Recent Acquisitions
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OWEN, John.
Epigrammatum Ioan Oweni Cambro-Britanni Oxoniensis. Editio postrema, correctissima, & posthumis quibusdam adaucta.
Breslau, Esaias Fellgiebel, 1658.
Scarce Breslau-printed edition of John Owen’s popular Latin epigrams, bound with the first edition of a rare German work providing guidance to princely and noble houses as well as military officials.
£875
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LAWRENCE, James Henry.
A Picture of Verdun, or the English Detained in France … from the Portfolio of a Detenu.
London, T. Hookham junior & E.T. Hookham, 1810.
First edition of this remarkable account of life among the British prisoners in Napoleonic Verdun, following the mass arrest of English residents in and visitors to France.
£600
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[JOBERT, Louis, and Arcangelo AGOSTINI (translator).]
La scienza delle medaglie antiche e moderne. Per ammaestramento...
Venice, Lorenzo Baseggio, 1728.
First Italian translation of a synopsis of numismatic knowledge by the French Jesuit Louis Jobert (1637–1719), illustrated with eleven plates of coins.
£450
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CARO, Annibale.
Rime del commendatore Annibal Caro. Col privilegio di N.S. PP. Pio V. et dell’illustrissima signoria di Venetia.
Venice, Aldus Manutius the Younger, 1569.
First edition of the poetry of Annibale Caro, offering a scathing yet humorous critique of his greatest poetic rival, Ludovico Castelvetro.
£750
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WADDINGTON, George and Barnard HANBURY.
Journal of a visit to some parts of Ethiopia … With maps and other engravings.
London, John Murray, 1822.
First edition, with interesting provenance, a ‘polished and amusing account’ (Moorehead) detailing George Waddington’s travels from Wady Halfa to Merowe in northern Ethiopia in the company of the troops of Muhammad Ali Pasha.
£875
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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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CORBOULD, Henry (illustrator).
[Cover title:] Illustrations to Theodric, by Thomas Campbell, from designs by Henry Corbould, Esq.
London, Edward Lacey, 1829.
Unrecorded, a suite of five engravings for Thomas Campbell’s Theodric (1824), though seemingly not intended for inclusion in any particular edition.
£650
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[SARPI, Paolo (pseud.).] ‘Pietro Soave POLANO’.
Historia del Concilio Tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano. Seconda...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1629.
Second edition, the first to omit the extraneous additions of the 1619 edition introduced by Marco Antonio de Dominis, of the influential and groundbreaking history of the Council of Trent by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), described by Milton as ‘the great unmasker’.
£450
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[MURDER.]
Arrest de la cour du Parlement, qui condamne Pierre Guyon, jardinier, à étre rompu vif ... dans la Place du Pilory...
Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1778.
Very rare decree documenting the crimes and punishment of one Pierre Guyon, a murderous gardener from Poitiers; a case of green fingers turning blood-red.
£175
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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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WYLD, James.
The islands of Japan by James Wyld, geographer to the Queen & H.R.H. the Prince Consort.
London, James Wyld, 1 January 1859.
Rare folding map of Japan by James Wyld the younger (1812–1887) published just a few years after the end of its long isolationist era, showing treaty ports opening soon following the signing of the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States.
£1950
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
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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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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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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[LE NOBLE, Pierre, and Eustache LE NOBLE (attributed).]
Les Amours d’Anne d’Austriche, Epouse de Louis 13. ...
‘A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau, 1696’ [France, early eighteenth century].
An early manuscript copy of a salacious – and treasonous – history arguing that Louis XIV was the illegitimate child of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu, bound with four engravings.
£850
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LEBRUN.
Souvenirs d’une coureuse de rues, dite accrocheuse, par Lebrun. Prix 60 centimes.
Brussels, Joostens, Imprimeur-Libraire-Editeur, 1861.
First and only edition of this salacious tale of a mother-daughter duo who seek to defraud men through seduction.
£400
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[PAPER TRADE.]
Arrest du conseil d’état du roi, portant modération et interprétation de plusieurs articles du tarif des...
[Besançon?, 1772?]
A seemingly unrecorded issue of this decree governing tariffs on paper and cardboard in Louis XV’s France, with no imprint but with the colophon ‘fait à Besançon le 18 avril 1772, signé, Lacoré’.
£175
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[ALMANACK.] ‘CHOTESCHAU, Christian Joachim, von’ [pseud. Johann Franz NOWAK].
Neuer Titular-Calender zu ehren des...
Prague, Georg Labaun, [1713].
An annotated Bohemian almanack for the year 1713, with extensive manuscript notes by a local brewer.
£875
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[ALMANACK.]
Lunario per l’anno 1855. Dell’insigne astronomo filos. e mat. Settimo Cajo Baccelli il vero rampollo dell’estinto...
Florence, brothers Formigli, 1854.
A curious and very rare almanack for 1855, containing, inter alia, a bitter dispute between a pumpkin and a turnip, a condemnation of avarice, and global population statistics.
£400
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GIBELLI, Giacinto.
Due dissertazioni sopra li vantaggi, che si ottengono in medicina dall’uso del ferro per guarire molte infermità,...
Genoa, Paolo Scionico, 1767.
First and only edition, rare, of these treatises on the medicinal benefits of iron supplements, with accounts of their use by the author in curing over 450 patients of maladies ranging from anorexia to melancholy.
£600