Recent Acquisitions
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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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HEMINGWAY, Ernest.
A Farewell to Arms.
New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929.
First edition, first printing, without the disclaimer on p. [x] and with the Scribner’s seal on the copyright page.
£1500
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CASAL, Gaspar do.
Axiomata christiana ex divinis scripturis & sanctis patribus.
Coimbra, João da Barreira and João Alvares, 1550.
First edition of Gaspar do Casal’s major work of theology, which informed his participation in the Council of Trent, from the library of another participant in the Council.
£2500
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DOLCE, Lodovico.
Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica.
Venice, Giovanni Battista, & Marchio Sessa, & fratelli, [1565].
First edition of this exposition of Aristotle’s dialectics, moral, and natural philosophy by one of the most significant poligrafi and artistic theorists of the cinquecento, intended for a non-specialist readership.
£2500
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ARISTIDES, Aelius.
Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine versi a Gulielmo Cantero Ultraiectino. Huc accessit orationum tomus...
Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.
First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy once owned by one of the preeminent music theorists and composers of Renaissance Italy, Gioseffo Zarlino.
£2750
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VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.
Historiae Romanae duo volumina, ad M. Vinicium Cos. progenerum Tiberii Caesaris, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestadiensem...
[(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Froben, November 1520.]
Editio princeps of a summary history of Rome to AD 29 by the soldier-turned-historian Velleius Paterculus, edited from a now lost manuscript by the German humanist Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547), with tipped-in notes by a contemporary student of Roman history displaying a remarkable concern...
£2750
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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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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
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[IMAGINARY VOYAGE.]
Admirable Travels of Messieurs Thomas Jenkins and David Lowellin through the unknown Tracts of Africa: with...
London, ‘for the Benefit of Robert Barker, an unfortunate blind man’, 1785.
Rare, a lively chapbook novella of adventures and tribulations in Africa, fusing elements of a Robinsonade with a brief utopia.
£1500
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LEE, Edwin.
The Principal Baths of Germany [– The Baths of Nassau Baden and the adjacent Districts; – The Baths of central...
London, Whittaker & Cp., Paris, Galignani & Cp., and Frankfurt & Wiesbaden, Charles Jugel 1840 [– 1841].
First edition, scarce, of Edwin Lee’s two-volume survey of palliative bathing spots in Germany, including an appendix on the ‘Cold Water Cure’, a combination of induced sweating and cold-water therapy ‘of late very much in vogue’ (appendix).
£350
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TACITUS; J.N. LALLEMAND, editor.
Quae exstant opera.
Paris, J. Barbou for Desaint & Saillant, 1760.
A handsomely bound set, with striking gilt brocade endpapers preserving the name of the Augsburg manufacturer, elegantly ‘printed by Barbou and called by Harwood “one of the most beautiful and correct of all his classics.” The text is from Ernesti’s first edition, but it contains the readings...
£750
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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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[BEER.]
Jenaischer allgemeiner Bier-Comment nebst angehängtem Bier-Prozess.
‘Eschwig, Otter & Kunitz, 183*.’
An apparently unrecorded humorous handbook of drinking rules for students at the university of Jena, famous both as a centre of German idealism and Romanticism, and for its professors, who included Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, and Schlegel.
£375
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PIERTZ, Leonhard, Praesidens; Johann Ernst SCHLERETH, Respondens.
De sacramentis in specie, Eucharistia et Poenitentia...
Würzburg, Johann Michael Kleyer, 1703.
A good copy of this rare Würzburg dissertation on the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, under the Jesuit professor Leonhard Piertz (1662–1741). The dissertation discusses when the Eucharist was instituted, what verbal formulae are necessary for consecration, whether the Eucharistic sacrifice...
£175
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[LOUIS XIV.]
L’oraison funebre de tres-haute, tres-excellente et tres-puissante princesse monarchie universelle. Prononcée le...
‘Cologne’, s.n., ‘1705’ [1704].
Sole edition, very rare and virtually unstudied, of ‘one of the most curious and violent pamphlets published against Louis XIV’ (Pelissier, trans.).
£1250
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[TOWNLEY, William Dalison.]
Punch’s Pocket-Book for 1877, containing a Calendar, Cash Account, Diary and Memoranda for every...
London, [Bradbury, Agnew, & Co. for] Punch Office, 1877.
A Punch almanack for 1877 with nearly sixty manuscript diary entries by the seventeen-year-old William Dalison Townley of Fulbourn, near Cambridge, written during the period of illness immediately preceding his untimely death.
£450
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[KAFKA, Franz, Max BROD, et al.]
Das bunte Buch.
Leipzig, Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1914.
First edition of this literary almanack, containing Kafka’s short story Zum Nachdenken für Herrenreiter. The story had been published as part of Kafka’s first collection, Betrachtung, earlier in the year.
£250
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[ALMANACK.]
L’Esprit des chansonniers, extrain [sic?] des meilleurs poëtes.
Paris, Le Fuel, [1826?].
A very rare enamelled metal binding with an enchanting design of birds and squirrels, from the collection of the bookbinder, collector, and bibliographer Léon Gruel.
£2750
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[MINIATURE BOOKS.]
‘Hebdomadaire, ou bibliotheque secrete’.
France, c. 1800.
A charming miniature diary in seven volumes, hidden within a compartment of a book-form box.
£2750
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[PSALMS.]
Psalterium Davidis carmine redditum per Eobanum Hessum. Annotationes Viti Theodori Noribergensis, quae vice commentarii...
Paris, [(colophon:) Guillaume Morel for] Jacques Dupuys ‘sub insigni Samaritanae’, [August] 1550.
Seemingly unrecorded issue of the Psalms of David in Latin as edited by the Lutheran theologian Eoban of Hesse (1488–1540) with commentary by Luther’s housemate, associate, and sometime secretary Veit Dietrich (1506–1549).
£1250