Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison 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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RHOADS, James Evans.
Autograph letter signed (‘James E. Rhoads’) to Henry Horniman.
Philadelphia, 22 July 1869.
A letter from the first president of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. Rhoads (1828–1895) helped establish the college as a nondenominational, internationally respected school, and the first higher education institution to offer graduate degrees to women.
£100
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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
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[RICHEOME, Louis].
La vérité defendue pour la religion catholique. En la cause des Iesuites, contre le Plaidoyé d’Antoine...
Toulouse, Veuve de Jacques Colomiez, 1595.
First edition of Richeome’s vindication of the Jesuits against the charges made by Antoine Arnaud in his famous defence of the University of Paris in 1594. Richeome (1544-1625), known as the ‘French Cicero’, was one of the leading French Catholic controversialists of his age and played a crucial...
£1200
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ROMANA, Provost.
Nell’aprirsi della nuova chiesa dalla veneranda, antichissima Confraternita de’ Disciplinanti in Dogliani...
Mondovì, Pietro Francesco and Luiggi Rossi, [1756].
Unrecorded provincially printed broadside celebrating the opening of a new church of the Confraternity of the Disciplinants of Dogliani.
£275
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[SARPI, Paolo (pseud.).] ‘Pietro Soave POLANO’.
Historia del Concilio Tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano. Seconda...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1629.
Second edition, the first to omit the extraneous additions of the 1619 edition introduced by Marco Antonio de Dominis, of the influential and groundbreaking history of the Council of Trent by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), described by Milton as ‘the great unmasker’.
£450
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SARUM BREVIARY,
in Latin.
England, 1st quarter of 15th century.
A fragment of 21 leaves from a portable Sarum Breviary, with nineteenth-century Staffordshire provenance.
£4250
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SARUM MISSAL,
in Latin, with readings and music for the feast of the Nativity
England, late 14th century.
A richly illuminated leaf from a Sarum Missal, the decoration probably of provincial rather than London production.
£3250
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[SAVONAROLA]. POLITO, Ambrogio Caterino.
Discorso … contra la dottrina, et le profetie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
Venice, Giolito, 1548.
First edition, very rare (‘raro e ricercato’, Bongi), of a condemnation of Savonarola’s theology, doctrine and prophecies by a former Savonarola acolyte, ‘one of the most fiery Catholic polemicists of his times’ (ibid., our translation), who four years earlier had published a...
£1500
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SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.
L. Annei Senecae opera, et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendu[m] utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod....
Basel, ‘in officina Frobeniana’, 1529 [(colophon:) Basel, Johann Herwagen, March 1537].
Second Erasmus edition of the moral essays and letters of Seneca, owned and annotated by Ludovicus Carinus (d. 1569), friend and later foe of Erasmus himself.
£5000
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SENECA, Lucius Anneus.
Tragoediae pristinae integritati restitutae, per exactissimi judicii viros post Avantium & Philologum …
Paris, Badius Ascensius, 1514.
First edition edited by Erasmus and Badius Ascensius, a landmark in the history of Seneca’s textual tradition. This key work, the product of a collaboration between two wholly committed humanists, cannot have been accomplished without some friction: Erasmus had allowed Badius to make use of...
£1750
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[SOCIETY OF JESUS.]
Les découvertes d’un bibliophile réduites a leur juste valeur. Avec quelques cas de conscience curieux.
Strasbourg, L.F. Le Roux, [1843].
First edition of this scathing response to Busch’s anti-Jesuit Les découvertes d’un bibliophile, central to the highly polemical ‘affaire du Bibliophile’ which divided Strasbourg in 1843.
£375
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STAPLETON, Thomas.
Promptuarium Catholicum ad instructionem concionatorum contra haereticos nostri temporis, super omnia evangelia...
Antwerp, Pierre Beller, 1592.
Rare third edition, expanded, of Stapleton’s handbook or ‘storehouse’ of scriptural devotions for Sundays and feast days, first published in 1589. An independent companion volume for the weekdays in Lent was first published in 1594.
£700
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STEPNIAK, Sergey.
דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד … איבערזעצט פון א. פרומקין
[Dos...New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921.
Scarce first American edition in Yiddish of Stepniak’s first and most influential book. Written in Italian during exile in Switzerland following his assassination of Nikolai Mezentsov, chief of Alexander II’s secret police, Underground Russia was published in 1882 and translated into...
£150
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STEUART, Walter (of Pardovan?).
‘The ABC with the Shorter Catechisme appointed by the general Assembly to be a Directory for...
Edinburgh. Written by Walter Stewart. 1714[–15].
A very attractive calligraphic manuscript catechism, largely reproducing the very rare edition printed in Edinburgh in 1696 (NLS and Bodley only in ESTC). It was apparently produced in November–December 1714, and the imitation of both blackletter and roman type is consistently excellent throughout....
£2500
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STRYPE, John.
The Life of the learned Sir John Cheke, Kt., first Instructer, afterwards Secretary of State, to King Edward VI.,...
London, John Wyat, 1705.
First edition of Strype’s biography of the courtier and classicist Sir John Cheke, inaugural Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.
£450
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SWIFT, Jonathan.
A Tale of a Tub … to which is added, an Account of a Battle between the antient and modern Books in St. James’s...
London, C. Bathurst, 1751.
A scarce later edition of Swift’s classic satires on corruption in religion and learning, as exemplified in the conduct of Peter (Roman Catholicism), Martin (Luther), and Jack (Calvin) in the Tale of the Tub, and the spirited fight over the highest peak of Parnassus in the Battel of...
£175
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SYKES, Arthur Ashley.
The Duty of Love to God, and to our Neighbours. A Sermon preach'd at the Assizes held at Chelmsford in...
London, J. Darby & T. Browne for Chelmsford, Samuel Lobb, 1728.
First and only edition of this sermon given by the latitudinarian and controversialist Arthur Ashley Sykes (c. 1684–1756).
£150
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TAYLOR, Jeremy [and Brian DUPPA].
A Choice Manual, containing what is to be believed, practised, and desired or praied for; the...
London, Printed for R. Royston … 1669.
Extremely rare later edition of Jeremy Taylor’s The Golden Grove (first 1655). The Golden Grove, named after the seat of the Earl of Carbery, Taylor’s patron, ‘was equal in popularity with Taylor’s other works during this century. It is also interesting because it eventually...
£600
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TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND,
who are in Place to do Justice, and to break the Bonds of the oppressed. A Narrative of the cruel,...
London, Printed for Thomas Simmons …, 1659.
First edition, rare, a list of Quaker victims of persecution in Ireland with details of their sufferings. The pamphlet was published and undersigned by a group of the victims including the country’s reputed first Quaker, William Edmondson, and Thomas Holme, who went on to publish A Brief...
£300
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[THOMAS À KEMPIS.]
Messer Giovanni Gerson. Utile & divota operetta della imitatione di Giesu Xpo …
Florence, Piero Pacini da Pescia, 16 April 1505.
Scarce edition of an anonymous Italian translation of the Imitatio Christi, with a striking woodcut of Christ to the title.
£4000