Gift Ideas

  1. DURRELL, Lawrence.

    Collected Poems.

    London, Faber and Faber, [1960].

    First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoff from Larry Durrell 1962 / “too much tape [?]” Eliot’.

    £400

  2. MYERS, Robin, Andrew BURNETT, and Renae SATTERLEY.

    ‘I do not eat the bread of idleness’: Dr Andrew Coltée Ducarel 1713–1785,...

    The Garendon Press, 2023.

    This volume brings together revised versions of four of Robin Myers’s papers on aspects of Ducarel’s life and work published between 1994 and 2002, and ‘The Life and Times of the Ducarel Brothers’, her recent introductory essay to Two Huguenot Brothers: Letters of Andrew and James Coltée...

    £45

  3. WAPPEROM, Jacobus Joannes. 

    Gezangen door J.J. Wapperom. 

    The Hague, 1805. 

    Very rare collection of songs by the Dutch notary and poet Wapperom (1763–1822), one of only a small number of copies produced, decorated by the author himself and distributed among his friends and family. 

    £675

  4. [WESLEY, John (editor).]

    Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in usum juventutis Christianae....

    Bristol, typis F. Farley, 1749.

    First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning....

    £1100

  5. 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...

    £5750

  6. [ENGELBRECHT, Martin.]

    Eine Englische Bäurin. Une paisane Angloise. Ein Englischer Baur. Un paisan Anglois.

    Augsburg, Martin Engelbrecht, [c. 1740?].

    A wonderful engraving by the Augsburg engraver Martin Engelbrecht (1684–1756) depicting a finely-dressed Englishwoman and Englishman – each somewhat incongruously captioned ‘an English peasant’ – placed within a formal garden setting.

    £3500

  7. REFELL, A. 

    Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...

    Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865. 

    First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...

    £1250

  8. [GREENE, Asa.]

    The perils of Pearl Street, including a taste of the dangers of Wall Street, by a late merchant.

    New York, Betts & Anstice and Peter Hill, 1834.

    First edition of a very early Wall Street novella, the fictional tale of Billy Hazard, an innocent carpenter’s son from rural New York state determined to make it as a merchant in the city. Billy’s attempts to establish himself in the mercantile trade in New York City are ultimately unsuccessful...

    £2750

  9. [COOK, James, and Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la PÉROUSE.]

    Tableau des decouvertes du Capne. Cook, & de la Pérouse....

    S. Sauveur, l’an 7 de la République Française [1798-1799].

    A splendid hand-coloured engraving depicting indigenous peoples of the Pacific and beyond, drawn from the voyages of James Cook (1728–1779) and La Pérouse (1741–1788), and published by the Canadian-born writer, artist and diplomat, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Saveur (1757–1810).

    £1500

  10. MARINIS, Dominico de. 

    Dissertatio philosophico-medica de re monstrosa à Capuccino Pisauri per urinam excreta.  Plura de sanguinis...

    Rome, typis Iacobi Mascardi ... sumptibus Ben Carrarae, 1678. 

    First edition of this scarce dissertation on worms focussing on the extraordinary case of a Capuchin preacher from Pesaro who in 1677 passed a ‘monster’ worm in his urine, which upon subsequent examination was declared to be a serpent. 

    £1850

  11. [BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.] 

    Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier de l’Inquisition...

    Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus, 1754. 

    Second edition of this much expanded and altered translation of Berington’s celebrated utopian novel, Memoirs of Sigr Gaudentio di Lucca (1737). 

    £500

  12. [JAMIESON, John.] 

    Congal and Fenella; A Tale in Two Parts. 

    London, C. Dilly, 1791. 

    First and only edition of Jamieson’s Scottish epic, bound with an early edition of Gray’s Poems

    £250

  13. ORIBASIUS. 

    Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533. 

    First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre. 

    £1750

  14. TERENCE Afer, Publius. 

    Comoediae sex, tum ex Donati commentariis … diligentius quam unquam antehac emendatae; Aelii Donati...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1529. 

    First folio edition of Terence’s comedies by Robert Estienne.  The printer had already produced a small, octavo edition of Terence’s works in 1526.  Confident in its success, and through access to an excellent and ancient manuscript of the fourth-century commentary by Aelius Donatus, ‘in...

    £1500

  15. RAM RAZ. 

    Essay on the Architecture of the Hindús … with forty-eight Plates. 

    London, John William Parker for the Royal Asiatic Society, 1834. 

    First edition, scarce on the market, of this pioneering and handsomely illustrated essay on Indian architecture by the linguist and lawyer Ram Raz (c. 1790–c. 1833). 

    £975

  16. HUGO, Victor.

    Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].

    Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

    First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.

    £7500

  17. SPENSER, Edmund. 

    The Works of Edmund Spenser. 

    Oxford, The Shakespeare Head Press, 1930 [– 1932]. 

    Limited edition, numbered 123 of 375 copies, of the handsome Shakespeare Head Spenser, one of the most significant works of the press. 

    £1250

  18. SHERIDAN, Richard Brinsley. 

    The School for Scandal, a Comedy [– The Critic …; – The Rivals …; – A Trip to Scarborough...

    Dublin, William Porter for William Jones, 1792 [– 1793]. 

    The first attempt to publish a collected edition of Sheridan’s dramatic works, forming the fifth volume of The British Theatre, an assembly of pirated plays by the Dublin bookseller William Jones. 

    £275

  19. 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, book nine). In Hawtrey’s novel, this fruit makes...

    £240

  20. PASTEUR, Louis. 

    Études sur la bière, ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédé pour la rendre inaltérable, avec une...

    Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1876.

    First edition.  In his Études sur la bière, Pasteur ‘described a new and perfected method of preparing pure yeast [and] emphasized that yeast occasionally required small quantities of oxygen in order to retain its “youth” and its capacity to germinate in oxygen-free environments. ...

    £750