Search results

  1. BORSO D’ESTE, Duke of Modena, Duke of Ferrara.

    Letter in his name in Italian, addressed to Feltrino Boiardo.

    Modena, 3 July 1453.

    A letter from early in Borso d’Este’s rule as first Duke of Modena. It is addressed to the condottiero Feltrino Boiardo, instructing him to raise taxes from the territories of Casalgrande, Dinazzano and Montebabbio for the support of a brigade of men-at-arms.

    £750

  2. FORTUNE, Robert.

    Three years’ wanderings in the northern provinces of China, including a visit to the tea, silk, and cotton countries:...

    London, John Murray, 1847.

    First edition recounting the travels through China of the Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune (1812–1880), a frequent visitor to China who as agent of the Tea Committee became a pivotal figure in bringing Chinese tea to British India. Originally a botanist, Fortune travelled to China...

    £400

  3. ANTIPHONAL,

    with neumes, containing antiphons, responses and versicles for Trinity Sunday, the Octave of Pentecost, Sundays after...

    Germany, 1st half of 12th century. 

    Two bifolia from a notably early antiphonal. 

    £5000

  4. SASSOON, Siegfried. 

    Nativity. 

    London, Faber & Gwyer, 1927. 

    First edition of this striking collaboration between Siegfried Sassoon and Paul Nash. 

    £175

  5. [OPTICAL PRINT.] 

    ‘No. 5.  Morgan’s improved protean scenery: Mount Vesuvius, as represented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens...

    London, Published by W. Morgan, [c. 1837]. 

    A remarkable metamorphic or ‘protean’ print depicting a dormant Vesuvius by day but, when held up to the light, showing a dramatic eruption in the night sky. 

    £675

  6. [CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.] 

    ...

    Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874. 

    Very rare complete run of this short-lived satirical magazine against the pro-government newspaper Il Monitore, produced by a group of young liberals from Bologna including the poets Giosuè Carducci and Olindo Guerrini. 

    £1000

  7. RISLEY, Herbert Hope, Sir et al.

    The gazetteer of Sikhim. With an introduction by H. H. Risley ... Edited in the Bengal Government...

    Calcutta, printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press, 1894.

    First edition of this comprehensive survey of Sikkim, in northeast India (bordering Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and West Bengal), which had become a princely state of British India in 1890. The chapters cover, inter alia, the region’s history, geography, laws, geology, agriculture, vegetation, butterflies,...

    £2500

  8. [ARISTOTLE.]

    ‘Quaestiones philosophicae ad mentem Aristotelis R.P. Iulii Caes. Corradi C.R.S. excepit Abb. Fabritius de Comitibus...

    [Rome, 1670–1].

    A late seventeenth-century manuscript containing lectures on Aristotle’s Physics given at the prestigious Collegio Clementino in Rome by Giulio Cesare Corradi of Cremona, Somascan priest and lecturer in philosophy, as recorded by Fabrizio Guidi di Bagno.

    £850

  9. CALMET, Antoine Augustin.

    Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament. Les deux livres d’Esdras,...

    Paris, Pierre Emery, 1712.

    First edition of the commentary on the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, and Esther by the French Benedictine Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672–1757), from the library of the last male descendant of the distinguished Colbert family.

    £450

  10. MAGRE, Maurice.

    Les trois métiers de Jeannet. Les bons tours d’Yan.

    Paris, Hachette (Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles), [s.d. (but 1911?)].

    Two scarce children’s stories, published as part of Hachette’s ‘Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles’.

    £125

  11. RUSKIN, John.

    The stones of Venice … With illustration drawn by the author. Fourth edition.

    Orpington, Kent, George Allen, 1886.

    A deluxe copy, one of 220 copies, of the fourth expanded edition, printed on Van Gelder laid paper with the plates on India paper.

    £375

  12. SIMEONI, Gabriele.

    Comentarii di Gabriello Symeoni Fiorentino sopra alla tetrarchia di Vinegia, di Milano, di Mantova, et di Ferrara ...

    Venice, Comino da Trino di Monferrato, 1546.

    Scarce first edition of Gabriele Simeoni’s (1509–1575) political history of the most powerful city-states of sixteenth-century Italy – Venice, Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara – with full-page genealogical diagrams of the Visconti, Gonzaga, and d’Este families.

    £550

  13. TERENCE; Daniel HEINSIUS, editor.

    Pub. Terentii comoediae sex, ex recensione Heinsiana.

    Amsterdam, Henrik Wetstein, [c. 1700].

    A small-format edition of Terence’s comedies, printed in Amsterdam but bound in Britain and owned by a Devonshire schoolboy.

    £145

  14. VENERONI, Giovanni. 

    The Complete Italian Master; containing the best and easiest Rules for attaining that Language … Newly...

    London, J. Nourse, 1763. 

    First edition thus, revising an earlier translation of Le maitre italien of 1711, which was not only ‘out of print’ but ‘in many respects inaccurate’ (Preface).  The translator’s preface acknowledges the work of foreign editors since the second edition of 1729 and describes some...

    £750

  15. BIANCONI, Giovanni Lodovico. 

    Descrizione dei circhi particolarmente di quello di Caracalla e dei giuochi in essi celebrati opera...

    Rome, nella stamperia Pagliarini, 1789. 

    First edition of this handsome work on the Circus of Maxentius, this copy formerly in the possession of the great French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879). 

    £1600

  16. BROWN, Thomas.

    A Letter in Reply to the Report of the Surgeons of the Vaccine Institution, Edinburgh; with an appendix, containing...

    Edinburgh, George Ramsay & Co for John Ballantyne, John Murray, and S. Highley, 1809.

    Uncommon first edition of this early anti-vaccine tract, with an appendix comprising a printed exchange of letters between the author and his disputants.

    £500

  17. GAMON, Christophe de.

    La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.

    [Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.

    Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.

    £950

  18. [GREENE, Asa.]

    The Perils of Pearl Street, including a taste of the dangers of Wall Street, by a late merchant.

    New York, Betts & Anstice and Peter Hill, 1834.

    First edition of a very early Wall Street novella, the fictional tale of Billy Hazard, an innocent carpenter’s son from rural New York state determined to make it as a merchant in the city. Billy’s attempts to establish himself in the mercantile trade in New York City are ultimately unsuccessful...

    £2750

  19. [HAKEWILL, William].

    The Manner of holding Parliaments in England, collected forth of our ancient Records … With the stately...

    [London,] Printed in the Yeare, 1641.

    First (and only lifetime) edition, signed on the title-page by the notorious forger of ‘Shakespeare’s Library’, William Henry Ireland (1775–1835).

    £950

  20. ESSER, [Karl?] Michael, Ritter von.

    Sei Quartetti per due violini viola, e basso composti espressamente per una Società...

    [Venice, Marescalchi e Canobbio, 1774?]

    First edition, very rare, of a complete set of quartet part-books published in Venice by the composer–publishers Marescalchi and Canobbio.

    £1750