Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan

Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
  1. [COMMON PRAYER.] 

    The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

    London, Millar Ritchie for J. Good and E. Harding, 1794. 

    A splendid copy of the Good and Harding Book of Common Prayer, in a striking masonic binding by John Lovejoy. 

    £1850

  2. [COMMON PRAYER.]

    The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

    London & Glasgow, Collins’ Clear-Type Press, [c. 1910].

    A George V Common Prayer and hymnal, uniformly bound and unusually housed in a ‘handbag’ slipcase for the convenience of the fashion-conscious churchgoer.

    £275

  3. STEPNIAK, Sergey. 

    דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד … איבערזעצט פון א. פרומקין
    [Dos...

    New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921. 

    Scarce first American edition in Yiddish of Stepniak’s first and most influential book.  Written in Italian during exile in Switzerland following his assassination of Nikolai Mezentsov, chief of Alexander II’s secret police, Underground Russia was published in 1882 and translated into...

    £150

  4. FRY, Theodore.

    A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.

    [London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.

    First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete...

    £850

  5. NIXON, Howard M. 

    Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

    London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

    First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

    £875

  6. ZAMPELIOS, Spiridion.

    Βυζαντιναι Μελεται [Byzantine Studies]...

    Athens, Christos Nikolaidos, 1857.

    First edition. Spyros Zampelios was a champion of the continuity theory in the history of the Greek nation in the crucial decades of the mid nineteenth century, and the first Greek historian to adopt a tripartite examination of historical periods, divided into ancient, medieval and modern Hellenism....

    £350

  7. PLINY the Younger. 

    Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …

    Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.

    A handsome quarto Pliny from the Foulis press, published in the same year as the three-volume duodecimo.

    £600

  8. PLINY the Younger. 

    Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …

    Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.

    A handsome Foulis Press pocket Pliny. The first two volumes comprise the ten books of Pliny’s Epistulae (particularly important for their description of the eruption of Vesuvius), the third his Panegyric to Trajan: ‘clearly it was intended that sections Z to the end should comprise...

    £850

  9. SALLUST.

    Caii Sallustii Crispi quae extant.

    London, James Tonson and John Watts, 1713.

    First Maittaire edition. The French-born classical scholar Michel Maittaire (1668–1741) studied at Westminster, and then under Robert South at Christ Church, Oxford. He is best known for his Annales Typographici and the series of duodecimo classics that he published with Tonson and Watts...

    £300

  10. [ALMANACK.]

    Calendarium Tyrnaviense ad annum Jesu Chris[ti] M. DCC. XXXI[.] …

    [Tyrnau (Trnava), 1731.]

    A remarkable almanack binding of part-printed, part-manuscript vellum, prepared for presentation at the Habsburg court in Vienna to the Genoese diplomat Clemente Doria.

    £1850

  11. PINDAR. 

    Carmina, ex editione Chr. Gottl. Heyne. 

    Oxford, N. Bliss for M. Bliss and R. Bliss [– and London, for F. & C. Rivington, J. Payne & J. Mackinlay, W.H. Lunn, Longman, Hurst,...

    An attractive Oxford-printed pocket edition of Pindar’s Odes, as edited by Christian Gottlob Heyne. 

    £175

  12. [MAPS.]

    ‘Carte du Vicariat Apost. de Péking & Tche-ly Nord’.

    [China], 1896.

    Two handsome maps providing a snapshot of the region around modern Beijing and the Bohai Sea encompassed within the Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Chi-Li and the Vicariate Apostolic of Southwestern Chi-Li in 1896, showing towns, missionary residences, roads, railways, rivers and lakes, and part...

    £1800

  13. BALBUS, Johannes.

    Catholicon.

    [Strasbourg, The R-Printer (Adolf Rusch), not after 1475.]

    Third edition of the earliest printed lexicon, a monumental piece of printing from one of the earliest presses in Strasbourg, containing the thirteenth-century Latin dictionary and grammar of Johannes Balbus, the ‘greatest of the medieval encyclopaedic dictionaries’ (Chamberlin, p. 136); his...

    £65000

  14. FREEMAN, Arthur.

    Catullus Carmen 17.6 and Other Mysteries. A Study in Editorial Conflict, Eccentricity, Forgery, and Restitution....

    London, The Author, 2020.

    This partly historical, partly philological essay offers a general account of the early preservation, post-medieval recovery, and Renaissance evolution of the text of Catullus, with specific reference to one speculative reading in Carmen 17 (‘De Colonia’), and certain humanist twists and forgeries...

    £15

  15. TACITUS. 

    C. Cornelius Tacitus, cum optimis exemplaribus collatus. 

    Amsterdam, Daniel Elzevir, 1678. 

    A remarkably fresh set of the third and final Elzevir edition of this format, reprinted from the edition of 1665. 

    £275

  16. [MASS.]

    Cerimonie piu’ notabili della messa privata; Cavate dalle rubriche del Missale, ed altri autori da un Sacerdote D.C.D.M....

    Turin, Gianfranco Mairesse, 1739.

    An apparently unrecorded edition of this uncommon treatise on the celebration of the mass and its associated rituals.

    £300

  17. BEDFORDSHIRE – ARLESEY.

    Charter of William Hoye of Arlesey (‘Auricheseya’) granting to Robert of Wewenshal for seventy shillings...

    Bedfordshire, 1st half of 13th century.

    Witnessed by Roger Burnard, William Rixpaud, Roger his brother, Richard the clerk, Robert Rixpaud, Henry son of Odo, Walter son of William, Ivo of Stodfaud, Geoffrey his son, Simon of Estwich, Andrew of Qurisco, William son of Gerard, Roger son of Walter son of William Hay, and many others. Various place-names...

    £1400

  18. [WALLPAPER BINDING.]

    ‘Chassereau des Biens et Rentes deves a joseph Paul Roegier et marie margu te [sic] Bourdeau son espouse,...

    Hainaut, 1750–1773.

    A manuscript account book compiled by Joseph Paul Roegier and his son, recording receipts over a quarter-century, in an attractive and unusual binding reusing a large fragment of gilt leather wallpaper.

    £3500

  19. MÄNDL, Kaspar.

    Christliche Sitten-Lehr und heylsame Anmuthungen gezogen auß Betrachtung deß bitteren Leyden und Sterbens unsers...

    Augsburg, Matthias Wolff, 1737.

    A superb example of Rococo decorative binding, exploiting all available materials – silks, metals, beads, papers, gilding, and leather – to extraordinary (if perhaps excessive) effect.

    £6750

  20. APPIAN of Alexandria.

    Civili. Appiano Alessandrino delle guerre civili de Romani tradotto da M. Alessandro Braccio secretario...

    Venice, [Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio for Federico Torresano, April] 1538.

    A much-annotated copy of these late Aldine Press productions, the two complementary works on the history of Rome’s wars by Appianus in the Italian translation of Alessandro Braccio (or Braccesi), which had first appeared in 1519 – the first vernacular versions.

    £3000