Recent Acquisitions
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]
First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.
£6750
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GUIGNES, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de.
Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784...
Paris, l’Imprimerie Impériale, 1808.
First edition, the complete four-volume set, containing a survey of Chinese history and customs, a narrative of the author’s journey to Beijing as part of the Dutch East India embassy in 1794–5, and a magnificent folio atlas featuring 97 beautiful illustrations and intricate maps.
£6500
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HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.
Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...
Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].
Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).
£6000
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GELLIUS, Aulus.
Noctium Atticarum commentaria per Bonfinem Asculanum summa nuper diligentia et studio recognita.
Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 1517.
Second edition of Gellius’s opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia.
£5500
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EUSTRATIUS of Nicaea, et al.
Ευστρατιου και αλλων τινων επισημων υπομνηματα εις...
[(Colophon:) Venice, heirs of Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano, July 1536.]
Editio princeps of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by Eustratius of Nicaea, Michael of Ephesus, the Peripatetic philosopher Aspasius, and other anonymous scholiasts, published by the Aldine press, annotated by a contemporary scholar.
£5500
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JUVENAL, Decimus Junius.
Argumenta Satyrarum Iuvenalis per Antonimu [sic] Mancinellum. Cu[m] quattuor co[m]me[n]tariis … Sebastianus...
[(Colophon:) Milan, Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler for Giovanni da Legnano, 17 August 1501.]
Rare edition of Juvenal’s Satires with commentary by the Italian humanists Antonio Mancinelli, Domizio Calderini, Giorgio Merula, and Giorgio Valla, edited by the Greek scholar Sebastianus Ducius, with extensive early annotations and corrections to both the text and commentary.
£5000
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NIEUHOF, Jan, and Georg HORN (translator).
Legatio Batavica ad magnum Tartariae chamum Sungteium, modernum Sinae...
Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668.
First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies.
£5000
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PLINY the Elder.
Historia mundi, multo quam antehac unquam prodiit emaculatius [...] annotationibus eruditorum hominum...
Basel, Johann Froben, March 1525.
First Froben edition of Pliny’s encyclopaedia, with a prologue by Erasmus and Hermolaus Barbarus’s commentary, given to Erasmus’s correspondent Bartholomaeus Latomus by his student and future patron, Johann Ludwig von Hagen.
£4800
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[WALLPAPER.]
A substantial album of printed wallpaper samples.
France, 1923–24.
A delightful sample album of French wallpapers printed by a variety of stencil, block and lithographic methods, on papers plain, coloured, textured, and silked.
£4750
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SOLVYNS, François Baltazard.
The Costume of Hindostan, elucidated by sixty coloured engravings; with descriptions in English and...
London, W. Bulmer and Co. for Edward Orme, 1804 [–1805].
First edition in book form (originally issued in parts) of this superb record of the people of Bengal by the Flemish painter and ethnographer Solvyns (1760–1824), issued by the engraver and publisher Edward Orme (1775–1848).
£4500
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RICHARDUS ANGLICUS.
Correctorium alchymiae ... Das is reformierte Alchimy, oder Alchimeibesserung, und Straffung der Alchimistischen...
Strasbourg, Bernard Jobin, 1581.
First edition of ‘a very rare collection’ (Duveen) of five alchemical treatises, comprising Richardus Anglicus’ Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei, Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum.
£4500
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ERNST, Max.
Une semaine de bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux. Roman. Premier [– Dernier] cahier …
Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.
First edition, no. 706 of 800 copies on papier Navarre from a total edition of 816, of the most famous of Max Ernst’s Surrealist ‘collage novels’, composed entirely of recomposed images drawn from illustrations to nineteenth-century novels, encyclopaedias, scientific journals, and engravings...
£4500
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AMBROSE of Milan, AUGUSTINE, and HIERONYMUS.
De virginitate opuscula Sanctorum doctorum, Ambrosii, Hieronymi et Augustini....
Rome, Paolo Manuzio, 1562.
Four first editions from Paolo Manuzio’s Roman press of Latin and Greek patristic texts on virginity, bound together at an early stage and annotated by the sixteenth-century cleric, courtier, dramatist, and humanist Bernardino Pino at the court of the Duke of Urbino.
£4000
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FLEMING, Alexander, Sir.
On the antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with special Reference to their Use in...
[London, H.K. Lewis & Co., 1944.]
Second edition of Fleming’s study announcing the discovery of penicillin, one of 250 copies which Fleming commissioned to be printed in 1944. The original offprint, issued in 1929 in 150 copies and liberally distributed by Fleming to the scientific community at large for the prompt furthering...
£4000
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MILL, John Stuart, and Nikolai Gavrilovich CHERNYSHEVSKY, translator.
Osnovaniia politicheskoi ekonomii s nekotorymi...
St. Petersburg, [n.p.], 1865.
First complete edition of Mill’s Principles in Russian, translated by the economist, nihilist and social critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), ‘corrected and expanded from the most recent (fifth) edition of Mill’s book, published in 1864 in New York’ (‘From the publisher’, our...
£3750
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[ABC.]
Petite géographie amusante abécédaire nouveau offrant pour chaque lettre de l’alphabet une carte coloriée avec l’explication...
C. Lehuby, ‘Librairie de l’enfance et de la jeunesse’, [1851].
A charming and very rare ABC intended to teach children European geography, from A for Allemagne to Z for Zara in Dalmatia, published just a few years after the upheavals of the revolutions of 1848.
£3750
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PARKES, Fanny.
Wanderings of a pilgrim, in search of the picturesque, during four-and-twenty years in the east; with revelations...
London, Pelham Richardson, 1850.
First edition, with many handsome tinted and coloured illustrations, of the lively journals of Fanny Parkes (1794–1875) documenting her time in India from 1822 to 1845, with an interval in England and Cape Town.
£3750
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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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HAYLEY, William, and William BLAKE (illustrator).
Ballads … founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals, with Prints...
Chichester, J. Seagrave, for London, Richard Phillips, 1805.
First edition of William Hayley’s sixteen Ballads illustrated by William Blake, with a fine provenance, plates I–III in the first state.
£3500
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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