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Contact Jonathan Harrison, Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi or Katherine Thorn

We stock Western books in European languages, generally – but not exclusively – published before circa 1850. We are especially interested in early travel accounts – from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries – in all areas beyond Europe.

Geographical regions in which we have tended to specialise include the Pacific and its surrounding countries – South America, the Northwest Coast of America, Japan, China, the maritime regions of Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, and Australia. Books on Africa, the polar regions, manuscripts and separately published maps are also handled.
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  1. [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

  2. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana. 

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse. 

    Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546. 

    First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations. 

    £6750

  3. [GELENIUS, Sigismund (editor).] 

    Notitia utraque, dignitatum, cum orientis, tum occidentis, ultra arcadii honoriique tempora,...

    Lyons, [Jacques du Creux for] Jean de Gabiano, 1608. 

    An expanded edition, illustrated on almost every leaf, of an anonymous fifth-century description of the Roman Empire. 

    £875

  4. RAMUS, Petrus.

    P. Rami ... Oratio de legatione.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1557.

    First (?) edition: a fascinating pamphlet marking a critical epoch in the history of the University of Paris and the first occasion on which Ramus came into prominence as champion of his University and of higher education in general.

    £800

  5. RAMUS, Petrus.

    Harangue ... touchant ce qu'ont faict les deputez de l’Université de Paris envers le Roy. Mise de Latin en Francois.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1557.

    First French-language edition of the above, issued simultaneously with the Latin text and presumably translated by Ramus himself. Apart from La Dialectique, this is one of Ramus’ very few works in the vernacular. Very rare.

    £950

  6. BUONACCORSI, Biagio, and Niccolò VALORI. 

    Diario de’ successi piu importanti seguiti in Italia, & particolarmente in...

    Florence, Filippo & Jacopo Giunta, 1568. 

    First edition of an insider account of Medici politics by Biagio Buonaccorsi (1472–1522), colleague and confidant of Machiavelli, bound with the first edition of Malespini’s history of Florence and owned by Claude-Enoch Virey, secretary to Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. 

    £1000

  7. XENOPHON.

    De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.

    First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...

    £875

  8. [CAESAR.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    Liber de militia C. Julii Caesaris, cum praefatione Joannis Thomae Freigii. 

    Frankfurt, heirs of Andreas Wechel, 1584. 

    An attractively bound copy of Ramus’s uncommon treatise on Caesar’s military tactics, with unusual edge decoration.  The humanist Petrus Ramus (1515–1572) published widely on classical history and grammar while teaching at the Collège de France.  He was briefly forced from his post after...

    £450

  9. CATANEO, Girolamo. 

    De arte bellica, sive de designandis ac construendis arcibus et propugnaculis, necnon et de iis oppugnandis,...

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1600.

    First Latin edition, scarce on the market, of this handsomely illustrated military classic, first published in Italian at Brescia in 1564.  Edited and published by Jean de Tournes, this edition is dedicated to Henry IV of France.  The military architect Cataneo (active 1540–1584) was considered,...

    £1850

  10. GROTIUS, Hugo. 

    De veritate religionis Christianae, editio nova, additis annotationibus in quibus testimonia. 

    [Amsterdam, Jan Jansson?] ‘Juxta exemplar parisiense sumptibus Seb. Cramoisy’, 1640. 

    A pocket-edition of Grotius’s argument for the Christian religion; a very good copy with reading marks by the English pamphleteer Isaac Sharpe. 

    £275

  11. LANCINA, Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de.

    Historia de las reboluciones del Senado de Messina, que ofrece al sacro, Catolico, real nombre...

    Madrid, Por Julian de Paredes, impressor de libros, en la Plaçuela del Angel, 1692.

    First and only edition of this rare account of the anti-Spanish revolt of Messina, in Sicily, which broke out in 1674 and lasted until 1678, by Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de Lancina (c. 1649–1703). Lancina, a judge of the Grand Court of the Vicaria, the highest criminal court of the Kingdom of...

    £2500

  12. [ORAN.]

    Diario distinto di tutto il seguito per la spedizione fatta d’ordine della maesta cattolica di Filippo V. Re delle Spagne...

    (Colophon:) Florence, Bernardo Paperini, 1732.

    A daily account in Italian from 20 June to 8 July 1732 of the Spanish capture of Oran. The Moroccan city had been governed by Spain since 1509 but had fallen into Ottoman hands in 1708. This 1732 invasion brought Oran once more under Spanish control, in which it remained until 1792.

    £175

  13. [MONASTICISM].

    Risposta ad alcuni aggravi fatti ai monaci nel libro, che ha il titolo di Politica, diritto, e religione.

    Milan, Francesco Agnelli, 1742.

    Only edition of this anonymous response to Giuseppe Gorini Corio’s controversial Politica, diritto, e religione, that had appeared in Milan at the start of the same year.

    £400

  14. [COYER; VOLTAIRE; WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.]

    ‘Recueil des Pieces’.

    France, 1744-1749.

    An extraordinary sammelband of seventy-five pamphlets – twenty-seven of which are recorded in only three or fewer libraries on OCLC – mostly relating to successful French exploits throughout Europe during the War of the Austrian Succession, including the Dutch and Italian campaigns and the...

    £5500

  15. VERTOT, Abbé de.

    The History of the Revolutions of Portugal. By M. l’Abbe de Vertot, member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions...

    Glasgow, printed by R. Urie for D. Baxter, 1750.

    Uncommon first Glasgow edition of this English translation of the Histoire des révolutions de Portugal, a classic account of the Portuguese Restoration War against Spain (1640-1668) by the French historian René-Aubert Vertot (1655–1735).

    £150

  16. JEFFERYS, Thomas.

    The theatre of war in the Kingdom of Bohemia, drawn from the survey of J. C. Muller Captain Engineer to the Emperor:...

    [London], Thomas Jefferys, 6 June 1757.

    This map, issued at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, illustrates the route taken by Frederick the Great’s Prussian forces against those of Saxony and Prussia, up to the opening of siege operations against Prague. On 18 June 1757, Count von Daun, in attempting to raise this siege, overpowered...

    £500

  17. [HILLER, Johann Adam, editor].

    Anecdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter französischer, deutscher, italienischer, holländischer...

    Leipzig, Lankisch, 1762.

    Scarce first edition of Hiller’s two-volume collection of literary, philosophical and historical anecdotes. The editor’s note at the end mentions the contemporary publication of a French work of similar inspiration, and states the editor’s intention to translate it and publish it as a sequel to...

    £175

  18. [ISELIN, ISAAK].

    Träume eines Menschenfreundes. Erster Theil.

    Basel, Johannes Schweighauser, 1776.

    First edition, part one only (very rarely to be found complete with both parts), of the most mature expression of Iselin’s anti-Rousseau republicanism, a social ‘dream’ of great articulation and -arguably- applicability, residing confidently on the borderline between utopia and reformism, and the...

    £150

  19. [TIPU SULTAN.]

    Les Indiens, ou Tippoo-Saïb, fils d’Hyder-Ally, &c. Avec quelques particularités sur ce prince, sur ses ambassadeurs...

    A Londres [i.e. Paris?] et se trouve à Paris, chez Le Jay, 1788.

    The apparently unrecorded first issue of this work on Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), ruler of the kingdom of Mysore and implacable enemy of the British East India Company. The only copies recorded institutionally (on ESTC, COPAC, and OCLC) have the title Les indiens, ou Tipou-Sultan, fils D’Ayder-Aly...

    £650

  20. [UNGER, Salomo Gottlob.]

    Geschichte des Oesterreich-Russischen und Türkischen Krieges, in den Jahren von 1787. bis 1792. Nebst...

    Leipzig, Wilhelm Gottlob Sommer, 1792.

    First and only edition, extremely rare, of this account of the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-1791, and of the concurrent Russo-Turkish war of 1787-92. It includes the full texts of the Treaty of Sistova of 4 August 1791 and of a separate convention attached to it, in both French and German. While...

    £1250