Gift Ideas
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[DICKSON, William, photographer.]
Ambrotype of two young men holding hands.
[Glasgow, 1860s.]
A very attractive ambrotype double portrait showing two seated young men holding hands, with subtle hand-tinting to their faces and hands.
£450
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BREREWOOD, Edward.
Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife Parts of the World …
London, Printed [by Eliot’s Court Press] for John Bill, 1614.
First edition. Brerewood, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, was a scholar in many fields who published nothing in his own lifetime (he died in 1613). Enquiries, seen through the press by a nephew, explores the spread of ancient, eastern, and modern languages, discusses the...
£3000
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[LABOURS OF THE MONTHS &c.]
Januarius. Februarius. Merz. April …
Nuremberg, Joh. Andreae Endterische Handlung, [second half of eighteenth century].
A scarce popular print depicting the labours of the months and signs of the zodiac, four continents, the four classical elements, and the four seasons.
£475
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VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I].
Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes.
Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659.
First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I.
£3750
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ASCHAM, Roger.
A Report and Discourse … of the Affaires and State of Germany and the Emperour Charles his Court, during certaine...
London, Printed by John Daye … [1570?].
First edition. Ascham’s account of his time in Germany as secretary to Sir Richard Morison, ambassador to the court of Emperor Charles V, takes the form of a letter to the courtier John Astley.
£2000
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BRIDGES, Robert.
Eros and Psyche, a Poem in XII Measures … with Wood-cuts from Designs by Edward Burne-Jones.
[Gregynog], The Gregynog Press, 1935.
One of 300 copies, one of the most beautiful works from this press, with three-colour initials and a new typeface (used only in this volume) by Graily Hewitt.
£1500
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KEATS, John.
Endymion. A Poetic Romance … with Engravings by John Buckland-Wright.
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, [1947].
No. 200 of 500 copies of the Golden Cockerel Endymion (the first 100 specially bound in full vellum); also found in brown buckram rather than red as here.
£1750
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HICKES, George, Runólfur JÓNSSON, and Edward BERNARD.
Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae …...
Oxford, ‘e theatro Sheldoniano … typis Junianis’, 1689 [– 1688].
First edition of a foundational work in the modern study of ancient Germanic languages and in the field of comparative linguistics, comprising the first appearances of Hickes’s monumental grammar of Old English and Gothic and of Bernard’s etymological dictionary, accompanied by a survey of Old...
£1200
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JUVENAL, Decimus Junius, and Aulus Persius FLACCUS.
Satyrae.
London, J. Brindley, 1744.
First Brindley edition, edited by the Irish classical scholar Usher Gahagan (d. 1749). John Brindley began to publish his series of well-printed duodecimo classics in 1744, for which Gahagan edited eleven works before his arrest and conviction for high treason, having become embroiled with a...
£650
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ANACREON.
[Odaria.] Ανακρεοντος τηιου μελη praefixo commentario quo poëtae genus traditur et bibliotheca Anacreonteia...
Parma, [Bodoni] ‘in aedibus Palatinis’, 1791.
Thick paper copy, apparently one of 12 copies from an edition of 212. This attractive edition of Anacreon’s Odaria was edited by G. C. Amaduzzi and printed by Bodoni. ‘The editions of 1785 and 1791 are printed in capital letters, and more elegant and exquisitely finished productions...
£650
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CICERO, Marcus Tullius.
De Officiis … libri tres, ex editione Oliveti Parisiis vulgata.
London, T. Payne, 1791.
First Payne edition, edited by Henry Homer (1753–1791). A friend of the writer and schoolmaster Samuel Parr since his days at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Homer produced editions of Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, Pliny the Younger, and others.
£450
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WEBER, Johann Adam.
Discursus curiosi et fructuosi [ad praecipuas totius litteraturae humanae scientias illustrandas accommodate …].
[Salzburg, Johann Baptist Mayr, 1690.]
Third Salzburg edition of Weber’s wide-ranging discourses, in a handsome Bavarian binding for the Abbot of Ettal, Bernhard I Oberhauser, attributable to the monk Brother Gregor, a trained bookbinder from Hungary.
£6000
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VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.
Quae supersunt ex historiae Romanae voluminibus duobus. Ex editione Petri Burmanni fideliter expressa.
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1752.
First and only Foulis Press edition, unusually found here in a contemporary Scandinavian binding, evidence of the high esteem in which these products of the Glasgow enlightenment were held across Europe.
£425
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VARILLAS, [Antoine].
La Pratique de l’education des princes, contenant l’histoire de Guillaume de Croy, surnommé Le Sage,...
Amsterdam, H. Wetstein & H. Desbordes, 1686.
A highly unusually decorated binding, likely an amateur imitation of then-fashionable tooling.
£750
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STATIUS, P. Papinius; John CAREY, editor.
Opera, sedula recensione accurata [cover: Recensuit et accuravit Joannes...
London, T. Davison for Rodwell & Martin, J. Booker, Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, G. & W. B. Whittaker, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Browne,...
An attractive copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed boards, of the ‘Regent’s Classics’ pocket edition of Statius.
£120
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SCOTT, Sir Walter.
The Lady of the Lake … with all his Introductions and Notes, various Readings, and the Editor’s Notes.
Edinburgh, Robert Cadell, 1851.
An attractive Scottish 'Mauchline ware' tartan binding. Mauchline ware bindings – the name comes from Smith’s boxware factory at Mauchline in Ayrshire – were made from thin wooden boards (often sycamore) decorated with tartan or pictorial designs, heavily varnished, and attached to the text...
£750
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[PRAYERS.]
Récueil de plusieurs prieres.
Vienna, ‘chez Georg Müllner libraire et relieur des livres’, [c. 1810].
Very rare and charming early nineteenth-century prayer book in an attractive binding by the Viennese ‘libraire et relieur’ Georg Müllner.
£450
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PLINY the Younger.
Epistolarum libri X & panegyricus.
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1640.
First Elzevir edition, handsomely bound for the Irish politician Thomas Wogan Browne.
£450
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[BIBLE.]
Erläuterte Bibel mit Fragen, das ist, die ganze Heilige Schrift, Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der teutschen Ubersetzung...
Altdorf, Joh. Adam Hessel for Ernst Friderich Zobel, 1751.
A German Bible with extensive apparatus, divided into five volumes and strikingly bound in a book-shaped pull-off case.
£2750
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MÄNDL, Kaspar.
Christliche Sitten-Lehr und heylsame Anmuthungen gezogen auß Betrachtung deß bitteren Leyden und Sterbens unsers...
Augsburg, Matthias Wolff, 1737.
A superb example of Rococo decorative binding, exploiting all available materials – silks, metals, beads, papers, gilding, and leather – to extraordinary (if perhaps excessive) effect.
£6750