BEAUMONT, Joseph.

Psyche: or Loves Mysterie in XX. Canto’s: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soule …

London, Printed by John Dawson for George Boddington, 1648.

First edition of this lengthy religious epic representing the journey of the personified Soul from England to the Holy Land and back, written by Beaumont, one of the Royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge in 1644.

£1250

[BONIOHANNES de Messana, attributed.]

Speculum sapiencie beati Cirilli episcopi alias quadripartitus apologieticus vocatus....

[Basel, Michael Wenssler, c. 1475.]

An attractive early incunable edition of the wonderful collection of medieval fables known as the Speculum Sapientiae or Quadripartitus Apologeticus, attributed in manuscripts and early editions to ‘Cyrillus Episcopus’ but now ascribed to the fourteenth-century Italian Dominican Boniohannes...

£7250

[BIBLE – OLD TESTAMENT.]

Los cinco libros de la ley divina. De nuevo corregidos y bueltos à imprimir [– Aphtaroth de todo...

Amsterdam, ‘en casa, y a costa de Selomoh Proops’, ‘año 5478’ [i.e. 1717/1718].

An uncommon and handsomely produced Pentateuch with haftarot, printed for the use of the Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam, our copy in an attractive binding incorporating menorahs and with richly gauffered edges featuring birds and floral motifs.

£1850

MESNY, William.

Mesny’s Chinese Miscellany. A Text Book of Notes on China and the Chinese, in two Volumes … Vol. I.

Shanghai, printed at the “China Gazette Office”, 1896.

The first volume, collecting the first twenty-six weekly parts issued between 26 September 1895 and 19 March 1896, of a remarkable miscellany of all things Chinese, compiled by the Jersey-born adventurer William Mesny.

£1500

FLORIO, Blasco.

Lettera sopra alcuni ostacoli che la logica, e l’ideologia presentano alle osservazioni ideologiche sugli ostacoli...

Messina, Giuseppe Fiumara, 1825.

Very rare first edition of this work on the intellectual faculties of the blind, written by the Neapolitan nobleman Blasco Florio in reply to the Osservazioni ideologiche sugli ostacoli che la cecità presenta allo sviluppo delle facoltà intellettuali dell’uomo (Catania, 1824) of the Sicilian...

£475

[ANON.] 

Le moine galant, ou la vie de Don F… Bernardin, ecrite par lui-même. 

[S.l., s.n.,] 1756. 

Scarce first edition of this satirical ‘autobiography’ of a pleasure-driven law student-turned-monk, replete with amorous adventures. 

£450

DOD, John, attributed.

A Sermon on Malt. [S.l., s.n., c. 1840].

[c. 1840].

A seemingly unrecorded printing of the famous sermon against student drunkenness attributed to the Puritan divine John Dod (1550–1645), the word ‘malt’ in the title formed from the opening of the text: ‘Mr. Dodd was a Gentleman lived within a few miles of Cambridge and had been preaching against...

£875

DENISSE, Nicolas.

Divinis humanisq[ue] dignu[m] conspectibus preclarissimum opus super quattuor novissimis cui Speculu[m] mortalium...

Rouen, Martin Morin, 15 February 1506 [1507].

Rare edition of the Speculum mortalium of the Franciscan theologian Nicolas Denisse, printed at Rouen by Martin Morin.

£1650

[SERMONS.]

[Sermones sensati.]

[(Colophon:) Gouda, Gerard Leeu, 20 February 1482.]

First and only incunable edition of a rare homiletic compilation, in a strictly contemporary Netherlandish blind-stamped binding, from the abbey of Berne.

£8500

PFEFFER DE WYDENBERG, Johannes.

[Directorium sacerdotale.]

[Basel, Johann Besicken, after 20 December 1482.]

First and only incunable edition, very rare, of a guide for priests written by the first theology professor at the University of Freiburg, provided with a helpful system for locating passages in the text.

£6500

[LANSPERGER, Johannes Justus;] Serafino ACETI DE’ PORTI, translator.

Pharetra divini amoris, tradotto in volgare per Don...

Venice, Paolo Gherardo [(colophon:) Comin da Trino], 1549.

Third Italian edition, considerably enlarged, of this important devotional compendium, with a series of fine woodcuts illustrating Christ’s Passion.

£1500

LA VIGNE, André de.

Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a paris. De lentreprinse et voyage de Naples. Auquel est comprins...

[(Colophon:) Paris, Philippe le Noir], [1521–22].

George Dunn’s copy of a rare early edition of the Vergier d’honneur, a reprint of the 1512 edition by Jean Petit and Jean Frellon.

£9500

GAGUIN, Robert.

La mer des croniques et mirouer hystorial de France jadis compose en latin … et nouvellement traduict de latin...

Paris, [Bernard Aubry for] Jacques Nyverd, to be sold by Galiot du Pré, [(colophon:) 23 August 1530].

Very rare Paris vernacular edition (first 1518) of an illustrated history of the French monarchy, a seminal work of French historiography, devised as a scholarly account of France in the style of the classical historians.

£8500

[CHAMPIER, Symphorien.]

La vie & les gestes du preux chevalier Bayard. Contenant plusieurs victoires par luy faictes du Resgne...

Lyons, Olivier Arnoullet, [(colophon:) 8 April 1558].

A rare edition of Champier’s account of the preux chevalier Bayard’s life and achievements, from the renowned library of the duc de La Vallière.

£9500

ACQUAVIVA, Claudio.

Meditationes in Psalmum XLIV, & CXVIII.

Rome, Bartolomeo Zanetti, 1616.

First edition of these Jesuit meditations on two of the Psalms, a copy bound in the Soresini workshop for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

£1550

BELLARMINE, Robert.

De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis liber unus. Cum adiunctis indicibus undecim, et brevi chronologia ab orbe condito...

Rome, Bartolomeo Zannetti, 1613.

First edition of a remarkable biobibliography of ‘ecclesiastical writers’ by the great Jesuit theologian and controversialist, Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), one of the most important figures of the Counter-Reformation.

£350

PETRONIUS ARBITER, Titus.

Satyricon; et diversorum poëtarum lusus in Priapum, cum selectis variorum commentariis. Accedunt Pervigilium...

Utrecht, Gijsbert van Zijll and Dirck van Ackersdijck, 1654.

A volume of Silver Age satire and lewd lyrics with fourth-century Virgilian verses.

£350

KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

Александрійскія Пѣсни [Aleksandriiskiia pesni; ‘Alexandrian songs’].

St Petersburg, “Prometei”, [1921].

First separate edition of Kuzmin’s Alexandrian Songs, originally published as part of his first collection, Nets, in 1908.

£400

FLEMING, Ian.

The Spy who loved me.

London, Jonathan Cape, 1962.

First edition, first impression, of the only Bond novel narrated in the first person by the twenty-three-year-old Canadian Vivienne Michel, a lover of Bond’s.

£1250

SCOTT, Walter, Sir.

Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field.

Edinburgh, Archibald Constable; London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, and John Murray, 1821.

Tenth edition of Scott’s historical verse romance, this copy presented by Evelyn Waugh as an apologetic gift to the Hollywood publicist and Broadway songwriter Howard Dietz, then at work on an ill-fated film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.

£1200