Search results

  1. RICH, Jeremiah.

    The Whole Book of Psalms in Meter. According to the Art of Short-Writing …

    London, ‘Printed and are sold by Samuel Botley Teacher of the said Art … and nowhere els.’, [1660?].

    First edition, the issue with Samuel Botley in the imprint – an extremely attractive miniature Psalter in shorthand by a ‘skilled and celebrated’ practitioner whose work was known to Pepys (though Pepys himself employed a rival system).

    £4250

  2. [PUBLICIUS, Jacobus.]

    Ars memorativa.

    [Cologne, Johann Guldenschaff, c. 1481.]

    First illustrated edition of this treatise on the art of memory, with moving parts; the first general treatise on memory to be printed.

    £18000

  3. [PSALTER. BRUNO, Archbishop of Würzburg, editor.]

    Psalterium.

    [Würzburg, Georg Reyser, c. 1488–1489.]

    First edition of the Psalter with the commentary ascribed to the eleventh-century Bishop of Würzburg, printed at Würzburg by Georg Reyser and in a contemporary Würzburg monastic binding.

    £24000

  4. POPPER, Karl.

    A substantial archive of books and associated working papers from one of the most important philosophers of modernity;...

    London et al., 1960s–1970s.

    An extremely important archive witnessing the development of Karl Popper’s thought and showcasing his writing process, from the library of his former research assistant, Dr Ivan Slade.

    £175000

  5. NIGHTINGALE, Florence.

    Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.

    London, Harrison and Sons, 1858.

    First edition, printed for private circulation only, of Florence Nightingale’s pioneering report on the sanitary condition of the British Army, resulting in a radical reform of the administration, sanitation, and nursing practices at large, this copy with remarkable nursing association.

    £18000

  6. LIVY; [Pedro DE LA VEGA, translator].

    Todas las decadas de Tito Livio paduano, que hasta al presente se hallaron y fueron...

    [(Colophon:) Cologne [i.e. Antwerp?], Arnold Birckmann], 1553.

    A handsome copy of Livy’s History in Spanish, containing the surviving books as well as Florus’s Epitome, in a contemporary Augsburg binding produced by a bindery in the service of the Fugger family.

    £3500

  7. [MACARTNEY EMBASSY.]

    Archive of letters and documents from the Macartney Embassy to China.

    Britain and China, 1792–1833.

    A remarkable and largely unpublished archive from Lord Macartney’s embassy to China of 1792–4 – a pivotal moment in relations between China and the West – including a diplomatic autograph letter signed by Macartney, autograph correspondence between him and other leading figures of the mission,...

    £75000

  8. 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

  9. MARX, Karl.

    Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production … translated from the third edition by Samuel Moore and Edward...

    London, Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., 1887.

    A remarkably well-preserved copy of the first edition, first issue, one of only five hundred copies (Sraffa), of the English translation of Marx’s Das Kapital, published in London four years after Marx’s death under the editorship of Engels.

    £35000

  10. MILL, James.

    Elements of Political Economy … Second edition, revised and corrected.

    London, [C. Baldwin] for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1824.

    Second edition of ‘Mill’s masterpiece’ (Palgrave), extensively revised with alterations ‘too numerous to be specified’, our copy with a presentation inscription to Mill’s former colleague at the East India Company, Thomas Love Peacock, signed ‘his sincere Friend The Author’.

    £1250

  11. NEWTON, Isaac.

    Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light. Also two treatises of...

    London, for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Society, 1704.

    First edition of Newton’s Opticks, ‘which did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis’, and ‘expounds Newton’s corpuscular or emission theory of light, and first contains his important optical discoveries in a collected...

    £70000

  12. [NEW YORK.]

    Notarial instrument attesting to the residence of two French immigrants in New York.

    New York, 27 July 1797.

    An interesting notarial document recording the immigration of two members of the French minor nobility to America during the French Revolution and Directory.

    £850

  13. HENRICUS DE HERP.

    Speculum aureum decem praeceptorum Dei.

    [(Colophon:) Mainz, Peter Schoeffer, 10 September 1474.]

    First edition of this collection of sermons based on the Ten Commandments, devised for both confessors and preachers, printed by Peter Schoeffer, Gutenberg’s assistant and, after Gutenberg himself, ‘the most influential individual in the early history of the printed word’ (White, p. xi).

    £24000

  14. DE MOIVRE, Abraham.

    The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.

    London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.

    First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.

    £14000

  15. [HYMNAL.]

    Neu-vermehrt- und vollständiges Gesang-Buch, worinnen sowohl die Psalmen Davids, nach D. Ambrosii Lobwassers, Uebersetzung...

    [Likely Swabia, for] Philadelphia, Ernst Ludwig Baisch, 1774.

    First and only edition thus of this German hymnal, issued in Philadelphia by Ernst Ludwig Baisch under his own imprint but printed in Germany, bound by an itinerant German Pennsylvanian binder with printed waste from Charles Cist’s Americanische Stadt und Land Calender for 1797, with inscriptions...

    £3500

  16. [ANTHOLOGIA GRAECA PLANUDEA.]

    Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum in septem libros, solerti nuper repurgatum cura M.D.XXI. Ανθολογια...

    [(Colophon:) Venice, in the house of Aldus and Andrea Torresano, January 1521.]

    Second Aldine edition of the earliest known anthology in Greek.

    £2000

  17. [BIBLE.]

    Τα Βιβλια, τουτεστιν, η Θεια Γραφη της Παλαιας τε και Καινης Διαθηκης...

    Moscow, the Holy Synod Press for the Russian Bible Society, 1821.

    First edition printed in Russia of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament, published likely with political motives in the year of the Greek Revolution.

    £1500

  18. GARCIA, Gregorio.

    Origen de los Indios de el nuevo mundo, e Indias Occidentales, averiguado con discurso de opiniones por el padre...

    Madrid, Francisco Martinez Abad, 1729.

    Second enlarged edition (first 1607) of an extraordinary work on the origin of the Americans by the Spanish Dominican missionary Gregorio Garcia (c. 1556–1627), ‘a work of vast erudition’ (Sabin).

    £1200

  19. FLORUS, L. Annaeus; Lucius AMPELIUS; Claude SAUMAISE, editor.

    [Rerum romanarum libri IV and Epitome historiae...

    Leiden, Elzevir, 1638.

    The attractive Elzevir edition of Florus’ Roman history, containing the editio princeps of Ampelius’ history, in a handsome English Restoration binding with highly unusual edge decoration.

    £650

  20. ‘SANTO DOMINGO’.

    Tablettes Parisiennes, par M. Santo-Domingo. Deuxième edition.

    Brussels, Aug. Wahlen for H. Tarlier, 1826.

    Second edition, scarcer than the first edition of the previous year, of these risqué recollections of Parisian life, this copy printed on yellow paper, including a ‘Linnaean’ classification of Parisian women.

    £475