WOMEN 
Women as Writers, Editors, Translators, Illustrators, & Printers
Books By, For, & About Women
PreCivil
War
AMERICAN
BASEBALL
Reference,
with
Illustrations
of Many Games
Babcock, Sidney.
Juvenile pastimes; or
girls'
and boys' book of sports. New Haven: S. Babcock, 1849. 16mo (11 cm, 4.3"). 16
pp.; illus.
$1650.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of this children's
chapbook about games and sports: As seen in other reported
copies, the title-page here is dated 1849 and the front wrapper 1850. The games
described (and, in most cases, illustrated) are marbles, soap bubbles, skipping
rope, touch or tag, flying kites, graces, leaping with a pole, playing ball,
Puss in the corner, bows and arrows, the swing, see-saw, shuttlecock, and trundling
hoop — each usually tagged for “gender appropriateness.”
Games mentioned under “playing ball” include Base-Ball, Trap-Ball, Cricket, Up-Ball, Catch-Ball, and Drive Ball; there are two accompanying illustrations, one larger labelled “A party of ball players” and one small in-text scene of a boy at bat.
Publisher's printed peach-yellow paper wrappers, back wrapper with short closed tear from outer edge. A bit of foxing; two small spots to front cover and a few other light or even faint instances otherwise. An unusually clean, attractive copy. (27335)
Women's Lives . . .
Baird, Robert. Transplanted flowers, or memoirs of Mrs. Rumpff, daughter of John Jacob Astor, Esq. and the Duchess de Broglie, daughter of Madame de Stael. New York: John S. Taylor, 1847. 12mo. Frontis., 159, [1] pp.
$87.50
Later edition of these accounts of the lives of Eliza Astor Rumpff and Albertine Ida Gustavine de Stael-Holstein, Duchess de Broglie, preceded by an engraved portrait of the former and by Lydia Sigourney's poem "Transplanted Flowers." Memorialized more briefly are Mrs. Grandpierre and Mrs. Monod. Publisher's blind-stamped textured cloth, spine gilt-stamped; binding lightly worn, with spine gilt rubbed and dimmed. Front pastedown with bookplate of J.E. Vanderhoef, front free endpaper with early inked inscription of Susan A. Baker. Some foxing to endpapers and a few scattered spots to pages; internally mostly clean. (8958)

An “Interesting Female's” Religion — Her Life, Letters, & Example
Barfield, Mary (Samuel Summers, ed.). Memoirs of the late Mrs. Mary Barfield, of Thatcham; (formerly Miss Summers, of Hammersmith;) with extracts from her correspondence. London: B.J. Holdsworth, 1821. 12mo (19.3 cm, 7.6"). iv, 139, [1] pp.
$450.00
Scarce sole edition: Biography and epistles of a pious Christian woman, “an interesting female, whose lot was cast in the middle rank of life, and who was nurtured in privacy . . . [yet] manifested a conduct, worthy of imitation beyond the confined sphere in which she moved” (p. 2). In publisher's binding, pages uncut.
Click the images for enlargements.
WorldCat and OPAC locate
only one copy anywhere (at the British Library).
NSTC 2S46400. Publisher's light blue paper–covered boards and tan paper shelfback, edges nicked/chipped and sides soiled; rebacked with tan cloth. Ex–defunct library: covers pressure-stamped along spine, cover with small paper shelving label, title-page and several others rubber-stamped, back free endpaper with old pocket and chargeslip. Text with the odd light spot only; despite library service, in fact a clean sound copy. (27821)
SIGNED
Binding by
Amy Richards
Barr, Amelia
E. A daughter of Fife. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co., (© 1886,
but really ca. 1895–1905). 12mo. 335, [1] pp.
$30.00

Later edition (no date on title, unchanged copyright date, later
binding): Scottish romance from a
popular
novelist and women's rights activist.
Binding:
Publisher's green cloth, spine and front cover stamped in darker green and
silver in an art nouveau design of tall thistle-like flowers. Binding
signed “AR” — Amy Richards, fl. 1896–1918.
Click
the image for an enlargement.
Wright, III, 317 (for the first ed.). Binding slightly
cocked, very good condition. Front fly-leaf with pencilled gift inscription
dated 1899, front free endpaper with later pencilled inscription. Clean and
quite nice! (12905)

“Beard's Disease”: Nervous Exhaustion in the U.S.
Beard, George M. American nervousness its causes and consequences. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1881. 12mo (19.3 cm, 7.55"). Frontis., xxii, 352, [8 (adv.)] pp.
[SOLD]
Dr. Beard, an early American neurologist and electrotherapist, is credited as the discoverer of neurasthenia (“nervous weakness”), and one of the first physicians to attribute that ailment to the fast pace and pressures of industrialized 19th-century society, among other causes. This volume opens with a chart depicting degrees of general nerve sensitiveness and “evolution of nervousness” — with dyspepsia at the bottom of the scale and insanity at the top.
There is quite a lot here on women (canvassing national types of “female beauty” among other things), and a good deal on the education of children; Beard was also interested in mesmerism and notes that Americans are more susceptible than other nationalities to trances! — a good example of the kind of pronouncement that makes this book
a bit of a page-turner.
Not in Garrison & Morton. Publisher's brick-colored cloth, spine with gilt-stamped author/title/publisher; binding slightly cocked, lightly rubbed with areas of minor discoloration. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label (hand-inked) on spine, call number on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-page (lightly offset onto frontispiece), no other markings. Pages gently age-toned, otherwise clean. (27856)

Decadence in the “Yellow Nineties”
Beardsley, Aubrey, & Henry Harland.
The yellow book an illustrated quarterly. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane; Boston: Copeland & Day, 1894–97. 4to (21 cm, 8.25). 13 vols. I: 272 pp.; 14 plts. II: 360, [2] pp.; 22 plts. III: 279, [1] pp.; 15 plts. IV: 285, [1] pp.; 17 (1 double) plts. V: 317, [1] pp.; 14 plts. VI: 335, [1] pp.; 16 plts. VII: 318, [2] pp.; 20 plts. VIII: 406 pp.; 26 plts. IX: 256 pp.; 17 plts. X: 344 pp.; 13 plts. XI: 342 pp.; 12 plts. XII: 344 pp.; 14 plts. XIII: 316, [2] pp.; 17 plts.
$1500.00
Click the images for enlargements.

The (in)famous embodiment of fin-de-siècle aestheticism,
in a complete set of early issues,
without publisher's advertisements but also without later edition statements.
This is a largely uncut set of
all
13 volumes of the quarterly Yellow Book, featuring
Aubrey Beardsley as art director and illustrator of the first four volumes.
Present here are stories by Henry James, Ella D'Arcy, Kenneth Grahame, Henry
Harland, and Hubert Crackanthorpe; poetry by Richard Le Gallienne, Olive Custance,
and Leila Macdonald; articles by Max Beerbohm, Arthur Waugh, and James Ashcroft
Noble; art by Sir Frederic Leighton, Walter Sickert, Laurence Housman, and of
course Beardsley; with many other contributors represented.

Publisher's yellow cloth, covers and spines variously stamped
in black with those famous designs; bindings generally moderately worn (especially
to spine tips) and lightly dust-soiled, one volume with spine head (?)nibbled.
Many signatures unopened; with a little care and cleverness, reading quite
possible despite this.
Pages and plates clean. (26698)

Gold & Silver Conversion Tables
from
the Press of a Woman Printer
Berdugo, Nicolás. Reducciones de plata, y oro a las leyes de 11. diner. y 22. quilat. valores de una y otra especie por marcos, onzas, ochav. tomin. y gran. como S. Mag. (que Dios guarde) lo manda en sus novissimas reales ordenanzas, expedidas en 1. de agosto de 1750. Cuyas reducciones, y valores el Excmo. Sr. Conde. de Revilla Gigedo ... mandò imprimir. Mexico: Impr. de Doña Maria de Rivera, 1752. Small 8vo (14.8 cm; 5.875"). [15] ff., 324 pp.
$1450.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Mining was one of the chief industries of colonial Mexico, and after a century of decline during the 1600s, the 18th century saw a renaissance in ore extraction, chiefly due to new technologies that made it possible to rework old ore and to achieve higher than previously imagined levels of silver and gold extracted from newly mined ore. Berdugo's work is a vade mecum of conversion tables of values for gold of different carats and for silver of different values of purity.
The work was
absolutely essential for all merchants and other business people, and for government workers in the treasury department — for milled coins were the exception in Mexican commerce, cob pieces the norm, and raw gold and silver, including dust, were extremely common.
The volume ends with the “Reglas varias, para sacar juntos, o separados en pasta, o en moneda los reales derechos, que se pagan a S. Mag. De el oro y de la plata, y para reducir a toda su ley estos metales.”
An uncommon economic work: We trace fewer than nine copies in the U.S.
This was printed by Doña Maria de Rivera with a red and black title-page, and with woodcut arms on first dedication page. The charming cut of a herald cherub appears after the decima dedicated to the author at the end of the preliminaries.
Medina, Mexico, 4073. Contemporary full Mexican calf, modestly tooled in gilt and with all edges red; recased, new endpapers. Final two leaves little ragged at edges costing a few letters and with small hole at center and short tears at inner margin; old staining and age-toning/browning throughout.
There is every indication that this well-produced little volume saw time “in the field”! (26850)
Bethune, George W., ed. Pearls from the British female poets. New York: World Publishing House, 1876. 8vo (23.8 cm, 9.4"). Frontis., xv, [1], [13]–490 pp.
$250.00
Early edition, following the first of 1869. In addition to many familiar names, this volume collects poems by some now lesser-known authors (Mary Tighe, Amelia Opie, and others), with
brief biographies provided. The first edition was illustrated, as this one claims to be on the title-page; but only the engraved frontispiece portrait, present with its tissue guard, is actually called for.
Binding: Publisher’s full sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label.
Binding as above, joints starting, rubbed over edges and extremities, spine darkened and scraped, leather lost over head of spine. All edges marbled. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Pages clean.
On
the Legitimacy
of
Divorce
Bèze, Théodore
de. Tractatus de repudiis et divortiis, in quo pleraeque de causis
matrimonialibus (quas vocant) incidentes controversiae ex Verbo Dei deciduntur.
Additur Iuris Civilis Romanorum, & veterum his de rebus Canonum examen,
ad ejusdem Verbi Dei, & aequitatis normam. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina
Francisci Moyardi (colophon: Philippi de Croy), 1651. 12mo (12.3 cm, 4.9").
[8], 315, [13 (index)] pp.
$475.00


17th-century printing: Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza's treatise on Reformed Church doctrine regarding marriage and divorce, originally published in 1569. Beza here argues that a betrothal may be annulled and that adultery and desertion are scripturally sanctioned grounds for divorce, whereas other causes are inventions of civil law. Another edition appeared in the same year, adding Beza's treatise on polygamy, but that work is neither called for nor present here.
Click the images for enlargements.
This ed. not in Brunet. 19th-century plain paper–covered boards, spine with hand-inked paper label; bindingstained and rubbed, spine faded, paper chipped at joints and extremities. Front pastedown with traces of now-absent bookplate and with early inked numeral; front free endpaper with early inked inscription of G.G. Gumpelzhaimer. Light waterstaining to upper and outer portions of first few leaves, occasional light staining elsewhere, pages generally clean overall. All edges red. (26311)


(Bible Womanly Provenance). English. 1774.
Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”). The Holy Bible, containing
the Old Testament and the New: Translated out of the original tongues, and with
the former translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesty’s
special command. Oxford: T. Wright & W. Gill, 1774. 12mo (17.5 cm, 6.9").
[840] pp.
$700.00
Nicely bound copy of this Wright and Gill publication, which joined an octavo edition by the same publishers in the same year. This Bible is without the Apocrypha, as issued; some copies are described as ending with leaf Qq12, although the present example closes on Mm12 with the words “The End.”
Provenance: Front pastedown with red leather bookplate gilt-stamped “Sarah Jeaffreson.” Also with tipped-in bookplate of the Zion Research Library’s A. Marguerite Smith Collection and with laid-in bookplate of the Endowment for Biblical Research, Boston.
Binding: Red goat, covers framed in floral gilt rolls and spine compartments with gilt-stamped geometric and floral decorations; very delicate and pretty. Board edges gilt, gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt.
ESTC T91635; Darlow & Moule 1238. Binding moderately rubbed and abraded with spine slightly darkened; corners bumped and lower one of front cover discolored at leather-edge; gilt on edges faded almost away. Inside some age-toning, with a handful of small, light spots; one leaf torn along inner margin. Back fly-leaf with pencilled notation; scattered stray pencil marks to other leaves. A pleasing little Oxford Bible.

Saur Psalms 1777 — Elizabeth Bernhardin's Copy
Bible. O.T. Psalms. German. Luther. 1777. Das kleine Davidische Psalterspiel der Kinder Zions. Germantown: Gedruckt bey Christoph Saur, 1777. 8vo (16.7 cm, 6.5"). [6], 572, [22] pp.
$800.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Fourth printing in America of the German metrical psalms; from the press of the man to print the first German Bible in America, which was also the first Bible printed in the New World in a European language. Printed in double-column format, without the music — except for two hymns, 537 and 576. An additional printed hymn was
stitched
to the back free endpaper some time ago.
Provenance: Front fly-leaf with attractively inked inscription: “Dieses gesangbuch gehörer mit Elizabeth Bernhardin. 1780" (fraktur-like, but without color) and an additional early inked inscription beneath.
Evans 15242; Hildeburn 3624; Arndt & Eck 492; ESTC W20982. Contemporary mottled calf with remnants of two original clasps, covers framed in double blind fillets, spine quite plain with raised bands and no labels; mildly rubbed overall, leather with small cracks at joints and spine, front joint expertly strengthened. Ex-library, front pastedown with bookplate and rubber-stamp; two other leaves but not the title-page with stamps; back pastedown with old pocket. Pages moderately browned and spotted, not excessively so for this type of production; a few corners dog-eared. Solid and, with its old “personalizations,” pleasing. (27902)
First
Published Complete
Bible Translation by
a WOMAN
The
“Julia Smith”
Bible
Bible.
English. 1876. Smith. The Holy Bible: Containing
the Old and New Testaments; translated literally from the original tongues.
Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1876. 8vo (25.5 cm, 10"). [2], 892, 276 pp.
$6500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First and only edition of this interestingly nonconformist translation, done by a vocal suffragist known for protesting the taxation of unenfranchised women. Julia Evelina Smith (1792–1886), one of the five celebrated, talented siblings sometimes referred to as the “Marvelous Smith Sisters of Connecticut,” became a member of the Sandemanian sect after much independent religious study. She chose to have her private labor of love published to serve as a public demonstration of the intellectual capabilities of women, rebuking one dubious banker with the comment that she “thought it just as well to spend money to print this Bible as to put it into a thousand-dollar shawl” (New York Times, 9 March 1886).
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)
For
TRANSLATIONS, click here.
Bible. English.
1833. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”). The
Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated out of the
original tongues...with Canne’s marginal references. Together with the Apocrypha
and index...by Hervey Wilbur. New York: N. & J. White, 1833. 4to (28 cm, 11").
[2], 527 (33 numbered as 38), [1], 78, [6 (blank)], 168, 10, [4], 13–30
pp. (lacking final leaf); 4 plts. (lacking frontis. to O.T.)
$475.00

Stereotyped by James Conner, this American Bible Society–approved
edition is printed with John Canne’s cross-references in central columns
running down the middle of each page, and is accompanied by Hervey Wilbur’s
additional reference material. The volume is illustrated with four engravings
from designs by W. Hoogland, with
two
of the four plates described as having been etched by Miss H.V. Bracket
— about whom, readily, we can discover nothing.
Binding: Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title label, gilt-stamped bands, and a small square decorative gilt device in each compartment.
Provenance:
20th-century booklabel of collector Michael Zinman on front pastedown;
laid-in slip reading “A Chrismas preasent [sic] to Miss Nettie
Holding given by Mary E. Hunt.”
Apparently identical to Hills 773 (1832 ed.), with this ed. not described. Moderately rubbed but showing less acid-pitting than is often seen on this type of leather, spine with a small puncture and leather starting to show slight cracking. Front free endpaper torn and separated; lacking frontispiece (not by Miss Bracket) and final leaf (an etymological chart). A few laid-in slips of paper, some with notes or figures in an early hand; one pencilled marginal note. Browning and spotting ranging from imperceptible to moderate; some corners dog-eared. A volume sound for use and pleasant to see on the shelf.

Sarah Leverett's
French Bible
(Bible Womanly Provenance). Bible. French. 1839–40. Martin. La Sainte Bible...revue...par David Martin.... New York: Stéréotypé par Henry W. Rees, pour la Société Biblique Americaine, D. Fanshaw, Imprimeur, 1839–40. 8vo. 819 [1 (blank)] pp., 261, [1 (blank)] pp.
$525.00
Only the second edition in the U.S. of the Martin edition of the French Bible. (Prior to 1835, the American Bible Society favored using the text of the 1805 French Bible.) This copy is exquisitely bound in full black leather in good imitation of morocco, elaborately stamped in gold on the covers forming a five-element frame or border, with gilt tooling on the board edges and with gilt inner dentelles. The spine has slightly raised bands and elaborate gold stamping in its compartments.
The name "Sarah B. Leverett" is lettered in gilt on the front cover, and the same name is given in precise gothic calligraphy on the front free endpaper.
This is the second copy of this Bible that we have had and we are convinced that this is a
publisher's deluxe leather binding. A choice of colors was apparently available, for the other copy we had was of an olive-green color.
Not in O'Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule. Bound as above, corners a little bumped with a bit of long ago refurbishing thereto, dulling outermost elements of gilt border (only) on front cover, just at those corners. Faint waterstaining in lower inside area for the first few pages (only). The whole very attractive and well preserved.
A
Family Bible
in an
ORNATE
Binding Harriet's!
(Bible Womanly
Provenance). Bible.
English. 1850. Authorized (i.e., "King James Version").
The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. New York: American Bible
Society, 1850. 4to (27.7 cm, 10.875"). [1] f., 928 pp., [2 (family records)]
ff., pp. [929][930], 9311213, [1214].
$550.00

Beautifully bound large-quarto family Bible. Two leaves of records
of the Harrison family, including notice of the young deaths of two daughters
and the death of the husband, are bound in between the Testaments: Inserted
is a note from one of the girls to her father.
Binding:
Pebbled black leather sumptuously gilt: The covers tooled with a design composed
of a base and pavilion formed of foliated C and S curve volutes enclosing
fine foliated strapwork. Ornate columns support the pavilion, which encloses
a shell. From the base hang a pair of acroteria, and the base supports a vase
of flowers on a rocaille. Board edges gilt-rolled; gilt inner dentelles.
Spine divided into compartments by narrow raised bands: Each compartment with
a frame of treble fillets, within the second compartment the title gilt-lettered,
the remaining compartments ornamented within by fine foliated filigree. All
edges gilt.
Provenance:
Presentation copy to Harriet E. Henderson with her name in gilt centered on
the front cover.
Not in Hills; not in Herbert; not in O'Callaghan. Binding as
above with a few barely noticeable small abrasions. A few spots of light staining
on some pages.
As
nice an example of this kind of Bible "production" as you are ever going to
find.
To
access the full BIBLES “aisle,”
click
here.



A Man Scorned? Or One Satirizing a Genre?
Boccaccio, Giovanni. Laberinto d'amore. Con una epistola a messer Pino de Rossi confortatoria del medesimo autore e di nuovo corretto. [colophon: Vinegia: per Pietro di Nicolini da Sabio, 1536]. Small 8vo (15.5 cm; 6"). 72 ff.
$1600.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
A handsome copy of this well-printed Renaissance edition of Boccaccio's problematic work about a man jilted or scorned, written in the 1360s. As to the complicated nature of the content, its relation to Boccaccio's life, and its date of composition, we refer the reader to Brown University's “Decameron Web,” where Dr. Guyda Armstrong writes that in it “Boccaccio demonstrates his familiarity with the canon of classical and medieval antifeminist texts, and succeeds in creating what
is practically an encyclopaedia of the genre.”
The work is now generally better known under the title Il Corbaccio, although all editions use the title found here. As one would expect with a Venetian-printed Renaissance work of literature, the text is in italic type; and this was printed early enough in the 16th century that the title-page offers a charming four-element architectural woodcut border.
Binding: Finely bound in 19th-century English straight-grained red morocco, with ornamental gilt border to covers, gilt-extra panelled spine, and two black leather spine labels. Board edges with a gilt roll; complex gilt inner dentelles and marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.
Graesse, Trésor de Livres rares, I, 455; Brunet, I, 1016.; Index Aurel. 120.267. Not in Adams. Bound as above; spine lightly faded and front cover with two small spots. Some small, light stains in text (only); generally, a very good copy. (25054)
A
Missionary's Melodrama
Boyce, John (a.k.a.,
“Paul Peppergrass”).
Mary Lee, or the Yankee in Ireland. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet; Boston: P.
Donahoe, 1864. 8vo. Frontis., engr. title-page, 391pp.
$85.00
Click
the images for enlargements.
Later edition of this novel of romance and intrigue, set in Ireland,
in which a Connecticut con man tries to woo the fair Mary Lee. The work was
originally issued serially in Metropolitan Magazine (Baltimore) but was
not published in that city until 1860 by Kelly, Hedian & Piet with a copublication
in Boston by P. Donahoe; the author (who published the novel under the pseudonym
“Paul Peppergrass”) was
an
Irish-born Catholic priest who arrived in the U.S. in 1845
as a missionary.
This edition illustrated with a wood-engraved frontispiece and added tittle-page
by “Harley.”
Not in Wright, but see II, 329 for the second edition of 1860.
Publisher's green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding cocked,
edges and extremities rubbed, top and bottom of spine with slight loss of
cloth. Scattered very light foxing. (26908)
Bremer, Fredrika. The homes of the New World; impressions of America. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1853. 12mo (20.2 cm, 7.9"). 2 vols. I: xii, 651, [1 (blank)] pp. II: 654,2 (adv.) pp.
$350.00

First American edition. Howitt, an English Quaker, published a number of volumes of poetry; here she translates novelist Bremer’s epistolary“impressions of America” — Die Heimath in der Neuen Welt, being a “detailed and amiable record of an extensive tour,” as Howes describes it — from the original Swedish into English. Names are named, places are limned, the wrongs of slavery are a recurring motif.
Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.
The first London edition appeared in three volumes, but the present edition in two, as stated on the title-page.
Howes B-745. Publisher’s charcoal blind-stamped cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; cloth showing mild wear overall, with spine gilt attractively oxidized. Front free endpapers with pencilled owner’s inscription dated 1869. Pages slightly age-toned, with scattered small spots of staining. Quite a nice set.

Works of the
Brontë Sisters
Brontë, Anne; Charlotte; & Emily. The Shakespeare Head Brontë. Oxford: Basil Blackwell & Houghton Mifflin Co. (pr. at the Shakespeare Head Press), 1931. 11 vols. 8vo (24 cm, 9.45"). I [Charlotte]: Frontis., x, [2], 312 pp.; 2 plts. II: Frontis., [6], 284 pp.; 2 plts. III: Frontis., [8], 351 pp.; 2 plts. IV: Frontis., [6], 362 pp.; 2 plts. V: Frontis., [8], 319, [1] pp.; 2 plts. VI: Frontis., [6], 313, [1] pp.; 2 plts. VII: Frontis., [10], 283, [1] pp.; 1 plt. I [Anne]: Frontis., [8], 220 pp.; 2 plts. II: Frontis., xi, [1], 282 pp.; 2 plts. III: Frontis., [6], 278 pp.; 1 plt. I [Emily]: Frontis., xii, 385, [1], 9, [1] pp.; 1 plt.
$1500.00
Click the interior images for enlargement.
Large-paper issue of this 11-volume set of the works of all three Brontë sisters, illustrated by Jack Hewer with a total of 30 architectural and landscape views. The novels are complete here, including Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor. (There were several additional volumes of miscellaneous writings, letters, and biography published in this “Shakespeare Head” series, which was not complete until 1938; they are not part of this set.)
The lovely illustrations are of real places fictionally transfigured in the novels . . .
Of the 1000 copies printed of this, 500 were printed on large paper and reserved for issue in America. The present example (numbered 452) is of the large paper size and in green cloth; it is not clear to us by what rule copies were bound in this green cloth and which in the orange reported elsewhere.
NCBEL, III, 865. Original green cloth, spines with printed paper labels, lacking the dust wrappers (which are scarce and almost never seen); labels darkened, a few starting to peel up at corners. Pages untrimmed, with some signatures unopened. A beautiful, clean example of this set. (24629)
Brook,
Mary. Reasons for the necessity of silent
waiting, in order to the solemn worship of God...third edition. London: Mary
Hinde, 1775. 8vo (20 cm, 7.9"). [2], 31, [1 (blank)] pp.
$325.00
Third edition of Brook’s explication of the principles underlying
Quaker worship practices, issued by a woman printer — Mary Hinde, successful
printer and publisher of numerous Quaker items.
ESTC T65811. Recent wrappers. Pages age-toned, with a few small spots.
Browne, Isaac Hawkins. Poems upon various subjects, Latin and English. London: J. Nourse, 1768. 8vo (24 cm, 9.4"). [10], 160 pp. (frontis. lacking).
$150.00

First edition of these poems, published posthumously by the author’s son; of two similar issues printed in the same year, this was the one meant for the general public, with the other intended for private circulation only. Browne was a notably witty and amiable conversationalist whose company (though not his public speechmaking) was prized by Dr. Johnson; he is best remembered today for his poems “A Pipe of Tobacco” (“Blest leaf! Whose aromatic gales dispense / To templars modesty, to parsons sense”) and “De Animi Immortalitate,” a meditation on the immortality of the soul — both of which are included here, the latter with Soame Jenyns’s English translation.
Fun
is poked at the Ladies gently.
ESTC T116967. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Frontispiece lacking; title-page and a few others stamped by a now-defunct institution. Inner margins of the first two leaves and outer margin of the final leaf repaired.
For
Books for the BUSTED
BIBLIOPHILE, click
here.

Complete
Barrett Browning
— Miller's
“Blue-&-Gold Edition”
Browning,
Elizabeth Barrett. Poems by Elizabeth
Barrett Browning from the last London edition, corrected by the author [with]
Essays on the Greek Christian poets and the English poets. New York: James Miller,
1866. 12mo (14.4 cm, 5.6"). 5 vols. I: Frontis., 384 pp. II: 408 pp. III: [8],
400 pp. IV: 242, [2 (adv.)] pp. V: 233, [3 (adv.)] pp.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
Four volumes collecting Barrett Browning's verse, issued in uniform with an
additional volume containing her essays on the Greek Christian and the English poets. The first
volume opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the poet.
Binding: Publisher's bright
blue cloth (Krupp's style Wav3), covers blind-stamped, spines with gilt-stamped
title in decorative gilt frame. All edges gilt.
On binding cloth,
see: Krupp, Bookcloth, 43. Bindings as above, minor wear to extremities,
front cover of vol. V and spine of vol. I with small spots of discoloration. Each front free
endpaper with inked gift inscription (“Lizzie C. Alvord From Mother,” dated 1868). Pages
clean. A beautiful, very gift-worthy set. (26864)
Buckingham & Chandos, Anna Elizabeth Grenville, Duchess of, Respondent. [drop-title] Appeal from the High Court of Chancery. ...Anna Eliza Dutchess of Chandos..., appellant, ...Anna Eliza Brydges [& others]..., respondents. The case of the respondents. [London, 1795]. Folio (45.1 cm, 17.75"). 13, [1] pp. [bound with] Chandos, Anna Eliza Brydges, Duchess of, Appellant. [drop-title] House of Lords. ...Case of the Appellant. [London, 1795]. Very tall folio (45.1 cm, 17.75"). 3, [1], 4 pp.
$200.00
An appeal from the High Court of Chancery to the House of Lords concerning the will of James, Duke of Chandos, the appellant being his wife, and the respondent being his daughter. This case bears a few manuscript notes, including one on the last page of the case for the respondents, “Le Roy le Veult/Soit Baillé aux Segnieurs” (“The King wills it; let it be delivered to the Lords”)—denoting a judgement in the respondent’s favor (judgment was given on 20 November 1795).
ESTC T214094 & T214093. Removed from a nonce volume: Sewn edge guillotined halfway down and the whole once folded in half; tearing and a little soiling along the fold with loss of individual words, and, in the second work (the Case of the Appellant), the upper half of p. 13 fully detached. Shallow tattering and soiling along edges. Manuscript notes as above.
Little
Lord Fauntleroy
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. Little lord Fauntleroy. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1890. 8vo., xi, [1 (blank)], 269, [1] pp.; 14 integral plts. (incl. frontis.), illus.
$150.00


Early English edition (1st was New York, 1886) of this American author's most famous novel, wildly popular well into the 20th century and memorably made into a film starring Freddy Bartholomew. This edition is amply illustrated with plates (integral to pagination) and in-text pictures also.
Binding: Publisher's red pictorial cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black, brown, and gilt.
Good++: Some soiling to binding; light to moderate foxing internally. (8539)

Japan during the
Years of Seclusion, for an American Audience
Busk, Mary Margaret, & Philipp Franz von Siebold. Manners and customs of the Japanese, in the nineteenth century. From the accounts of recent Dutch residents in Japan, and from the German work of Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1841. 12mo (15.7 cm, 6.2"). Add. engr. t.-p., [2], 298 pp.
$150.00
First U.S. edition, printed in the same year as the London first, here part of Harper's “Family Library” series. The volume was edited by Mrs. William Busk (Mary Margaret Busk), an author and literary critic; Busk nicely summarized what was then known of Japan via the Dutch traders at Dejima, using as her sources not only the writings of von Siebold, but also those of Engelbert Kaempfer, Hendrik Doeff, Germain Felix Meylan, and Overmeer Fischer. The additional title-page bears a steel-engraved vignette depicting a Japanese man courting a fan-wielding lady, and there are chapters on “Social and Domestic Life,” “Language, etc.,” and the “Religion of Japan.”
Click the images for enlargements.
Binding: Publisher's olive-brown vermiform embossed cloth of Krupp's style Mis1, spine with gilt-stamped series and individual title.
American Imprints 41-3339; Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 475–76. Binding as above, cocked and front board slightly warped, sides with light discolorations; spine faded and head with strip of dark cloth tape extending onto sides. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number on front pastedown, first three leaves pressure-stamped, no other markings. First half of volume with pages faintly waterstained in upper portions and cockled; a sound book and as good a “read” as it was for the club members. (26428)
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