RENAN, Ernest (1823-1892), French philologist and philosopher.

A collection of 26 autograph letters and notes signed, with one...

Paris and Sèvres, 1853-1889 (and undated).

A fine collection of letters from Renan, providing an insight into the breadth of his academic pursuits, his publications, his contacts in France and abroad, and his personality.

£500

[RENNEVILLE, Sophie de (?).]

Contes a Aglaé, ou la jeune moraliste.

Paris, Caillou, c.1820.

Very uncommon edition, possibly the first, of this collection of educational contes moraux, sometimes attributed to the prolific children’s author and journalist Sophie de Renneville (1772–1822).

£325

RENOWNED HISTORY (The)

of Primrose Prettyface, who by her Sweetness of Temper, & Love of Learning, was raised from being the Daughter...

London, Printed & sold by J. Marshall & Co. … (Price 6d in Gilt Paper – 9d bound in Red.) [1788?]

One of three undated editions, probably the last (adding Marshall’s Cheapside premises at 17 Queen St to the imprint), but the only one with an engraved title-page and frontispiece.

£1000

RE-REPRESENTATION (THE)

: or, a modest Search after the great Plunderers of the Nation: being a brief Enquiry into two weighty...

London, Printed in the Year, 1711.

First edition, the issue with ‘known. I.’ (rather than ‘known, viz. I.’) on the title-page, and with ‘against’ and ‘publick’ spelled correctly on pages 11 and 25. As the half-title and title-page form a bifolium cancelling A1 (the text begins on A2, page 3), the two variants were probably...

£350

REXROTH, Kenneth.

An Autobiographical Novel …

Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.

First edition, inscribed ‘In friendship / for Geoffrey Bridson / Kenneth Rexroth SF June 66’.

£300

[REYNOLDS, Joshua, Sir].

A Discourse, delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2, 1769 [also: October 16,...

London: Printed in the Year 1769.

First editions of seven discourses addressed by Reynolds to the newly founded Royal Academy, of which he was the first President.

£950

RICHARDSON, Joseph.

The Fugitive: a Comedy. As it is performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket …

London: Printed for J. Debrett … 1792.

First edition of the first play by Sheridan’s friend, the writer and politican Joseph Richardson, proprietor of the Morning Post and later of the Drury Lane Theatre (by 1796 he had a £12,000 stake); this is the second issue, with sheets K-M reset to add extra dialogue to Act V, scene I.

£100

[RICHMOND.]

The Belvidere: a Poem. Inscrib’d to Joseph Grove, Esq. of Richmond, in the County of Surrey …

London: Printed in the Year 1749.

First edition, rare (British Library and Yale only) of a very attractive description in verse of a country estate in Richmond. The first pages offer a prospect of the garden with its flowers and shrubs, shaded walks and arbours, a bower with the escutcheon over the door of the late Sir William...

£2750

[RIVERS, David].

Literary Memoirs of living Authors of Great Britain, arranged according to an alphabetical Catalogue of their...

London: Printed for R. Faulder … sold also by T. Egerton … and W. Richardson … 1798.

First edition of a collection of literary biographies, including perhaps the earliest brief life of Coleridge, whose first volume of Poems had appeared in 1796:

£1500

R., N.

Proverbs English, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. All Englished and alphabetically digested …

London, Printed for Simon Miller … 1659.

First and only edition of a scarce collection of idiomatic phrases and proverbs, many translated from other languages, with a selection of 114 ‘Golden sentences’ at the end.

£1750

ROGERS, Samuel.

Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. To which is added Porsoniana.

London: Edward Moxon ... 1856.

First edition of this mine of contemporary literary gossip. Rogers is among that select group of poets to have declined the laureateship, and his poetry once had an ardent fan in Byron, who saw him as a much needed antidote to the Lake poets. His most durable achievement, however, has proved to be his...

£150

ROSCOMMON, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of.

Poems … to which is added an Essay on Poetry, by the Earl of Mulgrave, now Duke of Buckingham....

London: Printed for J. Tonson … 1717.

First edition of this collection, notable for Richard Duke’s unfinished Review, a vehement satire in response to, and in the allegorical manner of, Absalom and Achitophel, and featuring Dryden as one of the figures satirised. According to Tonson in the preface, it was written ‘a little after the...

£400

ROSCOMMON, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of.

An Essay on Translated Verse …

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1684.

First edition of Roscommon’s influential Essay, in heroic couplets, which owes much to Boileau and to the author’s own education in France after the attainder of his kinsman the Earl of Strafford, with an introductory poem by Dryden.

£450

ROTH, Henry.

Call it Sleep.

London: Michael Joseph, 1963.

First English edition, first published in New York by Robert O. Ballou in 1934.

£250

[ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia.  First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

£575

[ROZIER.] 

Le rozier historial de France contenant deux roziers.  Le p[re]mier rozier contient plusieurs belles rozes et boutons...

Paris, [Gilles Couteau for François Regnault,] 26 February 1522 [i.e. 1523]. 

First edition, the very handsome Fairfax-Murray copy, of the Rozier historial de France. 

£25000

RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus, pseud. [Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN]. 

Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem Recht / Natur /...

‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen, 1716.’ 

First edition, very rare, of this satirical academic disputation on melancholy, dedicated to the author’s ‘unpleasant and universally despised’ peers in the hope of cheering them up (p. [4] trans.). 

£675

RUSKIN, John.

The stones of Venice … With illustration drawn by the author. Fourth edition.

Orpington, Kent, George Allen, 1886.

A deluxe copy, one of 220 copies, of the fourth expanded edition, printed on Van Gelder laid paper with the plates on India paper.

£375

SALLUST.

C. Crispi Sallustii de conjuratione Catilinae historia. Eiusdem de bello Iugurthino ...

Paris, Robert Estienne, 1544.

Estienne’s edition of the works of Sallust, annotated by an early English reader.

£1500