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  1. GUIGNES, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de.

    Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784...

    Paris, l’Imprimerie Impériale, 1808.

    First edition, the complete four-volume set, containing a survey of Chinese history and customs, a narrative of the author’s journey to Beijing as part of the Dutch East India embassy in 1794–5, and a magnificent folio atlas featuring 97 beautiful illustrations and intricate maps.

    £6500

  2. ROBINSON, Alan James (artist), and Laurie BLOCK.

    An Odd Bestiary, or, a Compendium of instructive and entertaining Descriptions...

    [Easthampton (MA),] Cheloniidae Press, 1982.

    First edition, numbered 69 of 200 copies from a limited edition of 300 and signed by the artist.

    £500

  3. 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

  4. MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.

    Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...

    London, T. Jefferys, 1764.

    Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...

    £6500

  5. SICARDO, José.

    Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones...

    Madrid, Francisco Sanz, 1698.

    Rare first edition of this important and comprehensive account of Christian missions to Japan by the Spanish Augustinian José Sicardo (1643–1715).

    £15000

  6. 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

  7. QUETELET, M. A.

    Letters Addressed to H. R. H. the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha on the Theory of Probabilities, as Applied...

    London, Charles & Edwin Layton, 1849.

    First edition in English. ‘This book is really an original, if elementary, treatise on probability and social statistics, written in the form of a series of letters to the Belgian king’s two nephews, Ernest (the duke to whom the book was dedicated) and Albert (who by 1846 was husband to Queen...

    £550

  8. ADLER, Alfred.

    Über den nervösen Charakter. Grunzüge einer vergleichenden Individual-psychologie und Psychotherapie.

    Wiesbaden, J.F. Bergmann, 1912.

    First edition of this important work on neurosis by the influential Austrian psychologist and psychotherapist Alfred Adler (1870-1937) definitively marking his break with Freud and the origins of what he termed ‘individual psychology’, characterised by the notion that the principal driver...

    £150

  9. RANK, Otto.

    Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden. Versuch einer psychologischen Mythendeutung.

    Leipzig and Vienna, Franz Deuticke, 1909.

    First edition of this psychoanalytical investigation of mythological heroism, and the role of birth legends in the stories of heroes, by the German psychoanalyst Otto Rank (1884-1939), published as part of the series Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde under the editorship of Freud. Rank...

    £100

  10. PETTY, William, Sir.

    Another essay in political arithmetick, concerning the growth of the City of London: with the measures,...

    1682. London, printed by H.H. for Mark Pardoe, 1683.

    First edition, exceptionally scarce – indeed unique in its uncut and unbound state – of Petty’s first work of political arithmetic, a landmark work of statistics, demography, and economics.

    £12000

  11. [CANONS REGULAR OF THE LATERAN.]

    Regula et constitutiones Canonicorum Regularium congregationis S. Salvatoris, Ordinis Sancti...

    Rome, apud Paulum Bladum, 1592.

    The most complete edition, rare, of the Rule and Constitutions of the Order of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour, printed on vellum, with two seemingly unrecorded cancels, from the library of a former Abbot General of the Order. 

    £25000

  12. CARTARI, Vincenzo. 

    Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi. 

    Venice, per Francesco Marcolini, 1556. 

    First edition of Cartari’s influential and successful treatise on the mythology of the ancients. Cartari concentrated on the iconography of the gods, explaining their guises and detailing their several attributes. His book was expressively written to aid artists, painters, and sculptors to...

    £800

  13. TOMS, William. 

    Thirty-six new original and practical designs for chairs, adapted for the Drawing and Dining Room, Parlour and...

    Bath, W. Evans, [c. 1830]. 

    A fine and rare furniture pattern book by William Toms, ‘carver in general’ at Bath. 

    £650

  14. POSTEL, Guillaume. 

    De originibus, seu, de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsyderata historia,...

    Basel, Johannes Oporinus, [1553].

    First edition of Postel’s investigations into the original language as a means to regain the primordial unity of mankind. 

    £3500

  15. ZENO of Verona, Saint

    In presenti opusculo infrascripta continentur.  Sermones luculentissimi …  Omelie & admonitiones...

    Venice, Giacomo Penzio for Benedetto Fontana, 24 January 1508. 

    Rare first edition of the sermons of Zeno of Verona, edited by Guarino and published here along with the sermons of Caesarius of Arles and Origen, and other homiletic material, especially Marian. 

    £1500

  16. MAGNON, Jean. 

    Les heures du Chrestien, divisées en trois journées; qui sont la journée de la penitence, la journée de la...

    Paris, se vendent chez l’autheur … et chez Sebastien Martin, 1654. 

    First edition of this handsomely illustrated collection of prayers and devotions in verse and prose by the French playwright and poet Jean Magnon (1620–1662).  The number of plates in individual copies varies, this copy containing at least two more than those described on OCLC. 

    £650

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. [JOHNSON, Samuel]. 

    The Prince of Abissinia.  A Tale … 

    London: Printed for R. and J Dodsley and W. Johnston ... 1759.

    First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral.  Its rapid execution is said to have been due to the fact that he had been pondering its chief topics all his life.  It soon became his most popular work.  Although now inevitably...

    £4500