Recent Acquisitions
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STANYHURST, William.
Veteris hominis per expensa quatuor novissima metamorphosis, et novi genesis.
Antwerp, Cornelius Woons, 1661.
First edition, rare, of this work on death, the Last Judgement, Hell, and Heaven, by the Irish Jesuit William Stanyhurst (1601–1663), illustrated with five striking full-page emblematic engravings.
£875
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PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.
Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...
Cambridge, University Press, 1928.
First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.
£400
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POPE, William.
Manuscript arithmetic schoolbook.
[Tiverton?] ‘Sunday Octr 24.th 1804’.
A manuscript arithmetic schoolbook belonging to one William Pope, very well preserved in its original stationery binding and wrapper, with provincially printed arithmetic tables as endpapers.
£850
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[LE MARCHE.]
Deed relating to the sale of property in Beltrovato (a district of Morrovalle in the Province of Macerata in the Marche...
[Rome, 1616.]
A curiously bound public instrument notarised by the Apostolic Camera in Rome detailing the sale of property belonging to two brothers from the influential de’ Mozzi family of Macerata.
£850
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[MONS.]
...
Mons, J. B. Varret, 1748.
First and only edition, very rare, of this history of the Sunday school in Mons, established for the Christian education of the boys and girls of the city and supported by the Canonesses of St Waltrude among other benefactors.
£975
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ADRICHEM, Christian van; Francesco BALDELLI, translator.
Gerusalemme e suoi dintorni ai tempi di Gesù Cristo. Mappa e...
Genoa, Tipografia arcivescovile, 1882.
Scarce first edition thus of Baldelli’s sixteenth-century translation of this guide to Jerusalem for pilgrims by the Dutch cartographer Christian van Adrichem, instrumental in popularising the Stations of the Cross and the basis for maps of the Holy Land well into the eighteenth century.
£200
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[TAYLOR, John.]
The Column called the Monument, described, erected to perpetuate the dreadful Fire of London in the Year 1666;...
Bryan … for Samuel Arnott, Keeper of the Monument. [1805?]
Third edition (first 1787) of this guidebook to London’s Monument, with an account of the Great Fire of 1666 which it commemorates, authored by the Monument’s first keeper.
£350
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[SHEPHEARD, James.]
The Dying Speech of James Shepheard: who suffer’d Death at Tyburn, March the 17th, 1717/18. Deliver’d by...
[London, s.n., 1718.]
One of at least five printings of this ‘speech’ – allegedly written by the young Jacobite James Shepheard, hanged at Tyburn for planning the assassination of George I – some adding a hymn. Its inflammatory content makes it very unlikely that it was in fact delivered.
£750
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MOORE, George.
Manuscript commonplace book of poems, songs, prayers, and letters.
1805–1855.
An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).
£550
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KAVAN, Anna; Karl Theodor BLUTH.
The Horse’s Tale.
London, Gaberbocchus Press, [1949].
Uncommon first edition of this novel authored jointly by Kavan and her psychiatrist and friend Karl Theodor Bluth, written from the perspective of an ex-circus horse trying to find a place in postwar society and artistic circles, a criticism of prevailing trends in 1940s psychiatric treatment.
£850
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DONALDSON, Florence.
Lepcha Land or six Weeks in the Sikhim Himalayas ... With a Map showing Route, and 106 Illustrations. Photographs...
London, Sampson Low Marston & Company, 1900.
First edition of Florence Donaldson’s account of the Lepcha (or Rong) people of the Himalayan state of Sikkim in India, our copy from the library of the botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the first European permitted to trek through Sikkim.
£400
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MATTHEW OF KRAKÓW; HEINRICH VON LANGENSTEIN.
Incipit dialogus rac[i]onis et co[n]scientie an expediat vel debeat quis raro vel...
[Cologne, Ulrich Zell, not after 1470].
Four works by two important fourteenth-century theologians, Matthew of Kraków (d. 1410) and Heinrich von Langenstein (d. 1397), the latter’s appearing here for the first time, issued by Cologne’s proto-printer Ulrich Zell.
£5500
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BENTLEY, Richard, et al.; [Charles BURNEY, editor].
Richardi Bentleii et doctorum virorum epistolae, partim mutuae....
London, William Bulmer, 1807.
First edition of the correspondence of Richard Bentley, a large paper copy splendidly bound and presented by Charles Burney to the British Museum’s Keeper of Manuscripts, with attractive later provenance.
£1750
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HERODIAN.
His History of twenty Roman Caesars and Emperors (of his Time) … interpreted out of the Greeke Original.
London, Hugh Perry, 1629.
First edition of this translation, attributed to James Maxwell, from the Greek edition printed by Estienne in 1581.
£600
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CORNEILLE, Thomas.
Il Pirro, tragedia … tradotta dal francese e recitata da’ signori cavalieri del Collegio Clementino nelle...
Bologna, Longhi, [1700?].
A very uncommon set of eight early translations by Thomas Corneille (1625–1709), the younger brother of Pierre, 'le Grand Corneille', published in the context of the Italian Accademie.
£750
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ROCCA, Bernardino.
De’ discorsi di guerra … libri Quattro, dove s’insegna a’ capitani, et soldati il modo di condurre esserciti,...
Venice, Damiano Zenaro, 1582.
First edition of Rocca’s military treatise, from the library of the world’s oldest defence and security think tank.
£450
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‘RIZZA, Zanclevio’, pseud. [i.e. Vincenzo LAZZARI GUERRA], editor and contributor.
Piccola raccolta di...
‘Medina’ [i.e. Mori], ‘Frangipane Mozza-Sai’ [i.e. Michelini e Tetoldini], 1788.
A very rare collection of satirical verses by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian authors, published under a false Medina imprint, edited and with some poems previously unpublished by ‘Zanclevio Rizza’, now for the first time identified with Vincenzo Lazzari Guerra.
£500
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PASSI, Carlo.
La selva di varia istoria … la quale avanti andava attorno stampata sotto nome finto di Annotationi dell’Infortunio,...
Venice, Altobello Salicato, 1572.
An unsophisticated copy of Passi and Ruscelli’s elaborations and explanations of Paolo Giovio’s history of his own time, bound in contemporary limp vellum reusing manuscript waste.
£500
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MEFFRET, Johann.
Sermones Meffreth alias Ortulus regine de tempore. Pars hyemalis.
[Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, not after 1485.]
A volume of sermons with early English annotations, in a binding featuring tools attributed to an early Cambridge workshop known as the Unicorn Binder.
£6500
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[GAMES AND RECREATION.]
Trattato de’ giochi e de’ divertimenti permessi, o proibiti ai Cristiani.
Rome, Michel'Angelo Barbiellini, 1768.
First edition of a treatise on games and recreation compiled in Rome by the publisher Barbiellini, with the purpose of providing a comprehensive ethical evaluation of all manner of diversions.
£650