Recent Acquisitions
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THOMAS CANTIPRATENSIS.
Bonum universale de proprietatibus apum.
[Cologne, Johann Koelhoff, the Elder, c. 1478–1480.]
Second edition of this manual of moral theology structured around the behaviour of bees, composed in the 1260s. It was a popular work, surviving in over a hundred manuscripts.
£6000
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MACDONALD, Alexander.
‘Instructions and regulations for the formations and movements of horse artillery by Captain A: Macdonald...
[England, 1827.]
Scarce manuscript of an unpublished work on the formations and movements of horse artillery by the distinguished soldier and Waterloo veteran Major-General Alexander Macdonald CB (1776–1840), illustrated with twenty-five coloured diagrams.
£1500
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GERARDE, John; Thomas JOHNSON, editor.
The Herball or general Historie of Plantes … very much enlarged and amended …
London, Printed by Adam Islip, Joice Norton, and Richard Whitakers, 1633.
Second edition of Gerard’s Herball, edited and expanded by Thomas Johnson, with an extensive new set of Plantin woodcuts and a hand-coloured engraved title by John Payne.
£3250
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CAESAR, Gaius Julius.
C. Julii Caesaris quae extant. Accuratissime cum libris editis & MSS optimis collata, recognita & correcta....
London, Jacob Tonson, 1712.
First edition of the celebrated Tonson’s Caesar edited by Samuel Clarke (1675–1729), ‘the most sumptuous classical work which this country has produced’ (Dibdin).
£9500
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BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).
Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans...
London, Henry Colburn, 1829.
First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.
£3750
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LIPSIUS, Justus.
De amphitheatro liber. In quo forma ipsa loci expressa, et ratio spectandi. Cum aeneis figuris.
Antwerp [i.e. Leiden], Christophe Plantin, 1585.
Two works by the great Flemish humanist and philologist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), on amphitheatres and on Latin pronunciation.
£950
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BACON, Francis.
Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...
London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638.
First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy.
£3500
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PETIOT, Étienne.
Panegyricus Ludovico XIII. vindici rebellionis, domitori Elementorum, æterno triumphatori: Pro fracta Britannia,...
Ferrara, Giuseppe Gironi, 1639.
An extremely rare Ferrarese edition of the hugely popular panegyric to Louis XIII by the Jesuit Étienne Petiot (1602–1675), professor of rhetoric, encomiastic writer, and theologian from Limoges, written on the occasion of the defeat of the Huguenots at the end of the siege of La Rochelle and...
£975
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LAUTERBACH, Barbara, and Georg Christoph LAUTERBACH.
A group of five school exercise books comprising geographical dictations.
Lenk, 1834-1849.
A charming group of school exercise books from the Swiss village of Lenk im Simmental, unusually bound in decorated printed wrappers.
£1250
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PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.
Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...
Cambridge, University Press, 1928.
First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.
£400
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[EMBROIDERED BINDING.]
Etrennes mignonnes, pour l’an de grace de Notre Seigneur M. DCC. LIII. …
Liège, Everard Kints, [1753].
A charming almanack for 1753 printed in Liège by Everard Kints – bookseller, printer, and wine merchant – here in a delightful embroidered binding with raised work in silver thread surrounding a skilfully executed floral arrangement.
£400
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[NEW YORK.]
Notarial instrument attesting to the residence of two French immigrants in New York.
New York, 27 July 1797.
An interesting notarial document recording the immigration of two members of the French minor nobility to America during the French Revolution and Directory.
£850
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[STEREOGRAPH.]
‘Going Out’ [and] ‘Coming In’.
London, Gebhardt, Rottmann & Co., [late 1850s or 1860s].
An amusing pair of stereos depicting the ‘before’ and ‘after’ a gentleman’s night out.
£70
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[STEREOGRAPH.]
James ELLIOTT, photographer.
‘The first Love Letter’ [and] ‘Difference of Opinion’. London, 1860s.
Three hand-tinted albumen prints in stereo format featuring elaborate historical costumes, depicting the early stages of courtship and a lovers’ tiff.
£175
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[ALMANACK.]
Étrennes mignonnes, curieuses et utiles, pour l’année mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix.
Paris, Guillot, 1790.
A French almanack for 1790 in a delightful sous mica binding with painted vignettes showing a courting couple one side and what appears to be a lovers’ tryst on the other, preserved in its original red morocco case.
£2750
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[ALMANACK.]
Les etrennes a la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.
Paris, Janet, [1804?].
A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).
£2500
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LALEMANT, [Pierre].
Les saints desirs de la mort, ou recüeil de quelques pensées des peres de l’Eglise, pour montrer comment...
Paris, Josse, 1710.
A very rare later edition, in a contemporary binding of onlaid morocco, of Lalement’s French paraphrases of the Church Fathers’ thoughts on death.
£850
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[MONS.]
...
Mons, J. B. Varret, 1748.
First and only edition, very rare, of this history of the Sunday school in Mons, established for the Christian education of the boys and girls of the city and supported by the Canonesses of St Waltrude among other benefactors.
£975
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BLANCHET, Joseph.
L’art, ou les principes philosophiques du chant … IIe edition, corrigée et augmentée …
Paris, Augustin-Martin Lottin, Michel Lambert, and Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, 1756.
First edition of this philosophical and anatomical singing manual, with an engraved illustration of the lungs.
£750
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‘SANTO DOMINGO’.
Tablettes Parisiennes, par M. Santo-Domingo. Deuxième edition.
Brussels, Aug. Wahlen for H. Tarlier, 1826.
Second edition, scarcer than the first edition of the previous year, of these risqué recollections of Parisian life, this copy printed on yellow paper, including a ‘Linnaean’ classification of Parisian women.
£475