Recent Acquisitions
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KANT, Immanuel.
Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre.
Königsberg, Friedrich Nicolovius, 1797.
First edition of Kant’s Doctrine of Right, the first part of Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, annotated by a contemporary reader.
£950
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[CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.]
...
Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874.
Very rare complete run of this short-lived satirical magazine against the pro-government newspaper Il Monitore, produced by a group of young liberals from Bologna including the poets Giosuè Carducci and Olindo Guerrini.
£1000
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[OPTICAL PRINT.]
‘No. 5. Morgan’s improved protean scenery: Mount Vesuvius, as represented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens...
London, Published by W. Morgan, [c. 1837].
A remarkable metamorphic or ‘protean’ print depicting a dormant Vesuvius by day but, when held up to the light, showing a dramatic eruption in the night sky.
£675
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BORSO D’ESTE, Duke of Modena, Duke of Ferrara.
Letter in his name in Italian, addressed to Feltrino Boiardo.
Modena, 3 July 1453.
A letter from early in Borso d’Este’s rule as first Duke of Modena. It is addressed to the condottiero Feltrino Boiardo, instructing him to raise taxes from the territories of Casalgrande, Dinazzano and Montebabbio for the support of a brigade of men-at-arms.
£750
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[DOVES PRESS.]
Pervigilium Veneris.
Hammersmith, ‘printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Press,’ 1910.
One of 150 copies on paper of the elusive Pervigilium Veneris, in the original Doves Bindery vellum, ‘a triumph of simplicity and restraint’ (Tidcombe).
£950
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PLAUTUS.
M. Accius Plautus ex fide, atque auctoritate complurium librorum manuscriptorum opera Dionys. Lambini Monstroliensis...
Paris, Jean Le Blanc for Jean Macé, 1577 [– October 1576].
Reissue of the 1576 first edition of the plays of Plautus edited by the great French classical scholar Denis Lambin (1520–1572) and completed after his death by the Parisian professor of Greek, Jacques Hélie (d. 1590).
£650
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JACQUEMOT, Jean.
Variorum poematium liber.
[Lyons,] Jean de Tournes, 1601.
Very rare first edition of this collection of neo-Latin Protestant biblical poetry by Jean Jacquemot (1543–1615), a notable Geneva preacher, poet, and translator, friend of Theodore Beza, here with the original French in civilité type.
£875
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FENOUILLOT DE FALBAIRE, Charles-Georges.
Le fabricant de Londres, drame en cinq actes et en prose; représenté à la Comédie...
Paris, chez Delalain, 1771.
First edition of a London-set play by the French dramatist and contributor to the Encyclopédie, Fenouillot de Falbaire (1727–1800), illustrated with five fine plates after Gravelot.
£250
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MONTLOSIER, Francois-Dominique de Reynaud, comte de.
Le peuple Anglais bouffi d’orgueil, de bière et de thé, jugé...
Paris, chez Surosne, An IX (1803).
First edition, scarce on the market, of a virulent and amusing anti-English tirade by the French politician Montlosier (1755–1838), written on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars.
£375
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SOWERBY, J[ohn] G[eorge], and Thomas CRANE, illustrators. [Eliza KEARY.]
At Home.
London and Belfast, Marcus Ward & Co., [1881].
Original maquette for this charming Victorian children’s book, illustrated by the stained-glass designer John George Sowerby and decorated by Thomas Crane, elder brother of the illustrator Walter Crane. The verse, unacknowledged, is by Eliza Keary (1827–1918). At Home and its sequels Abroad...
£500
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[VERACI, Gaetano.]
Nuova cicalata sopra la coda in forma di lettera responsiva alla Signora N.N.
[S.l., s.n,. c. 1770.]
Second edition, extremely rare and significantly expanded, of this highly suggestive, mock-academic panegyric on the ‘tail’.
£850
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RINUCCINI, Giovanni Battista.
Le capucin Escossois. Histoire merveilleuse, et tres veritable, arrivée de nostre-temps. Traduitte...
Paris, Jean Guignard, 1650.
First edition of François Barrault’s French translation of Rinuccini’s biography of the Scottish Catholic convert George Leslie (d. 1637?), a special issue decorated in gold and colour – another example bound and decorated thus, also without the index, is to be found in BM Lyon (with provenance...
£1250
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PEPE, Stefano.
[Half-title: ‘Il Cappuccino d’Este del Padre Pepe’] ‘Historia Della Vita, e della Morte, et Attioni...
[Italy, second half of the seventeenth century.]
A seemingly unpublished life of Alfonso III d’Este, Duke of Modena, who renounced his title to become a Capuchin friar.
£1250
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APULEIUS, Lucius.
L. Apuleii Metamorphoseos, sive lusus Asini libri XI. Floridoru[m] IIII. De deo Socratis I. De philosophia...
Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri’, May 1521.
First Aldine edition of the works of the second-century AD Numidian novelist Apuleius, with the editio princeps of Alcinous’s second-century handbook on Plato’s philosophy in the original Greek, from the library of the great French writer Victor Hugo.
£2000
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[ROUSSEL DE LA TOUR, Claude Pierre GOUJET, and Abbé MINARD, editors.]
Extraits des assertions dangereuses et pernicieuses...
Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1762.
First edition of this systematic selection of Jesuit writings intended to demonstrate the many dangerous ideas endorsed by the Order, arranged under headings including probabilism, simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, astrology, idolatry, perjury, homicide, and regicide.
£1500
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SCARRON, Paul.
Le Marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée a Paris.
[Leiden, Elzevier], 1656.
First Elzevier editions, very rare, of these two plays by Scarron, pirated after the text of the first editions printed in Paris. A finely bound volume with excellent Elzevierian provenance.
£800
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[ROUSSEAU, Pierre.]
Considérations sur le théatre de l’opéra. Novembre 1822.
[Paris,] de l’imprimerie de Rignoux, [1822].
Very rare proposal for a new opera house in Paris by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1829), annotated by the author and accompanied by an autograph letter.
£475
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[WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.]
Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...
Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.
Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.
£1450
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PEETERS, Jacob.
L’Atlas en abregé, ou nouvelle Description du monde, tirée du meilleurs auteurs de ce siècle …
Antwerp, chez l’auteur, 1692.
First edition of a charming atlas, the best-known production of Jacob Peeters (1637–1695), a Flemish engraver and publisher from an artistic family – his brothers Jan and Bonaventura were both artists. The map of the Americas shows California as an island; the allegorical engraved title features...
£2500
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[MURAT, J.-B. de.]
La destinée d’une jolie femme, poème érotique, en six chants, par J.B… de M…
Paris, Langlois for Mongie, An XI (1803).
First and only edition, very scarce, of this humorous moralising tale of love and loss in verse, intended for a female readership and hidden under the ‘transparent veil’ of erotic poetry.
£650