Recent Acquisitions
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Vulgar Streak.
London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1941.
First edition, first impression, a scarce work because of wartime paper shortages and, possibly, the destruction of a portion of the first impression in the Blitz; certainly Robert Hale’s offices were bombed and the records destroyed, and the work was reprinted within a month.
£750
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FLORENT DE SALES (pseud.).
Vrai systême du monde physique et moral.
[Switzerland,] 1797.
Only edition, rare, of this utopia, the identity of whose author, and even of whose printer, remains unknown.
£2500
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MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.
Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. ...
London, T. Jefferys, 1764.
Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...
£6500
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LA ROQUE, Jean de.
Voyage de Syrie et du Mont-Liban. Contenant la description de tout le pays compris sous le nom de Liban et d’Anti-Liban,...
Amsterdam, Herman Uytwerf, 1723.
Second edition (first Paris 1722) of La Roque’s account of his first journey to the Arab world, undertaken in 1689 when he visited Syria and Lebanon. The son of a Marseille coffee merchant, La Roque (1661–1745) was a journalist, traveller, and one of the founders of the Académie de Marseille....
£1500
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[LAPINI, Bernardo.]
Vita di Madonna Onorata scritta da Bernardo Ilicino publicata per la prima volta sopra un codice del secolo...
Milan, Giuseppe Bernardoni, 1843.
First appearance in print of this life of the Sienese noblewoman Onorata Saracini (née Orsini, 1435–1457), by her contemporary, the late fifteenth-century physician and writer Bernardo Lapini (or Ilicini), here edited by the Milanese print and old master dealer Giuseppe Vallardi (1784–1863)...
£350
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GUALDI, Cesare [i.e. Gregorio LETI].
Vita di Donna Olimpia Maldachini [sic] che governò la Chiesa, durante il...
‘Ragusa’ [i.e. Geneva], Giulio Giuli, 1676.
Scarce expanded edition of Gregorio Leti’s salacious life of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilij, the infamous sister-in-law of Innocent X dubbed ‘Pope Olimpia I’ for her extraordinary influence on the Papacy.
£750
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CELLINI, Benvenuto.
Vita di Benvenuto Cellini orefice e scultore fiorentino da lui medesimo scritta, nella quale molte curiose...
‘Cologne’ [i.e. Florence], ‘Pietro Martello’ [i.e. Bartolini], [1792].
The counterfeit edition of Benvenuto Cellini’s seminal autobiography, extra-illustrated with two large engravings illustrating his ‘Perseus and Medusa’ and the ‘Hercules and Cacus’ of his rival sculptor Bandinelli.
£850
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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
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DURINI, Angelo.
Versi latini dell’ eminentissimo Sig. Cardinale Angelo Durini sopra il Cocchio Volante del Sig. di Montgolfier...
[Milan, 1784.]
First edition, with a parallel Italian translation, of these Latin verses commemorating the first Montgolfier experiments with balloon flight by the Milanese diplomat and cardinal Angelo Maria Durini (1725–1796).
£1250
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AIKEN, Conrad.
Ushant, an Essay.
New York & Boston, Duell, Sloan and Pearce / Little, Brown and Company, [1952].
First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoffrey [Bridson] from Conrad. Ex – Xmas 1956’. Ushant, Conrad’s ‘autobiographical narrative’, is often considered his most significant work in prose.
£300
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SMITH, Robert.
The Universal Directory for taking alive and destroying Rats, and all other Kinds of four-footed and winged Vermin,...
London, printed for the author, 1768.
First edition of a guide to catching and killing all manner of crawling and flying vermin, illustrated with plates, by the professional exterminator and rat-catcher Robert Smith.
£500
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[OFFICE OF THE DEAD.]
Uffizio de’ morti, ad uso delle confraternite e congregazioni.
Turin, Bernardino Barberis, 1805.
An apparently unrecorded Turin-printed Office of the Dead, with striking woodcut memento mori ornaments, printed for the use of religious congregations and confraternities. The Uffizio de’ morti, outlining the liturgy used in commemoration of the dead, is accompanied by a notice...
£225
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CLARK, James.
A Treatise on the Prevention of Diseases incidental to Horses, from bad Management in Regard to Stables, Food, Water,...
Edinburgh, for the Author, and sold by W. Creech, J. Dickson, P. Hill, and C. Elliot, 1790.
Two important texts on farriery (second and third editions respectively), with a preface instrumental to the foundation of the Royal Veterinary College in 1791. Farrier to the King for Scotland, James Clark’s arguments for a veterinary school after the model of the continental colleges were...
£750
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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
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[CAMBRIDGE.]
Tract volume of nine scarce works of poetry, including two installation odes on the occasion of HRH William Frederick...
London and Cambridge, 1765-1823.
Including: £1200
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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
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DESFORGES, Pierre Choudard.
Tom Jones a Londres, Comédie en cinq actes et en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding … Réprésentée,...
Paris, Chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi … 1789.
Later edition, first published 1782. Desforges’s dramatic adaptation of Fielding’s novel was followed in 1788 by an apparently inferior sequel, Tom Jones et Fellamar.
£95
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Time and Western Man.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1927.
First edition, first issue (on heavier paper), of Lewis’s ‘single most important philosophical work’ (Morrow & Lafourcade).
£400
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[INTERSEX.]
Three pamphlets.
Paris, 1892–1920.
A collection of rare French pamphlets on the subject of differences in sex development from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two of the three pamphlets are doctoral theses, covering the social impact of differences in sex development, and persistent müllerian duct syndrome (‘tubular...
£450
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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