[ALMANACK.]

Calendarium Tyrnaviense ad annum Jesu Chris[ti] M. DCC. XXXI[.] …

[Tyrnau (Trnava), 1731.]

A remarkable almanack binding of part-printed, part-manuscript vellum, prepared for presentation at the Habsburg court in Vienna to the Genoese diplomat Clemente Doria.

£1850

[ALMANACK.]

London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1820.

[London,] Printed for the Company of Stationers, [1820].

An extraordinary binding of silver filigree over blue silk on a miniature London Almanack for 1820.

£2750

[ALMANACK.]

L’Esprit des chansonniers, extrain [sic?] des meilleurs poëtes.

Paris, Le Fuel, [1826?].

A very rare enamelled metal binding with an enchanting design of birds and squirrels, from the collection of the bookbinder, collector, and bibliographer Léon Gruel.

£2750

[ALMANACK.]

Les etrennes a la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.

Paris, Janet, [1804?].

A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).

£2500

[ALMANACK.]

Étrennes mignonnes, curieuses et utiles, pour l’année mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix.

Paris, Guillot, 1790.

A French almanack for 1790 in a delightful sous mica binding with painted vignettes showing a courting couple one side and what appears to be a lovers’ tryst on the other, preserved in its original red morocco case.

£2750

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

[BIBLE.]

Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis … [with:] Novum Jesu Christi Testamentum, vulgatae editionis, Sixti V pont. max. jussu...

Paris, Jacques Vincent, 1741/1740.

An attractively bound copy of the Old and New Testament in the Vulgate version, issued by the noted Parisian printer Jacques Vincent (1671–1760).

£975

[EMBROIDERED BINDING.]

Etrennes mignonnes, pour l’an de grace de Notre Seigneur M. DCC. LIII. …

Liège, Everard Kints, [1753].

A charming almanack for 1753 printed in Liège by Everard Kints – bookseller, printer, and wine merchant – here in a delightful embroidered binding with raised work in silver thread surrounding a skilfully executed floral arrangement.

£400

HAMILTON, ‘Eliza’ [Elizabeth].

Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah; written previous to, and during the Period of...

London, J. Crowder for G. & J. Robinson, 1801.

Second edition of Hamilton’s first separately published work, a pseudo-Oriental satire on British society, in a very well-preserved gilt paper binding imitating calf.

£575

HOSSCHIUS, Sidronius.

Sidronii Hosschii e Societate Iesu elegiarum libri sex. Praemittuntur illustrissimorum virorum poemata in...

Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1656.

First collected edition of the neo-Latin verse of the Flemish Jesuit and poet Sidronius Hosschius (Sidron de Hossche, 1596–1653), edited after his death by his fellow poet Jacques van de Walle (1599–1690), and prefaced with poems on Hosschius’ death commissioned by the future Pope Alexander...

£600

[HYMNAL.]

Neu-vermehrt- und vollständiges Gesang-Buch, worinnen sowohl die Psalmen Davids, nach D. Ambrosii Lobwassers, Uebersetzung...

[Likely Swabia, for] Philadelphia, Ernst Ludwig Baisch, 1774.

First and only edition thus of this German hymnal, issued in Philadelphia by Ernst Ludwig Baisch under his own imprint but printed in Germany, bound by an itinerant German Pennsylvanian binder with printed waste from Charles Cist’s Americanische Stadt und Land Calender for 1797, with inscriptions...

£3500

LIVY; [Pedro DE LA VEGA, translator].

Todas las decadas de Tito Livio paduano, que hasta al presente se hallaron y fueron...

[(Colophon:) Cologne [i.e. Antwerp?], Arnold Birckmann], 1553.

A handsome copy of Livy’s History in Spanish, containing the surviving books as well as Florus’s Epitome, in a contemporary Augsburg binding produced by a bindery in the service of the Fugger family.

£3500

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

[MINIATURE BOOKS.]

‘Hebdomadaire, ou bibliotheque secrete’.

France, c. 1800.

A charming miniature diary in seven volumes, hidden within a compartment of a book-form box.

£2750

MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).

Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...

Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.

‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...

£35

NIXON, Howard M. 

Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

£875

PAPINI, Roberto.

Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.

Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.

First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, compiled by the Italian art historian Roberto Papini (1883–1957), director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and later...

£300

PORTA, Giambattista della.

De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...

Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.

The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.

£2500

[PSALMS.]

Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.

Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.

New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.

£950

RICCI, Giovanni and PORTA, Ercolano.

Storia della missione francescana e del Vicariato Apostolico del Hunan meridionale dalle sue...

Bologna, Stabilimenti tipografici riuniti, 1925.

First and only edition of this history of the Franciscan Mission in South Hunan from its establishment to 1924, with particular attention to the persecution of the Christians during the Boxer Rebellion and the following years of restoration and progress of the mission. The appendix comprises letters,...

£450