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  1. ARM’S OF TILLY (The). 

    The Virtues and Effects of the Remedy, named Medicamentum gratia probatum, id ist: the Remedy approved...

    [Colophon:] Printe [sic] by John Enschedé, Printer of the City of Haarlem in Holland, [c. 1764–73]

    Unrecorded printing of an advertising broadside for Haarlem Oil, a panacea containing ingredients such as sulphur and terebinth oil which is still sold today as a dietary supplement.  The oil was first marketed in 1696 by Claes Tilly, a Haarlem schoolmaster, who was succeeded by his step grandchild...

    £1500

  2. ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.

    Du contract social, ou, Principes du droit politique.

    Milan, Pogliani, 1796.

    First edition printed in Italy, very rare, of Rousseau’s Contrat social.

    £3500

  3. BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis). 

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

    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

  4. CLÜVER, Philipp. 

    Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …

    Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686. 

    The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno. 

    £2500

  5. GABRIELE, Giacomo. 

    Dialogo di M. Iacomo Cabriele, nelquale de la sphera, et gli orti et occasi de le stelle, minutamente si...

    [Colophon:] Venice, Giovanni de Farri et fratelli, 1545. 

    First editions of the two principal works of Giacomo Gabriele (1510–1550), nephew and pupil of the Italian humanist Trifone Gabriele, the first with numerous contemporary annotations. 

    £3500

  6. [FROST FAIR.] 

    Upon the Frost in the Year 1739–40.  Behold the Liquid Thames now frozen o’er …. 

    Printed on the Ice upon the Thames at Queen-Hithe.  January the 24th, 1739–40. 

    A striking printed souvenir from the Frost Fair of 1739–40 – relic of an important printing family. 

    £3750

  7. [POPE, Walter.] 

    The Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall: containing the history of his Life and Death.  Whereunto are annexed his last...

    London, Printed for Henry Brome … 1670. 

    First(?) edition of a partly fictitious and often satirical life of the highwayman Claude Duval, published shortly after his execution in 1670.  This is the more substantial of two opportunistic biographies, between them the main sources of information about him, though by no means entirely trustworthy. ...

    £750

  8. [RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, CHINA.] 

    东教宗史记 [Dongjiao Zongshi Ji; ‘Orthodox Ecclesiastical History’].

    Hankou, 1893.

    First edition of a summary of Russian Orthodox Church history for a Chinese audience, with a foreword by Archimandrite Innokenty (Ivan Figurovsky, 1863–1931), who was to be leader of the spiritual mission to Beijing from his arrival in 1897 until his death in 1931.

    £9500

  9. MENDES PINTO, Fernão. 

    The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal: during his travels for the space of one...

    London, Printed by J. Macock, for Henry Cripps, and Lodowick Lloyd … 1653. 

    First edition in English, translated by Henry Cogan, of a travel best-seller, first published posthumously in 1614; there were nineteen editions in six languages by the end of the century, ‘rivalling the popularity of Cervantes’ Don Quixote.  It is, in fact, an exotic and imaginative...

    £7500

  10. NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

    Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

    Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

    Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

    £4750

  11. MAGALHÃES, Gabriel de. 

    A new history of China, containing a description of the most considerable particulars of that vast empire. ...

    London, Thomas Newborough, 1688. 

    First edition of the English translation of one of the most important studies of China of the seventeenth century, a history by the Jesuit missionary and sinologist Gabriel de Magalhães (1610–1677). 

    £3750

  12. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

    £6500

  13. MEITNER, Lise, and Otto R. FRISCH. 

    On the Products of the Fission of Uranium and Thorium under Neutron Bombardment. 

    Copenhagen, Ejnar Munksgaard, 1939. 

    First edition of this highly important paper, published in Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.  Mathematisk-Fysiske Meddelelser, vol. 17, no. 5. 

    £50

  14. MARVIN, Charles Thomas. 

    ‘The manuscript of’ Colonel Grodekoff’s ride from Samarcand to Herat, through the Balkh and the...

    London, Wm H. Allen, 1880. 

    Marvin’s own manuscript of his English translation of Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov’s account of his remarkable journey from Samarkand (Uzbekistan) to Herat (Afghanistan), published in 1880 in the midst of the ‘Great Game’ between the British and Russian empires for control of Central Asia. 

    £4750

  15. [MONROE, Marilyn.]  POWOLNY, Frank. 

    Signed glamour shot of Marilyn Monroe. 

    C. 1953. 

    Signed photograph of Marilyn Monroe, given to Laurence Olivier around the time of their filming The Prince and the Showgirl. 

    £1250

  16. [MONROE, Marilyn.] 

    DIENES, André de.  Marilyn. 

    Cologne, Taschen, 2002. 

    First edition of this celebratory book on Marilyn Monroe, collecting photographs by her friend (and briefly lover) André de Dienes, who met Norma-Jean in 1945 and helped launch her career. 

    £200

  17. NICHOLS, Alexander, Ensign. 

    ‘Log of a voyage from England to Madras, Calcutta & elsewhere and a journey through part of India’. 

    1858–1867. 

    An unpublished diary providing a detailed and lively record of British army life in India in the immediate aftermath of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, as well as life aboard ship en route (including amateur dramatics), by Alexander Nichols of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, enhanced with over eighty...

    £7500

  18. PERRY, Matthew Calbraith. 

    Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the years...

    Washington, A.O.P. Nicholson, Printer, 1856. 

    First edition of the official account of the naval expedition that established diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Japan and forced the end of Japan’s self-imposed policy of seclusion from the outside world. 

    £4500

  19. [TURNER, John.] 

    Sufferings of John Turner, chief mate of the country ship, Tay, bound for China, under the command of William...

    London, Plummer for Thomas Tegg, [1809]. 

    Scarce account of piracy and shipwreck, with a striking aquatint frontispiece portraying a pirate attack. 

    £1500