Gift Ideas
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WILSON, Thomas.
The Pitman’s pay, and other poems.
Gateshead, William Douglas, 1843.
First collected edition of the works of the Tyneside miner turned poet Thomas Wilson (1773-1858). The Pitman’s pay – Wilson’s chief literary work – ‘is a metrical description, much of it in mining patois, of the incidents and conversations of the colliers on their fortnightly Friday...
£75
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WREE, Olivier de.
Sigilla comitum Flandriae et inscriptiones diplomatum ab iis editorum, cum exposition historica.
Bruges, Jan-Baptiste van den Kerchove, 1639.
First edition of de Wree’s authoritative catalogue of Flemish seals, an attractive copy in contemporary vellum gilt. Exquisitely engraved by Samuel and Adriaen Lommelin and François Schelhaver the elder and younger, the illustrations offer an accurate and elegant record of the seals of the...
£750
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MACAULAY, Thomas Babington, and Israel ABRAHAMS and S. LEVY (editors).
Essay and Speech on Jewish Disabilities … edited, with...
Edinburgh, Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co. for the Jewish Historical Society of England, 1910.
Second edition of Macaulay’s speech and subsequent essay for repealing Jewish disabilities. Macaulay’s maiden speech in the Commons, delivered in April 1830, in favour of repealing Jewish disabilities, and the essay on the same subject published three weeks later, here printed as ‘a tribute to...
£60
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[ANON.]
The History and Adventures of Ben the Soldier, with an Account of his happy Marriage, after the Fatigues and Dangers of War.
London, J. Evans & Son, F. Collins, and J. Nisbet, [c. 1815].
Scarce moral tale of a soldier returned to Christianity in the Napoleonic Wars. Printed in many undated editions and subsequently reissued by the Religious Tract Society, The History and Adventures of Ben the Soldier tells of Ben Gracious who, forced into the army, loses his Christian morals before...
£100
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THOMSON, James, and Allan CUNNINGHAM (editor).
The Seasons, and The Castle of Indolence … with a biographical and...
London, Wright & Co. for Tilt & Bogue, 1841.
First edition with Cunningham’s biography of Thomson, with a concealed fore-edge painting showing fox-hunters. Well executed, the anonymous painting shows a lively scene of the chase, complete with livery, horses, and hounds, and a rider jumping a fence.
£475
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MAGNER, D.
The new System of Educating Horses, including Instructions on Feeding, Watering, Stabling, Shoeing, etc., with Treatment...
Philadelphia, Burk & M’Fetridge, 1881.
Twelfth edition of a well illustrated manual on equestrianism, principally the training of horses. ‘The horse is an animal of high and spirited organization, endowed by his Creator with capabilities and faculties which sufficiently resemble man’s to come under the same general law of education...
£65
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HERSHBERGER, H.R.
The Horseman: A Work on Horsemanship, containing plain practical Rules for Riding, and Hints to the Reader on...
New York, R. Craighead for Henry G. Langley, 1844.
First edition of a rare military manual on horsemanship, with instructions on riding and illustrated cavalry exercises. An instructor at the United States Military Academy, Hershberger ‘endeavored to convey practical information on all equestrian exercises by an easy and progressive method’.
£450
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GUILLET de Saint-Georges, Georges.
The Gentleman’s Dictionary, in three Parts, viz.: I. the Art of Riding the great Horse, containing...
London, H. Bonwicke, T. Goodwin, M. Wotton, B. Tooke, and S. Manship, 1705.
First edition in English of Les arts de l’homme d’epée, an encyclopedic manual in three distinct alphabets for the instruction of those who are ‘bred to the sword’. The English version, of which this is the sole edition, is no ‘bare translation’ but has been revised ‘by Persons...
£800
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COX, John Roalfe.
Horses in Accident and Disease: Notes and Sketches.
Edinburgh, George Waterston & Sons for David Douglas, 1892.
First edition of an elegantly illustrated veterinary work. An early advocate of the use of chloroform anaesthetic when operating on horses, J. Roalfe Cox here offers tender line drawings and brief descriptions of twenty-eight equine ailments.
£70
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COPPERTHWAITE, R.H.
The Turf and the Racehorse, describing Trainers and Training, the Stud-Farm, the Sires and Brood-Mares of the...
London, Day & Son, 1865.
First edition of a scarce account of mid-nineteenth-century race horses, including notes and anecdotes on breeding, buying, training, and racing, and with an extensive table of ‘the tried brood mares of the day’, showing their pedigrees and progeny.
£160
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CHOPPIN, Henri.
La cavalerie française … illustrée de nombreux dessins et de 16 gravures hors texte en couleurs.
Paris, Garnier brothers, 1893.
First edition of a well illustrated history of the French cavalry. A cavalry captain, Henri Choppin (1831–1916) published widely on the French military: the first of several works devoted to the cavalry, La cavalerie française is handsomely illustrated throughout and accompanied by sixteen...
£175
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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
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BERKELEY, Grantley F., and John LEECH and G.H. JALLAND (illustrators).
Reminiscences of a Huntsman … a new...
London and New York, R. & R. Clark for Edward Arnold, 1897.
Second edition, with John Leech’s original four illustrations and a further ten by G.H. Jalland. Hunting anecdotes by the controversial Grantley Firtzhardinge Berkeley (1800–1881), first published two years after his early retirement from politics following defeat at the general election of 1852.
£120
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BERENGER, Charles Random de.
Helps and Hints how to protect Life and Property, with Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c.
London, J. & C. Adlard for T. Hurst ‘for the Proprietor … at the Stadium, Chelsea’, 1835.
First edition, with advice on riding and driving, illustrated by George and Robert Cruikshank. A marksman and inventor with an ‘inclination to self-publicity and aggrandisement’ (Credland), Charles Random de Berenger (1772–1845) in 1830 established ‘the Stadium’ or ‘British National...
£180
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[SURTEES, Robert Smith,] and John LEECH (illustrator).
Handley Cross series.
London, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., 1899-1900.
Limited ‘Master of Foxhounds’ edition, finely printed at the Whitefriars Press. Having published the first editions of several of Surtees’s sporting novels, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co. gathered and reprinted the six most successful as the ‘Handley Cross series’ as luxury sets. Publisher’s...
£1200
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FUHRMANN, Ernst.
China. Erster Teil: Das Land der Mitte.
Hagen, Folkwang-Verlag, 1921.
First edition of two of the most celebrated works on Chinese religious architecture, published as volumes IV and V of Geist, Kunst und Leben Asiens, with hundreds of pictures of temples and Buddhist sculptures, some of which are now lost. The second volume deals in particular with the Lingyan...
£175
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ARIOSTO, Ludovico.
Le Rime … non piu viste, & nuovamente stampate a instantia di Iacopo Modanese, cio e sonetti. Madrigali. Canzoni....
Venice, [Coppa,] 1546.
First edition of Ludovico Ariosto’s collected verses, bound with a rare and early edition of his Herbolato, and the equally rare second complete edition of Pietro Aretino’s Marfisa: all three works published within three years in Venice.
£1000
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[ALMANAC.]
Le Parnasse des dames.
Paris, Janet, [1814].
An attractive copy of Janet’s Parnasse des dames, a pocket-book alamanac on art and literature aimed at a female readership. The little volume contains a broad miscellany of verse, some by female authors, prefaced by engraved copies of works by seventeenth-century French and Dutch painters...
£325
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HEBER, Reginald, and Nicolas BARKER (editor).
A Letter from India.
The Roxburghe Club, 2020.
'I do not expect that with fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre,’ wrote Sir Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for Indian Affairs, in 1819 to Reginald Heber at Hodnet in Shropshire, but in vain. Despite a growing reputation...
£100
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[SOUTH OF FRANCE.]
‘Routes de Privas à Nîmes 1892’.
June-July 1892.
A nice sketchbook, by an anonymous artist, recording a trip to the South of France in 1892, capturing the beauty of the landscape, as well as some of the historic monuments in the départements of Ardèche, Gard, and Vaucluse.
£700