Binding: Signed binding (with Bilbao’s ticket on front pastedown) of oxblood morocco, front and back covers framed in a wide gilt roll surrounding gilt-stamped coat of arms of Francesco de Assisi de Bourbon, Duc de Cadiz (consort to Isabella II of Spain); spine with four raised bands, compartments gilt extra, with author, title, and date gilt-stamped. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls; all page edges gilt; blue moiré endpapers.

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate of Maria Christina, Queen of Spain.

•  Palau 350495. Binding as above, showing light wear, spine slightly faded; pastedowns with some offsetting, endpapers with spots of foxing. Rare and attractive.

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•  Contemporary mottled calf, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels, spine compartments with gilt-stamped floral decorations; covers mildly acid-pitted and considerably abraded, with leather lost at head of spine, corners, and joints. Spines with paper shelving labels or remnants thereof; front pastedowns each with bookplate. All edges marbled. Faint pencilled marginalia and bracketing; intermittent offsetting.  (22804)

•  Original front wrapper present, but not rear one. Some chipping and definite wear, especially along spine. Old ink notations. A good copy. (9383)

•  Signatures sewn; sewing starting to loosen. Pages age-toned with light spotting, more pronounced to first and last few leaves. Corners bumped.  (27501)

The volume opens with awood-engraved illustration of the saloon, done by Philadelphia artist Charles H. Reed. Author James was a medical officer in the Union army and also published Two Years in the Service, or, the Personal Recollections of a Medical Officer and A Complete History of the Great Rebellion; or, the Civil War in the United States.

Binding:  Publisher's textured green cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped vignette of the shop and a very large American flag, taken from the frontispiece; back cover with same vignette in blind. Spine with a bit of gilt embellishment at top and bottom, gilt-stamped title.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription: “Compliments of Mrs. A. Horner Phila. July 4th 1876”; also with rubber-stamp of Samuel Hoffman, a Philadelphia collector and dealer of presidential and political material; and finally with inked inscription: “To the LIbrarian U. of Chattanooga Sept. 13, 1957 from John C. Daub,” a Pittsburgh rare book dealer.

•  Sabin 50402.   Bound as above, corners and spine extremities rubbed. Front free endpaper with inscriptions and stamp as above. A clean, solid copy.  (29560)

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.

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Uncommon.  Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 find only three U.S. holdings of this edition.

•  Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title; vellum darkened, front cover with faded early inked inscription. Back free endpaper and final blank leaf lacking; front free endpaper with early inked inscription, title-page with contemporary inked ownership inscription in lower margin. Some light foxing; one early inked marginal annotation. Vol. I only; the set rare enough to make offering the “odd” volume reasonable!

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mouse-over, for an enlargement.

Though Nares is quite capable of picking nits with a level of scrupulousness to match that of the most pedantic of scholars, he is also prone to flights of fancy such as pondering—after noting that a married woman’s moveable goods are unquestionably the property of her husband— “whether the female tongue is to be reckoned among the moveables . . . I believe it is pretty generally held to continue ‘in potestate Mulieris,’ even after marriage, and I know nothing to prevent it” (p. 148). This is followed up with references to Ovid, the Wife of Bath, and the much-storied Flitch of Bacon!

•  Contemporary half calf with marbled paper sides, spines with gilt-stamped helm decorations and gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels (the volume labels recently supplied, in sympathetic style). Board edges showing light to moderate wear, with leather cracking at joints and crackled over the spines generally. Top edges gilt. Front pastedowns with bookplates now partially torn away; title-page of vol. II with an early inked ownership inscription in the upper margin. Delightful reading, as well as an overall attractive set.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate and front free endpaper with pencilled inscription of George M. Haverstick, an early proprietor of the company that eventually became the Whitall Tatum glass factory in Millville, New Jersey.

•  ESTC T92500; Sabin 52167. On Mary Peisley Neale, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Contemporary treed calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt rules, expectably acid-pitted overall; spine chipped, front cover with spots of discoloration and abrasion, edges and extremities rubbed. Occasional scattered light spots, most noticeable on last three pages; some lower outer corners bumped. One pencilled text correction. An interesting item, and not tremendously common in the U.S.  (29674)

establishing houses for the improvement of ladies (both proper and fallen)

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The frontispiece portrait of Nelson was engraved by George Vertue after a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The volume also includes all publisher's advertisements as well as the rather uncommon Poem in Memory of Robert Nelson Esquire.

This was produced to be a handsome work, printed in large type on good paper with wide margins — the better to appeal to a “quality” audience?

•  ESTC T85360; Goldsmiths’-Kress 5249. Poem: ESTC T25431; Foxon P538.   Contemporary speckled calf, framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons; rebacked with speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, raised bands, and blind-tooled foliate compartment decorations. Original leather abraded, front cover with small chip to outer edge and area of faint discoloration from a now-absent label; title-page institutionally rubber-stamped (no other markings). Some signatures browned and foxed, most pages clean.  (25999)

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•  Not in Adams.   Contemporary vellum with yapp edges and remnants of ties, spine with inked title: spots of staining, light soiling, and (on spine) traces of a paper label. Lightly age-toned with occasional light soiling. Early inked notations on front pastedown and title-page. Inked call number on title-page.  (11869)

•  Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers, spine chewed and overall with soiling; back cover with tear from upper edge into text without impairment to reading. Paper age-toned; some text pages ragged at edges, again, without harm to reading.  (26935)

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•  Garrison & Morton 1612 (London ed.).   Original textured olive cloth, covers framed in blind, front cover with gilt-stamped title; binding faded with areas of moderate discoloration, most notably at head of spine and adjacently on front cover. Ex–social club library: hand-inked paper shelving label on spine, call numbers on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-page and two others, no other markings. Pages clean.  (27884)

Binding:  Crimson straight-grain morocco, covers framed in blind and panelled in quadruple gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. All edges gilt.

•  Faxon 1497.   Binding as above, edges and extremities lightly rubbed with corners bumped, joints and edges darkened, lower spine compartment discolored. Title-page and two others institutionally pressure-stamped. Pages gently age-toned with a few scattered light spots, generally clean.  (26033)

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This is the first edition of the first book-form printing, with most of the recipes having previously appeared in issues of Harper’s Bazaar.

Provenance: Bookplate of Henry H. Bynam, Pittsburgh, partly chipped away.

•  Bitting 351; Brown, Culinary Americana, 2479; Cagle & Stafford 581.   Publisher’s olive pebbled cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities rubbed, spine slightly darkened with head and foot chipped. Front pastedown with private collector's bookplate as above; front fly-leaf, with pencilled annotations, now separating. Two pages with small areas of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item, one page with inkstain (affecting but not obscuring text), pages otherwise clean. A good copy of an evocative cookbook.  (28524)