Gift Ideas
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MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.
A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...
[Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.
First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.
£125
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[CROSBY, Theo (editor), and Edward WRIGHT (designer).]
This is tomorrow.
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 9 August – 9 September 1956.
First edition, one of 1300 copies, of the catalogue of the seminal exhibition of contemporary British art, architecture, and design, which took place at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London in 1956, in collaboration with members of the Independent Group.
£400
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[SCOTLAND.]
Seventeen pamphlets relating mostly to legal cases in Scotland.
Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1772-1788.
An interesting sammelband relating largely to Scottish legal cases, containing 12 items unrecorded on ESTC, COPAC and OCLC. The cases include those of a Kilbagie distiller convicted of bribery; of Sir William Erskine of Torrie against a London banking house; of a St Andrews minister convicted of perjury;...
£750
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HORACE.
Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.
Paris, Didot, 1855.
The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.
£900
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[EMBOSSED BINDING.] DE LA RUE, Thomas (binder). SHERIDAN, Louisa Henrietta.
The Comic Offering; or Ladies’ Melange of...
London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1832.
An appropriately light-hearted embossed binding, on the second outing of this compendium of humorous stories, verses and vignettes to amuse the highly refined young ladies of the early nineteenth century. The publisher’s advertisements mention other works that are in ‘elegantly embossed’...
£300
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MORRIS, William, E.
Belfort BAX, and Victor DAVE. The Socialist Platform. No. 4. A short Account of the Commune of Paris.
London, socialist League Office, 1886.
First and only edition of Morris’s, Bax’s, and Dave’s account of the Commune of Paris of 1871, presented as ‘the starting point of the irresistible Unity of Socialism in Europe and America’.
£650
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[FAUVEAU, Felicie de.]
Il monumento dell’ illustre ed egregia scultrice madamigella Felicita de Fauveau illustrato dal P.B. socio...
[S.l., s.n., c. 1859.]
Very rare commemoration, published anonymously, of the sepulchral monument made by the Franco-Italian sculpter Félicie de Fauveau for her mother, found in the cloister of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. De Fauveau (1801–1886), called ‘the new Canova’ by Stendhall after her participation...
£350
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WOOLRYCH, Humphry W.
Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys, sometime Lord High Chancellor of England.
London, A.J. Valpy for Henry Colburn, 1827.
First edition of a favourable biography of Judge Jeffreys. A jurist, Humphry William Woolrych (1795–1871) published a life of Edward Coke in 1826 and of Jeffreys the following year, as well as legal texts, a few works of poetry, and a novel. The unrepentant style of this near-hagiography causes...
£145
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HAWTREY, George Procter.
Caramella. A story of the lotus eaters up to date.
Bristol, J. W. Arrowsmith, London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., [1899].
First edition of this utopian novel exploring the bliss of Caramella. Caramella is a land visited by Odysseus who sent crew members ashore, where they consumed the lotus fruit and became addicted, ‘forgetting all thoughts of return’ (Odyssey IX). In Hawtrey’s novel, this fruit makes Caramella...
£240
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[DEVOTION.]
Sagre offerte alla passione di nostro Signore Gesu Cristo con varie orazioni. Si aggiungono i Pensieri cristiani per...
Rome, [Zempel], 1773.
Rare first edition of a devotional work in Italian and Latin printed in Rome. It is complemented with fine engravings, most notably the frontispiece, which shows a heroic Jesus resurrected holding the cross in a classically outlined body. A subsequent slighter edition was published twenty years later.
£700
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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