Gift Ideas
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[FRASER, William Augustus, Sir.]
Poems by the Knight of Morar.
London, Whittingham and Wilkins, 1867.
First edition, privately printed, a presentation copy inscribed on the title-page ‘From the Author. Paris. 1867.’
£350
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MAUGHAM, William Somerset; Graham SUTHERLAND, illustrator.
Cakes and Ale, or the Skeleton in the Cupboard. With an original...
London, [Windmill Press for] William Heinemann, [1954].
No. 132 of 1000 copies, signed by both author and artist. Cakes and Ale (1930) was Maugham’s favourite work; this limited edition was published in honour of his eightieth birthday.
£350
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[GREVENSTUK Brothers.]
Hand-coloured parchment key labels, with the original engraved copper plate.
Amsterdam, [c. 1875–1900].
A rare and curious survival: some seventy key labels, printed on fine vellum and hand-coloured by royal calligraphers for a fin-de-siècle Dutch gentleman, splendidly preserved with the engraved copper plate from which they were printed.
£1200
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ANDERSEN, Hans Christian; Mary HOWITT, translator.
The Improvisatore: or, Life in Italy. From the Danish … Translated by Mary...
London: Richard Bentley … 1845
First edition in English of Andersen’s autobiographical novel reflecting his travels in Italy. The poet and novelist Caroline Norton (1808-1877) obviously valued it highly, and there are pencilled marginal scorings and underlings throughout. She was a granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and...
£550
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[BYRON, George Gordon, Lord.]
Edward FINDEN, illustrator. [Landscape and Portrait Illustrations of Byron.]
[London, John Murray, 1833–4.]
Finden’s attractive engraved illustrations to the works of Byron, taken after drawings and paintings by Turner, Stanfield, Weston, and others, and his portraits of the Romantics after paintings in the Murrays’ collection, here with an autograph letter from the engraver to the Edinburgh publishers...
£850
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[FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.]
Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...
Ghent, F.& R. Buyck, 1912.
First separate edition, seemingly unrecorded, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium.
£195
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MOSZKOWSKI, Alexander; [H.J. STENNING, translator].
The Isles of Wisdom.
London, George Routledge & Sons, 1924.
First English edition of Alexander Moszkowski’s dystopian satire, an imagined visit to a series of southeast Asian islands which each subscribe unreservedly to a different philosophical school of thought.
£250
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SAY, Jean-Baptiste.
Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.
Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].
Rare first edition of Say’s utopia, our copy presented to a politician from Calvados, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Which institutions are capable of establishing morality among a people?’. Say treats...
£2500
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[‘HYSON, Timothy’, pseud. Thomas LOWNDES].
A Letter to Mr. Richard Twining, Tea Dealer, and One of the Candidates for...
London, [C. Roworth] for the author, 1827.
Second edition of the Letter to Mr Richard Twining, a public denunciation of the candidacy of the tea merchant Richard Twining (1749-1824) for a directorship of the East India Company in 1810. Twining, who had already been instrumental in the development of tea prices and taxation for many...
£250
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[SAVOY-CARIGNAN, Maria Vittoria Francesca, Princess of.]
Recueil de prières et de pratiques très utils pour se conduire à Dieu...
[Paris, Imprimerie Royale], 1735.
First and only edition of this rare prayerbook, compiled by the notorious gambling house hostess and spy Maria Vittoria Francesca of Savoy-Carignan (1690–1766), elegantly printed in a very limited number at the royal press set up at the Louvre.
£2750
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MARLIANI, Bartolomeo.
Urbis Romae topographia.
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544.
First illustrated edition (third overall), considerably expanded, providing a comprehensive visual record of ancient structures and sculptures in Rome as known in the sixteenth century.
£5500
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PYNCHON, Thomas.
Gravity’s Rainbow.
New York, The Viking Press, [1973].
First edition of Pynchon’s magnum opus, ‘literally indescribable, a tortured cadenza of lurid imaginings and total recall that goes on longer than you can quite believe’ (Michael Wood).
£900
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[BOUDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre-Joseph.]
L’Andrometrie, ou examen philosophique de l’homme. Par Monsieur l’Abbé de Villemaire.
Paris, chez Brunet, 1753.
First editions of two scarce works by the philosopher, moralist, and Parisian avocat Boudier de Villemert (1716–1801), best known as the author of L’Ami des Femmes, Le monde joué involving visits from extra-terrestrials both in ancient times and in the eighteenth century.
£2500
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FERDOWSĪ.
Shāhnāmah.
Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].
A lavishly-produced edition of the Shāhnāmah (or Shahnameh), rare in the dustjacket, one of a thousand copies printed to mark the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire.
£4000
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GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.
Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende in fünf Akten.
Berlin, August Mylius, 1776.
First edition, scarce, of Goethe’s early play about a man caught between his love for two women, which ends with reconciliation and a mariage à trois.
£1800
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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, inspired by the land visited by Odysseus in book nine of the Odyssey, where the crew members he sent ashore consumed the lotus fruit and became addicted, forgetting all thoughts of return.
£250
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PAPINI, Roberto.
Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.
Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.
First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, preceded by the idea of a utopian town, ‘Universa’, where the futuristic ideal for a new society can be achieved and craftsmanship...
£300
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ATWOOD, Margaret.
The Handmaid’s Tale.
Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
First American edition of Atwood’s award-winning theocratic dystopia, preceded only by the Canadian edition.
£300
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RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator.
Some British Ballads.
London, Constable & Co. Ltd., [1919].
First trade edition, illustrated by Rackham, of these ballads sourced largely from Francis James Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads, our copy in a handsome Bayntun-Riviere binding.
£500
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POMPONIO LETO, Giulio.
In omnia quae quidem extant, P. Vergilii Maronis Opera, Commentarii, varia multarum rerum cognitione referti,...
Basel, [Johann Oporinus, 1544].
Second edition of Leto’s influential commentary on all the works of Virgil, ‘the first to deal with all the works attributed to Virgil, and also the most extensive and complete, and therefore certainly the most important commentary written in the fifteenth century’ (Stok, p. 204).
£450