Recent Acquisitions
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[GEOGRAPHY.]
Primi principi di geografia ad uso de’ fanciulli.
[(Colophon:) Bergamo, Pietro Lancellotti, 1753].
Extremely rare second edition (first 1745) of this Bergamo-printed geographic catechism for young children.
£375
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[ART EDUCATION.]
Der kleine Maler.
[Germany, mid-nineteenth century.]
A delightful suite of plates intended to teach children painting by copying hand-coloured exemplars.
£450
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[VENICE.]
Juventus cesareo-regii gymnasii urbis Venetiarum ad Sanctam Catharinam e moribus et progressu in literis censa, exeunte...
[(Colophon:) Venice, Francesco Andreola,] 1828.
A seemingly unrecorded annual report for the boys’ boarding school of S. Caterina, the first liceo to be established in Venice under Napoleonic rule and one of the oldest in Italy.
£350
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[TACOLI, Carlotta Munarini, Marchioness.]
‘Memorie riguardanti la storia filosofica per istruzione elementare d’una...
Modena, 1805.
An unpublished manuscript introduction to ancient philosophy compiled by Marchioness Carlotta Munarini Tacoli for the education of her precocious eight-year-old-daughter, the future entomologist Adelaide Tacoli Bellincini Bagnesi (see below).
£1250
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SPURZHEIM, Johann Gaspar.
A View of the elementary Principles of Education, founded on the Study of the Nature of Man.
Boston, Marsh Capen and Lyon, 1832.
First American edition (first Edinburgh, 1821) of this eccentric work on education by the German phrenologist Johann Caspar Spurzheim, including observations on the development of the brain, drawn in part from the study of ancient cultures.
£125
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[SPENCE, Joseph.] Nicholas TINDAL.
A Guide to classical Learning: or, Polymetis abridged … being a Work absolutely necessary,...
London, J. Dodsley, 1777.
Second illustrated edition (fourth overall) of Nicholas Tindal’s abridgement for schools of Polymetis (1747), a dialogue by the traveller, scholar, friend of Alexander Pope, and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford Joseph Spence (1699–1748), in which he explored the connections...
£250
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PARR, Samuel.
A Discourse on Education and on the Plans pursued in Charity-Schools.
[Norwich, John Crouse for] London, T. Cadell and T. Evans, and Norwich, J. & C. Berry, [1785?].
First and only edition of this treatise on education, first delivered as a sermon, by the noted schoolmaster and writer Samuel Parr (1747–1825).
£175
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[BECKFORD, William, and Samuel HENLEY, translator.]
An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished Manuscript. With Notes critical...
London, Printed for W. Clarke … 1809.
Scarce second edition – in fact a reissue comprising the remainder sheets of the first edition of 1786 with a cancel title-page (printed by S. Gosnell) – of Henley’s English translation of Beckford’s Gothic masterpiece, first published against the author’s wishes and predating publication...
£1500
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DU BOS, Jean-Baptiste, Abbé.
Reflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture. … Quatriéme [sic] édition revûë,...
Paris, Pierre-Jean Mariette, 1740.
Fourth edition, expanded and corrected, of this key work in aesthetic and sentimental theory, with Coleridge family provenance.
£250
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[CRIMEAN WAR.]
Les militaires chrétiens a la guerre d’orient. Récompenses annuelles.
Versailles, Beau jeune, [1856].
First and only edition, rare, of this unusual cartonnage giftbook history of the Crimean War.
£375
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[WILSON,] Thomas, Bishop of Sodor and Man.
A short and plain Instruction for the better Understanding of the Lord’s Supper,...
London, B. Dod, T. Longman & C. Hitch, J. Hodges, and J. & J. Rivington, 1755.
Scarce first posthumous edition of this liturgical manual by Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, with two early female owners.
£250
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PONSONBY, Emily, Lady.
De Greville’s en de Lorimers. Twee Familie-Tafereelen, naar het Engelsch ...
Amsterdam, P. N. Van Kampen, 1851.
First edition in Dutch of ‘Susan Grenville; or Irresolution’ from Pride and Irresolution (1850), translated by J. Oudijk van Putten; ‘Walter Lorimer’ is a much shorter sketch at the end of vol. II.
£250
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PLINY the Elder; [Jean de LAET, editor].
Historiae naturalis libri XXXVII.
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham I] Elzevir, 1635.
An attractive set of the first and only Elzevir edition of Pliny the Elder, ‘rightly considered one of their masterpieces’ (Willems, trans.).
£650
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MAXIMUS the Confessor; Jean PICOT, translator.
Sanctissimi patris magistrique, Maximi, confessoris atque martyris, varia...
[(Colophon:) Paris,] Guillaume Morel, [1560].
First edition of Jean Picot’s Latin translation of this Byzantine compilation of extracts from the writings of Maximus the Confessor and others, our copy owned by a sixteenth-century monk at the Abbey of Saint-Denis.
£850
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[LOUIS XVI.]
Le vertueux Louis XVI; précis de ses douleurs, suivi de détails peu connus sur son illustre famille.
Lille, L. Lefort, [1817].
An seemingly unrecorded royalist panegyric-cum-almanack, provincially printed at Lille in the wake of the Bourbon Restoration.
£475
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GERHARD, Johann.
Meditationes sacrae. Editio postrema, prioribus emendatior.
Oxford, John Lichfield for Henry Curteyne, 1633.
First English-printed Latin edition of Gerhard’s ‘devotional masterpiece’ (ODCC), Oxford-printed and in a contemporary Oxford binding with binder’s waste from an early edition of Melanchthon’s textbook on rhetoric.
£950
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‘DORNIS, Jean’ [pseud. Élena BEER].
La voie douloureuse.
[Évreux, Charles Hérissey for] Paris, Calmann Levy, 1894.
First edition of Jean Dornis’ first novel, presented by the author to her brother-in-law, Edmond Raphael Beer, one of twenty-four copies on papier de Hollande.
£275
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BURNET, Gilbert.
A Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland. In four Conferences....
Glasgow, Robert Sanders, 1673.
One of three editions, all of the same year, of a ‘decidedly aggressive’ (Stewart, p. 40) tract in dialogue on the powers of the state in church affairs and on the subject’s right to resist.
£500
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PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.
Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...
Cambridge, University Press, 1928.
First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.
£400
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[LE MARCHE.]
Deed relating to the sale of property in Beltrovato (a district of Morrovalle in the Province of Macerata in the Marche...
[Rome, 1616.]
A curiously bound public instrument notarised by the Apostolic Camera in Rome detailing the sale of property belonging to two brothers from the influential de’ Mozzi family of Macerata.
£850