[MACARTNEY EMBASSY.]

Archive of letters and documents from the Macartney Embassy to China.

Britain and China, 1792–1833.

A remarkable and largely unpublished archive from Lord Macartney’s embassy to China of 1792–4 – a pivotal moment in relations between China and the West – including a diplomatic autograph letter signed by Macartney, autograph correspondence between him and other leading figures of the mission,...

£75000

[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 The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...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

THOMSON, John.

Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of two Hundred Photographs, with letterpress descriptive of the...

London, Sampson Low &c, 1873–1874.

A good copy of this rare work (vol. I marked second edition, the rest first editions), showing superb images of Imperial China including rare portraits of high government officials as well as a large number of architectural and scenic views; this item ranks amongst the most spectacular photographically...

£35000

MARX, Karl.

Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production … translated from the third edition by Samuel Moore and Edward...

London, Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., 1887.

A remarkably well-preserved copy of the first edition, first issue, one of only five hundred copies (Sraffa), of the English translation of Marx’s Das Kapital, published in London four years after Marx’s death under the editorship of Engels.

£35000

[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

SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.

Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae navigationum; quarum una Georgii a...

Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.

First Latin edition of one of the classic Dutch illustrated voyages, identical in format and illustration to the same publisher’s Dutch-language edition of the same year.

£20000

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

[PUBLICIUS, Jacobus.]

Ars memorativa.

[Cologne, Johann Guldenschaff, c. 1481.]

First illustrated edition of this treatise on the art of memory, with moving parts; the first general treatise on memory to be printed.

£18000

NIGHTINGALE, Florence.

Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.

London, Harrison and Sons, 1858.

First edition, printed for private circulation only, of Florence Nightingale’s pioneering report on the sanitary condition of the British Army, resulting in a radical reform of the administration, sanitation, and nursing practices at large, this copy with remarkable nursing association.

£18000

POPPER, Karl.

A substantial archive of books and associated working papers from one of the most important philosophers of modernity;...

London et al., 1960s–1970s.

An extremely important archive witnessing the development of Karl Popper’s thought and showcasing his writing process, from the library of his former research assistant, Dr Ivan Slade.

£175000

GIBBON, Edward.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

London, 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. The first edition of volume I (1000 copies, published...

£14000

DE MOIVRE, Abraham.

The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.

London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.

First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.

£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

[SWIFT, Jonathan.]

Some Observations upon a Paper, call’d, the Report of the Committee of the most honourable Privy-Council in...

Dublin, Printed by John Harding … [1724].

First edition of the third of Swift’s Drapier’s letters, bound with other works including two further pamphlets on Wood’s coinage (Remarks upon Mr. Wood’s Coyn and Proceedings by Sir Michael Creagh, and A Word or two to the People of Ireland, concerning the Brass Money),...

£12500

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

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