Gift Ideas

  1. ARISTOTLE.

    Αριστοτελους περι ποιητικης: Aristotelis de poetica liber ex versione Theodori Goulstoni. Lectionis...

    Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1780.

    Large-paper issue of the first Winstanley edition, handsomely bound. The first work published by the Oxford historian and classicist Thomas Winstanley (1749–1823), subsequently Camden Professor of History and Laudian Professor of Arabic, this edition of Aristotle’s De poetica was based...

    £675

  2. POPE, Alexander.

    Letters of Mr Alexander Pope, and several of his Friends.

    London: Printed by J. Wright for J. Knapton … L. Gilliver … J. Brindley … and R. Dodsley … 1737.

    First folio edition, large paper issue, preceded by a subscribers’ edition in quarto, of the first ‘official’ version of Pope’s letters.

    £1500

  3. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. 

    In Memoriam. 

    London, Edward Moxon … 1850.

    First edition, first issue, with the misprints on page 2 (‘the sullen tree’ for ‘thee sullen tree’) and page 198 (‘baseness’ for ‘bareness’). 

    £950

  4. [DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel, and Konrad Engelbert OELSNER.]

    Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Joël Barlow, Ministre...

    [Paris,] Smith [for the authors], 1813.

    First edition, one of 500 copies, of this eulogy to the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow – a friend of Jefferson, Madison, Blake, and Paine – an association copy gifted by his widow, Ruth Barlow (née Baldwin) to the physicist and inventor Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with her manuscript...

    £500

  5. BROUGHAM, Henry, first Baron Brougham and Vaux.

    Albert Lunel. A Novel ... In three Volumes ... London, Charles H.

    Clarke ... [1872].

    First edition, Sadleir’s ‘really scarce’ fourth state, of a touching memorial to the author’s daughter, with the undated Charles H. Clarke cancel titles.

    £450

  6. THOMAS, Dylan.

    Under Milk Wood. A Play for Voices …

    London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1954.

    First edition, first impression, our copy from the library of BBC radio producer D.G. Bridson, with a loosely inserted stereotype letter from the poet John Berryman about the last days and the death of Dylan Thomas.

    £1500

  7. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.

    Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington…

    London: Edward Moxon … 1852.

    First edition of Tennyson's ode to the Duke of Wellington; one of his earliest Laureate poems, it was, of course, a patriotic piece, but also, as a Horatian ode in English, a notable technical achievement.

    £100

  8. CHURCHILL, Winston S.

    A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I: The Birth of Britain [– Volume II: The New World;...

    London, Cassel & Company Ltd, [1956; – 1956; – 1957; – 1958].

    First editions, with dust-jackets, of Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, his last major historical work.

    £200

  9. CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

    The River War: An Historical Account...

    [London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

    First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

    £2500

  10. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.

    Enoch Arden, etc. …

    London, [Bradbury & Evans for] Edward Moxon & Co., 1864.

    First edition, an association copy belonging to James Aubrey Garth Marshall and given by him to his daughter Julia Mary Garth Marshall (later O’Brien).

    £175

  11. WETZELL, Madame.

    Les Matinées de la poupée, ou récréations d’une petite fille.

    Paris, J. Langlumé, [1844?].

    First and only edition, very rare, of a delightful illustrated account of a girl’s doll. Brillantine, a doll, is given to Célénie for company while her elder sister Alméa is in Africa; the book recounts in detail their relationship over the course of a week, from Brillantine’s arrival with...

    £275

  12. GURNEY, Edmund, Frederic W.H. MYERS, and Frank PODMORE.

    Phantasms of the Living …

    London, Society for Psychical Research, and Trübner & Co, 1886.

    First edition, second issue as usual, with the note regarding corrections and additions on the verso of the title-page of vol. I and said Corrections included.

    £800

  13. ALEXANDER, William, attributed.

    The Costume of the Russian Empire, illustrated by a Series of seventy-three Engravings....

    London, ‘printed for William Miller … by Howlett and Brimmer … 1803’, [c. 1823].

    A later reprint of a handsome costume book devoted to the Russian empire, first printed by Samuel Gosnell for William Miller in 1803, illustrated with seventy-three coloured stipple engravings.

    £950

  14. [GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]

    Il Pastor Fido.

    ‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

    Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s immensely popular ‘pastoral tragi-comedy’, charmingly illustrated by Antonio Luciani.

    £175

  15. WALTON, Izaak, and James THORPE, illustrator.

    Complete Angler or contemplative man’s recreation … with illustrations...

    London & Edinburgh, T.N. Foulis, [1925].

    A very attractive illustrated edition of Walton’s classic fishing manual in a deluxe Bayntun binding.

    £500

  16. BRULL, Mariano, and Mathilde POMÈS, translator.

    Solo de Rosa. Poemas.

    Con dos rosas de Mariano y Portocarrero. [Havana,] ‘La Veronica’, 1941.

    First edition, no. 186 of 300 copies, printed in Cuba and inscribed by the author to his French translator, Mathilde Pomès, with Pomès’s manuscript translation of one of Brull’s poems from Solo de Rosa loosely inserted.

    £650

  17. RUSH, John; Jacob F. SHEEK, editor.

    The Hand-Book to veterinary Homoeopathy, or the homoeopathic Treatment of the Horse,...

    New York & San Francisco, Boericke & Tafel, 1876.

    Later American edition of a rare hand-book to veterinary homoeopathy. The text, first published in 1853, offers homoeopathic remedies for a variety of ailments, prefaced by a defence of the principles of the practice.

    £275

  18. PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, Juan de. 

    The History of the Conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an Account of several remarkable...

    London, W. Godbid for M. Pitt, 1671. 

    First edition in English of Palafox's Historia de la conquista de la China (1670), an account of the Manchu conquest of Ming China based on reports sent to him from Macao and the Philippines.

    £1750

  19. Aristotle: From Antiquity to the Modern Era.

    Preface by Martin J. Gross. Essays by Benjamin Morison and Barbara Scalvini.

    Lewes, D. Giles Ltd for the Martin J. Gross Family Foundation, 2021.

    Aristotle’s influence towers over western philosophy and science. His astonishing range and depth – philosophy and logic, the physical and natural sciences, ethics and politics – make him indisputably the most important intellectual figure in the western tradition before the modern age.

    £30

  20. POWYS, John Cowper.

    Autobiography.

    London, John Lane, The Bodley Head, [1934].

    First edition, signed on the half-title ‘John Cowper Powys, April 1935’. A very nice copy of a work not often found signed.

    £250