Continental

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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.

 
  1. LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.

    Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...

    Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.

    First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).

    £375

  2. LE CLERC, Sébastien, the Elder. 

    Figures de la passion D. N. S. Iesus Christ presentées à Madame Madame de Maintenon, par...

    Paris, chez G. Audran graveur ordinaire du Roy, [early 1700s]. 

    Scarce later issue of this wonderful suite of engravings depicting the Passion of Christ by the noted engraver Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714), running from Christ’s arrival in the Garden of Olives to the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. 

    £675

  3. LE GROS, Nicolas.

    Meditations sur les epistres Catholiques de S. Jacques, S. Pierre, et St. Jean. Avec le texte Latin et François...

    Paris, chez Savoye, 1754.

    First edition of this extensive work of meditations by the Jansenist Nicolas Le Gros (1675–1751), who had been a canon of Rheims Cathedral but became an exile in Holland and a member of the schismatic Church of Utrecht. A set of meditations just on the epistles of St. Peter had been published in 1736....

    £1250

  4. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Jews, are they human?

    London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, [1939]

    First edition, Lewis’s first avowedly antifascist text, an argument against antisemitism written after the first draft of The Hitler Cult but published nine months earlier. Lewis had visited Germany, and the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1938, and had been left disturbed. ‘Perhaps because he had come...

    £450

  5. LUDOPHUS of Saxony. 

    In Psal. David, diligentiss. Simul, & doctissima Enarratio ....Ad cuius ornamentum & collocupletatione[m]...

    [Lyons,] A. Vincent, [1542]. 

    Uncommon and significant edition of one of the most important fourteenth-century commentaries on the Psalms, hailed as excellent for its method and clarity and first put through the press in 1491. 

    £2000

  6. LUTHER, Martin. 

    Eyn Sendbriff … uber die frage.  Ob auch yemandt, on glawben verstorben selig werden müge &c.  An Er Hansen...

    [Wittenberg, N. Schirlentz, 1522].

    First edition, rare, of a momentous letter on predestination addressed by Luther to his friend Hans von Rechenberg. 

    £1500

  7. MAGNON, Jean. 

    Les heures du Chrestien, divisées en trois journées; qui sont la journée de la penitence, la journée de la...

    Paris, se vendent chez l’autheur … et chez Sebastien Martin, 1654. 

    First edition of this handsomely illustrated collection of prayers and devotions in verse and prose by the French playwright and poet Jean Magnon (1620–1662).  The number of plates in individual copies varies, this copy containing at least two more than those described on OCLC. 

    £650

  8. [MARABOTTA, Cattaneo.] 

    Vita della serafica S. Caterina da Genova. 

    Genoa, Tipografia Frugoni, 1832. 

    Rare first edition thus, an attractive nineteenth-century reprint of Marabotta’s biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), first published in 1737, the date of her canonisation.  Catherine was known for her writings on mysticism and for her work with the poor and sick, notably during...

    £185

  9. MARKISH, Peretz Davidovich.

    Rubezh. Izbrannye stikhi [Threshold. Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    [Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    First edition in Russian of the first book by the Soviet Yiddish poet and novelist Peretz Markish (1895-1952), a collection of poems, Shveln (Threshold, Kiev, 1919) which established his reputation as one of the most important Yiddish poets of his time.

    £1800

  10. [MASCHERANA, Girolamo.]

    Concordia tra la società e la religione ossia Difesa del culto cattolico contro chi lo calunnia in contrasto...

    Milan, Cesare Orena nella stamperia Malatesta, 1798.

    Rare second edition, printed in the same year as the equally rare first, of this curious defence of religion in the light of the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, in which the author seeks to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution and...

    £375

  11. [MASS.]

    Cerimonie piu’ notabili della messa privata; Cavate dalle rubriche del Missale, ed altri autori da un Sacerdote D.C.D.M....

    Turin, Gianfranco Mairesse, 1739.

    An apparently unrecorded edition of this uncommon treatise on the celebration of the mass and its associated rituals.

    £300

  12. MAURIZI, Maria Luisa.

    Morali e divote riflessioni a tutti utilissime e specialmente alle persone claustrali scritte dalla serva...

    Rome, Tipografia della Pia Unione alle Terme, 1833.

    Uncommon first edition of this collection of meditations on the religious life, by the Roman nun Maria Luisa Maurizi (born Giacinta Gertrude Maurizi, 1770–1831), and published posthumously at the behest of her spiritual director, Agostino Romagnoli.

    £150

  13. MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa. 

    Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis dei baroni di Ioppolo e Coccorino che a di 6 luglio 1846...

    Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846. 

    Very rare collection of odes and sonnets composed to mark the entry of Maria Teresa Melecrinis into the Benedictine monastery of San Paolo at Sorrento. 

    £175

  14. MENDELSSOHN, Moses.

    Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judenthum.

    Frankfurt and Leipzig, n. p., 1787.

    First posthumous edition, originally published in 1783 by Friedrich Maurer in Berlin, of this later work by Mendelssohn (1729–1786), in which he supports religious and political toleration, and advocates separation of church and state and civil equality for Jews. The work was reprinted as recently as 2001.

    £200

  15. [MILAN, province of.]

    Ordo admittendi virgines ad monasterii ingressum habitumque regularem suscipiendi ritus item servandus...

    Milan, Tamburini and Valdoni, 1843.

    Scarce edition of this set of rites for the admission of women to convents in the province of Milan, covering their investiture, tonsure, and vows, with instructions printed in red, texts to be spoken and sung in black, and with printed music for hymns and blessings. The first edition appears...

    £200

  16. MILNER, Joseph.

    Practical Sermons, by the late Rev. Joseph Milner, M. A. Master of the Grammar School, and Vicar of the Holy Trinity...

    York: Printed by G. Peacock; and sold by Mathews … London; Deighton, Cambridge [and others in York, Hull, Leeds and Halifax]. 1800.

    First edition, rare, collecting 21 sermons with a biography of Milner (1745-1797), headmaster of Hull Grammar School and church historian. Milner was largely responsible for a revival in fortune of the Grammar School, where he took charge in 1767. As a clergyman he leaned towards a moderate Calvinism...

    £175

  17. MISSAL,

    in Latin, with readings for the first Sunday in Advent.

    Southern Netherlands or northern France (Arras?), c. 1425.

    A remnant of what must have been an exceptionally grand missal, with illumination of considerable finesse. We have been unable to trace any other leaves from the same manuscript.

    £3250

  18. MÜNSTER, Sebastian.

    [Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...

    [Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.

    First edition of Sebastian Munster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive contemporary...

    £7000

  19. NADAL, [Augustin,] Abbé

    Herode: Tragedie nouvelle. 

    Paris, Pierre Ribou, 1709. 

    First edition of Nadal’s tragedy on King Herod, the second in the series of Biblical plays over which he quarrelled with Voltaire. 

    £275

  20. [NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].

    Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.

    Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.

    First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.

    £750