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The ESSAYS that Made Lamb's Reputation — 1st U.S. Edition

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•  First U.S. edition of the official first series, andtrue first edition of the unofficial second series, of Lamb's pseudonymously published essays for the London Magazine. These eloquently written pieces mingle humor and pathos as they describe the experiences of the author and his acquaintances while attending boarding school, playing whist, listening to music, visiting Quaker meetings, etc. Food is a recurring topic (“A Dissertation upon Roast Pig”); there are two essays on Valentine's Day (one in each volume), andseveral on plays and actors.

The first series made its first appearance in book form in London, 1823. The authorized second series was not published until 1833, under the title The Last Essays of Elia; the pieces selected for the unauthorized American second series offered here are different from those contained in that volume, and mistakenly include three essays written by other hands.

•  Shoemaker 33813 & 33814; NCBEL, III, 1225; NSTC 2L2346.   Vol. I: Uncut copy. Publisher's quarter once-red cloth and paper sides, covers printed with “Elia” within a simple frame, spine with printed paper label; binding rubbed and lightly soiled, spine sunned to yellow. Repaired tear to one leaf, touching text without loss; remarkably clean and sound. Vol. II: Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; rubbed, and head of spine chipped with old refurbishing. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number ticket on front pastedown, front free endpaper with inked numerals, title-page pressure-stamped. Author's name inked on title-page; front free endpaper and title-page reinforced at fore-edge (the latter from the back). Both volumes age-toned, with intermittent spots of staining; advertisements absent. The set now housed in a quarter blue morocco and blue cloth–covered clamshell case with marbled paper–covered sides and gilt-stamped spine.  (26434)

Down with Thor, Victory for Leif & the Cross!
(A Book, then a Movie)

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•  First edition of this swashbuckling Norse yarn, featuring Leif Eriksson's voyage to America (and his insistence on Christianity among his men), a valiant shield-maiden, and a lost race–style encounter of “lean brown men” with “beast-faces” (p. 325). The volume is illustrated with decorative capitals andsix color-printed plates done by Troy and Margaret West Kinney, who also designed the binding (see below).

The 1928 full-color, silent film “The Viking” (MGM, script by Robert Tonsing) was based on Ms. Liljencrantz's novel!

Signed binding: Publisher's khaki cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black, cream, and gilt; back cover stamped with a device in black; spine stamped in black and gilt. Front cover signed “K”: Troy and Margaret West Kinney.

•  Binding as above, light wear to extremities. Frontispiece recto with inked ownership inscription. A few scattered faint smudges; almost entirely clean. A nice copy of an attractive production.  (28609)

A Book Collector/Mixologist/Designer's Copy

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•  First edition of this attractive productiondesigned by Bruce Rogers with wide margins and uncut page edges. This is numbered copy 34 of 275 printed at the Riverside Press, with an additional spine label tipped in at the back.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with simple, nicely lettered bookplate of Broadway producer, printer, publisher, author of a famous mixological work, and collector Crosby Gaige (born Roscoe Conkling Gaige).

•  BAL12788.   Publisher's blue-gray paper–covered sides; spine with (chipped) printed paper label darkened and rubbed at tips, small areas of insect damage to front joint (showing more extensively inside at front hinge), and paper across back hinge (inside) partially cracked. Pastedown with bookplate as above. Uncut pages very faintly age-toned, otherwise clean. The extra spine label tipped to rear free endpaper.  (29723)

PoeticsPANNING the Spanish “Greats”

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•  Probably the most influential 18th-century Spanish study of poetics in general and Spanish poetics in particular. Luzán Claramunt was Spain's principal exponent of the Franco-Italian theories of poetics and though he failed miserably as a constructive critic, he practiced destructive criticism very effectively on the works even of Lope de Vega and Calderon!

Nicely printed with elegant large head- and tailpieces (one each), handsome initials, and a perfectly charming vignette of a bird after the volume's “FIN.”

•  Palau 144343.   Contemporary limp vellum, lacking the ties; fore- and top edges of vellum rodent gnawed, top corner of all leaves slightly rodent gnawed, some staining to early fore-edges and a few others. Text almost throughout browned from iron in water used in paper manufacture, sometimes heavily enough to make this a good example of the extreme of the phenomenon, sometimes lightly enough to be called just “foxing and spotting”; paper absolutely unweakened and volume fine for use.  (28390)

Illustrated Theatre Edition

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•  The earliest and best-known of all the tales of rural Scottish life published by “Ian Maclaren,” pseudonym of the popular author and preacher John Watson. This special illustrated theatre edition of the Rev. Watson's beloved work (originally published in 1894) features a photographic frontispiece of James H. Stoddart in the role of Lachlan Campbell, as well as five other scenes both comic and tragic. The final section of the volume is “A Doctor of the Old School,” a loving portrayal of stalwart practitioner Dr. William MacLure.

Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover with double iris design stamped in green, white, and violet.

•  Binding as above, minimal rubbing only. Pages and plates clean. A beautiful copy.  (28613)

Plays Elegantly Produced for TheirFirst Print Appearance

•  First edition. Francesco and Andrea Zucchi were responsible for the copperplate engraving for this work: The title-page bears a copperplate vignette, with four other copperplate vignettes and one decorated capital present as well as the oversized, folding plate. Giulio Cesare Becelli edited and introduced this collection of Maffei’s plays, providing what Gamba calls “tre erudite prefazioni.” The author was an archeologist and man of letters whose tragedy Merope (present here) achieved enormous popularity in not only his native Italy but also almost every country where translations appeared, including France, England, Germany, and Holland. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Gamba 2323; not in Brunet. Contemporary vellum over paste boards, outer edges yapp, spine with hand-inked title; vellum torn and partially lost over lower edge of front cover, with signs of wear and small spots of staining elsewhere. Ex-library, front pastedown with Italian institutional bookplate; yet volume otherwise free of markings. Title-page verso with affixed scrap of paper. Intermittently occurring light dampstaining in upper margins; otherwise clean.

If you don't mind those Chipped labels . . . QUITE Satisfactory!

•  Five-volume set of collected works by the celebrated 18th-century poet and librettist, with the first three volumes dedicated to his historical plays.

•  Contemporary vellum, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and gilt-stamped decorative bands; bindings lightly soiled, with spine labels chipped and rubbed, spines with shelving numbers in white. All page edges stained gold. Front pastedowns with institutional bookplates, title-pages with shadows of pencilled numerals. Vol. III lacking half-title. Intermittent light foxing, most pages clean. (14112)

Signed byArthur Miller & Leonard Baskin

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•  This Limited Editions Club copy (no. 880 of 1500 printed) is signed by both the playwright and the illustrator at the colophon.

The binding is full rusty-brown Nigerian goat, stamped in gold on the spine. The etchings are by Leonard Baskin, a series of five portraits tracing the downward spiral of Willy Loman — a powerful complement to Miller's portrait of a salesman at the end of his career and at the end of his rope! The plates, printed by Bruce Chandler, are each protected by a brown paper tissue guard. The book is designed by Benjamin Schiff, who chose a Bulmer font for the text.

This offering includes the monthly newsletter but not the mailing notice.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 540.   Binding as above. One of the tissue guards is loose but otherwise undamaged. Fine, in the original slipcase. A handsome production of one of the most performed plays in the world!  (21754)

First Peformed at Ludlow Castle 1634 — Comus with the Music

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•  John Milton was commissioned to write this masque by his good friend, Henry Lawes, for John, Earl of Bridgewater, on the occasion of his becoming President of Wales. It was first performed by Lawes himself and the Earl's children at Ludlow Castle in 1634. The masque's five songs were set to music composed by Henry Lawes, and this music is printed in two parts (for treble and bass clefs) on 12 pages immediately following the text. The prefatory materials to this edition, which is limited to 1500 copies, include an introduction to the play proper by Mark van Doren and an explanation of the music by Hubert Foss.

The illustrations consist of six full-page watercolors by Edmund Dulac. The LEC bibliography says they were “printed in process offset,” but this is in error: The mailing notice (not present with this offering) asserts they were “reproduced in six printings by the Sun Engraving Company,” and a member of the family that owned that enterprise observes to us that it did not in fact have offset presses — while it was noted for its color letterpress productions, including the original (1940) Szyk Haggadah. The design is by John Dreyfus, who chose a monotype Bembo font printed by the University of Cambridge Press; the engraving of the music was done by G.T. Friend.

The binding is quarter gold-stamped vellum with marbled paper sides; top edges are gilt.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 250.   Binding with a light, small stain on back cover. Clean inside; bookseller's small label on rear pastedown. Original slipcase, with light scuff marks and minor paper loss at head and foot of mouth. A fine book, in a very good slipcase.  (23002)

A Very Autobiographical Comedy

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•  First U.S. edition of this comedy about literary identity and the attentions paid to a successful author, based on a real-life incident in which a European baroness began to write to Moore following the appearance of his Evelyn Innes. This was a limited edition of 895 numbered copies, of which the present example is no. 351.

•  Publisher's quarter cream parchment paper and blue paper sides, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped leather title-labels, in original blue-gray paper dust jacket with black-stamped title and edition information; binding in beautiful condition, jacket with small edge chips and spine head splitting. Pages clean. A nice copy.  (29707)

Printed by Lydia Bailey — Hannah's Youthful Feminism?

[More, Hannah].

•  In her preface to The Search, More writes, "It has been so hackneyed a practice for Authors to pretend, that imperfect copies of their works had crept abroad, that the Writer of the following Pastoral is almost ashamed to allege this, as the real cause of the present publication." The first authorized edition appeared in 1773 although More (b. 1745) wrote it when she was 15 years old; the Yale Feminist Companion notes that her "improving pastoral play for girls' schools . . . celebrates women writers (760)."

The Search is in verse and Joseph in prose. The frontispiece is an engraving by B. Tanner after Stothard's original. Tanner was one of America's premier early engravers upon steel and copper. A student of Peter Maverick's, he settled in Philadelphia in 1805 and continued in the Quaker City until 1845. In addition to engravings for book illustration, he produced line and stipple portraits, scenes, and views. Here his offering is printed on a lighter weight stock than the rest of the volume and, as in all copies we have seen, is browned.

•  Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books, 442; Shaw & Shoemaker 23434. On Tanner, see: Stauffer, American Engravers upon Copper and Steel, I: 243–45. Beyond the scope of Welch. Publisher's salmon paper over paste boards. Clean with no tears. Frontispiece browned as noted, with two lighter spots. A very good copy.

The FIRST Press in Guatemala Memorializesuna Gran Fiesta

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•  On 14 August 1670 Pope Clement X confirmed the canonization of Mercedarian Pedro Pascual de Valencia (1227–1300) and a papal bull to the effect was issued. Its arrival in Guatemala was cause for the Mercedarians to plan and carry out a multi-day celebration that included the writing of poetry, the composing and singing of at least one villancico, the writing and performance of a short play, and other literary and religious events including sermons and special masses. All are described or transcribed here.

Guatemala was the fourth Latin American city to have a printing press (after Mexico, Lima, and Puebla de los Angeles); the press was brought at the instigation of the bishop of Guatemala, Payo Enríquez de Ribera, who wished to have a work of his own published. In reply to the bishop's appeal for a printer, it wasJosé Pineda Ibarra who arrived at Antigua in 1660. He had worked as an assistant to several printers in Mexico, but according to Medina did not have his own press; when Payo de Ribera's representative found him, he had moved to Puebla but was apparently not doing well there. (Medina does not list him as a printer in Puebla — presumably he was again working for others.) The bishop apparently paid for the press that was taken to Guatemala, and Pineda Ibarra later purchased it from him. Torre Revello (quoted in Furlong) remarks that despite the dearth of materials available to him in his new place of settlement, Pineda Ibarra managed to print exceedingly well: “Ningún tipógrafo de los que le sucedieron, durante el periodo colonial, logró superar la pulchritud y elegancia de sus trabajos.”

The various religious orders in Guatemala had promised to make it worth the while of a printer to come, by giving him commissions. Judging from the list of over 30 works Pineda Ibarra printed before 1674 — eulogies, sermons, constitutions, regulations, descriptions of religious festivities — the orders fulfilled their promise; his major productions, however, were Bishop de Ribera's Explicatio apologetica nonnullarum propositionum . . . , 1663, and Diego Saenz Ovecuri's La Thomasiada, 1667. Also a bookseller and binder, Pineda Ibarra died in 1679 and was succeeded in 1681 by his son, Antonio de Pineda Ibarra, under whom the press operated until 1721.

All 17th-century imprints from Guatemala are extremely rare: Searches of WorldCat, NUC Pre-1956, Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico, COPAC, and MetaBase fail to locate any copies of this one anywhere. We do know, however, of one copy in the Guatemalan national library itself.

Provenance: Marca de fuego on the upper edges of the text block of a Mercedarian convent. The marca does not matches those known to have been used in Mexico, leading one to believe this copy belonged to the Mercedarian convent in Guatemala.

•  Medina, Guatemala, 38. Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties; without the final blank leaf (only). A very nice copy of a very scarce early Guatemalan book.  (29425)

Well-Edited & Well-Produced

•  Edited by Montague Summers. Limited to 1340 sets, this one of 1250 on machine-made paper.

•  McKitterick/Rendall/Dreyfus 38. Quarter light brown publisher's buckram with cream Ingres paper sides. Cream paper label at top of spine. All edges untrimmed. Light dustsoiling. Bookplate on front pastedown of each volume. A rather nice set.

For a bit more OTWAY, review our
18TH/19TH-CENTURY PLAYS
    PDF-CAT — click here.

ITALIAN Comedias  

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•  Collection of early editions of four comedies by composer and playwright Parabosco. Two other plays are cited by Brunet as part of the overall work, but are not present here; Adams and some other sources describe the six pieces as separately issued. The plays included in this volume are L’Hermafrodito, Il Marinaio, Il Viluppo (with a publication line dated 1568), and Il Pellegrino.

•  Adams P238, P239, P246 (1560 ed. only), P243; Brunet, IV, 356. Contemporary vellum-covered boards, spine with inked title; vellum slightly soiled, with spine title faded. All edges stained blue. First title-page mounted and several leaves with outer margins or upper outer corners reinforced, two pages with loss of a few letters at upper outer corners. Second play lacking two preliminary leaves and final register leaf. Two leaves with annotations in an early inked hand, now faded; pages with intermittent mild waterstaining.

Third Lessons in ReadingALOUD, Illustrated

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•  Revised edition of this reader: Short pieces to be read aloud, with notes regarding proper pronunciation, accents, and expression — the whole providing a nice overview of contemporary literature considered appropriate for juveniles, emphasizing PERFORMANCE.

The poems, stories, and Christian meditations are illustrated with a number of in-text wood engravings, including an image of Marion's Men and one of the two Native American “Children in Exile” of J.T. Fields's poem; the front cover scene of a young boy declaiming to his mother and sister was engraved by John Karst after George White.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with ownership inscription of a Miss Brewer inked twice, once faintly as Harriet and once a little more darkly as Hattie (dated 1870); title-page same name in upper margin (very faint) and front cover with very very faint fourth signature.

•  Publisher's quarter sheep and printed paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and embossed stars within circles, all edges marbled (now faded); spine head chipped, corners bumped, general rubbing and paper darkened. Ownership indicia as above; early hand-coloring to title, probably Hattie's. Intermittent mild to moderate foxing.  (28421)

Mystic or Pragmatic Wife?

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•  First edition: Acclaimed play from a prominent Spanish realist author, addressing issues of class, materialism, and feminism.

•  Palau 220783.   Contemporary quarter maroon sheep and red pebbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations; spine attractively darkened, edges and extremities rubbed, sides with spots of discoloration. Front free endpaper with private shelf-code sticker; title-page with private collector's rubber-stamp. Pages age-toned, with some scattered small smudges or spots of light staining.  (29936)

Tributes to Lope de Vega by“Those Who Mattered”

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•  First edition of a tribute volume created on the occasion of the death of Lope de Vega with contributions frommore than 150 of his contemporary writers, both male and female. Sonnets, epigrams, extended poems, decimas, elegies in Spanish are joined by a sprinkling of pieces in Latin and Italian. Pérez de Montalván was a disciple of Lope's and knew just about everyone who was anyone in the Spanish literary circles of the first third of the 17th century, meaning the writers here are to be reckoned with. There is even a sonnet by Antonio Enríquez Gómez , the Sepharic crypto-Jew.

This is Pérez de Montalván's last publication: He suffered a mental breakdown just about when the book was published and died in 1638.

Provenance:  Bookplate of the eminent 19th-century collector Antonio Canovas del Castillo.

•  Palau 221664; Grease, IV, 582.   Late 19th-century quarter black morocco, round spine, raised bands, gilt tooling on spine; green textured paper over boards, marbled endpapers. Paper age-toned, some old water- and inkstains, some foxing. Underlining in sections in pencil (recent) and ink (old); occasional marginalia (including pointing fingers and old “brackets of emphasis”). A nice, satisfying old book.  (28540)

PhiladelphiaPoets, Playwrights, & Publishers BEWARE

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•  A well-done poetic skewering of prominent literary Philadelphians (poets, playwrights, journalists, periodical editors and publishers) of the mid–19th century as well as fulmination on some practices and events. Uncommon, as one would expect, asprivately printed.

•  Sabin 62915.   Publisher's plain dark gray boards, front cover with “Parnass” etched in an early hand; rubbed overall with front joint carefully repaired, spine and edges subtly restored with toned repair tissue. Ex-library, spine with remnants of paper shelving label, front pastedown with faint traces of now-absent bookplate, pencilled annotation along inner margin of first text page. Front pastedown with early pencilled note regarding contents. Light foxing, a bit of soiling.  (24837)

Dramatic Romance & Comic Opera
With HOT AIR BALLONS

Each: $450.00

Bifolia. [2] ff.
Each: $1000.00

•  Featured plays include Romeo and Juliet, Douglas, The West Indian, and "a new comic opera" called Robin Hood; or, Sherwood Forest. Secondary attractions range from dances to minor dramatic works to pantomimes, with sheets for consecutive evenings showing how a main attraction might be paired with a comedy one night and a musical entertainment the next.

These theatrical ephemera are quite scarce: While 19th-century examples are fairly common, a check of ESTC found only a few scattered instances of 18th-century Theatre-Royal playbills, none with more than one holding.

To view the list of PLAYBILLS, click here.

Shakespeare for the Parlor Shelf *&* the Sharp-Eyed Reader

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•  Pretty and portable, this is an elegantly, impressivelysmall-printed edition of Shakespeare's 34 plays, set in Diamond type in two columns by Corrall for William Pickering. Unillustrated but for the handsome frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare by H. Robinson dated 1832 (with Shakespeare's facsimile signature underneath) and one cute circular vignette, it rather wondrously represents the day when fonts were not scalable with the touch of a button but when such dense yet clear text as this was laid in the composing sticktiny lead letter by tiny, individual lead letter, and line by line.

A glossary at the end here defines select vocabulary.

Binding: Full moss green pebbled morocco, spine with raised bands and gilt extra; covers bordered with gilt double fillets and an interesting rod, vine, and flower frame gilt within that; gilt board edges and turn-ins. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  Robert George Arbuthnot (?) to Francis Edward Dumford, December 1857 (ink inscription, front fly-leaf verso).

•  Lowndes 2266; Keynes, Pickering, p. 88; Colbeck, A Bookman's Catalogue: The Norman Colbeck Collection (University of British Columbia Press, 1987), Vol. II, p. 976, no. 15.   Bound as above, rubbed at extremities; spine darkened to deeper green. Mild offsetting to yellow endpapers from turn-ins, very light foxing on some leaves mostly at the rear. Bookmark cut from an old envelope (“Official Business”) postmarked Washington, D.C., May 3, 1917. A sound, clean, lovely example of a beautiful little production.  (30119)

The Merchant of Venice — The “Theatres-Royal” Version!

•  Printed in double columns, with a few typographical ornaments, this appeared towards the end of a long run of successful Shakespearean productions at Drury Lane, in the year after Garrick had retired as manager of the theater.

•  ESTC T39238.   Removed from a nonce volume. Lacking the plate. Pages clean, with the last leaf separated but present.  (10160)

To view a small list entirely dedicated
          to SHAKESPEARE — click here.

Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne — Caesar & Cleo

•  This edition (limited to 1500 copies) of Two Plays for Puritans by George Bernard Shaw — the two plays being The Devil's Disciple and Caesar and Cleopatra — bears both a long preface by the author and notes written by him for each play.

George Him both illustrated and designed the book, and also signed the colophon. The book is heavily illustrated with a considerable number of black-and-white line-and-wash drawings and 14 full-page color illustrations which were hand-colored by the pochoir process at the studio of Walter Fischer. These drawings are both beautiful and witty. In one color plate, for example, we see a line of picketing Egyptian soldiers carrying placards reading, “Egypt for the Egyptians,” and “Caesar Go Home,” the latter appearing in “Egyptian Hieroglyphs”; in another plate, we are treated to a breathtaking scene of the library at Alexandria being consumed by fire; in yet another drawing, we see an amusing little rendering of Belzanor's description of a seven-armed wife-eating Roman soldier!

Him chose a monotype Plantin font for the text which was printed in Bloomfield, Connecticut, at the Sign of the Stone Book. The binding is full bright red “vellum book-cloth” stamped on the front with a double-eagle (one American, one Roman) design in gold, and stamped on the spine in black and gold leaf with a design of a Roman legionary standard bearing the title and the author's initials. The endpapers are “nugget-gold” Tweedweave.

This offering does not include the monthly newsletter or the mailing notice.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 381.   A fine copy with the slipcase, which is covered in “nugget-gold” paper and stamped in black and gold. Slipcase showing traces of rubbing at top and bottom. A great treat for a Shaw-lover!   (21756)

“The Leader of All Speakers in the Anti-Catholic Movement”
[NOT so much in theSpirit of the Season(s)]

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•  Scarce Detroit, Empire Theatre ephemerum promoting the “opportunity to hear the eloquent and brilliant ex-Romanist Margaret L. Shepherd.” Like Maria Monk, Shepherd had a wildly acclaimed — and highly profitable — run exploiting popular anti-Catholic bigotry before being discredited. Although she claimed to have been a consecrated penitent of Arnos Court Nunnery under the name Sister Magdalene Adelaide, it later turned out that Shepherd had been arrested for forgery under another alias, and apparently only ever came into contact with nuns by way of having been sent to an institution for fallen women.

Her lectures were so sensationalized that in Brooklyn a warrant was issued for her on obscenity charges. The current four-page publication describes the topics for three days' worth of lectures, some gender-segregated; admission to Shepherd's talks on the “unspeakable rascality and depravity of the priests of Rome” cost 25 cents per lecture, and this advertisement offers breathless testimonial to the shock value of the scandal revealed for such a reasonable fee. A portrait of Shepherd in nun's habit graces the front page.

We trace only one library copy: This one, now deaccessioned.

•  Folded as issued. Printed on pulp paper: moderately age-toned; creased, with short tears to outer edges. Fragile butnot disintegrating.  (30267)

THIS! TimePay Attention

•  Second edition. Sheridan entered Parliament in 1780, crowning his previous career as a successful playwright and theatre manager with a long and distinguished record of public service. He originally read the main portion of this statement before the House of Commons as part of the debate, after noticing that the gentlemen discussing the two bills in question appeared not to have paid “any very minute degree of attention” (p. 6) to the details of either one.
Single-click lefthand image,
for an enlargement.

The texts of both bills are present here, along with Sheridan’s analysis of how each would address “the question of right between the public and the [East India] Company” (p. 39).

•  ESTC T30944; Goldsmiths’-Kress no. 13610. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title label and spine with gilt-stamped leather author label. Half-title and several other pages stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages with edges untrimmed and a few small spots of staining; mostly, clean.

For more ENGLISH POLITICS,  click here.

“The Grammarian Must Either Associate with,
    or Submit Himself to, theMusician”

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•  Second, “amended and enlarged” edition of Steele’s treatise on the rhythm and accent patterns of English speech, comparing spoken language to music. Steele’s innovative, complex system of recording qualities of speech drew much attention in its time: Garrick, who had a snippet of one performance immortalized herein, was among the curious regarding the potential practical uses of Steele’s work in theatre, rhetoric, and other areas. The volume is illustrated with a number of in-text depictions of markings and symbols, as well as brief sections of music.

•  ESTC T46009; Lowndes, Bibliographer’s Manual, 2505; Deakin, Musical Bibliography, 48; Allibone, Critical Dictionary, 2232. 19th-century half textured cloth with paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and inked call number; binding worn and breaking, with text block starting to pull away from spine and sewing loosening at inner margins; several signatures separated. Title-page and dedication leaf institutionally pressure-stamped. Untrimmed page edges now brittle and starting to chip, with margins dustsoiled; first and last few leaves lightly foxed. Dried plant matter laid in between two leaves and newspaper clippings between two others, with offsetting in both cases. Not a pretty copy, but a usable and fascinating book.

Wharton as Translator

•  First edition, translated from the German by Edith Wharton: Sudermann’s play is about love, politics, and morality. It is not difficult to imagine Wharton’s attraction to this piece, in which one of the final lines uttered by the intelligent, sensitive, unhappily married heroine is “We are all expected to sacrifice our personal happiness to the welfare of the race!”

•  Garrison A7.1.a. Publisher’s olive paper–covered boards, front cover and spine stamped in gold; lacking the now seldom-seen dustwrapper, spine very slightly darkened, extremities showing touches of wear. Top edge gilt. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1903. Pages clean. A good-looking copy.

Tennyson Juvenilia fromthe Chaucer Press, Bungay

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•  First edition of this verse comedy written by the poet at the age of 14, edited by his grandson. 1500 copies were printed by R. Clay & Sons at the Chaucer Press, Bungay, on “Whitman hand-made paper”; an attractive label inside the back cover indicates that this copy was acquired (and/or the edition was distributed) by way of “The Times Book Club, 42 Wigmore Street, London, W.1.”

Binding:  Publisher's quarter parchment over handsome, textured, swirl-printed tan paper; spine with gilt-stamped author and title. Edges uncut.

•  Bound as above; corners bumped, spine darkened and rubbed, joints also rubbed. Title-page with small paper adhesion, one other page with light smudge, a little light dust-soiling along the uncut lower edges, otherwise clean.  (29724)

English/Latin Edition — Roman Comedy

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•  Third edition of Richard Bernard's translation of Terence, the first in English, with the Latin text preceding it before every scene; present here are the complete six comedies. The first edition was 1598.

•  Schweiger, II, 1079; ESTC S118348.   Contemporary calf, recently rebacked; spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped title and gilt date at base. Covers crudely blind-tooled in concentric compartments; clearly a provincial binding. “Ding” to top of front cover and bits of leather lost at at edges and corners of both covers; offsetting from leather along margins of endpapers and final page of text. Title-page mounted, with chips at corners, costing the first letter of title and a portion of three additional letters. Pages age-toned, with occasional soiling, some heavy soiling on title-page, and some mild foxing or the odd spot. A handful of leaves (including title-page) with extensive ownership signatures or penmanship trials in early inked hands, extending sometimes over type. Closely trimmed, in some cases into tops of letters of heading; chip at outer margin of pp. 175–76 without costing any text. Complete, despite irregular pagination.  (23771)

“Pretty Gitana tell us,
         What the Fates decree?”

•  Spoken lines and song lyrics for this romantic musical trifle, set in Spain and involving a pretty gypsy. The back and inside covers bear advertisements for Knabe & Co., manufacturer of grand, square, and upright piano fortes.

•  Good in printed paper wrappers, front cover and some page edges chipped.  (1003)

The Very Best Theatrical Excerpts, Selected with
“Rectitude & Morality” in Mind

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  “Comprising a great number of readings, recitations, dialogues and harangues, from the most celebrated tragedies, poems and speeches,” with directions for putting on amateur productions and aplate illustrating a stage set with scenery.

Binding:  Publisher's quarter red textured cloth over gold paper–covered sides, front cover with George Wevill's (signed) chromolithographic illustration in red, green, black, brown, and blue of a “perfect” orator wearing a toga — and also, wearingmagnificent Victorian whiskers!

•  Binding as above, moderately worn overall with small spots of discoloration. Title-page with inked ownership inscription dated 1872. Pages slightly age-toned; three leaves with faint lines of waterstaining in outer margins. With endpapers, 10 pages of ads present — and interesting.  (28444)

Still theSole Collected Edition

Wycherley, William.

•  Nonesuch Press limited-edition production of the only collected edition of Wycherley. 975 sets were produced, this example being number 99 of 900 on mould-made paper with the Nonesuch watermark. Present here are Wycherley’s letters and miscellaneous poems, as well as his cynical and often-licentious plays.

Provenance: With laid-in invoice from the Davenant Bookshop in Oxford, dated 1924.

•  McKittrick/Rendall/Dreyfus 17. Publisher’s quarter brown buckram over tan paper- covered sides, spines with printed paper labels; gently worn, two labels chipped, one volume with cloth of a darker shade and noticeable rippling thereto. Two volumes with hinges slightly tender. Page edges untrimmed, some signatures uncut. It should be remarked that, by some unexpected trick of the camera, our righthand picture above makes this set look a bit smarter than it is; that said, though — it is rightly priced for its real condition and still worthy of purchase.

One last chance to go to the
18TH/19TH-CENTURY
“PAMPHLET PLAYS”
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