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  1. PERRAULT, [Charles].

    Tales of passed Times by Mother Goose. With Morals. Written in French … and Englished by R. S. Gent. To...

    London: [but The Hague?] Printed for S. Van den Berg … 1764.

    First parallel-text edition of Perrault’s famous fairy tales, in English and French, with fine illustrations after Hendrik Immink. Perrault has long been eclipsed in fame by that of his stories – ‘Little Red Riding-Hood’, ‘Blue Beard’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Puss in Boots’, ‘Cinderilla’,...

    £6000

  2. 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

  3. MARKHAM, Gervase.

    Cavalarice, or the English Horseman: Contayning all the Art of Horse-manship, asmuch as is necessary for any...

    London, Edward Allde for Edward White, [1616 –] 1617. 

    A beautiful copy of the second edition, ‘corrected and augmented’, of Markham’s Cavalarice, exceptionally well-preserved in a contemporary binding, from the library of the antiquary Sir John Marsham.

    £9750

  4. DAMPIER, William, et al.

    A Collection of Voyages. In four volumes. Containing I. Captain William Dampier’s voyages round...

    London, for James and John Knapton, 1729.

    The first collected edition, ‘considered by many to be the best’ (Hill), illustrated with seventeen maps and forty-six plates.

    £9500

  5. QUR’AN. 

    Qur’an.

    Persia (probably Shiraz), sixteenth century, c. AD 1600 and c. AD 1850.

    A remarkable sixteenth-century Safavid Qur’an manuscript, carefully remargined during the Qajar period and extensively annotated by a scholar of that time.

    £27500

  6. [INCUNABLE SAMMELBAND.]

    Sammelband of ten works.

    Rome, Stephan Plannck and Eucharius Silber, c. 1481–1491.

    A sammelband of ten Roman incunables, nine of which printed by Stephan Plannck, covering subjects from astronomy to usury, holy water to marriage, and ending with St Antoninus’s manual for confessors, our copy with early annotations and partially preserving its original binding.

    £25000

  7. MACDIARMID, Hugh [i.e. Christopher Grieve], and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.

    A collection of 24 items, many signed or inscribed,...

    1955-1978.

    The poet and BBC broadcaster D. G. Bridson had been an avid reader of MacDiarmid since the ’30s, and organized a ‘comprehensive selection’ of his work for broadcast on 5 Feb 1951, followed by productions of In Memoriam James Joyce (31 May 1956) and Impavidi progrediamur (19 December...

    £5400

  8. THÜNEN, Johann Heinrich von.

    Der isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirthschaft und Nationalökonomie … [Part I and part II/1].

    Rostock, G.B. Leopold, 1842–50.

    Scarce second edition of the first part, revised and enlarged, being the repository of Thünen’s major theories, and the edition used by Roscher in his Geschichte der National-Oekonomik, here bound with the first edition of part II/1, the last to be published during the author’s lifetime; he died...

    £2500

  9. LIST, Friedrich.

    Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie … Erster Band: Der internationale Handel, die Handelspolitik...

    Stuttgart, J.G. Cotta, 1841.

    First edition, the first work to articulate developing economies’ need for protective regulation, one of the earliest and most severe critiques of Adam Smith and his followers.

    £8000

  10. [SMITH, Adam.]

    ADLERSPARRE, Georg, et al., editors. Läsning i blandade ämnen. Första [– Femte och Sista] Årgången.

    Stockholm, Henrik A. Nordström, 1797–1801.

    First edition of all fifty parts of the Swedish literary periodical Läsning i blandade ämnen, containing over 200 pages of passages from various sections of the Wealth of Nations, making it the first opportunity for Swedish speakers to study Adam Smith. Georg Sartorius’s abridgement of the Wealth...

    £400

  11. SAY, Jean-Baptiste.

    Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.

    Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].

    Presentation copy of the rare first edition of Say’s utopia, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Quelles sont les institutions capables de fonder la morale chez un peuple?’. Say treats the question from an economic...

    £2500

  12. [DONN, Benjamin.]

    ‘The Mathematicians Pocket Companion. Or a collection of the most valuable Theorems … The whole collected...

    [?Bideford], 1754.

    A comprehensive manuscript compendium on mathematics and its practical applications – including architecture, astronomy, book-keeping, dioptrics, hydraulics, mechanics, music, and shipbuilding – most likely compiled by the mathematician and mathematics teacher Benjamin Donn, with examples from...

    £1750

  13. VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I]. 

    Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes. 

    Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659. 

    First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I. 

    £3750

  14. [RICCI, Pellegrino].

    Dissertazione sul costume di suonar le campane in occasione di temporali …

    Faenza, Lodovico Genestri, 1787.

    An attractive copy of this rare dissertation in which the author, a Minorite friar, attempts to demonstrate scientifically that the popular practice of ringing church bells during storms in the attempt to dissipate storm clouds and minimise the danger from lightning in fact had no effect. Ricci explains...

    £475

  15. [COOKERY.]

    Twentieth Century Cook Book … published by the Ladies Mite Society, St. Pauls Church, Lincoln.

    Lincoln (NE), Franklin Press, 1902.

    First and only edition of a very scarce Nebraska recipe book, printed for the Ladies Mite Society in Lincoln, Nebraska, with additional recipes added in manuscript by a local resident. The broad range of recipes is gathered from many contributors who, other than Mrs J.E. Baum of Omaha and Mrs...

    £350

  16. [PLAYING CARDS.]

    Cartes Magiques Musicales. 1001 Danses pour Piano. / Magical Musical Cards or Thousand and one Dances for Piano.

    Paris, Bass, c. 1830.

    The complete Piquet deck of these rare and unusual musical playing cards including the English rules for the game, a delightful example of a nineteenth-century parlour game produced for the Anglo-French market.

    £3000

  17. [MAISTRE, Xavier de.]

    Voyage autour de ma chambre par M. le Chev. X*** *** O. A. S. D. S. M. S. [Officier au service de Sa Majesté...

    Turin, 1794 [Lausanne, Isaac Hignou, 1795].

    First edition, rare, of the celebrated fantasy novel Voyage Around My Room, a parody of the grand travel narrative tradition, by Xavier de Maistre (Chambéry, 1763 – Saint Petersburg, 1852).

    £2800

  18. [WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.] 

    Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...

    Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.

    Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.

    £1450

  19. [LABOURS OF THE MONTHS &c.] 

    Januarius.  Februarius.  Merz.  April … 

    Nuremberg, Joh. Andreae Endterische Handlung, [second half of eighteenth century]. 

    A scarce popular print depicting the labours of the months and signs of the zodiac, four continents, the four classical elements, and the four seasons. 

    £475

  20. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    Marcus Tullius Ciceroes three Bookes of Duties to Marcus his Sonne, tourned out of Latine into English,...

    [London, Richard Tottel,] 1583.

    Sixth edition of Grimald’s Cicero, first published 1556. De Officiis was perhaps the most pervasive piece of classical writing in early modern Europe – the second or third book to be printed in Europe, standard reading in England from at least the sixteenth century, recommended in Eliot’s...

    £3200