Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan
Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.
We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.
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GELLIUS, Aulus; [Johann Friedrich GRONOVIUS, editor].
Noctes atticae: editio nova et prioribus omnibus docti hominis cura...
Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1651.
Jansson’s piracy of Gronovius’s celebrated version, published the same year as the first edition. A commonplace book compiled by Aulus Gellius in the second century, the Attic Nights received several editions, of which the most highly regarded is that of Johann Friedrich Gronovius (Gronow,...
£450
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GOODWIN, Thomas.
Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities, wherein many Roman & English...
Oxford, Leonard Lichfield for Henry Cripps, 1638.
Early editions of these two popular schoolbooks on antiquities, often found bound together – a compendium of Roman antiquities and a study of the customs and religious rites of the ancient Jews, originally published in 1614 and 1625 respectively – by the headmaster and scholar Thomas Goodwin (1587–1642)....
£1600
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HERMOGENES.
Τεχνη ρητορικη τελειοτατη. Hermogenis ars oratoria absolutissima, et libri omnes. Cum nova versione...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1614.
A parallel text edition of Hermogenes in a simple but fine contemporary binding.
£750
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HIEROCLES of Alexandria.
Ύπομνηνα εις τα των Πυθαγορειων επη τα χρυσα … commentarius in...
London, J. R. [John Redmayne] for J. Williams, and Henry Dickinson, Cambridge, 1673.
London edition of the only complete work of Hierocles, his commentaries on the Golden Verses, a valuable epitome of Pythagorean ethical teachings, printed here in the original and in a Latin translation. According to tradition they were put into their present form by Lysis, one of the most...
£500
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HIPPOCRATES.
The Eight Sections of Hippocrates Aphorismes review’d and rendred into English: according to the Translation of...
London, W. G. for Rob. Crofts, 1665.
First edition of this translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a succinct summary of medical advice directed at the practitioner. The first English translation was published in 1610, and a second version, derived from it in 1655. Here the aphorisms are entirely re-arranged by topic...
£850
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HOMER, and Alexander POPE (translator).
The Iliad of Homer. Translated from the Greek by Alexander Pope, Esq. Philadelphia,...
McCulloch, P. Stuart, 1795.
First American edition of Pope’s rendering of the Iliad. Pope began his reinterpretation of Homer’s epic poem when in his early twenties. Following several years of ‘great pain and apprehensions’, as Pope drafted his text on the backs of letters sent to him and his mother (now preserved...
£850
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HORACE.
Q. Horatius Flaccus ex recensione Dan. Heinsii.
Edinburgh, George Mosman, 1704.
A rare, modestly printed Scottish Horace, apparently the only printing in the British Isles of Heinsius’ edition, first published by Louis Elzevir in 1612.
£450
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HORACE.
Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.
Paris, Didot, 1855.
The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.
£750
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HORACE.
Quinti Horatii Flacci poemata, novis scholiis et argumentis ab Henrico Stephano illustrata. Eiusdem Henr. Stephani diatribae...
[Geneva, Henri Estienne, 1574.]
First Henri Estienne edition of the works of Horace, with his marginal scholia and appendices, this copy with annotations by a late sixteenth-century student providing a running commentary on the Odes and Epodes.
£2500
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HORACE; James TATE, editor.
Horatius restitutus: or the books of Horace arranged in chronological order according...
Cambridge, J. Smith for J. & J.J. Deighton, 1832.
First edition of this attempt to arrange the books of Horace in chronological order by the classical scholar and master of Richmond School, James Tate (1771–1843), this copy presented by him to Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), classicist, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, Regius Professor of Greek,...
£150
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HYGINUS Gromaticus, attributed, and POLYBIUS.
De Castris Romanis, quae extant. Cum notis & animadversionibus …
Amsterdam, Jodocus Pluymer, 1660.
First edition thus, with annotations by the politician Radboud Herman Scheele (1622–1662).
£1000
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ISOCRATES.
Orationes et epistolae gravitatis et suavitatis plenae de Greco in Latinum pridem conversae, nunc recognitae, per Hieronymu[m]...
Paris, Michel de Vascosan, 1553.
A handsome Latin edition of twenty-one works by the Athenian orator Isocrates whose work was highly influential on later education, oratory and writing. Isocrates (436–338 BC) studied under Socrates and the sophists, before establishing a famous school of rhetoric which attracted pupils from...
£750
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IVANOV, Vyacheslav Ivanovich.
Прометей трагедия [Prometei tragediia; ‘Prometheus a tragedy’].
St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1919.
First edition of Ivanov’s dramatic poem Prometheus, which follows the form of Greek tragedy.
£250
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JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus; Cornelius NEPOS.
Trogi Pompei externae historiae in compendium ab Justino redactae. Externorum imperatorum...
Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri’, January 1522.
First Aldine edition of Justinus’ abridgement of the lost Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus, and of Nepos’ De viris illustribus, with a decorated initial to the opening of the text, likely executed in the early nineteenth century when the work was bound in Rome.
£1850
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JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus, Lucius Annaeus FLORUS, and Sextus RUFUS.
Iustini Historia ex Trogo Pompeio quattuor & triginta...
Paris, Jean Petit [and Jean Marchant], [1509].
A collection of abbreviated Roman histories, edited by Marcantonio Sabellico, with two different woodcuts depicting a scholar in a study with books and writing implements.
£1850
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JUVENAL.
The Satires … translated: with explanatory and classical Notes, relating to the Laws and Customs of the Greeks and Romans …
London, for J. Nicholson, Cambridge; and sold by S. Crowder and J. and F. Rivington, 1777.
Third edition of this parallel-text translation edited by Thomas Sheridan, first published 1739. Contemporary annotations (one is dated 1779) provide succinct summaries of the subject of each satire. Satire II for example ‘scourges the Hypocrisy, Effeminacy, & Bestiality of his Countrymen,...
£1250
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JUVENAL, Decimus Junius, and Aulus Persius FLACCUS.
Satyrae.
London, J. Brindley, 1744.
First Brindley edition, edited by the Irish classical scholar Usher Gahagan (d. 1749). John Brindley began to publish his series of well-printed duodecimo classics in 1744, for which Gahagan edited eleven works before his arrest and conviction for high treason, having become embroiled with a...
£650
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KEATS, John.
Endymion. A poetic romance … with engravings by John Buckland-Wright.
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, [1947].
No. 200 of 500 copies of the Golden Cockerel Endymion (the first 100 specially bound in full vellum), also found in brown buckram rather than red as here; Buckland-Wright’s greatest work and one of the most important Golden Cockerel publications, begun in 1943 but not completed until...
£1750
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LACTANTIUS.
Opera.
[Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.
Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...
£25000
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[LAFONT, Joseph de.]
Hypermnestre, tragedie, mise au theatre de l’Academie Royale de Musique de Lyon, pour la prémière fois...
Lyon, de l’imprimerie d’Aymé Delaroche … aux dépens de l’Académie Royale de Musique, 1742.
Very scarce Lyon edition of the libretto for the tragedy Hypermnestre by the French playwright Joseph de Lafont (1686–1725). In Greek mythology, Hypermnestra was one of the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, who defied her father by refusing to kill her husband Lynceus.
£175