BEVER, Thomas.

The History of the legal polity of the Roman State; and of the rise, progress, and extent of the Roman laws.

London, Strahan and Cadell, 1781.

Sole edition of a legal history conceived along the lines of Gibbon’s history, an account that was meant to furnish leaders of the emerging British Empire with a helpful knowledge of the past from the perspective of the evolution of legal systems.

£1500

[BIANCHI, Isidoro.]

Compendio della vita e miracoli della B. Elisabetta Picenardi del Terz’Ordine de’ Servi di M.V. E del culto...

Cremona, per il Feraboli, 1805.

Second edition (first Rome 1804) of this account of the life and miracles of Elisabetta Picenardi (1428–1468) of the Servite Order, who was beatified in November 1804 after Pope Pius VII issued confirmation of her local cultus. The work is attributed to the Camaldolese monk Isidoro Bianchi (1731–1808)....

£350

BIOT, Jean-Baptiste.

Deuxième lettre … à M. Saulnier fils, directeur de la Revue britannique, sur les approvisionnemens de...

Paris, Dondey-Dupré, 1828.

First edition in book form, rare, reprinted from the Revue britannique. In this open letter, Biot (1774–1862), famous as a physicist but writing here as a ‘propriétaire cultivateur’ from Picardy, discusses the economics of supplying the consumer needs of Paris, in particular the implications of...

£200

BIRKETT, Dorothy Nina Forbes (editor).

Hunting Lays and Hunting Ways: An Anthology of the Chase … with fourteen Illustrations...

London, John Lane at the Bodley Head, 1924.

First edition of Lady Birkett’s collection of poetry and prose relating to fox-hunting, handsomely printed and generously illustrated.

£75

BLACKERBY, Samuel. Nathaniel BLACKERBY, editor.

The First Part of the Justice of the Peace his Companion; or, a Summary of all...

London, E. & R. Nutt and R. Gosling for J. Walhoe, 1734.

Later editions of this important source of information on crime and the work of the magistracy in early seventeenth-century England. Samuel Blackerby’s Justice of the Peace his Companion … was first published by Walhoe in 1711, and appeared under the title Cases in Law wherein Justices of Peace...

£450

BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.

Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à nos jours, suivie...

Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.

First edition of ‘the first major history of political economy’ (The New Palgrave). Blanqui (1798–1854) taught at the Institution Massin, where he came into contact with J. B. Say, who was greatly impressed by him. In 1833, he succeeded Say as holder of the chair of political and industrial economy...

£300

BLENCOWE, Robert Willis.

Sydney Papers, consisting of a journal of the Earl of Leicester, and original letters of Algernon Sydney....

London, John Murray, 1825.

First edition, a presentation copy, of this collection of documents relating to the life and trial of the seventeenth century political philosopher and republican Algernon Sydney, edited by the antiquarian Robert Willis Blencowe (1791-1874).

The bulk of the volume contains the journal of the...

£150

BODEMER, Heinrich.

Die Wirkungen der Creditpapiere in Bezug die Vehmehrung der Banken in Deutschland.

Leipzig, Heinrich Hubner, 1853.

First edition of a rare German treatise on banking, money, paper money and credit. Bodemer argues for a bettering and widening of credit in Prussia at a crucial time of its economic development, where both production and trade required ever more more advanced, unified and modern financial tools.

£185

[BOLZANO, Bernard].

Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre und Religionswissenschaft in einer beurtheilenden Uebersicht.

Sulzbach, J.E von Seidels, 1841.

First edition of this critical summary of the greatest works of Bolzano, The Theory of Science and The Science of Religion, first published in four-volume sets in 1837 and 1834, copiously illustrated with citations from the original texts.

£600

BONACINA, Martino.

Tractationes Variae ... Prima ... De Simonia. Secunda, De Alienatione bonorum ecclesiasticorum. Tertia, De Largitione...

Venice, Giunta, 1628.

Rare early edition of six legal tracts by Bonacina, one of the foremost jurists, theologians and moralists of his age. Bonacina was to die suddenly three years later, immediately after having been appointed Nuncio of Urban VIII at the court of the Emperor.

£400

BOOTH, Charles.

In darkest England and the way out.

London, Salvation Army, [1890.]

First edition. ‘In 1890, the same year that Stanley published In Darkest Africa, Booth published In Darkest England. In this book he analysed the causes of pauperism and vice of the period, and proposed a remedy by ten expedients. These included land settlement, emigration, rescue work among prostitutes...

£250

BOSE, Johann Andreas.

Introductio generalis in Notitiam Rerum publicarum Orbis Universi. Accedunt eiusdem Dissertationes de Statu...

Jenae, J. Bielki, 1676.

First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624–1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’...

£3000

BOUTROLLE, J.G.

Le parfait bouvier, ou instruction concernant la connoissance des boeufs & vaches, leur âge, maladies & symptômes,...

Rouen, the widow Besongne and J.J. Besongne the younger, [1766?].

Early (first?) edition of one of the most successful French veterinary guides. With the majority of early veterinary literature focused on the most highly prized animal, the horse, the present text is one of the few to address primarily the care of bovines, with sections also on pigs, sheep, and...

£225

BRADLAUGH, Charles.

Catalogue of the library of the late Charles Bradlaugh.

London, Mrs H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1891.

Only edition of this private production, printed by Bradlaugh’s daughter, Hypatia, at the press of her husband, a printer, ‘not merely to publish a descriptive list of the volumes contained in the library in order to facilitate their sale, but to make somewhat of a memento of Mr Bradlaugh himself’...

£500

[BRADLAUGH, Charles, and Annie BESANT.]

In the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, June 18th, 1877: The Queen v. Charles...

London, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant for the Freethought Publishing Company, [1877].

First edition of a trial for obscenity over birth control. Having established the Freethought Publishing Company in January of the same year, the freethinkers Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant in March 1877 reissued Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy, a treatise on birth control published in America...

£200

BRAND-HOLLIS, Thomas [and John DISNEY (editor)].

Memoirs of Thomas Hollis…

London, Gillet, 1808.

First edition of a privately printed memoir of Thomas Brand of the Hyde, who assumed the name Brand-Hollis on inheriting the Dorset estates (and library and collection of sculpture) of his friend the ‘Republican’ Thomas Hollis, the Whig bibliophile. The author, John Disney, a close friend...

£450

BRAY, Charles.

The philosophy of necessity; or, the law of consequences; as applicable to mental, moral, and social science.

London, Longman et al, 1841.

First edition. Bray (1811-84), a Coventry ribbon manufacturer, was converted to phrenology by George Combe, with whom he formed a close association; he was also close in early life to George Eliot and to Herbert Spencer. The Philosophy of Necessity was published during the Chartist ferment, when Bray...

£450

[Brewer, George].

The Siamese tales: being a collection of stories told to the son of the Mandarin Sam-Sib, for the purpose of...

London, Vernor & Hood and Champante & Whitrow, 1796.

First edition of an anonymously published collection of ‘Siamese tales’, written as fables to increase their appeal to children. In the Introduction, the author states that the purpose of these supposedly translated tales is to ‘promote the love of virtue through the medium of fiction’ (p. 1)....

£950

[BROGGIA, Carlo Antonio].

Memoria ad oggetto di varie politiche ed economiche ragioni e temi di utili raccordi che in causa del...

[Colophon: Naples, n. p., 15 February 1754].

Rare first and only edition of this fierce attack against the ministers of Palermo, criticising their acts. The work caused the author to be exiled from Palermo in the year of publication. Broggia, a Neapolitan merchant, is credited as being one of the true developers of a pure theory of taxation. Schumpeter...

£250

BROGGI, Ugo.

Die Axiome der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.

Göttingen, Dieterischen Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, 1907.

Rare first edition of this doctoral dissertation on the solution of Hilbert’s sixth problem, written under the supervision of David Hilbert. The problem posed tried to axiomatize those branches of science in which mathematics is prevalent. Broggi here aims to establish a system with which to prove...

£375