LALEMANT, [Pierre].

Les saints desirs de la mort, ou recüeil de quelques pensées des peres de l’Eglise, pour montrer comment...

Paris, Josse, 1710.

A very rare later edition, in a contemporary binding of onlaid morocco, of Lalement’s French paraphrases of the Church Fathers’ thoughts on death.

£850

[HYMNAL.]

Neu-vermehrt- und vollständiges Gesang-Buch, worinnen sowohl die Psalmen Davids, nach D. Ambrosii Lobwassers, Uebersetzung...

[Likely Swabia, for] Philadelphia, Ernst Ludwig Baisch, 1774.

First and only edition thus of this German hymnal, issued in Philadelphia by Ernst Ludwig Baisch under his own imprint but printed in Germany, bound by an itinerant German Pennsylvanian binder with printed waste from Charles Cist’s Americanische Stadt und Land Calender for 1797, with inscriptions...

£3500

HAMILTON, ‘Eliza’ [Elizabeth].

Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah; written previous to, and during the Period of...

London, J. Crowder for G. & J. Robinson, 1801.

Second edition of Hamilton’s first separately published work, a pseudo-Oriental satire on British society, in a very well-preserved gilt paper binding imitating calf.

£575

FLORUS, L. Annaeus; Lucius AMPELIUS; Claude SAUMAISE, editor.

[Rerum romanarum libri IV and Epitome historiae...

Leiden, Elzevir, 1638.

The attractive Elzevir edition of Florus’ Roman history, containing the editio princeps of Ampelius’ history, in a handsome English Restoration binding with highly unusual edge decoration.

£650

[EMBROIDERED BINDING.]

Etrennes mignonnes, pour l’an de grace de Notre Seigneur M. DCC. LIII. …

Liège, Everard Kints, [1753].

A charming almanack for 1753 printed in Liège by Everard Kints – bookseller, printer, and wine merchant – here in a delightful embroidered binding with raised work in silver thread surrounding a skilfully executed floral arrangement.

£400

[ALMANACK.]

L’Esprit des chansonniers, extrain [sic?] des meilleurs poëtes.

Paris, Le Fuel, [1826?].

A very rare enamelled metal binding with an enchanting design of birds and squirrels, from the collection of the bookbinder, collector, and bibliographer Léon Gruel.

£2750

[ALMANACK.]

Les etrennes a la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.

Paris, Janet, [1804?].

A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).

£2500

THOMAS CANTIPRATENSIS.

Bonum universale de proprietatibus apum.

[Cologne, Johann Koelhoff, the Elder, c. 1478–1480.]

Second edition of this manual of moral theology structured around the behaviour of bees, composed in the 1260s. It was a popular work, surviving in over a hundred manuscripts.

£6000

BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).

Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans...

London, Henry Colburn, 1829.

First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.

£3750

BACON, Francis. 

Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...

London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638. 

First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy. 

£3500

[NEW YORK.]

Notarial instrument attesting to the residence of two French immigrants in New York.

New York, 27 July 1797.

An interesting notarial document recording the immigration of two members of the French minor nobility to America during the French Revolution and Directory.

£850

[STEREOGRAPH.]

‘Going Out’ [and] ‘Coming In’.

London, Gebhardt, Rottmann & Co., [late 1850s or 1860s].

An amusing pair of stereos depicting the ‘before’ and ‘after’ a gentleman’s night out.

£70

[STEREOGRAPH.]

James ELLIOTT, photographer.

‘The first Love Letter’ [and] ‘Difference of Opinion’. London, 1860s.

Three hand-tinted albumen prints in stereo format featuring elaborate historical costumes, depicting the early stages of courtship and a lovers’ tiff.

£175

[HAMBURG.] 

A sammelband of material relating to the Great Fire of Hamburg. 

[Germany, 1842.] 

A fine and unusual volume of materials relating to the Great Fire of Hamburg of May 1842, comprising a long article by Joseph Mendelssohn published over five issues of Der Komet, special issues of several periodicals devoted to the disaster, a rare poem by Margarethe Hedwig Hülle, and...

£850

GOLDONI, Carlo.

Scelta di alcune commedie. Per uso de’ dilettanti della lingua italiana. Prima edizione italiana.

Livorno, Assunto Barbani, 1816.

First edition printed in Italy of a collection of ten comedies by Goldoni, selected for their lack of complicated syntax and lack of Venetian dialect and idioms, published in Livorno for the benefit of the English community.

£175