Recent Acquisitions
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SMITH, Henry.
The Sinful Mans Search: or Seeking of God … published according to a true corrected Copie sent by the Author to...
London, [T. Scarlet for] Cuthbert Burby, [1593].
Second edition, rare, of The Sinful Mans search (1592), issued with ‘Maries Choise’ and a ‘Godley Praier’ (F8), bound with the fourth edition of The Trumpet of the Soule (1591).
£8500
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SHAKESPEARE, William.
The Works … in ten Volumes …
Stratford-on-Avon, The Shakespeare Head Press, 1904[–1907].
The handsome ‘Stratford Town’ Shakespeare, no. 495 of 1000 copies on Bachelor hand-made paper, edited and with notes by Arthur Henry Bullen (1857–1920).
£1250
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[MOREAN WAR.]
Journal of the Venetian Campaigne, A.D. 1687. under the Conduct of Capt. General Morosini, General Coningsmark,...
London, H.C. for R. Taylor, 1688.
First edition of an important account of the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War, which had begun in 1684, in the form of diplomatic letters from the Venetian (and Hanoverian) forces under the command of Francesco Morosini, Doge of Venice.
£2500
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‘PUBLICOLA’, pseud.
An answer to an audacious letter from John Angelo Belloni, dated Rome the 4th of May, 1732. N.S....
London, [s.n.], 1732.
An extremely rare pamphlet of economic and political interest, relating to fraudulent activity in the Charitable Corporation and to one of the chief culprit’s rumoured links to the Old Pretender.
£450
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JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus, Lucius Annaeus FLORUS, and Sextus RUFUS.
Iustini Historia ex Trogo Pompeio quattuor & triginta...
Paris, Jean Petit [and Jean Marchant], [1509].
A collection of abbreviated Roman histories, edited by Marcantonio Sabellico, with two different woodcuts depicting a scholar in a study with books and writing implements.
£1850
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[HIGHWAYMEN.]
Processo formato contro due famosissimi banditi Giacomo Legorino, e Battista Scorlino, con suoi seguaci, quali furono...
Milan, Pietro Francesco Malatesta, [1744].
Seemingly unrecorded printing of the trials of two sixteenth-century Italian highwaymen and their gang, whose campaign of terror in Milan lasted eight years.
£500
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GRUEL, Léon, and ENGELMANN, Godefroy.
Petites heures.
Paris, Gruel-Engelmann, [(colophon:) 1875].
First edition of this chromolithographic masterpiece published by Gruel and Engelmann, with twenty-five miniatures derived from those in the Walters Art Museum manuscript W.425, then in the possession of Léon Gruel.
£950
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GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.
Mariana Pineda. Romance popular en tres estampas.
Madrid, La Farsa, 1928.
First edition of Lorca’s first published play, Mariana Pineda, ‘about the Granadine heroine Mariana Pineda, who had been executed in 1831 at the age of twenty-seven by the repressive regime of Ferdinand VII, on the charge of having embroidered a flag for the town’s liberal conspirators.
£450
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CUJAS, Jacques.
Iacobi Cuiacii celeberrimi I. C. recitationes in II. et IV. libros Decretalium. Nunc primum in lucem editae.
Speyer, Bernhard Albin, 1594.
First edition of these commentaries on the Decretals of Gregory IX by the famous French jurist Jacques Cujas (1522–1590), printed in Speyer and bound in doeskin.
£750
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[CATECHISM.]
Catechismus, das ist Christliche Erklärung der Sechs haupt Stücke Christlicher Lehre, sampt der Hauss-Taffel, und...
[Strasbourg,] Johann Heinrich Heitz, 1751.
Seemingly unrecorded editions of two German catechistical works aimed at children in Strasbourg, in small format suited to the pocket, and in an attractive local contemporary binding.
£450
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[BOOKPLATE.]
Design for an ex libris for Cortlandt Field Bishop, by Boissy[?].
c. 1910?
The aviator, traveller, and book collector Cortlandt F. Bishop (1870–1935) bought America’s top auction house, American Art Association, in 1923, later merging it with Anderson Galleries – after his death it became Parke-Bernet, bought by Sotheby’s in 1964. Bishop was an avid collector, buying...
£600
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[BIBLE.]
The Holy Bible …
‘Printed at ye Theatre in Oxford. Sold by P. Parker ...’ [London], [1681?].
Rare Oxford editions of the Bible and Common Prayer – the second folio edition printed in that city. The first English Bible printed at Oxford was published in 1675; the title-pages to that edition (featuring the Transfiguration above Mt Tabor with figures of the Law and the Gospel below) and...
£1500
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[ALMANACK.]
Revill’s illustrated Pocket Keepsake and Book of Christmas Amusements, for 1884. Contains:– Almanack for 1884,...
[London,] Simpkins for M. E. Revill, [1884].
An unrecorded Christmas gift book, charmingly illustrated, printed for the Marylebone wine-merchant M. E. Revill at the Turner’s Arms.
£225
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ZAPPI, Giambattista; Faustina MARATTI.
Rime di Giambattista Felice Zappi e di Faustina Maratti sua consorte.
Nice, Société typographique, 1781.
Uncommon Nice printing of the collected poetry of one of the most prominent literary couples of early eighteenth-century Rome, Faustina Maratti (1679–1745) and her husband Giambattista Zappi (1667–1719).
£200
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TASSO, Torquato.
Aminta; Favola boscareccia …
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1753.
First Foulis Press edition of Tasso’s famous pastoral verse play of 1573, an attractive production with plates from a miniature French edition by the French artist Sebastien le Clerc, acquired by Robert Foulis on his European travels.
£125
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PRIOR, Matthew.
Poems on several Occasions.
London, printed for Jacob Tonson and John Barber, 1718.
First edition, a subscriber’s copy on large paper, of one of the most imposing volumes of verse of the eighteenth century, in a strictly contemporary binding, with endleaves on the same paper stock as the text, our copy in a strictly contemporary binding and presented to the Scottish poet and songwriter...
£5000
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LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude.
Le Père Noël supplicié.
[Paris, Chantenay, 1952.]
Rare first separate appearance, a presentation copy, of Lèvi-Strauss’s article ‘Father Christmas tortured’, an ethnological analysis of French ecclesiastical authorities’ disapproval of the ‘paganisation’ of Father Christmas, describing the hanging and burning of an effigy at Dijon just...
£250
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LAING, John.
An account of a voyage to Spitzbergen; containing a full description of that country, of the zoology of the north,...
[Balfour for], London, J. Mawman and David Brown, Edinburgh, 1815.
First edition of Laing’s account of his voyage as a ship’s surgeon on a whaling vessel under Captain Scoresby to the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago, in 1806 and 1807.
£850
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[JUVENILE.]
The Weasel Family.
London, Edinburgh, and New York, T. Nelson and Sons, [1860s?]
First edition, rare, of a rather charming Victorian picture-book, from ‘The Funny Animal Series’, later collected in Comical Creatures: a Picture Book for the Nursery (1867).
£375
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JENKINS, Edward.
The Devil’s Chain … Twentieth Thousand. With twelve Illustrations by Barnard and Thomson.
[Southwark, M’Corquodale and Co. for] London and Belfast, William Mullan & Son, 1877.
A reissue of the illustrated edition, from a different publishing house, of this lively narrative tracing the ‘universally ruinous effect of drink on all classes of the English population’ (Sutherland) by Member of Parliament, anti-slavery campaigner, and ardent imperialist Edward Jenkins.
£100