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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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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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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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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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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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.
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
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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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HUGHES, Ted.
T.S. Eliot: A Tribute by the Poet Laureate.
[London,] ‘Privately Printed by [the Salient Seedling for] Faber and Faber’, [August 1987].
A privately printed tribute to T.S. Eliot, limited to 250 copies signed by Ted Hughes. The text comprises an address given by Hughes on 26 September 1986, at the unveiling of Eliot’s blue plaque at Kensington Court Gardens.
£175
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PRIOR, Matthew.
Poems on several Occasions.
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1709.
First authorised edition, preceded by Curll’s pirated collection of 1707. In the preface Prior complains that in Curll’s edition poems by other authors have been misattributed to him and that some of his own poems are ‘transcribed … so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine’....
£400
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GALIER, W.H.
A visit to Blestland.
London, George Robertson & co., 1896.
First edition of this novel of utopian socialism which lambasts capitalism and religion. Blestland is a republican workers’ paradise located on a different planet which reveals how the divisions of earth can be abolished: by limiting ‘the enormous power for evil which capital can wield’....
£280
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FIELDING, Henry.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling …
Paris: Printed by Fr. Amb. Didot the eldest, and sold by J. N. Pissot, and Barrois Junior … Booksellers. 1780.
The first French edition in English of Fielding’s masterpiece, only the second English edition to be printed abroad (after Dresden, 1774). Here the text benefits from critical attention by Didot, who collated Murphy’s edition of Fielding’s Works with the last separate English edition.
£425
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HUGHES, John.
Poems on several Occasions. With some select Essays in Prose. In two Volumes …
London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Watts. 1735.
First edition of the principal collection of the author’s works, published posthumously and edited, with a long biographical preface, by his brother-in-law, William Duncombe. John Hughes (1677–1720) was educated at a dissenting academy where Isaac Watts was his contemporary. From an early...
£850
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[UNGER, Salomo Gottlob.]
Geschichte des Oesterreich-Russischen und Türkischen Krieges, in den Jahren von 1787. bis 1792. Nebst...
Leipzig, Wilhelm Gottlob Sommer, 1792.
First and only edition, extremely rare, of this account of the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-1791, and of the concurrent Russo-Turkish war of 1787-92. It includes the full texts of the Treaty of Sistova of 4 August 1791 and of a separate convention attached to it, in both French and German. While...
£1250
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[HALL STEVENSON, John.]
Makarony Fables …
London: ‘Printed for Circulation among private Subscribers only’, 1897.
Limited edition, numbered 172 of 300 copies, of this collection of satiric fables in verse by the poet and satirist John Hall-Stevenson (1718–1785), reprinted from the original edition of 1768. Hall-Stevenson’s reputation relies heavily on his friendship with Laurence Sterne, his contemporary...
£100
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BLANCHARD, Edward Litt Leman.
A Pipe of Tobacco: with Whiffs and Clouds … With Illustrations.
London: H. Beal … [1840s?].
First edition, by the editor and play- and pantomime-writer E.L. Blanchard, comprising three ‘whiffs’ and two ‘clouds’ on the subject of tobacco, aimed ‘at a niche in the waistcoast pocket, rather than a more presuming station on the library shelf’. Blanchard knew Dickens and was in...
£125
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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