Gift Ideas
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ROUQUET, Jean-André.
The present State of the Arts in England. By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...
London, for J. Nourse, 1755.
First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790).
£19500
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BISSON, Louis-Auguste.
‘Wildfire’.
Paris, c. 1844.
An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times.
£14500
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MARLIANI, Bartolomeo.
Urbis Romae topographia.
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544.
First illustrated edition (third overall), showing the archaeology and antiquities of Rome as known in the sixteenth century. First published in octavo by Antonio Blado in 1534 and reprinted at Lyons by Sébastien Gryphe later the same year, Marliani’s topography of Rome remained the foremost...
£5500
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GASPAROLI, Carlo Maria.
Dialectica sive manuductio ad logicam dictata a R. P. Bar. De Somere. Scripta a me Car. Mar. Gasparoli....
Antwerp, 1753.
A handsome manuscript comprising a thorough course in logic and dialectic, executed by a student at the Jesuit college in Antwerp, and illustrated with an extraordinary decorative programme inspired by printed emblems.
£4750
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[JUVENILE.]
[Library for Youth, or Book-Case of Knowledge, 10 vols.]
London: Printed for John Wallis … by T. Gillet or J. Cundee … 1800.
A fine complete set of Wallis’s ‘Library for Youth’ also known as the ‘Book-Case of Knowledge’, with all ten volumes in the first editions, dated 1800, and with two original designs (in reverse) for the frontispieces.
£4750
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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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LOCKE, John.
[An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding]. Extrait d’un Livre Anglois qui n’est pas encore publié, intitulé...
Amsterdam, Wolfgang, Waesbergi, Boom, & Van Someren, 1688.
A substantial and extremely influential extract, published two years before the appearance of the book, of Locke’s Essay concerning human understanding: a publication of major consequence in the history of philosophy. This issue of the Bibliothèque universelle et historique also...
£2850
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[PSALMS.]
The whole Booke of Psalmes, collected into English Meter by Tho. Strenhold, Jo. Hopkins, W. Whittingham, and others …...
London, Printed by T. C[otes] for the Company of Stationers, 1637.
A very attractive pocket psalm-book with tunes, ruled in red throughout and in a handsome binding. Such diminutive psalm books began to appear at the end of the sixteenth-century, printed for the Company of Stationers, who had the monopoly. The printer here was Thomas Cotes, most famous as printer...
£2750
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DREVES, [Johann Friedrich Peter,] and [Friedrich Gottlob] HAYNE [and Johann Stephan CAPIEUX (engraver)].
Choix...
Leipzig, Voss et compagnie, 1802.
First edition in French, the Plesch set, with 125 handsomely hand-coloured botanical plates, adapted from the German edition finished the previous year. Issued under the title Botanisches Bilderbuch für die Jugend und Freunde der Pflanzenkunde, the work had first appeared in twenty-eight...
£2750
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DIO CASSIUS.
Dione historico delle guerre et fatti de Romani. Tradotto di Greco in lingua vulgare per M. Nicolo Leoniceno. Con...
Venice, Niccolò Zoppino, March 1533.
First edition of Dio’s Roman History in any language, translated into Italian from the original Greek by Niccolò Leoniceno and preceding the Greek editio princeps, printed by Robert Estienne in 1548, by some fifteen years.
£2750
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[HERVEY, Elizabeth].
The Mourtray Family. A Novel …
London: Printed by Millar Ritchie … for R. Faulder … 1800.
First edition of the penultimate novel by Elizabeth Hervey (c. 1748–1820), elder half-sister of the writer William Beckford – her father, Francis Marsh, had died and her mother Maria (née Hamilton) remarried another Jamaica plantation owner, William Beckford senior, who also died in...
£2500
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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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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Childermass … Section 1.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1928.
First edition, no. 74 of 225 copies of the special edition, signed by Lewis, additionally inscribed, in c. 1951, ‘To Geoffrey Bridson (through whom I am enabled to finish this book) – deepest thanks and friendliest greetings / Wyndham Lewis’.
£2500
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VIRGIL Maro, Publius, and Giovanni Andrea dell’ANGUILLARA (trans.).
Il primo libro della Eneida di Vergilio,...
Padua, Gratioso Perchacino, 1564.
First edition of the first book of Anguillara’s verse translation of the Aeneid, a copy printed on strong paper and inscribed by the author. The humanist, poet, and successful translator of Ovid Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara (1517–1572) undertook to translate into Italian ottava...
£2500
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[SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.]
CLAVIUS, Christophorus. In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius, nunc iterum ab ipso Auctore...
Rome, Francesco Zanetti for Domenico Basa, 1581.
Third edition, the first to contain Clavius’s condemnation of Copernicus, with ten highly detailed woodcut diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses not included in the first edition.
£2500
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BINGFIELD, William, pseud.
The Travels and Adventures of William Bingfield, Esq; containing, as surprizing a Fluctuation...
London: Printed for E. Withers ... and R. Baldwin ... 1753.
First edition of one of the most entertaining imaginary voyages of the eighteenth century.
£2100
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FROST, Robert.
A collection of five Christmas Poems 1953, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963, all in the issues printed for distribution...
New York, Spiral Press, 1953 [– 1963].
‘Though I only met Frost on three occasions, I felt the warmest affection for him … The Christmas poems which he sent his friends each year were ever welcome reminders of Frost’s genial good nature. The last I received from arrived on the morning that I read of his death in the newspaper. Sad as...
£2000
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[LOTTERY SATIRE.]
A Scheme for a New Lottery: or, a Husband and Coach and Six for forty Shillings. Being very advantageous...
London: Printed for T. Dormer … 1732.
First edition of this facetious proposal to match, for the fee of forty shillings each, 50,000 ‘maids and widows’ with a similar number of ‘gentlemen and tradesmen’, by lottery. The ‘gentlemen and tradesmen’ include ‘500 Lawyers, 200 Petty-foggers … 2 Scotchmen, both Pedlars,...
£2000
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ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.
Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inegalité parmi les hommes.
Amsterdam, Rey, 1755.
First edition. ‘Rousseau’s object was to persuade people that the happier state is that in which inequality does not subsist, that there had once been such a state, and that this was the first state of nature’ (Morley). Nature imposes its own inequality, namely the inequality of physical...
£1950
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[COMMON PRAYER.]
The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...
London, Millar Ritchie for J. Good and E. Harding, 1794.
A splendid copy of the Good and Harding Book of Common Prayer, in a striking masonic binding by John Lovejoy.
£1850