Recent Acquisitions
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SPOTISWOOD, John.
An Introduction to the Knowledge of the Stile of Writs, Simple and Compound, made Use of in Scotland ... The...
Edinburgh: William Brown and John Mosman, and sold by William Brown, 1727.
Third edition, annotated by Neil Ballingall (1750–1843), factor to the Balfour family at Balbirnie, Fife.
£500
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MARTIN, Theodore, Sir.
Horace and his Friends. Two Lectures delivered at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution …
Printed for private Circulation. 1881.
First editions of two privately-printed pamphlets by the poet, translator and biographer Theodore Martin (1816–1909) – presentation copies, to the Scottish journalist John Skelton, a frequent contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine (as was Martin).
£400
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RINUCCINI, Ottavio.
La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini,...
Florence, Borgognissanti, 1810.
Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.
£650
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MOZART, et al.
A volume of twelve piano duets adapted from overtures by Mozart, Rossini, and others by J. F. Burrowes, J. Mazzinghi,...
London, mostly Birchall & Co., 1810s–1820s.
A good collection of late Georgian piano duets, including adaptations from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with a few original compostions by Dussek, Mazzinghi, etc. A full list is available...
£350
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LOCATELLI, Lodovico.
Theatro d’Arcani … nel quale si tratta dell’arte chimica, et suoi arcani, con gli afforismi d’Ippocrate...
Milan, Gio. Pietro Ramellati, 1644.
First edition of Locatelli’s alchemical tract, which includes the first Italian translation of Paracelsus.
£2500
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GOBINET, Charles.
Instruction sur la vérité du Saint Sacrement, contenant en abregé les principaux motifs de la créance Catholique...
Paris, François le Cointe, 1677.
Scarce first edition thus, containing an explanation of the Eucharist and a defence of transubstantiation by the French writer and teacher Charles Gobinet (1613–1690), a lovely copy bearing a stamp found on bindings executed for Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin (1661–1711), eldest son of Louis...
£650
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SOLVYNS, François Baltazard.
The Costume of Hindostan, elucidated by sixty coloured engravings; with descriptions in English and...
London, W. Bulmer and Co. for Edward Orme, 1804 [–1805].
First edition in book form (originally issued in parts) of this superb record of the people of Bengal by the Flemish painter and ethnographer Solvyns (1760–1824), issued by the engraver and publisher Edward Orme (1775–1848).
£4500
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CARO, Annibale.
Rime del commendatore Annibal Caro. Col privilegio di N.S. PP. Pio V. et dell’illustrissima signoria di...
Venice, Aldus Manutius the Younger, 1569.
First edition of the poetry of Annibale Caro, offering a scathing yet humorous critique of his greatest poetic rival, Ludovico Castelvetro.
£650
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PIGHIUS, Stephanus Vinandus.
Themis dea, seu de lege divina … Mythologia … in quatuor anni partes, ab auctore recognita.
Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1568.
First and only edition, scarce, of Pighius’s two treatises on Roman archaeology, one of the founding texts of scientific research into myths.
£450
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KOTZEBUE, Otto von.
A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering’s Straits, for the purpose of exploring a north-east...
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821.
First edition in English, translated from the German edition of the same year, of Kotzebue’s classic voyage; ‘a prized edition’ (Hill).
£3000
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FLINDERS, Matthew.
Narrative of his Voyage in the Schooner Francis: 1798. Preceded and followed by Notes … by Geoffrey Rawson...
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, 1946.
No. 327 of 750 copies, of which the first 100 were specially bound in full green morocco.
£650
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ARNOLD, Edwin.
The Light of Asia or the great Renunciation … being the Life and teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and founder...
London: Trübner & Co … 1879.
First edition, a presentation copy, of one of the first successful attempts to popularize Buddhist thought in the West, freely adapted by Arnold from the Lalitavistara Sūtra.
£1200
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[ALMANACK.] ‘CHOTESCHAU, Christian Joachim von’ [pseud. Johann Franz NOWAK].
Neuer Titular-Calender zu ehren des...
Prague, Georg Labaun, [1713].
An annotated Bohemian almanack for the year 1713, with extensive manuscript notes by a local brewer.
£875
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BOEMUS, Johann, and ‘Lucio FAUNO’ [pseud. Giovanni TARCAGNOTA] (translator).
Gli costumi, le leggi, et...
Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1542.
First edition in Italian of Johann Boemus’s influential ethnographic compendium, a sixteenth-century bestseller considered the first of its kind.
£475
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PLINY the Elder.
Historia mundi, multo quam antehac unquam prodiit emaculatius [...] annotationibus eruditorum hominum...
Basel, Johann Froben, March 1525.
First Froben edition of Pliny’s encyclopaedia, with a prologue by Erasmus and Hermolaus Barbarus’s commentary, given to Erasmus’s correspondent Bartholomaeus Latomus by his student and future patron, Johann Ludwig von Hagen.
£4800
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[RICHARD, Charles-Louis.]
Lettres d’un archevêque, à l’auteur de la brochure intitulée: Du droit du souverain sur les biens-fonds...
A Cologne, 1770.
First edition, uncommon, of this response to an anticlerical essay by the Chevalier de Cerfvol by the Dominican theologian and anti-philosophe Charles-Louis Richard (1711–1794). De Cherfvol had argued against the wealth of the clergy, and in particular of the religious orders, and proposed a means...
£200
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MOORE, George.
Manuscript commonplace book of poems, songs, prayers, and letters.
1805-1855.
An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).
£550
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[PASCOLI, Livio.] ‘Vilio LOCASPI’.
Del modo di mantenere abolita la mendicità, discorso familiare.
Verona, Mainardi, 1817.
Only edition, very rare, of this proposal for the abolition of begging, and of poverty more broadly, by the poet and essayist Livio Pascoli.
£285
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MEGUSCHER, Francesco.
Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...
Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.
First edition of this comprehensive report on the best means to reverse the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy, in a way that could be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.
£950
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WITTKOWER, Jochanan.
Agudath Perachim. ‘Blüthenstrauß’. Anthologie deutscher und hebräischer Gedichte für Geist und Herz …
Altona, the Bonn Brothers for the author, 1880.
First and only edition of this anthology of moral poems and satirical and edifying epigrams translated from German into Hebrew, as well as transcriptions and translations of epitaphs from the Jewish community of Altona, now a district of Hamburg.
£350