Provenance:  Bookplate inside front wrapper of Lorraine & Horace Haynes.

•  Publisher's light-blue wrappers. Bookplate as above. Near fine.  (23669)

Provenance:  On front free endpaper in 18th-century hands: “del uso de Sor Maria Coleta,” lined through; below which, “del uso de Sor M[ari]a Juan Nep[umacen]a.

The printer has supplied two charming initials, an “I” and a “C.”

•  Medina, Mexico, 9208.   Publisher's limp vellum with remnants of ties. Occasional light foxing. Ownership signatures as noted.  (23966)

This edition was densely printed in roman type at the Sessa Press. It has a large woodcut on the title-page of St. Catherine receiving the Stigmata and a small xylograph on the colophon page of the famous Sessa printer's device of the cat and mouse.

All pre-17th-century editions are scarce if not rare. Of this edition we trace only four library copies in the U.S., and this is one, deaccessioned, of that quartet.

•  Index Aurel. 134.030; Essling 739; Sander 1819; Shaaber C268.   Later vellum. Library bookplate on front pastedown and rubber-stamp on closed bottom edges; shadow of erased pencilled call number on a front blank. Semicircular stain of varying extent (not ink, not water, not wax) to pages of central section and but a very few other stains; pleasantly clean. Early, excellent repair to margin of last leaf. (12228)

This is printed in Latin with a Spanish translation in the facing column, sidenotes, and a woodcut initial. A search of NUC Pre-1956, RLIN, and OCLC revealed only two copies of the constitution in addition to the one given in Palau.

•  Palau 27260. On Benedict XIV, see New Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 278. Removed from a nonce volume. Paper generally clean and crisp with a few small spots of foxing and waterstaining. Paper closely trimmed by binder, shaving some sidenotes.

•  Publisher's rust ribbed cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine gilt-stamped; spine sunned, corners and spine extremities lightly rubbed. Preface with rubber-stamped numeral in lower margin. Intermittent light foxing due to paper of the era. Excellent copy.  (21944)

The play's length is that of a "filler" piece in a jam-packed 19th-century theatrical night of three or four plays (or parts thereof) and other "entertainments"—or, the length of a school or home production. The style is distinctly amateur/naive. E.g., the euphonious exotic names are far from consistently Chinese and one character is "carried [from his 'chinese cottage'] to the ganges"; the author confuses exit and exeunt ("Exeunt Priest")—we wonder if this blithe vagueness as to geography and world cultures, and the seeming lack of even basic classical education, suggest a lively-minded and enthusiastically play-going but unrigorously schooled female writer?

Provenance: Gift inscription: "Horace W. Smith, Esq. to W.W., 1863." A pencil note says "By J. Howard Payne in his handwriting, W.W."—but the handwriting does not match that of Payne's MSS. at Yale and Brown Universities.

•  First leaf dust-soiled and now separated. Edges of some leaves chipped costing a few letters and, very rarely, an entire word; lost letters and words are easily supplied by context. Comfortable, for working with.

The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical was an assemblage of rulings given equal force with the canon law, although the rulings themselves were not based on canon law.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 10076; ESTC S101555.   Removed from a nonce volume. A very nice, clean copy with an array of marginal markings — Xs, asterisks, “vid.,” and the odd hand-with-pointing-finger. (21226)

•  Publisher's quarter red cloth with printed paper covers. Very nice condition.  (21630)

signed pictorial binding done by "B.S."

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover stamped in black, white, and gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title; spinal extremities and one bit of stamping very slightly rubbed, else clean and nice. (12247)