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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[DOMINICAN NUNS.]
Regola e costituzioni delle suore di S. Domenico riviste e ristampate d’ordine del rmo p. vicario generale...
Rome, Bernardo Morini, 1853.
Very rare first edition thus of the regulations governing Dominican nuns, published by order of Alexandre Vincent Jandel (1810–1872), who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1850 until his death.
£250
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DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.
Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um] artium et theologie doctoris in divi Thome de Aq[ui]no co[m]mentaria...
Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 25 January 1514.
Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian commentaries. The first, by the Dominican philosopher Dominic of Flanders (c. 1425–1479), analyses two works by Thomas Aquinas: his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (on the nature of scientific axioms), and his De fallaciis...
£3000
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DRYDEN, John.
Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.
First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...
£400
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ECKARTSHAUSEN, Karl von.
Dieu est l’amour le plus pur, ma prière et ma contemplation. Par Eckartshausen. Paris, chez L.
Duprat-Duverger, rue des Grands-Augustins, no. 21, [1805-1813].
Scarce edition of a French translation of Gott ist die reinste Liebe by the German Catholic mystic Karl von Eckartshausen (1752–1803), this copy formerly in the possession of the long-term lover of Queen Victoria’s father.
£475
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[EDWARD VII – COMMON PRAYER.]
[Cover title: ‘Prayer Book of Edward VII’] The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration...
[Norwood (MA), Plimpton Press for] New York, M. Walter Dunne, [1904].
Authorised American edition of the Essex House Press Book of Common Prayer, published in celebration of the accession of Edward VII.
£500
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ERASMUS, Desiderius.
Paraclesis, id est adhortio ad sanctissimum ac saluberrimum Cristianae philosophiae studium …
Basel, Johann Froben, February 1520.
Attractive contemporary Erasmus sammelband, superbly eloquent in its physical union of three treatises without which the humanist’s Praise of Folly would risk gross misinterpretation.
£5500
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EUSEBIUS CAESARIENSIS; RUFINUS AQUILEIENSIS, translator.
Historia ecclesiastica.
Rome, Johannes Philippus de Lignamine, 15 May 1476.
The Syston Park copy of the earliest history of the Christian Church, written in the early fourth century; this is probably the third edition. It was translated into Latin in the early fifth century by Rufinus of Aquileia, who extended the text down to the time of Theodosius at the end of the...
£4500
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FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco.
De bello Arriano libri sex.
Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1604.
First and only edition of the sole published work by the Italian nobleman Giovanni Marco Fagnani (1524–1609), an epic poem recounting Ambrose of Milan’s campaign against local Arians in late fourth-century Lombardy.
£900
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FARINGTON, Susan Maria (illustrator).
The 104th Psalm. Illustrated by Susan Maria Ffarington. Worden.
London, Vincent Brooks Day & Son, [c. 1867].
The Faringtons or Ffaringtons were an ancient family of Worden Hall, Leyland, Lancashire, with a substantial family archive. Susan Maria (1808–1894) edited The Farington Papers for the Chetham Society in 1856, and made other contributions to local history, but this unusual panorama seems to have...
£650
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FIAMMA, Gabriele.
Prediche del reverendo don Gabriel Fiamma, canonico regolare lateranense; fatte in vari tempi, in vari luoghi,...
Venice, Francesco Senese, 1570.
Scarce third edition of this collection of twelve sermons by the Augustinian canon and bishop of Chioggia, Gabriele Fiamma (1533–1585).
£400
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FORD, Simon.
The Restoring of fallen Brethren: containing the Substance of two Sermons … preached on the Performance of public...
London, Printed for Henry Mortlock … 1697.
First edition, the last published work of the clergyman and poet Simon Ford (1618/9-1699), being two sermons preached on the occasion of the performance of penance ‘for the late Fornications, and filthy Uncleannesses. that have been committed in this Neighbourhood’.
£275
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FREUD, Sigmund.
Die Zukunft einer Illusion.
Leipzig/Vienna/Zürich, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927.
First edition, in the first issue of 5000 copies, of Freud’s work on the origins and future development of religion (the ‘illusion’ of the title), centred on the notion of religion as, in one form or another, wish-fulfilment and the longing for a paternal figure as a response to a realisation...
£85
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FREUD, Sigmund.
Moses and monotheism [translated from the German by Katherine Jones].
New York, Alfred A, Knopf, 1939.
First American edition of the last lifetime publication of Freud, a study of the origins of monotheism in Judaism and Christiantity, where Freud took as his point of departure the theory that Moses was not an Israelite but an Egyptian, who imported the seeds of Judaism into Israel from Egypt. The book...
£80
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FRY, Theodore.
A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.
[London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.
First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete...
£850
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GAMON, Christophe de.
La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
[Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.
Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.
£950
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[GEORGE V.]
The Form and Order of the Service that is to be performed and of the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation...
London, Novello & Company, 1911.
A handsome copy of the Coronation service, with choral settings of the music sung, including (among others) Parry’s ‘I was glad’, Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’, and ‘God save the King!’, arranged by Sir Frederick Bridge (1844–1924), organist at Westminster Abbey.
£450
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GIOVANNI GUALBERTO, Saint.
Sanctus Ioannes Gualbertus Florentinus institutor ordinis Vallisumbrosae.
[S.l., s.n.,] 1774.
A wonderful engraving, extremely rare, depicting scenes from the life of Saint Giovanni Gualberto (c. 985–1073, anglicised as John Gualbert), founder of the Vallombrosan Order.
£1250
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GOBINET, Charles.
Instruction sur la vérité du Saint Sacrement, contenant en abregé les principaux motifs de la créance Catholique...
Paris, François le Cointe, 1677.
Scarce first edition thus, containing an explanation of the Eucharist and a defence of transubstantiation by the French writer and teacher Charles Gobinet (1613–1690), a lovely copy bearing a stamp found on bindings executed for Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin (1661–1711), eldest son of Louis...
£650
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GOODWIN, Thomas.
Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities wherein many Roman and English...
London, R.W. for Peter Parker, 1661.
A wholly unsophisticated Restoration sammelband of three popular seventeenth-century schoolbooks.
£850
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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