Recent Acquisitions

  1. [LITURGY.]

    Cerimonie piu’ notabili della messa privata; Cavate dalle rubriche del Missale, ed altri autori da un Sacerdote D.C.D.M....

    Turin, Gianfranco Mairesse, 1739.

    As far as we are aware unrecorded edition of this uncommon treatise on the celebration of the mass and its associated rituals. Dealing both with private (low) masses and with solemn mass and solemn vespers, the work explains the meaning and performance of the non-verbal aspects of the liturgy:...

    £335

  2. DARRÉ, G.-G.

    ‘Conferences diaconales données par Mr l’abbé Darré, Vicaire Général au GrandSéminaire d’Auch. Année...

    Auch, 1864.

    An attractively written manuscript of Abbé Darré’s practical manual for the use of young priests entering pastoral ministry, the text remaining unprinted, according to OCLC, until 1872.

    £200

  3. [EDUCATION.]

    Lois et réglemens pour les lycees.

    Paris, ‘de l’imprimerie de la République, an XII,’ 1803.

    Rare first edition of this extremely interesting collection of laws and regulations governing secondary education in France, reflecting the historic changes enacted between 1801 and 1803 by Napoleon as First Consul, in particular the establishment of lycées.

    £175

  4. RELATION (A) of the defeating Card.

    Mazarine & Oliv. Cromwell’s Design to have taken Ostend by Treachery, in the Year 1658, written...

    London, Printed for Hen. Herringman … 1666.

    First edition, an account, apparently translated from an untraced Spanish original, of a failed attempt by Anglo-French forces to take the town of Ostend from the Spanish in 1658.

    £950

  5. LOCATELLI, Lodovico.

    Theatro d’Arcani… nel quale si tratta dell’arte chimica, et suoi arcani, con gli afforismi d’Ippocrate...

    Milan, Gio. Pietro Ramellati, 1644.

    First edition of Locatelli’s alchemical tract, which includes the first Italian translation of Paracelsus.

    £2500

  6. [LE MARCHE.] 

    Deed relating to the sale of property in Beltrovato (a district of Morrovalle in the Province of Macerata in the...

    [Rome, 1616.] 

    A curiously bound public instrument notarised by the Apostolic Camera in Rome detailing the sale of property belonging to two brothers from the influential de’ Mozzi family of Macerata. 

    £850

  7. [OXFORD.] 

    Carmina quadragesimalia ab Aedis Christi Oxon. alumnis composita et ab ejusdem Aedis baccalaureis determinantibus...

    Oxford, ‘E Theatro Sheldoniano,’ 1723 [– 1748]. 

    First edition of humorous verses in Latin, composed by bachelors at Christ Church Oxford as part of scholastic Lenten disputations on natural philosophy. 

    £500

  8. [MEIN, Robert.] 

    A Nominal Encomium on the Election of Magistrates at Michaelmass 1764. 

    [Edinburgh, 1764.] 

    First edition, very rare, a poem celebrating both the election of James Stuart of Binend as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and the plans for the construction of Edinburgh New Town, of which building was to commence in 1767.  Typically for Mein he anagrammatizes his subject as ‘A Just Master’,...

    £450

  9. VILLA, Antonio, and Giovanni Battista VILLA. 

    Dispositio systematica conchyliarum terrestrium et fluviatilium quae adservantur...

    Milan, ex typis Borroni et Scotti, 1841. 

    First edition of this catalogue of molluscs and shellfish in the collection of Antonio and Giovanni Battista Villa. 

    £275

  10. LUBLER, Johannes. 

    Tractatus de incendio antehac nunquam editus in quo omnia ac singula ad hanc materiam pertinentia dilucide...

    Liège, Lambert Thonon, 1701. 

    Rare second edition of this legal study of fire and its consequences, the only known work of the German jurist Johannes Lubler. 

    £450

  11. SANNAZARO, Jacopo. 

    Iacobi Sannazarii Opera omnia latine scripta, nuper edita. 

    Venice, heirs of Aldus Manutius and Andreas Asulanus, September 1535. 

    Enlarged posthumous Aldine edition of the collected Latin works of the Neapolitan poet Jacopo Sannazaro. 

    £550

  12. [ALMANAC.] 

    ...

    Liège and Paris, Stahl, [1841]. 

    Rare issue of the long-running and highly entertaining Almanach de Liège, illustrated with numerous crudely printed woodcuts. 

    £225

  13. [TURNER, John.] 

    Sufferings of John Turner, chief mate of the country ship, Tay, bound for China, under the command of William...

    London, Plummer for Thomas Tegg, [1809]. 

    Scarce account of piracy and shipwreck, with a striking aquatint frontispiece portraying a pirate attack. 

    £1500

  14. MARVIN, Charles Thomas. 

    ‘The manuscript of’ Colonel Grodekoff’s ride from Samarcand to Herat, through the Balkh and the...

    London, Wm H. Allen, 1880. 

    Marvin’s own manuscript of his English translation of Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov’s account of his remarkable journey from Samarkand (Uzbekistan) to Herat (Afghanistan), published in 1880 in the midst of the ‘Great Game’ between the British and Russian empires for control of Central Asia. 

    £4750

  15. CLÜVER, Philipp. 

    Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …

    Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686. 

    The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno. 

    £2500

  16. BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis). 

    Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the...

    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

  17. [POPE, Walter.] 

    The Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall: containing the history of his Life and Death.  Whereunto are annexed his last...

    London, Printed for Henry Brome … 1670. 

    First(?) edition of a partly fictitious and often satirical life of the highwayman Claude Duval, published shortly after his execution in 1670.  This is the more substantial of two opportunistic biographies, between them the main sources of information about him, though by no means entirely trustworthy. ...

    £750

  18. ARM’S OF TILLY (The). 

    The Virtues and Effects of the Remedy, named Medicamentum gratia probatum, id ist: the Remedy approved...

    [Colophon:] Printe [sic] by John Enschedé, Printer of the City of Haarlem in Holland, [c. 1764–73]

    Unrecorded printing of an advertising broadside for Haarlem Oil, a panacea containing ingredients such as sulphur and terebinth oil which is still sold today as a dietary supplement.  The oil was first marketed in 1696 by Claes Tilly, a Haarlem schoolmaster, who was succeeded by his step grandchild...

    £1500

  19. [SOUTH OF FRANCE.]

    ‘Routes de Privas à Nîmes 1892’.

    June-July 1892.

    A nice sketchbook, by an anonymous artist, recording a trip to the South of France in 1892, capturing the beauty of the landscape, as well as some of the historic monuments in the départements of Ardèche, Gard, and Vaucluse.

    £575

  20. BUCKNILL, Charles.

    Notes from medical lectures.

    London, February – April 1798.

    A most interesting medical manuscript by one Charles Bucknill recording lectures given in 1798 by the Scottish anatomist Matthew Baillie (1761–1823) and the English obstetrician John Clarke (1758–1815). Bucknill – likely a forebear of the psychiatrist and mental health reformer Sir John...

    £4500