Gift Ideas
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MALORY, Thomas, Sir; Sir William Russell FLINT, illustrator.
Le Morte Darthur, the History of King Arthur and of his noble Knights...
[Edinburgh, R. & R. Clark for] London, Medici Society, [1935].
Scarce reprint of the Riccardi Press edition of 1911, edited by A.W. Pollard and first published by the Medici Society in 1920, here issued in a thin-paper one-volume edition, our copy in a handsome Bayntun-Riviere Kelliegram-style binding.
£2000
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GIGLI, Mariano.
Esperimento del nobile giovinetto Francesco Piazzi d’anni dieci non compiuti sulle sette lingue italiana, francese,...
Milan, Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1818.
First and only edition, rare, of a series of 450 translation exercises in French, Spanish, English, German, Latin, Greek, and Italian, posed to the ten-year-old linguistic prodigy Francesco Piazzi by his tutor as the culmination of his highly experimental method of linguistic instruction.
£1250
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GUILLIM, John.
A Display of Heraldrie: manifesting a more easie Accesse to the Knowledge thereof than hath beene hitherto published...
London, Thomas Cotes for Jacob Blome, 1638.
Third edition, corrected and enlarged, of this cornerstone of English heraldry; this copy annotated throughout in two hands, each showing close engagement with the blazon expounded by the text.
£950
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[HAMILTON, Joseph.]
Some short and useful Reflections upon Duelling, which should be in the Hands of every Person who is liable...
Dublin, for the Author, by C. Bentham, 1823.
First edition, scarce, of this Dublin-printed assemblage of impassioned arguments and anecdotes against the ‘desolating vice’ of duelling.
£600
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ARISTOTLE; THEOPHRASTUS; Theodorus GAZA and Pietro ALCIONIO, translators.
Historiae. Cum de natura Animalium, tum de Plantis &...
Lyons, [Nicolas Bacquenois for] Guillaume Gazeau, 1552.
A union of Aristotle on animals and Theophrastus on plants, the fundamental texts from Ancient Greece on zoology and botany, in the translations of Gaza and Alcionio.
£800
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FLEMING, Ian.
The Spy who loved me.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1962.
First edition, first impression, of the only Bond novel narrated in the first person by the twenty-three-year-old Canadian Vivienne Michel, a lover of Bond’s.
£1250
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FLEMING, Ian.
You only live twice.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1964.
First edition, first impression, first state of what is ‘perhaps the most bizarre and doom-fraught of all James Bond’s adventures’ (p. 1), set in Japan and inspired by Fleming’s visits to Japan for The Sunday Times, the title taken from a poem by Bashō: ‘You only live twice:...
£850
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FLEMING, Ian.
The Man with the golden Gun.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1965.
First edition, first impression, of the last Bond novel, published eight months after Fleming’s death, here with the binding in the second state, without the golden gun blocked to the upper cover (deemed too expensive after the first 900 copies).
£650
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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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[JUVENILE.]
A Token of Remembrance from a Mother to her absent Children, comprising simple Tales, Dialogues, and easy Poetry, adapted...
London, William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill, 1822.
First edition of this collection of moral tales and poetry for children, compiled by a mother for her young daughter, from the lending library of the newly established Coast Guard.
£350
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MAUGHAM, William Somerset; Graham SUTHERLAN, illustrator .
Cakes and Ale, or the Skeleton in the Cupboard. With an original...
London, [Windmill Press for] William Heinemann, [1954].
No. 132 of 1000 copies, signed by both author and artist. Cakes and Ale (1930) was Maugham’s favourite work; this limited edition was published in honour of his eightieth birthday.
£350
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[CALLIGRAPHIC SCORES.]
Two anonymous manuscript scores.
London, 1820s.
Two charming productions, sent as anonymous gifts, presumably to the wife or daughter(s) of Col. Thomas Nuttall (or Nuthall) (d. 1829) of the Madras Cavalry.
£850
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[PSALMS.]
Les Pseaumes de David, mis en rime Françoise, par Clement Marot, et Theodore de Beze.
‘Se vendent à Charenton, par Antoine Cellier, demeurent à Paris … à l’Imprimerie des Roziers’, 1667.
Charenton-printed French Psalms in a remarkable shagreen binding with silver-filigree furniture, with English provenance since the eighteenth century.
£2750
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[LITURGY.] Girolamo GIOVANNINI, editor.
Officium hebdomadae sanctae, juxta formam missalis & breviarii romani, sub Urbano...
Venice, ‘ex typographia Balleoniana’, 1742.
Very rare small-format edition of the Offices for Holy Week, with a woodcut Man of Sorrows.
£275
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SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, Caius.
[De XII Caesarum vitis. De Illustribus grammaticis. De Claris rhetoribus. Horatii vita. Plinii vita....
Paris, Typographia Regia, 1644.
An attractive, illustrated pocket Suetonius. Quoting the pioneering early eighteenth-century bookseller Guillaume de Bure, Cookman notes that this edition is ‘recherché a cause de la beauté de son impression’.
£350
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MAGNON, Jean.
Les heures du Chrestien, divisées en trois journées; qui sont la journée de la penitence, la journée de la...
Paris, se vendent chez l’autheur … et chez Sebastien Martin, 1654.
First edition of this handsomely illustrated collection of prayers and devotions in verse and prose by the French playwright and poet Jean Magnon (1620–1662). The number of plates in individual copies varies, this copy containing at least two more than those described on OCLC.
£650
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MEREDITH, George.
Modern Love, and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads.
London, Chapman & Hall, 1862.
First edition of a daring and innovative Victorian collection of poems adapting the sonnet sequence tradition (though in poems of sixteen lines) to the emotional realities of a failed contemporary marriage, tracing the course of estrangement as love gives way to discord, jealousy, unhappiness, and...
£450
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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