Recent Acquisitions

  1. CAIROL, M. de.

    Réflexions historiques et politiques, sur les revolutions qu’a essuyé l’agriculture sous différens gouvernemens,...

    Amsterdam and Toulouse, Joseph Robert, 1786.

    Very rare essay on the state of agriculture in France, and in particular in the Languedoc, examining the ways in which the policies of various governments (from the Romans and Visigoths onwards) have affected agricultural production, the current situation, and the ways in which matters could be...

    £450

  2. [MOORE, Thomas.]

    The Fudge Family in Paris. Edited by Thomas Brown, the Younger …

    London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown … 1818.

    First edition, the comic result of a trip to France with Samuel Rogers, ‘a set of verse epistles attributed to writers ranging from a servile creature of the tories to a passionate champion of Ireland, with some light relief from Miss Biddy Fudge, a young lady of fashion’ (ODNB). It was very...

    £125

  3. [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

  4. [SEVILLE.]

    Mercantile contract between Sebastián de Baeza of Seville and Hernán López de Segovia, almost certainly relating...

    Seville, 25 July 1576.

    A commercial document from the heyday of Seville’s trade with the Indies. Drawn up for Sebastián de Baeza, a resident of the barrio of San Bartolomé in Seville, the document recapitulates a previous agreement of 25 June 1576 between, on the one hand, Hernán López de Segovia and, on...

    £1200

  5. PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, third Viscount.

    Signed undertaking to procure an Assignment of Term from the Executors of the Will...

    22 July 1806.

    Document signed by the young Palmerston, arising from the sale of his property at East Sheen, near Mortlake, to Thomas Bernard of Wimpole Street in 1805.

    £675

  6. [BENDISCIOLI, Faustino.]

    Quadro ossia saggio epilogato del Sistema di liberta’ proclamato dai Francesi.

    Milan, Stamperia [dei Patrioti d’Italia] di Strada Nuova, [1799].

    An impassioned tract attacking the claims of a new life of liberty promoted in Europe after the French Revolution, very rarely to be found in any of the three editions published in the same year.

    £200

  7. MULERIUS, Carolus.

    Les nouveaux rudimens de la langue latine ...

    Paris, the widow of Claude Thiboust, and Pierre Esclassan, 1683.

    ‘Sixth edition’ of this popular manual of Latin grammar for French students, also called the ‘Rudiments de Ferrand’ after the name of the dedicatee, Antoine-François Ferrand.

    £450

  8. SURTEES, Robert Smith.

    The Horseman’s Manual, being a Treatise on Soundness, the Law of Warranty, and generally on the Laws relating...

    London, M.A. Pittman for Alfred Miller, 1831.

    First edition of Surtees’s first work, the only publication to bear his name, from the family of the dedicatee. Though best known for his sporting articles and novels, Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) was, alongside his landed interests, a respected jurist in County Durham, serving as justice...

    £1250

  9. GONZAGA, Curzio.

    Il Fido amante, poema eroico.

    Mantua, [(colophon:) Giacomo Ruffinello, 1582].

    First edition of an Italian Renaissance heroic poem in thirty-six cantos, much appreciated by Tasso and published the year after the first authorized edition of the Gerusalemme liberata.

    £600

  10. 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

  11. [UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.]

    Subscription list for repairs to the College Chapel.

    [Oxford, c. 1860].

    A printed appeal from University College, signed by the Master Frederick Charles Plumptre (1796–1870), for funds to improve the interior of the Chapel, with an admission that ‘the College has no funds whatever to devote to such a purpose’. The list of subscribers contains some ninety names.

    £50

  12. [TRIALS.]

    Authentick Coppie of the Tryal of Scot and Mackpherson Anno 1712. Laid before the House, pursuant to their Lordships’...

    London: Printed by John Baskett, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. 1737.

    First edition of this London trial of Scottish cattle-rustlers. Donald McPherson, a merchant drover, was driving black cattle from the North of Scotland into England, when he was attacked near the river Tweed by William Laidly, or ‘Scot’, his brother Walter and their gang. McPherson was dragged backwards...

    £45

  13. [HERISSANT, Louis Théodore].

    Le fablier françois, ou élite des meilleurs fables depuis La Fontaine.

    Paris, Lottin le jeune, 1771.

    First edition, rare, of what has a claim to be the first comprehensive collection of French fables from the period after La Fontaine, assembled by the diplomat, lawyer, and historian Louis-Théodore Herissant (1743–1811). Collecting together fables from writers both famous (Voltaire, J.B. Rousseau,...

    £650