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

MANTELL, A. M. (attr.).

Views in North Wales.

Circa 1880.

A magnificent album of large-format views of North Wales and Chester, likely produced in celebration of the new harbour and hotel at Holyhead, which was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales in June 1880 – a group portrait of the event is depicted here.

£6500

SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator). 

Persianischer Rosenthal.  In welchen viel lustige...

Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman in Hamburg, 1654. 

Rare first illustrated edition, and the first edition translated by Olearius, of Sa‘di’s Gulistān or ‘Rose-garden’, with splendid engravings. 

£6500

ROUVEYRE, André.

Two typescript drafts of Apollinaire (1952), here titled ‘Stature d’Apollinaire. Gravures de Henri Matisse’,

c. 1950.

ROUVEYRE, André, and Henri MATISSE. Apollinaire. Paris, Raisons d’Etre, 1952 [1953].

£6500

DASSIER, Jean and Jacques-Antoine. 

‘An Explanation of Dassier’s Medals being a Representation of a Series of Events taken...

London, c. 1795–1800. 

An exceptionally fine illustrated manuscript, with drawings after the series of sixty medals of Roman history from Romulus to the Age of Augustus produced by Jean Dassier and his son in 1740-1743.  The drawings are executed with considerable finesse, adding detailed elements not clearly visible...

£6500

[EROTICA.] 

Pencil drawing of a woman in eighteenth-century hunting dress. 

[France, early nineteenth century?] 

A fine erotically-charged figure study of a woman in rather masculine eighteenth-century French hunting dress, seemingly pleasuring herself for the gratification of the viewer.

£6500

MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.

Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...

London, T. Jefferys, 1764.

Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...

£6500

GUIGNES, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de.

Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784...

Paris, l’Imprimerie Impériale, 1808.

First edition, the complete four-volume set, containing a survey of Chinese history and customs, a narrative of the author’s journey to Beijing as part of the Dutch East India embassy in 1794–5, and a magnificent folio atlas featuring 97 beautiful illustrations and intricate maps.

£6500

MENDES PINTO, Fernão. 

The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal: during his travels for the space of one...

London, Printed by J. Macock, for Henry Cripps, and Lodowick Lloyd … 1653. 

First edition in English, translated by Henry Cogan, of a travel best-seller, first published posthumously in 1614; there were nineteen editions in six languages by the end of the century, ‘rivalling the popularity of Cervantes’ Don Quixote.  It is, in fact, an exotic and imaginative...

£6500

AESOP. 

The Fables …  With a Life of the Author: and embellished with one hundred & twelve Plates … 

London, Printed for John Stockdale … 1793. 

Second Stockdale edition, a paginary reprint of the first with the text reset using a short ‘s’ throughout; the translation was that of Samuel Croxall.  Stockdale’s Aesop was notable for the extensive suite of illustrations, with plates by some thirty engravers including Stothard and Landseer,...

£6500

MELCHIOR, Christian. 

‘Synechia sive summa lectionum Plutarchicarum a domino conrectore huius scholae Salderianae praelectarum. ...

[Brandenburg an der Havel, 1620.] 

An unpublished early seventeenth-century manuscript recording lectures on Plutarch’s pedagogical work On the Education of Children, bound with a scarce printed edition of the same text, and a rare edition of the poems of Theognis and other Greek lyric poets, each with numerous marginal and...

£6500

K[IRKE], J[ohn].

The Seven Champions of Christendome. Acted at the Cocke-pit, and at the Red-Bull in St. Johns Streete, with a...

London, J. Okes, and are to be sold by James Becket, 1638.

First edition of this play based on Richard Johnson’s popular romance of 1596, characteristic of the spectacle-dramas staged at the Red Bull, where John Kirke was an actor.

£6500

MERULA, Giorgio.

Enarrationes Satyrarum Juvenalis.

Treviso, Bartholomaeus Confalonerius, [not before May] 1478.

The first book printed by Bartolomeo Confalonieri da Salò in Treviso, Michael Wodhull’s copy, bound and ruled for him by the London binder Maria Wier.

£6500

[THOMAS À KEMPIS.]

Ioanni Gerson vulgare devota operetta della imitatione di Iesu Christo …

Florence, Antonio Miscomini, 22 July 1493.

Uncommon editions of two classic Latin devotional texts rendered into Italian.

£6500

[GOETHE.] 

REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

£6500

BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

£6000

STEIN, Aurel.

Report of archaeological survey work in the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan for the period from January...

Peshawar, Government Press, 1905.

Scarce first edition of this significant report from Stein’s period as Inspector-General of Education and Archaeological Surveyor of the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, to which combined post he had been appointed in July 1903. No copies are recorded at auction on Rare Book Hub.

£6000

HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.

Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...

Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].

Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).

£6000

[COTTLE, Joseph.]

Poems, containing John the Baptist. Sir Malcolm and Alla, a Tale, shewing to all the World what Woman’s Love...

Bristol, Printed by Bulgin and Rosser, for J. Cottle, Bookseller … and G. G. and J. Robinson … London, 1795.

First edition. The Bristol bookseller Joseph Cottle (1770-1853) had been introduced to Coleridge and Southey by Robert Lovell in 1794 when the two poets ‘were in Bristol courting the Fricker sisters and preparing for Pantisocracy (as they called their scheme to marry and set up a community on...

£6000

OVIDIUS Naso, Publius, and Pedro Sánchez de VIANA, translator and commentator. 

Las transformaciones. 

Valladolid, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1589.

First edition, a copy of notable provenance, of perhaps the most successful early Spanish translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by Pedro Sánchez de Viana (c. 1545–1619), a physician by training, published along with his substantial commentary. 

£6000