Gift Ideas
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[MALTA.]
Eruditissima istoria dell’assedio fatto dalli Turchi all città di Malta.
Naples, [c. 1800?].
Scarce poem on the 1565 Great Siege of Malta, when around 2400 Knights Hospitallers and Maltese inhabitants repelled an Ottoman invasion lead by Dragut and Mustafa Pasha. Library catalogues credit the work to Innico Grivaccio.
£650
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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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HOMER, William Cullen BRYANT (translator), and John FLAXMAN (artist).
The Iliad of Homer, translated into...
[Cambridge (MA), Riverside Press for] Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, 1905.
The large paper edition de luxe of the English translations of the Iliad and Odyssey by the American poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878). Bryant’s translations, first published in 1870 and 1871 respectively, are here accompanied by plates reproducing the exquisite...
£650
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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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QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius, and Jacques-Louis d’ESTREBAY (ed.).
Compendium libri secondi, tertii, et quinti institutionum...
Paris, Thomas Richard, 1558.
Apparently unrecorded edition of a very rare compendium of Quintilian’s oratory by Jacques-Louis d’Estrebay (or Estrebee, 1481–1550?), humanist, translator, professor of Rhetoric at Rheims and subsequently at the College of Sante-Barbe in Paris, and a proof-reader for the Estiennes. The...
£350
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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
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[BERLAIMONT, Noël de.]
Colloquia et dictionariolum septem linguarum, Belgicae, Anglicae, Teutonicae, Latinicae, Italicae, Hispanicae,...
Liège, Henricus Hovius, 1610.
Scarce edition of an immensely popular multilingual phrasebook containing several amusing scenarios – from dinner parties gone awry to squabbles over the price of fabric – in seven languages, so that the reader might ‘not neede ony interpretour, but shal be able to speake them your self’.
£1750
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[BROUN, Richard, Sir.]
Memorabilia curliana Mabenensia.
Dumfries, John Sinclair, 1830.
Uncommon first edition of this charming work on the sport of curling by the eccentric Scottish baronet Sir Richard Broun (1801–1858), with a focus on his native Lochmaben, being one of the earliest books on the sport.
£675
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SOPHOCLES. POUND, Ezra, translator.
Women of Trachis. A Version by Ezra Pound.
London, Neville Spearman, [1956].
First edition, inscribed by the editor Denis Goacher ‘For Geoffrey [Bridson]: Nov. ’56 / This milestone / Just missed witnessing / The total collapse of / D. G.’ – Bridson had co-produced the play for BBC radio in April 1954.
£1000
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Limited Edition, no XXVII of XXX copies not for sale, signed by Mrs Wyndham Lewis, Michael Ayrton & Walter Allen, with a signed etching by Michael Ayrton. A further 100 numbered copies were for general sale at £30 each.
£500
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MITCHISON, Naomi; Wyndham LEWIS, illustrator.
Beyond this Limit …
[London,] Jonathan Cape, [1935].
First edition. This was Lewis’s only collaboration with Mitchison but she arranged for the publication of his Left Wings over Europe the following year, and they remained friends until his death. 32 designs by Lewis served as the inspiration for Mitchison’s narrative.
£75
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[FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.]
Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...
Gand, F.& R. Buyck Frères, 1912.
First separate edition, as far as we are aware with no institutional holdings, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium.
£195
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[MINIATURE LIBRARY.]
Bibliothèque en Miniature.
Paris, Firmin Didot frères for Marcilly, [c. 1835].
A miniature library for children, printed in Henri Didot’s celebrated ‘Non Plus Ultra’ type, comprising Berquin’s Variétés, Démoustier’s Mythologie, Florian’s Mélanges, La Fontaine’s Fables, and poetry by Millevoye and Voltaire.
£400
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WALLER, Edmund.
Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing. All the lyrick Poems...
London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645.
Second (but first licensed) edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to...
£850
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GAZZOLI, Giacomo Maria.
Il Luminario de’ Ciechi. Operetta diretta all’universale del Giudaismo da Giacomo M.a Gazzoli già...
Parma, [Giambattista Bodoni] ‘Dalla Reale Tipografia’, 1797.
A rare typographic marvel featuring three distinct Hebrew typefaces by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813), in which Rabbi-turned-Catholic-zealot Giacomo Gazzoli exhorts the Jews of Italy to ‘emerge from a state of blindness into the light of Christianity’.
£850
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CANTINE, Holley, and Dachine RAINER (editors), and Lowell NAEVE (illustrator).
Prison Etiquette:...
Bearsville (NY), Retort Press, 1950.
First edition of this anthology of conscientious objectors incarcerated during the Second World War, ‘entirely hand-set, hand-bound, and printed on a footpedal press by the editors’ (jacket flap) in an edition of two thousand copies.
£275
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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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[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