Menippus is, as its title proclaims, a satirical work discussing magic, education of princes, mathematics, heretics, utopias, evil, and more than 100 other topics.

•  Hogart, Alchemy, 8; not in Faber du Faur; VD17 23:286690E. “Johann Valentin Andreae: die Manifeste der Rosenkreuzerbruderschaft. Kat. Ausst.” in Bibl. Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam 1986), pp. 106–07: nr. 39 for the second edition; Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, esp. pp. 141–47.   Recent dark calf, raised bands, modest gilt tooling on spine; covers interestingly tooled in blind as are two of the spine panels. Title and place and date of publication in gilt on spine. Age-soiling and spotting, some early leaves with tears now repaired. Early underlining in ink. In decent shape for a book that was heavily read in its time and which survives in few copies.  (24112)

This offers evidence of early readership in form of underlining in ink and occasional marginal notations, confined to early portion of the tome.

•  Gibson, Bacon, 243a. On Bacon, see: Oxford Companion to English Literature, 56–57. Contemporary vellum, spine with gilt-stamped title; vellum showing minor scuffing and spots of discoloration. Front pastedown with a 19th-century bookplate; front free endpaper with edge nicks and short edge tears. Lacking half-title. Early inked marginalia and underlining, as above; leaves age-toned with intermittent light offsetting and foxing. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, not extending into text.

Provenance: Riggs family: Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of philanthropist Elisha Francis Riggs, who funded the Riggs Library at Georgetown University; volume inherited by T. Lawrason Riggs, founding chaplain of St. Thomas More Chapel, Yale University; donated to St. Thomas More Chapel Library; deaccessioned 2008.

•  ESTC S106924; STC (2nd ed.), 1169; Gibson, Bacon, 171. On Bacon, see: Dictionary of National Biography.   18th-century calf framed in gilt single fillet, spine with recent gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, board edges with gilt roll; a little rubbed and covers with portions darkened. All edges stained yellow. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Some pages gently age-toned, with occasional minor spotting. Small hole to added engraved title-page just beneath publication information, not affecting text. Final blank leaf (only) lacking.  (24666)

•  NSTC 00522718; Palau 26647; Jackson, Guide to the Literature of Botany, 368.   Publisher's blue cloth, covers framed in black-stamped designs, front cover with central gilt-stamped alligator vignette; binding slightly shaken, spine sunned, corners and spine extremities rubbed, sewing just starting to loosen. Two leaves with outer margins lightly waterstained; map edges lightly foxed. A nice clean copy.  (24406)

Presented here is Berkeley's defense of revealed religion: It ranks as a major example of English literature and of American literature too, for he wrote it while living in America waiting for money for his projected university in Bermuda. “Alciphron, a set of dialogues located notionally in England, but drawing much of the landscape description from Rhode Island,” sold well and aroused controversy after his return to Britain. The New Theory of Vision is “a work of lasting importance in the psychology of perception[; it] was transitional between Berkeley's already informed interests in mathematics and natural philosophy and a growing independence of mind in metaphysics and epistemology” (both quotations from DNB on-line).

Provenance: “A. Thorpe – York” inscribed on title-pages.

•  ESTC T86056; NCBEL, II, 1852. Not in European Americana.   Contemporary sheep, spines with raised bands and gilt-stamped red leather labels; covers framed and paneled in blind-stamped triple fillets with blind-stamped corner fleurons; all edges red. Leather rubbed with some loss to corners, edges, turn-ins; vol. I with pulls at both spine extremities, small gouge to front cover, front joint opening with cover almost off. Old institutional bookplates and rubber-stamp to pastedowns, title-pages, and lower edges of closed volumes; ink ownership signature to title-pages as above and a few additional ink and pencil marks; some very scattered spots or staining with pages generally clean. (21366)

•  Contemporary quarter morocco with pebbled cloth–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; corners and spine extremities rubbed. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate, this and the front free endpaper then institutionally rubber-stamped. One plate lacking (no. 5). Pages slightly age-toned; plates with small spots of light foxing.  (20363)