Recent Acquisitions

  1. OZEROV, Vladislav Aleksandrovich.

    Sochineniia … Chast’ pervaia [–vtoraia] [Works … Part one [–two]].

    St Petersburg, Imperial Theatre, 1817 [-1816].

    One of two rival collected editions published after Ozerov’s death in 1816, rare, including the first appearance of the author’s poetry and his last tragedy Poliksena.

    £1800

  2. [BANK OF SCOTLAND.]

    Act of Parliament for erecting a bank in Scotland. Edinburgh, July 17 1695.

    Edinburgh, printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, 1695.

    Very rare edition of the Act of Parliament establishing Scotland’s first and oldest bank, founded just one year after the Bank of England.

    £650

  3. [WALKER, Patrick.]

    Some remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at Glenluce...

    Glasgow: J. and M. Robertson, 1794.

    Very rare chapbook life of the Covenanter Alexander Peden (1626–1686), first published 1724 and much reprinted; the ‘second part’ first appeared in an edition of 1778.

    £225

  4. SPOTISWOOD, John.

    An Introduction to the Knowledge of the Stile of Writs, Simple and Compound, made Use of in Scotland ... The...

    Edinburgh: William Brown and John Mosman, and sold by William Brown, 1727.

    Third edition, annotated by Neil Ballingall (1750–1843), factor to the Balfour family at Balbirnie, Fife.

    £500

  5. MARTIN, Theodore, Sir.

    Horace and his Friends. Two Lectures delivered at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution …

    Printed for private Circulation. 1881.

    First editions of two privately-printed pamphlets by the poet, translator and biographer Theodore Martin (1816–1909) – presentation copies, to the Scottish journalist John Skelton, a frequent contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine (as was Martin).

    £400

  6. RINUCCINI, Ottavio.

    La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini,...

    Florence, Borgognissanti, 1810.

    Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.

    £650

  7. MOZART, et al.

    A volume of twelve piano duets adapted from overtures by Mozart, Rossini, and others by J. F. Burrowes, J. Mazzinghi,...

    London, mostly Birchall & Co., 1810s–1820s.

    A good collection of late Georgian piano duets, including adaptations from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with a few original compostions by Dussek, Mazzinghi, etc. A full list is available...

    £350

  8. 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

  9. GOBINET, Charles. 

    Instruction sur la vérité du Saint Sacrement, contenant en abregé les principaux motifs de la créance Catholique...

    Paris, François le Cointe, 1677. 

    Scarce first edition thus, containing an explanation of the Eucharist and a defence of transubstantiation by the French writer and teacher Charles Gobinet (1613–1690), a lovely copy bearing a stamp found on bindings executed for Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin (1661–1711), eldest son of Louis...

    £650

  10. 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

  11. CORBOULD, Henry (illustrator). 

    [Cover title:] Illustrations to Theodric, by Thomas Campbell, from designs by Henry...

    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

  12. CARO, Annibale. 

    Rime del commendatore Annibal Caro.  Col privilegio di N.S. PP. Pio V. et dell’illustrissima signoria di...

    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. 

    £650

  13. PIGHIUS, Stephanus Vinandus. 

    Themis dea, seu de lege divina …  Mythologia … in quatuor anni partes, ab auctore recognita. 

    Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1568. 

    First and only edition, scarce, of Pighius’s two treatises on Roman archaeology, one of the founding texts of scientific research into myths. 

    £450

  14. KOTZEBUE, Otto von.

    A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering’s Straits, for the purpose of exploring a north-east...

    London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821.

    First edition in English, translated from the German edition of the same year, of Kotzebue’s classic voyage; ‘a prized edition’ (Hill).

    £3000

  15. FLINDERS, Matthew.

    Narrative of his Voyage in the Schooner Francis: 1798. Preceded and followed by Notes … by Geoffrey Rawson...

    [London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, 1946.

    No. 327 of 750 copies, of which the first 100 were specially bound in full green morocco.

    £650

  16. ARNOLD, Edwin.

    The Light of Asia or the great Renunciation … being the Life and teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and founder...

    London: Trübner & Co … 1879.

    First edition, a presentation copy, of one of the first successful attempts to popularize Buddhist thought in the West, freely adapted by Arnold from the Lalitavistara Sūtra.

    £1200

  17. [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

  18. BOEMUS, Johann, and ‘Lucio FAUNO’ [pseud. Giovanni TARCAGNOTA] (translator).

    Gli costumi, le leggi, et...

    Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1542.

    First edition in Italian of Johann Boemus’s influential ethnographic compendium, a sixteenth-century bestseller considered the first of its kind.

    £475

  19. 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

  20. [RICHARD, Charles-Louis.]

    Lettres d’un archevêque, à l’auteur de la brochure intitulée: Du droit du souverain sur les biens-fonds...

    A Cologne, 1770.

    First edition, uncommon, of this response to an anticlerical essay by the Chevalier de Cerfvol by the Dominican theologian and anti-philosophe Charles-Louis Richard (1711–1794). De Cherfvol had argued against the wealth of the clergy, and in particular of the religious orders, and proposed a means...

    £200