Gift Ideas

  1. KELLER, Martialis.

    Neueröffnete Himmels-Schule, in welcher aus zwölf, als so vielen Theilen vorgesetzten Lehrpunkten verschiedene...

    Augsburg, Matthäus Riegers, 1793.

    Rare later edition of this educational and devotional work by the Bavarian Benedictine Martialis Keller, containing prayers, exercises, and points of doctrine, and illustrated with attractive engravings, this copy in a contemporary local binding.

    £500

  2. LAING, Alexander. 

    The True Hero and Other Poems … 

    Glasgow, Morison Brothers, 1893. 

    First edition, scarce, a presentation copy, inscribed in a shaky hand ‘To Wm J. Robertson / with author’s regards / Alex Laing / 8-4-19’. 

    £375

  3. [THE BOOK COLLECTOR.]

    A special Number to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

    The Book Collector, 1997.

    A collection of essays together recounting the history of Bernard Quaritch Ltd, published by The Book Collector to commemorate the firm’s sesquicentenary in 1997.

    £25

  4. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Water: An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics,...

    Toronto, A.E. Publications, 2022.

    A lavishly illustrated catalogue, tracing the development of science and engineering through the early modern period. Some 367 printed books, manuscripts, and maps are presented in chronological order, highlighting the relationship between the evolution of ideas and the authors who documented...

    £85

  5. MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).

    Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...

    Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.

    ‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...

    £35

  6. QUARITCH, Bernard Alexander Christian, editor.

    Contributions towards a Dictionary of English Book-Collectors as also of...

    London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 1969.

    A facsimile reprint of Quaritch’s series of profiles of bibliophiles, with brief lists of the treasures of their collections and notes on their dispersal at auction or in the trade, which remains a useful resource both for the history of book-collecting in Britain and for provenance research. Contributions...

    £25

  7. [COVENTRY, Francis].

    La Vie et les aventures du petit Pompée. Histoire critique traduite de l’anglois par M. Toussaint …

    A Londres [i.e. Paris?]. 1752.

    First edition? in French of Coventry’s most famous work, The History of Pompey the Little, or, The Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog (1751), a lively satire of fashionable London life, told through the eyes of a favoured pet.

    £500

  8. [KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES.] 

    Ruoli de’ generali ed uffiziali attivi e sedentanei del reale esercito e dell’armata di mare...

    Napoli, Reale Tipografia Militare, 1855.

    Scarce 1855 edition of this roster of army and navy officers, doctors, chaplains, and administrators in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, issued during the reign of Ferdinand II and only a few years before the kingdom’s demise, handsomely bound with the royal arms on each board.

    £400

  9. 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

  10. SWIFT, Jonathan. 

    A Tale of a Tub … to which is added, an Account of a Battle between the antient and modern Books in St. James’s...

    London, C. Bathurst, 1751. 

    A scarce later edition of Swift’s classic satires on corruption in religion and learning, as exemplified in the conduct of Peter (Roman Catholicism), Martin (Luther), and Jack (Calvin) in the Tale of the Tub, and the spirited fight over the highest peak of Parnassus in the Battel of...

    £175

  11. STEPNIAK, Sergey. 

    דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד … איבערזעצט פון א. פרומקין
    [Dos...

    New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921. 

    Scarce first American edition in Yiddish of Stepniak’s first and most influential book.  Written in Italian during exile in Switzerland following his assassination of Nikolai Mezentsov, chief of Alexander II’s secret police, Underground Russia was published in 1882 and translated into...

    £150

  12. [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

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. [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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. [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