[BIBLE, Ecclesiasticus.]

Σοφια Σειραχ sive Ecclesiasticus, Graece ad exemplar Romanum, et Latine ex interpretatione...

Franeker, Gilles van den Rade, 1596.

First editions of two scholarly works by the distinguished Flemish theologian and orientalist Joannes Drusius (1550–1616), who served as professor of oriental languages at Oxford and Leiden, and then of Hebrew at Franeker.

£1250

POUND, Ezra.

Cantos 110–116 …

printed & published by the Fuck You / press at a secret location in the lower east side, New York City, USA, 1967.

Unauthorised edition (unsurprisingly), no. 261 of 300 copies. The contents are extracts and include a number of apparently unidentified lines; this piracy forced the publication of Drafts and Fragment of Cantos CX–CXVII (1969).

£150

POUND, Ezra.

Manuscript notes, on an envelope addressed to Pound at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington DC, and two other leaves.

Mid-1950s.

Loose unconnected jottings, relating in part to the portions of the Cantos at which Pound was at work while confined at St. Elizabeth’s. Referred to are Temenos (see Canto 97), Je-Tzu (the Chinese barley god mentioned in Canto 98), Kung (i.e. Confucius, a recurring presence in Pound’s work), and...

£500

WATSON, Sheila.

‘The Great War, Wyndham Lewis and the Underground Press’, a special issue of artscanada, November 1967, issue...

The recordings included are three sections from One-Way Song, made at Harvard in 1940 alongside his lecture, and ‘Marshall McLuhan recalls Lewis’.

£50

ELIOT, Thomas Stearns.

Two typed letters, signed, and one secretarial letter, to the poet and broadcaster D. G. Bridson, on Faber...

1952-7.

In 1937 Geoffrey Bridson had mounted a radio production, with Eliot’s blessing, of The Waste Land – it ‘made quite remarkable radio, but I have to confess that Eliot did not share my own enthusiasm for the result’ (Prospero and Ariel), particularly after cuts were made to the recording....

£1500

GIOVIO, Paolo. 

Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita.  Quae in musaeo Ioviano Comi spectantur.  Addita in calce...

Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1546. 

First edition of Giovio’s biographies of illustrious men, with several marginal corrections, remarks, and comments by a contemporary reader, whose knowledge of biographies of the past encompassed several authors, including Erasmus. 

£3000

[HOSPICE SAINT-NICOLAS, METZ.]

Deed granting land to the hospice.

Metz, 5 May 1464.

A significant document recording the grant of agricultural land in 1464 to the Hospice of Saint-Nicolas, the oldest hospital in Metz, in northeast France, issued during the reign of Louis XI and in the final year of the papacy of Pius II.

£450

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

HUMBLOT, F.

Journal de voyage ...

France, June-September 1866.

A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.

£3500

[WOMEN-PEARLS.]

De Vrouwen-Peirle, ofte dryvoudige historie van Helena de Verduldige, Griseldis de Zagtmoedige, en Florentina de...

Ghent, J. Begyn, [1780–1810].

An attractive copy of the ‘Women-pearls’, a Flemish chapbook portraying three remarkable women – Helena the Patient, Griselda the Meek, and Florentina the Faithful – and their marvellous stories derived from medieval romances, featuring seduction, amputation, and narrowly-avoided incest.

£550

DAVIDSON, John.

Smith: a Tragedy.

Glasgow, Frederick W. Wilson and Brother, 1888.

First edition of a rare foray into drama by a Scottish poet who influenced T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. John Davidson (1857-1909) was highly regarded during his lifetime by writers like W.B. Yeats, and later by Eliot, Stevens, and Aldous Huxley. Along with Yeats, Ernest Dowson, and others,...

£300

[CHURCH OF ENGLAND.] 

The new weeks preparation for a worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper, as recommended and appointed by...

London, printed from the edition of the late Edwd. Wickstead, for T. Wilson and R. Spence, York, [c. 1780-1800?]. 

An attractive copy of two later editions of these collections of prayers, hymns, meditations, and self-examinations, with a focus on Holy Communion. 

£250

TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).

Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...

Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.

First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.

£2800

[MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]

The Hymns Anthems and Tunes with the Ode used at the Magdalen Chapel set for the Organ Harpsichord, Voice German-Flute...

London, Printed for Longman and Broderip … [1780?].

Two rare later editions of the Magdalen Chapel hymnbook.

£2000

[‘FULIGNATI, Giuntino’ (pseud. Tommaso BUONI?)].

Della famosissima compagnia della lesina.

Dialogo, capitoli, e ragionamenti … Vicenza, Giorgio Greco, 1601.

Scarce humorous dystopia of indigence, first edition thus: the first to include a section specifically directed at women.

£650

DOLCE, Lodovico.

Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica.

Venice, Giovanni Battista, & Marchio Sessa, & fratelli, [1565].

First edition of this exposition of Aristotle’s dialectics, moral, and natural philosophy by one of the most significant poligrafi and artistic theorists of the cinquecento, intended for a non-specialist readership.

£2500

[USTONSON, Onesimus.]

The Anglers Assistant being an Epitomy of ye whole Art of Angling wherein is shewn at one View ye Harbours,...

Ustonson [c. 1815?]

A fine and very rare broadside angling guide, the text probably written by Onesimus Ustonson (b. 1736), fishing tackle manufacturer and inventor of the multiplying reel, who had supplied equipment to Joseph Banks for Cook’s second voyage in 1772.

£1000

[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.] 

Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale...

Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.

An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to the female players of tavolazzo – a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting – at the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri; the rules of the sport would be formally laid out in 1780.

£375

GRUBBE, Margaret Julia Maria.

Archive of drawings, watercolours, and photographs.

England and Scotland, c. 1900 – 1960s.

A charming archive of the Suffolk artist Margaret Grubbe (1911–97), granddaughter of the painter John Seymour Lucas, comprising dozens of family photographs and over 150 of her drawings and watercolours, tracing her development as an artist from her childhood into middle age.

£1500

BACON, Francis.

Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley...

London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.

First edition, second issue of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance in Latin of a biographical sketch of the philosopher by William Rawley (c. 1588–1667), Bacon’s literary...

£1250