Recent Acquisitions

  1. DARRÉ, G.G.

    ‘Conferences diaconales données par Mr l’abbé Darré, Vicaire Général au GrandSéminaire d’Auch. Année...

    Auch, 1864.

    An attractively written manuscript of Abbé Darré’s practical manual for the use of young priests entering pastoral ministry, the text remaining unprinted, according to OCLC, until 1872.

    £200

  2. [CAPUCHINS.]

    Diploma conferring ‘privilegium maximum’.

    ‘Bojonii’, 22 October 1779.

    An attractive diploma issued by Erhard von Radkersburg (1714–1798) in his capacity as Minister General of the Capuchins to one Nicolas Homont and his family, granting them the spiritual benefits of the devotions and good works undertaken by the order.

    £450

  3. [WALSH, William.]

    A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.

    London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1695.

    First edition of Walsh’s elegy on the death of Queen Mary II, the very rare first issue without the author’s name on the title-page. The second issue replaces a thick rule on the title-page with Walsh’s name, and adds two thick rules to the final page – this latter setting is also used...

    £350

  4. ROSINI, Giovanni. 

    Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del Marchese Consalvi di Macerata morta improvvisamente la sera del XIV...

    Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852. 

    Scarce first and only edition of this poem in memory of Maria Antinori, widow of the Marchese Consalvi, on her death at the age of thirty-five, penned by the poet, playwright, historical novelist, art historian, and art collector Giovanni Rosini (1776–1855), this copy presented by the author to...

    £275

  5. STANYHURST, William.

    Veteris hominis per expensa quatuor novissima metamorphosis, et novi genesis.

    Antwerp, Cornelius Woons, 1661.

    First edition, rare, of this work on death, the Last Judgement, Hell, and Heaven, by the Irish Jesuit William Stanyhurst (1601–1663), illustrated with five striking full-page emblematic engravings.

    £875

  6. PASSI, Marco Celio.

    Memorie sulla vita di Donna Giuseppina Passi nata Marchesa Lomellini di Genova.

    Bergamo, Stamperia Mazzoleni, 1832.

    Scarce first edition of a touching memorial to Giuseppina Passi (1809–1831), born Marchioness Lomellini of Genoa, who died at the age of twenty-one following complications in childbirth.

    £300

  7. MANCINI, Celso. 

    Il padrino Christiano … per formare i cavallieri di Christo nel duello della morte.  Diviso in tre parti … 

    Ferrara, Vittorio Baldini, 1592. 

    Rare first edition of a meditational work on this world and the next by Celso Mancini (1542–1612), canon regular of the Lateran, philosopher, and bishop of Alessano. 

    £950

  8. [GREY, Jane, Lady.]

    ‘The last days of Lady Jane Grey’.

    [c. 1870?].

    A manuscript extract, unfinished or incomplete, on the trial of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England from 10 to 19 July 1553.

    £175

  9. DRYDEN, John.

    Eleonora: a Panegyrical Poem: dedicated to the Memory of the late Countess of Abingdon …

    London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1692.

    First edition of Dryden’s eulogy for Eleanora, late Countess of Abingdon, commissioned by her husband, the first Earl of Abingdon.

    £275

  10. DONNE, John.

    Poems … with Elegies on the authors Death …

    London, Printed by M.F. for John Marriot, and are to be sold at his Shop … 1635.

    Second edition, adding seventeen new poems by Donne (and eleven false attributions), and three more elegies on his death.

    £4500

  11. AUDEN, Wystan Hugh.

    Louis MacNeice, a memorial Address, delivered at All Souls, Langham Place on 17 October, 1963.

    Privately printed for Faber & Faber, [1963].

    First edition, one of 250 copies, of Auden’s memorial address for Louis MacNeice, with the printed order of service and newspaper cuttings of poems on MacNeice, including ‘The Cave of Making’ by Auden (The Listener, 1 October 1964).

    £150

  12. NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.

    Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.

    Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.

    First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

    £850

  13. [VACCINATION.]

    Agli abitanti del dipartimento dell’Ombrone proclama del Comitato Centrale di Vaccina sedente in Siena. Abitanti...

    Siena, Onorato Porri, 1808.

    A seemingly unrecorded broadside promoting smallpox vaccination, issued in the short-lived Italian department of Ombrone under the First French Empire by the Central Vaccination Committee in Siena.

    £650

  14. GIOIA [or GIOJA], Melchiorre.

    Indole, estensione, vantaggi della statistica. Confutazione dell’ opuscolo che ha per titolo:...

    Risposta alle obbiezioni fatte alle Tavole statistiche. Milan, Pirotta and Maspero, March 1809.

    First and only edition of this rare work on the nature and necessity of statistics by Melchiorre Gioia, presented by the author to the former Minister for the Interior, Daniele Felici.

    £1250

  15. [SASSOON, Siegfried.] SURTEES, [Robert Smith]; Lionel GOUGH, editor.

    Hunting Scenes from Surtees.

    London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953.

    Sassoon’s proof copy of Hunting Scenes from Surtees, with pages left blank for the inclusion of his as-yet unwritten introduction.

    £850

  16. BUXTON, Thomas Fowell.

    An Inquiry, whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented, by our present System of Prison Discipline...

    London, [J. M’Creery] for John & Arthur Arch, J. Butterworth & Son, and John Hatchard, 1818.

    Third edition, published the same year as the first, of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton’s influential Inquiry into the British prison system.

    £195

  17. PERSIUS; [Thomas BREWSTER, translator].

    The Satires of Persius translated into English Verse; with some occasional Notes;...

    London, Printed for A. Millar, 1751.

    Second edition, with the addition of Bayle’s life of Persius, with manuscript corrections.

    £375

  18. [CAVALLERI, Paolo Agostino.]

    Lettera dall’Adriatico del signor Antonio Bianchi sopra l’opera de’diritti dell’uomo del sig....

    Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1792 (colophon 1793).

    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...

    £375

  19. SHAKESPEARE, William, and Bolemir IZBORSKÝ, pseud. [i.e. Antonín MAREK], translator.

    Omylowé dle Shakespeara...

    Prague, Jozefa Fetterlowá, ‘in the Archbishop’s Printing House at the Seminary’, 1823.

    First edition in Czech, very rare, of A Comedy of Errors, freely translated by Antonín Marek (1785–1877), one of the earliest appearances of Shakespeare in the language, preceded only by a very rare translation of Macbeth by Karel Ignác Thám (Makbet, 1786), which was staged...

    £1100

  20. REYES, Alfonso.

    Corrected carbon typescript, signed, of an essay entitled ‘Chesterton y los titeres’ [Chesterton and the puppets].

    [Buenos Aires?, c. 1952–3.]

    Corrected carbon typescript of Alfonso Reyes’s essay entitled ‘Chesterton y los titeres’, concerning G.K. Chesterton’s play The Surprise, a religious allegory written in 1932 but first published posthumously in 1952.

    £1000