covered in paper printed with 18th-century music, front cover with printed paper label. Two pages (not including title) institutionally rubber-stamped. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription and annotations, later lined through, with authorial attribution in the later hand. Lacking pp. 17/18, with final leaf tattered and text on p. 19 lined-through-by-show-through of X'es “deleting” manuscript notes on the verso (still, readable). Pages age-toned and lightly spotted, with edges untrimmed. One leaf with early inked annotation along outer margin.  (28100)

Provenance:  Ownership inscription of “Conventus Gamundiani,” a Capuchin Order convent at Schwäbisch Gmünd near Wurttenburg, dated 1484 on front free endpaper and another date of “1479" on the first blank; ownership inscription of Johannes Meyer dated 1509; 19th-century library bookplate.

Evidence of readership: Five pages of contemporary manuscript notes and an index in red and brown ink, signed in two places “Johannes Meyer predicator (preacher)” and dated 1509; some 15th-century marginal notes in a very clear hand; early manicules; 19th-century notes pasted to front free endpaper.

ISTC and Goff combine to locate ten copies in U.S. institutions and two in private collections. One of the institutional copies has recently been deaccessioned and one of the private copies was sold long ago.

•  HCR1254; Proctor 4160; Goff A-867; GKW 2195; BMC, V, 192; ISTC ia00867000; Bibliotheca Apostolicae Vaticanae Incunabula A-363.   Binding as above; abraded, rubbed, and unevenly toned due to removal of clasps, bosses, and other “furniture”; numerous pinhole-type wormholes with board corners somewhat damaged. Some tiny worm holes in last few leaves and in the bottom blank margins of a few leaves; one natural paper flaw in one margin causing a hole, not near text; expectable, really minimal varieties of staining. A very stout if pillaged binding which has its charm and surroundsa fine very wide-margined copy of its landmark text.  (30138)

Provenance:  A signature “Fr. Antonio Lobato de Sto. Thomas” appears at the bottom of the last page and is almost certainly that of the the friar himself, which would mean that this is his autograph manuscript of the sermons.

•  Contemporary very stiff vellum. Binding gnawed by a rodent with loss. Written on a good quality European paper, with some soiling and an occasional stain. No faults are serious and overall this is a remarkably good survival for an 18th-century Philippines manuscript. Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box.  (23668)

•  ESTC T108041. On Arnall, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, II, 103). Removed from a nonce volume and now in a Mylar folder. Final page stamped by a now-defunct institution. Small area of worming in lower outer corner throughout, not touching text.

Binding:  Publisher's textured cream paper–covered boards in very good imitation of morocco, front cover framed in green-stamped fillet, gilt-stamped title surrounded by gilt- and green-stamped floral sprays.

•  Binding as above, paper chipping at corners and spine, spots of light discoloration around edges. Front free endpaper with nicely inked Christmas gift inscription dated 1900. Some pages with mild foxing along inner margins, otherwise clean. A light and sweet production.  (28455)

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for an enlargement.

•  NSTC 2A16362. On Arnold, see: DNB, II, 113–17. Removed from a nonce volume. A few dog ears, some shallow chipping, and traces of soiling. A little underlining and sidelining in old ink.

This example is apparently a variant state of the first edition of 1712 (ESTC does not distinguish between variants, grouping all entries under one listing), with p. 61, line 8 ending “of the Romish Persuasion.’

•  ESTC T41498. On Asgill, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, II, 159–61. Removed from a nonce volume, now in a Mylar folder. Title-page with small numeric stamp, spots of discoloration. A few pages more notably browned than their neighbors; otherwise generally clean.

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As is the case with the 70 p. issue, the first 16 p. are the same sheets as appear in the original [Richmond, April 1792] edition (Evans 26580), and were probably printed in 1791. Evans, however, postulates that the first 16 p. were printed by Dobson in September 1792. He accounts for their presence in copies of the [Richmond] edition of 60 p. by suggesting that Asplund substituted the corrected Philadelphia sheets for the unsatisfactory sheets of the earlier edition. Cf. the prefaces to the 1794 and 1796 editions, with title: The universal register of the Baptist denomination.”

In addition to its exhaustive account of who's who and what's where, this lists both principles of belief and “Rules of Decorum”; the latter, e.g., forbid laughing and whispering when another member of the association is speaking in assembly. Between the “Rules of Decorum” and the Index, Asplund remarks on the un-Christian “inconsistency” of “Keeping our fellow-creatures in bondage, who have as good a right was we, both to civil and religions liberty — Not only so; but misusing them, concerning common blessings, which certainly is a violation of the rights of nature and inconsistent with a republican government.”

•  Evans 26582; ESTC W37302.   Uncut copy. In 20th-century black buckram binding. Ex-library with bookplate but no other markings.  (24467)

•  ESTC W35823; Evans 35119. Contemporary sheep, spine with red leather title label; abraded with a few wormholes (including one track across spine) and front joint opening. Some pages quite stained, not impairing reading; a couple instances of chipping in margins with loss of letters. Front free endpaper excised. Pp. 433–44 pinned together in the inside margin. Pencil doodlings on half-title and p. [5].

The volume was published at the request of Cardinal Ascanius Columnas in an edition ofonly 750 copies, and was printed at Antwerp at the press of Moretus’ widow and sons with the famous Plantin device appearing in two versions (engraved, to the title, and woodcut, to the final recto).

A full-page engraved funeral portrait of Rubens engraved by Cornelius Galleafter Peter Paul Rubens signals the beginning of the third section, in which Jan Brant records the life of his son-in-law’s brother and transcribes his epitaph. Even Balthasar Moretus contributes an epigram in honor of the deceased.

In the fourth section, Rubens’ own orations and selected letters appear, i.a. his funeral oration to Philip II of Spain. Josse DeRycke contributed the final funerary tribute.

Done up in fully elegant Plantin–Moretus style, the volume has in addition to its careful typography and full-page plate and devices been lavished throughout with two-line block initials and four-line historiated woodcut initials; also, it offers several intricate woodcut tailpieces.

Searches of NUC Pre-1956 and WorldCat locate only eight copies in U.S. institutions, one of which has been deaccessioned; most arenot in obvious places.

•  Graesse, I, 241; Corpus Rubenianum, XXI (1977), 152.   Period-style full brown calf, covers framed in blind double fillets, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label, raised bands with blind tooling extending onto covers. With a few odd spots to the text only, this is aremarkably fine, crisp copy. All edges green.  (28878)

•  Very good condition. Written in a clear, easy-to-read hand; attractively, as well as sensibly, laid out on the pages.  (27600)