[QUESNAY, François].

DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

£37500

[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

AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].  

Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.

Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.

First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.

£22500

[HAMILTON, Alexander, James MADISON, and John JAY].

The Federalist: A Collection of Essays written in Favor of the new Constitution,...

New York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M’Lean … 1788.

First edition in book form of The Federalist Papers, the single most important work of American political philosophy, a normal paper copy, very rare in the original boards, uncut and largely unopened. Volume II is in a mixed state, with the error ‘Letter LXXX’ rather than ‘LXX’...

£220000

ROUQUET, Jean-André. 

The present State of the Arts in England.  By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...

London, for J. Nourse, 1755. 

First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). 

£19500

GIBBON, Edward.

The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

London, printed for W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1776–88.

First editions of all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style’ (PMM). The first volume here is of the second variant (of two), with the errata corrected as far as p. 183 and X4 and a4 so signed.

£14000

DONNE, John.

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ...

London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.

Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him. It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer.

£13500

LIST, Friedrich. 

Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie … Erster Band: Der internationale Handel, die Handelspolitik...

Stuttgart, J.G. Cotta, 1841. 

First edition, the first work to articulate developing economies’ need for protective regulation, one of the earliest and most severe critiques of Adam Smith and his followers.

£12000

PETTY, William, Sir.

Another essay in political arithmetick, concerning the growth of the City of London: with the measures,...

1682. London, printed by H.H. for Mark Pardoe, 1683.

First edition, exceptionally scarce – indeed unique in its uncut and unbound state – of Petty’s first work of political arithmetic, a landmark work of statistics, demography, and economics.

£12000

[LOO, Pieter van, (attributed).] 

156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits. 

[Holland, c. 1760–80]. 

A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784). 

£110000

COPE, Walter, Sir.

‘Enchiridion. Certaine breife Remonstrances offered unto his Ma[jes]tie … Touching divers Inconveniences...

[London?], 1613.

A fine, unpublished manuscript treatise on the balance of trade, dedicated to James I, by the administrator, politician, and collector Sir Walter Cope (c. 1553–1614).

£11000

PONTANO, Giovanni.

De rebus coelestibus.

Naples, ‘ex officina Sigismundi Mayr Germani : summo ingenio artificis Ioannetto Salodio : Antonio Vuerengrundt : Evangelista Papiensi :...

First editions of three works on cosmology, ethics, and astrology by the Neapolitan humanist, poet, and polymath Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), an important sammelband from the celebrated library of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), professor of natural philosophy and natural history at the University...

£11000

ANTONIUS de Vercellis. 

Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...

Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93. 

A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites. 

£8500

STACEY, George et al.

Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of Stacey and members of his family.

London, 1850s.

A handsome set of photographs of the English Quaker and abolitionist George Stacey (1787-1857), his second wife Mary née Barclay (1797-1876) and members of their extended family, taken by some of the finest portraitists in England at that time.

£7500

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

BOETHIUS, Severinus.

[De consolatione] Duplex commentatio ex integro reposita atque recognita in Boetium.

[Lyons, Claude Davost for Simon Vincent, 1506.]

Annotated copy of a scarce edition of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae edited and commented on by Jocodus Badius Ascensius, with another commentary once attributed to Thomas Aquinas. The annotations, contemporary with the book, are carried out by two hands, one in brown and one...

£7000

BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

£6000

WALRAS, Léon.

Théorie critique de l’impot …

Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1861.

First and only edition of Walras’ second published book on economics and an important early testimonial to his profound admiration for, and intellectual identification with, his father. In the lengthy preface, he reviews the ideas contained in the works of Auguste Walras, including the concept of ‘rarety’...

£5750

DOLCE, Lodovico.

Somma della filosofia a’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica. [with:] Somma di tutta la natural filosofia di...

Venice, Giovanni Battista, & Marchio Sessa, & fratelli, [1565].

First edition of this exposition of Aristotle’s dialaectics, moral, and natural philosophy by ‘one of the major transmitters of culture in cinquecento Italy’ (Ronnie H. Terpening, Lodovico Dolce: Renaissance Man of Letters, 1997).

£5500

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