Recent Acquisitions
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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
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COMIDAS DE CARBOGNANO, Cosimo.
Primi principi della gramatica Turca ad uso dei missionari apostolici di Costantinopoli ...
Rome, stamperia della Sac. Congr. di Prop. Fide, 1794.
The first complete Ottoman Turkish grammar published in Italian, compiled by the Catholic Armenian dragoman Cosimo Comidas de Carbognano (translator to Count de Ludolf, minister of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte in the late eighteenth century) and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda...
£1500
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[VITTORIO EMANUELE II.]
Alla gloriosa memoria di Vittoria Emanuele primo re d’Italia, gli Italiani residenti in New York convenuti...
New York, Tipografia della scuola italiana, 1878.
First edition of a commemorative tribute to the late Vittorio Emanuele II, first king of Italy, by the Italian community of New York.
£500
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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
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[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
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YARRELL, William.
A History of British Fishes … illustrated by nearly 400 Woodcuts.
London, Samuel Bentley for John van Voorst, 1836.
First collected editions, with an autograph letter on the Hebridal smelt from the species’ discoverer. Published serially from 1835 to 1836, Yarrell’s History of British Fishes was reprinted within a year, and followed soon after by Thomas Bell’s British Reptiles in 1839 and...
£750
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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.
£1200
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CLARK, James.
A Treatise on the Prevention of Diseases incidental to Horses, from bad Management in Regard to Stables, Food, Water,...
Edinburgh, for the Author, and sold by W. Creech, J. Dickson, P. Hill, and C. Elliot, 1790.
Two important texts on farriery (second and third editions respectively), with a preface instrumental to the foundation of the Royal Veterinary College in 1791. Farrier to the King for Scotland, James Clark’s arguments for a veterinary school after the model of the continental colleges were...
£750
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[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
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[LAFONT, Joseph de.]
Hypermnestre, tragedie, mise au theatre de l’Academie Royale de Musique de Lyon, pour la prémière fois...
Lyon, de l’imprimerie d’Aymé Delaroche ... aux dépens de l’Académie Royale de Musique, 1742.
Very scarce Lyon edition of the libretto for the tragedy Hypermnestre by the French playwright Joseph de Lafont (1686-1725). First performed in 1716, with music by Charles-Hubert Gervais, the play was initially criticised for its fifth act, but after rewriting by abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin enjoyed...
£275
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KOCH, Mansuetus.
Philosophia transnaturalis, sive metaphysica, centum assertionibus comprehensa, et publicae disputationi in celeberrimo...
Augsburg, Maria Magdalena Utzschneiderin, 1697.
Only edition (complete despite the pagination) of this dissertation defended at the Augustinian college in Rottenbuch, attempting to provide a survey of metaphysics in one hundred paragraphs. The work explains, among other matters, the scope and purpose of metaphysics, the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics,...
£225
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KOCH, Manfred (pr.), Primo SCHLECHTEN and Feliciano SCHARRER (resp.).
Philosophia rationalis sive logica, centum assertiones comprehensa...
Augsburg, Sturmin, 1695.
A good copy of this rare dissertation from the Augustinian college at Rottenbuch in Bavaria, attempting to reduce logic (the science of reasoning) to one hundred numbered paragraphs. Describing the function and limits of logic, the authors, both Austin canons at Rottenbuch, explain the use of syllogisms,...
£285
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[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
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[CANONS REGULAR OF THE LATERAN.]
Regula et constitutiones Canonicorum Regularium congregationis S. Salvatoris, Ordinis Sancti Augustini....
Rome, apud Paulum Bladum, 1592.
The most complete edition, rare, of the Rule and Constitutions of the Order of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour, printed on vellum, with two seemingly unrecorded cancels, from the library of a former Abbot General of the Order.
£25000
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[DEATH OF REASON].
Oracion funebre dicha en las Exêquias del Ente de Razon.
Barc[elona], Pedro Gomita. c.1787.
Barcelona printing, in the same year as the first, of this speech given in competition at the Provincial Chapter of the Franciscans in Malaga, offering a funereal eulogy for Reason.
£215
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CHEVRET, Jean.
Épitre a l’humanité et a la patrie en particulier, sur le bon ordre & l’idée de la véritable liberté. Suivie...
[Paris?], au temple de la vérité, 1789.
A good copy of this rare essay on the workings of society and the conditions required for human flourishing, by the controversialist and librarian Jean Chevret (1747-1820). After a brief letter addressed to humanity in general and France (even, perhaps, Chevret’s own home town of Meulan) in particular,...
£285
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[CAVALLERI, Paolo Agostino].
Lettera dall’Adriatico del signor Antonio Bianchi sopra l’opera del sig. Abate D. Nicola Spedalieri.
Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1792.
First edition, uncommon, of this counter-revolutionary polemic written in response to Spedalieri’s I diritti dell’uomo of the previous year and attributed to the Barnabite Paolo Agostino Cavalleri (1742-1803). Spedalieri had attempted a Catholic response to the revolutionary ideas of the rights of...
£485
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CARON, Jean-Charles-Félix.
Compendium institutionum philosophiae, in quo de rhetorica et philosophia, tractatur. Ad usum candidatorum...
Paris, N. M. Tilliard, 1770.
Very uncommon guide, by the Parisian surgeon Jean-Charles-Félix Caron, to the philosophy student in the University of Paris needs to know in order to graduate first as bachelor and then as master of arts in the university. The work is essentially a kind of bluffer’s guide: “there are people who,...
£875
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CARAVADOSSI, Enrico.
La moderna filosofia convinta d’inganno nelle sue promesse di felicità libertà ed uguaglianza ragionamenti...
Turin, Giammichele Brioio, 1793.
First and seemingly only edition of this attack on the false promises of the philosophes, by the Torinese Dominican friar Enrico Caravadossi.
£395
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GRIFFITHS, William, and Henry BUNBURY (illustrator).
A practical Treatise on Farriery, deduced from the Experience...
Wrexham, R. Marsh, [1784].
First edition of this informative treatise by the groom to the Williams Wynn family, from the library of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn’s political ally, William Mostyn Owen. A farrier to the Williams Wynns of Wynnstay since at least the 1740s, Griffiths dedicates the work to his second master from...
£1100