Search results

  1. CORBOULD, Henry (illustrator). 

    [Cover title:] Illustrations to Theodric, by Thomas Campbell, from designs by Henry...

    London, Edward Lacey, 1829. 

    Unrecorded, a suite of five engravings for Thomas Campbell’s Theodric (1824), though seemingly not intended for inclusion in any particular edition. 

    £650

  2. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana. 

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse. 

    Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546. 

    First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations. 

    £6750

  3. [ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.] 

    Le Devin du village, intermede, représenté devant Sa Majesté a Fontainebleau, le Mecredi 14 Novembre...

    [Paris,] Pierre-Robert-Christophe Ballard, 1770. 

    Rare edition of a later lifetime performance of Rousseau’s influential opera, The Village Soothsayer, in an attractively unsophisticated sammelband of court operas. 

    £375

  4. [ZATTA, Antonio.] 

    Il filosofo del nord, ovvero Corso di morale filosofia. 

    ‘Londra’ [i.e. Venice], [Zatta], 1788. 

    First edition under this title of this course of moral philosophy, broadly construed, in which the author attempts to invoke the authority of the ‘philosophers of the North’ (inter alia Hobbes, Bacon, Clark, and Addison on one side of the English Channel, Bayle, Pascal, La Mettrie, Grotius,...

    £950

  5. [SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.] 

    CLAVIUS, Christophorus.  In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius, nunc iterum ab ipso Auctore...

    Rome, Francesco Zanetti for Domenico Basa, 1581. 

    Third edition, the first to contain Clavius’s condemnation of Copernicus, with ten highly detailed woodcut diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses not included in the first edition. 

    £2500

  6. GALILEI, Galileo, and Carlo MANOLESSI (editor). 

    Opere. 

    Bologna, heirs Dozza, [1655–] 1656. 

    A substantial volume of Galileo’s works, comprising most of the first volume of the first collected edition, edited by Carlo Manolessi.  The edition contained nineteen separate treatises, each with its own title, in two volumes, but is rarely found complete; present here are all but two of...

    £2500

  7. GRECO, Gioachino (William LEWIS, translator).

    A treatise on the game of chess, by Gioachino Greco; translated from the French....

    Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1833.

    Second edition of William Lewis’s translation of Greco; first published in 1819. William Lewis (1787–1870) learned chess under Jacob Henry Sarratt and went on to run a well-known chess school at 5 Nassau Street, Soho. ‘He took part in the correspondence chess match between Edinburgh chess...

    £1500

  8. MERCURIALE, Girolamo. 

    De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...

    Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587. 

    Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton).  A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...

    £2750

  9. PADOVANI, Giovanni. 

    Opus de compositione et usu multiformium horologiorum solarium pro diversis mundi regionibus, idque ubique...

    Venice, Francesco de Franceschi, 1570. 

    Scarce first edition of Padovani’s treatise on sundials, providing illustrated instruction on the use of various horizontal and vertical sundials and on calculating latitude, this copy owned and annotated by the author’s friend and collaborator Johannes Andrea de Muscis. 

    £2500

  10. [HAMILTON, Alexander, James MADISON, and John JAY].

    The Federalist: A Collection of Essays written in Favor of the new Constitution,...

    New York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M’Lean … 1788.

    First edition in book form of The Federalist Papers, the single most important work of American political philosophy, a normal paper copy, very rare in the original boards, uncut and largely unopened. Volume II is in a mixed state, with the error ‘Letter LXXX’ rather than ‘LXX’...

    £220000

  11. [TANGIER.] 

    A Description of Tangier, the Country and People adjoyning.  With an account of the person and government of Gayland,...

    London, for Samuel Speed, 1664. 

    Scarce first edition of this entertaining account of Tangier, in north-western Morocco, during the English occupation of the city, which had begun in 1661 following Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and which would come to an end in 1684. 

    £2750

  12. [LA ROCHE, Sophie von.] 

    Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim.  Von einer Freundin derselben aus Original-Papieren und andern...

    Leipzig, bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1771. 

    First edition of Sophie von La Roche’s first novel, a best seller which brought her fame and recognition throughout Germany, and was translated into French, English, Russian and Dutch.  It became a pattern for the genre of the epistolary novel in Germany, and has even been cited as a forerunner...

    £950

  13. PARRY, William Edward, Sir. 

    Journals of the first, second and third voyages for the discovery of a north-west passage from the...

    London, John Murray, 1828. 

    First collected edition of Parry’s Arctic voyages in quest of the Northwest Passage, ‘a neat and convenient abridgement’ (Laughton, in DNB). 

    £450

  14. MENDELSSOHN, Moses. 

    Philosophische Schriften. 

    Troppau, Joseph Georg Traßler, 1784. 

    Later edition, in an attractive contemporary binding, of the works of the German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786). First published in 1761 and here reprinted in the Silesian city of Troppau (now Opawa, Czechia), the collection includes Über die Empfindungen, Philosophische...

    £250

  15. KAEMPFER, Engelbert, and John Gaspar SCHEUCHZER (translator).

    The History of Japan, giving an Account of the ancient and...

    London, for the translator, 1727.

    First edition, first issue, of the German naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer’s monumental History of Japan, translated by the Swiss naturalist Johann Caspar Scheuchzer and illustrated with splendid plates.

    £7500

  16. [LONGUEVILLE, Peter, pseud?].

    The Hermit: or, the unparalled [sic] Sufferings and surprising Adventures of Mr Philip Quarll,...

    Warner … and B. Creake … 1727.

    First edition, first issue, ‘an enormously popular work, rivalling Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, of which it is possibly the best imitation’ (Howgego).

    £5000

  17. [MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]

    The Hymns Anthems and Tunes with the Ode used at the Magdalen Chapel set for the Organ Harpsichord, Voice German-Flute...

    London, Printed for Longman and Broderip … [1780?].

    Two rare later editions of the Magdalen Chapel hymnbook.

    £2000

  18. LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth.

    Autograph letter, signed ‘Henry W. Longfellow’, to ‘Lady Emily’.

    Ouchy, 16 September 1868.

    Addressed to ‘Lady Emily’, Longfellow here expresses his regret at not being able to see her at Sécheron while he was staying at Geneva, and apologises also for not being able to return to Geneva ‘to accept your hospitable invitation. We go tomorrow to Yverdon, and thence through Neuchâtel, and...

    £450

  19. HATHORN, James George.

    A hand-book of Darjeeling; with brief notes on the culture and manufacture of tea, and rules for the sale...

    Calcutta, R.C. Lepage & Co., 1863.

    Scarce first edition of this guide to Darjeeling by Hathorn (1826–1868), a Captain in the Bengal and then Royal Artillery.

    £2750

  20. LATHAM, Simon.

    Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training...

    London: Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Harison. 1633.

    First collected edition (third edition of volume I, originally published in 1614 and reissued in 1615, second edition of volume II, originally published in 1618).

    £8500