Recent Acquisitions
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[BIBLE.]
Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis Sixti Quinti Pont. Max. iussu recognita atque edita.
Antwerp, Jan Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1599.
Plantin edition of the Clementine Vulgate, bound in four volumes and interleaved for scholarly annotations.
£1250
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LEE, Laurie.
Cider with Rosie … with drawings by John Ward.
London, Hogarth Press, 1959.
First edition, second impression, the author’s copy with his pencil marks for public readings and loosely inserted correspondence including praise from Leonard Woolf.
£1000
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[DODSLEY, Robert, et al.]
The Oeconomy of Human Life, in two parts, translated from an Indian manuscript, written by a Chinese...
Newport, J. Mallett, 1783.
Rare printing, undertaken in Newport on the Isle of Wight by James Mallett. Only nine publications are listed in ESTC as Mallett, Newport: mostly occasional endeavours, undertaken in 1767, 1770, 1782, 1783 (two publications, including ours), 1784, and 1789 (three publications), and almost all...
£450
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[WISHART, George.]
I. G. de rebus auspiciis serenssimi, & potentissimi Caroli Dei gratia Magnae Brittanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae...
[Amsterdam or The Hague,] 1647.
First edition, rare, a fine-paper copy in a handsome binding, of an account of the campaign of James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, against the Covenanters in 1644−46, a copy of which was strung around Montrose’s neck when he was hanged.
£1750
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[WINSLOW, Jacob Benignus.]
Terrible supplice et cruel désespoir des personnes enterrées vivants & qui sont présumées mortes.
[Paris, Joseph Bullot, 1752].
Extremely rare first edition of this anonymous French translation – here facing the original Latin – of this treatise on those who have been erroneously buried alive, this translation with an added list of proofs of death in French not present in previous editions.
£850
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TREVLYN, Valda.
High Death.
Falkland, K.D. Duval, 1970.
One of 100 copies of this poem on death by drowning and the simultaneous beauty and danger of the sea by the Cornish poet, activist, and suffragist Valda Trevlyn Grieve (1906–1989), inspired by the seascapes of her native Cornwall, our copy inscribed ‘with affection and some embarrassment Valda’.
£75
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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 and with poignant additions by his mother written shortly thereafter.
£450
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[SHEPHEARD, James.]
The Dying Speech of James Shepheard: who suffer’d Death at Tyburn, March the 17th, 1717/18. Deliver’d by...
[London, s.n., 1718.]
One of at least five printings of this ‘speech’ allegedly written by the eighteen-year-old Jacobite apprentice coach-painter James Shepheard – hanged at Tyburn for planning the assassination of George I – and illegally circulated at his execution and after his death.
£750
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SCHNEPF, Dietrich.
Oratio de vita et morte illustrissimae principis ac dominae, D. Dorotheae Ursulae, illustrissimi principis...
Tübingen, Alexander Hock, 1583.
Scarce work issued following the death of Dorothea Ursula von Baden-Durlach (1559–1583), comprising a Latin funeral oration by the Tübingen professor of theology Dietrich Schnepf (1525–1586) and verses in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by several scholars.
£550
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ROCHESTER, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of, Wentworth Dillon ROSCOMMON, 4th Earl of, et al.
A Collection of Poems: viz....
London, printed for Daniel Brown and Benjamin Tooke, 1701.
Fourth edition of the important ‘Temple of Death’ miscellany of Restoration poetry, comprising some one hundred poems, retaining most of the poems from the third edition of 1693 and adding much new material, including the first appearances of works by Roscommon and Rochester.
£500
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PITOU, Louis-Ange.
L’Urne des Stuarts et des Bourbons, ou le fond de ma conscience, sur les causes et les effets des vingt-un...
Paris, [Beraud for] L.A. Pitou, 31 August 1815.
First and only surviving edition of this account of executed royals from England and France by the royalist publisher and propagandist Louis-Ange Pitou (1767–1846), published on the return of Louis XVIII to Paris after the Hundred Days.
£650
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[NUNS.]
[Incipit:] Illustrissimi Sigg. Sigg. Padroni Colendiss. Volendo Sua Altezza Reale rendere uniforme il sistema generale...
Florence, 20 March 1784.
Extremely rare broadside confirming the acquiescence of a Florentine convent with an edict issued by Peter Leopold of Habsburg Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany (later Holy Roman Emperor), abolishing the communal burial of nuns in vaulted underground chambers and requiring that they be buried in graves.
£450
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[NOVARA.]
[Incipit:] Il vescovo di Novara ai signori parrochi della città e diocesi.
[Novara], 10 May 1805.
An apparently unrecorded broadside from the Piedmontese city of Novara on public health risks posed by leaving the faces of the dead uncovered, issued less than two months after the creation of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy.
£175
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[MILAN – DEATH DUTIES.]
[Incipit:] Ad un reale dispaccio in data del 4. corrente ottobre ...
Milan, Pirola brothers, [31 October 1787].
Scarce edict issued by Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este and Governor of the Duchy of Milan, on behalf of his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, describing amendments to Joseph II’s Enlightened religious reforms, including the transfer of funeral expenses to the Church and a table of...
£500
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[MARIA THERESA.]
Sammelband of twenty-three works, including two broadsides, published on the death of Maria Theresa of Austria.
[Naples, 1781.]
An extraordinary sammelband gathering eulogies and epigraphs to Maria Theresa of Austria, including several ephemeral pieces and broadsides and displaying the breadth of southern Italian typography in the late eighteenth century.
£1950
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HOLBEIN, Hans; Wenceslaus HOLLAR, engraver; [Francis DOUCE, editor].
The Dance of Death, from the original Designs...
[McMillan] for J. Coxhead, 1816.
An attractive early nineteenth-century edition of Holbein’s Dance of Death, printed from Hollar’s etchings with descriptions in English and French and prefatory essays by the antiquary Francis Douce.
£375
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[HÖSS,] Maria Crescentia, Saint.
‘Wahre Abbildung der From[m]en Schwester Maria Crescentia des Heilige[n] Ordens S. Francisci,...
Jahr ihres Alters.’ Mindelheim, Lingauer, 1744.
Extremely rare devotional engraving of Maria Crescentia Höss, a mystic and sister of the Third Order Regular of St Francis at the Franciscan convent in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, issued shortly after her death at the nearby town of Mindelheim.
£750
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HEINSIUS, Daniel.
Poematum editio nova; accedunt praeter alia libri, De contemptu mortis antehac una non editi.
Leiden, [Isaac] Elzevir and Jean Maire, 1621.
First Elzevir edition of the poems of Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), expanded to include his didactic epic De contemptu mortis, on facing death with courage, our copy in a handsome red morocco binding attributed to Roger Payne from the celebrated library at Syston Park.
£800
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GRÜNEISEN, [Karl].
Niclaus Manuel: Leben und Werke eines Malers und Dichters, Kriegers, Staatsmannes und Reformators im sechszehnten...
Stuttgart & Tübingen, J.G. Cotta, 1837.
First and only edition of the first separate biography of the Bern painter, writer, and politician Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (c. 1484–1530), with a striking frontispiece from the Berner Danse macabre.
£120
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[FRANKLAND, William.]
A large collection of manuscript correspondence relating to the death of William Frankland.
[Manchester, Slaidburn, and Blackburn, June 1886–May 1888].
An interesting archive relating to the death of William Frankland, a Lancashire railway worker killed in a shunting accident, consisting largely of manuscript correspondence from his father’s landlords – two solicitors evidently working pro bono – fighting to obtain an insurance payout from...
£650