Gift Ideas

  1. CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

    The River War: An Historical Account...

    [London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

    First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

    £2500

  2. [BUXTON, Thomas Fowell, Sir.] Charles BUXTON, editor.

    Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Baronet, with Selections...

    London, [Spottiswoode & Shaw for] John Murray, 1848.

    First edition of this memoir of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, edited by his son, and owned by Buxton’s cousin-in-law and contemporary in Parliament, Charles Barclay.

    £185

  3. HICKES, George, Runólfur JÓNSSON, and Edward BERNARD.

    Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae …...

    Oxford, ‘e theatro Sheldoniano … typis Junianis’, 1689 [– 1688].

    First edition of a foundational work in the modern study of ancient Germanic languages and in the field of comparative linguistics, comprising the first appearances of Hickes’s monumental grammar of Old English and Gothic and of Bernard’s etymological dictionary, accompanied by a survey of Old...

    £1200

  4. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.

    Enoch Arden, etc. …

    London, [Bradbury & Evans for] Edward Moxon & Co., 1864.

    First edition, an association copy belonging to James Aubrey Garth Marshall and given by him to his daughter Julia Mary Garth Marshall (later O’Brien).

    £175

  5. WETZELL, Madame.

    Les Matinées de la poupée, ou récréations d’une petite fille.

    Paris, J. Langlumé, [1844?].

    First and only edition, very rare, of a delightful illustrated account of a girl’s doll. Brillantine, a doll, is given to Célénie for company while her elder sister Alméa is in Africa; the book recounts in detail their relationship over the course of a week, from Brillantine’s arrival with...

    £275

  6. GURNEY, Edmund, Frederic W.H. MYERS, and Frank PODMORE.

    Phantasms of the Living …

    London, Society for Psychical Research, and Trübner & Co, 1886.

    First edition, second issue as usual, with the note regarding corrections and additions on the verso of the title-page of vol. I and said Corrections included.

    £800

  7. ALEXANDER, William, attributed.

    The Costume of the Russian Empire, illustrated by a Series of seventy-three Engravings....

    London, ‘printed for William Miller … by Howlett and Brimmer … 1803’, [c. 1823].

    A later reprint of a handsome costume book devoted to the Russian empire, first printed by Samuel Gosnell for William Miller in 1803, illustrated with seventy-three coloured stipple engravings.

    £950

  8. [GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]

    Il Pastor Fido.

    ‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

    Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s immensely popular ‘pastoral tragi-comedy’, charmingly illustrated by Antonio Luciani.

    £175

  9. KAEMPFER, Engelbert, and Johann Gaspar SCHEUCHZER, translator.

    The History of Japan, giving an Account of the ancient...

    London, for the translator, 1727.

    First edition, first issue, of the German naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer’s monumental History of Japan, translated from an unpublished manuscript in Sir Hans Sloane’s library by his librarian, the Swiss naturalist Johann Caspar Scheuchzer, and illustrated with splendid plates from Kaempfer’s...

    £7500

  10. WALTON, Izaak, and James THORPE, illustrator.

    Complete Angler or contemplative man’s recreation … with illustrations...

    London & Edinburgh, T.N. Foulis, [1925].

    A very attractive illustrated edition of Walton’s classic fishing manual in a deluxe Bayntun binding.

    £500

  11. BRULL, Mariano, and Mathilde POMÈS, translator.

    Solo de Rosa. Poemas.

    Con dos rosas de Mariano y Portocarrero. [Havana,] ‘La Veronica’, 1941.

    First edition, no. 186 of 300 copies, printed in Cuba and inscribed by the author to his French translator, Mathilde Pomès, with Pomès’s manuscript translation of one of Brull’s poems from Solo de Rosa loosely inserted.

    £650

  12. RUSH, John; Jacob F. SHEEK, editor.

    The Hand-Book to veterinary Homoeopathy, or the homoeopathic Treatment of the Horse,...

    New York & San Francisco, Boericke & Tafel, 1876.

    Later American edition of a rare hand-book to veterinary homoeopathy. The text, first published in 1853, offers homoeopathic remedies for a variety of ailments, prefaced by a defence of the principles of the practice.

    £275

  13. ASCHAM, Roger.

    A Report and Discourse … of the Affaires and State of Germany and the Emperour Charles his Court, during certaine...

    London, Printed by John Daye … [1570?].

    First edition. Ascham’s account of his time in Germany as secretary to Sir Richard Morison, ambassador to the court of Emperor Charles V, takes the form of a letter to the courtier John Astley.

    £2000

  14. PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, Juan de. 

    The History of the Conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an Account of several remarkable...

    London, W. Godbid for M. Pitt, 1671. 

    First edition in English of Palafox's Historia de la conquista de la China (1670), an account of the Manchu conquest of Ming China based on reports sent to him from Macao and the Philippines.

    £1750

  15. DENNYS, Nicholas Belfield (editor).

    The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A complete guide to the open ports of those countries,...

    Shortrede and Co., 1867.

    First edition, complete with all twenty-nine maps and plans, of this remarkable guide to the open ports of China and Japan in the late 1860s, aimed at ‘travellers, merchants, and residents’, compiled by Nicholas Dennys (1839–1900), a noted scholar of Chinese folklore, with the sinologist William...

    £4750

  16. [DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]

    ‘Atlas’.

    Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].

    An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.

    £875

  17. Aristotle: From Antiquity to the Modern Era.

    Preface by Martin J. Gross. Essays by Benjamin Morison and Barbara Scalvini.

    Lewes, D. Giles Ltd for the Martin J. Gross Family Foundation, 2021.

    Aristotle’s influence towers over western philosophy and science. His astonishing range and depth – philosophy and logic, the physical and natural sciences, ethics and politics – make him indisputably the most important intellectual figure in the western tradition before the modern age.

    £30

  18. POWYS, John Cowper.

    Autobiography.

    London, John Lane, The Bodley Head, [1934].

    First edition, signed on the half-title ‘John Cowper Powys, April 1935’. A very nice copy of a work not often found signed.

    £250

  19. POUND, Ezra, and Noel STOCK, translators.

    Love Poems of ancient Egypt.

    [New York, New Directions, 1962].

    First edition.

    £75

  20. LEWIS, Wyndham, and Anne Gladys LEWIS.

    Christmas card to the Bridsons.

    [1950s].

    ‘To Joyce [née Thirlaway] + Geoffrey with Christmas love from Froanna + Wyndham …’

    £50