Gift Ideas
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HALE, Matthew, Sir.
Contemplations moral and divine, in two Parts.
London, D. Brown, J. Walthoe, J. Sprint, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, and D. Midwinter, 1711.
An early eighteenth-century edition of Hale’s Contemplations in attractive contemporary English morocco. Though first and foremost a jurist, judge, and Commonwealth parliamentarian, Matthew Hale (1609–1676) wrote widely and extensively on other subjects: his Contemplations, first...
£450
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GRAY, [Thomas].
Poems by Mr. Gray.
Dublin, William Sleater, 1775.
An attractive Dublin edition of Gray’s poems, joined by two parodies and a ‘burlesque ode’, and parallel translations of his Elegy written in a Country Churchyard into Italian and Latin.
£125
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POPE, Alexander.
The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, with his last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements, in four Volumes,...
London, ‘printed under the direction of J. Bell, British Library, Strand, bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,’ 1787...
A good set of Pope’s works, printed for inclusion in Bell’s The Poets of Great Britain. Initially imported from Edinburgh and issued with new titles, Bell’s Poets of Great Britain was intended to provide attractive and portable works of British poets ‘from Chaucer to Churchill’,...
£175
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POPE, Alexander.
An Essay on Man, in four Epistles to Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke …
London: Printed for Robert Jennings … by James Moyes … 1819.
A very fine edition, one of two hundred copies according to Lowndes. The four plates in the text were engraved for a forthcoming parallel-text English–Portuguese edition published by Charles Whittington – the prints here being proofs before lettering. Their inclusion along with ‘the...
£450
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[JAMES II.]
His Majesties gracious Declaration to all his loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience.
[Colophon:] London, Printed by Charles Bill, Henry Hills, and Thomas Newcomb, Printers to the Kings most excellent Majesty. 1687.
A major document in the history of free speech and the first step towards religious freedom in Britain, the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence granted liberty of conscience for all religions, and the freedom ‘to meet and serve God after their own way and manner, be it in private houses, or places...
£650
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CORNELIUS NEPOS.
Cornelii Nepotis vitae excellentium imperatorum, editio nova emendatior.
Amsterdam, J. Wetstein, 1745.
An uncommon pocket edition of Cornelius Nepos’s Lives, attractively bound with striking gilt endpapers. The only surviving work by the first-century BC biographer Cornelius Nepos, the Vitae excellentium imperatorum once formed part of a broader De viris illustribus. The...
£125
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SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.
L. Annaei Senecae Cordubensis tragoediae decem. Quibus adiectae sunt variae lectiones. Et selectis exemplaribus...
Milan, Pandolfo Malatesta, 1617.
An extremely rare pocket-sized Jesuit school edition of the tragedies of Seneca, likely intended for use at the Jesuit College at Brera, in Milan, with a charming doodle from a bored young student.
£650
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WHITE MARIO, Jessie.
Sepolcri inglesi a Roma.
Rome, Tipografia Barbera, 1879.
First edition, extremely rare, of this offprint of an article on the burials of the English Romantic poets in Rome by the renowned ‘Miss Hurricane’.
£400
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JUSTI, Johann Heinrich Gottlob von.
Staatswirtschaft oder systematische Abhandlung aller oekonomischen und Cameralwissenschaften,...
Leipzig, Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, 1755.
First edition of this fundamental work in the understanding of market economies. Justi was a German political and economic thinker, usually described as an exponent of Cameralism; his background was the power struggle of the Seven Years War, and his drive was a need to create a modern, commercial...
£2750
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[GREATTI, Giuseppe.]
L’educazione: Poemetto in ottava rima.
Padua, 1796.
Only edition of this poem on the theme of education, dedicated to the Paduan noblewoman Arpalice Savorgnan di Brazzà, well-known in the city for her embrace of radicals and revolutionaries, which led her salon to be known as ‘l’unione dei giacobini’ (see di Brazzà, p. 714).
£650
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CELALEDDIN, Mahmud (calligrapher).
[A muraqqa or calligraphic album.]
Cairo, Ministry of Public Education, 1309 AH [i.e. 1891/2].
Unrecorded album of lithographed examples of calligraphy, mixing prayers and pen exercises, reproducing the calligraphy of a Daghestani émigré to Istanbul, Mahmud Celaleddin Efendi (d. 1829), and published in Cairo by Egypt’s Ministry of Public Education.
£2200
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[JUVENILE.]
Preliminary lessons on the history of England, originally compiled for private use, and now adapted to the junior...
Taunton, J. Poole, 1821.
Later edition of this uncommon Taunton-printed sketch of English history for use in primary schools, which first appeared in 1809. After brief notes on Julius Caesar, the Saxons, and notable pre-Conquest kings, the book offers a short overview of the character of each monarch (and monarch substitute)...
£135
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MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).
Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...
Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.
‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...
£35
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ELIOT, George.
The Writings …
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1908.
The Large-Paper edition of Eliot’s complete works, no. 184 of 750 sets.
£2500
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[MONTAGU, Mary Wortley (attr.), and PUISSIEUX, Madeline de (translator).]
La femme n’est pas inferieure...
‘A Londres’, 1750.
First French translation, uncommon, of Woman not inferior to Man: or, a short and modest Vindication of the natural Right of the fair-Sex to a perfect Equality of Power, Dignity, and Esteem, with the Men, first published in 1739 under the name ‘Sophia, a person of quality’ and sometimes...
£685
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[CITTADELLA, Cesare.]
Catalogo istorico de’ pittori e scultori ferraresi e delle opere loro con in fine una nota esatta delle...
Ferrara, per Francesco Pomatelli, 1782-83.
First edition of the most important source book on artistic life in Ferrara then published. Cesare Citadella (1732–1809), a painter, priest, and curator of the natural history cabinet affiliated to Ferrara University, compiled his work by using the unpublished manuscript of Girolamo Baruffaldi...
£2850
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[THUMB BIBLE.]
History of the Bible.
Lansingburgh (NY), William Disturnell, 1820.
First edition of this charming illustrated Lansingburgh-printed miniature Bible, with contemporary inscriptions by two girls from the Yeaton family of Epsom, New Hampshire.
£475
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PIRON, Alexis.
Oeuvres badines …
Paris, chez les marchands de nouveautés, 1797.
Scarce illustrated edition of the ‘frolicsome works’ of the French dramatist and wit Piron (1689–1773), collecting sixty-eight salacious poems accompanied by eight erotic engraved plates. The collection includes the notorious Ode à Priape, the publication of which obliged Piron to...
£975
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HUGHES, Ted.
T.S. Eliot: A Tribute by the Poet Laureate.
[London,] ‘Privately Printed by [the Salient Seedling for] Faber and Faber’, [August 1987].
A privately printed tribute to T.S. Eliot, limited to 250 copies signed by Ted Hughes. The text comprises an address given by Hughes on 26 September 1986, at the unveiling of Eliot’s blue plaque at Kensington Court Gardens.
£175
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GALIER, W.H.
A visit to Blestland.
London, George Robertson & co., 1896.
First edition of this novel of utopian socialism which lambasts capitalism and religion. Blestland is a republican workers’ paradise located on a different planet which reveals how the divisions of earth can be abolished: by limiting ‘the enormous power for evil which capital can wield’....
£280