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  1. [CHINA.]

    A collection of 46 Chinese watercolour miniatures on pith.

    [Canton?, c. 1870].

    A series of delicate portraits – the colours beautifully preserved – of a wide range of figures from late-Qing China. The persons portrayed include tradesmen and -women, labourers, dignitaries, scholars, actors, soldiers, figures in ceremonial dress, monks, musicians, and gentlefolk attended by servants...

    £1850

  2. [DEFOE, Daniel.]

    A Letter to Dissenters.

    London, Printed for John Morphew … 1713.

    First edition, the state with the final page misnumbered. This tract is an admonition to Defoe’s fellow Dissenters, ‘saying that they enjoy great privileges at present, the Queen having undertaken to maintain the Toleration Act and even having for long resisted the Act against Occasional Conformity....

    £600

  3. [EMPRESS DOWAGER and DALAI LAMA.]

    Photographs of religious traditions in Peking.

    Beijing, c. 1908.

    A record of religious cultures and traditions with rare images of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Beijing and the preparation for the Empress Dowager Cixi’s funeral procession, in 1908.

    £4500

  4. PHAEDRUS et al.

    Phaedri fabulae. L. Annaei Senecae, ac Publii Syri sententiae.

    Orléans, Couret de Villeneuve, 1773.

    An attractive edition of Phaedrus’ fables with the sententiae of Publilius Syrus and Seneca the Younger, printed in small type, in an attractive contemporary binding.

    £250

  5. [MICROSCOPY – RABIQUEAU, Charles.]

    Manifeste littéraire, servant de supplément aux journaux sur le livre du Microscope Moderne,...

    Geneva and Paris, the author and Demonville, 1781.

    Only edition of this prospectus-cum-supplement to Le Microscope Moderne, an enthusiastic work promoting the use of microscopes by the popular scientist Charles Rabiqueau.

    £250

  6. [TAIWAN.]

    中華民國四十六年國慶閱兵大典集影 Album of the Grand Review of the National Day of the Republic of China...

    [Taiwan, 1957.]

    A fine commemorative album documenting the military alliance between the United States and the Kuomintang/Republic of China, apparently unrecorded and made for presentation to a high-ranking dignitary at a tense time for both Cross-Strait and US–Taiwan relations.

    £1500

  7. [UDALL, John, attributed?]

    A dialogue, concerning the strife of our Churche: wherein are aunswered divers of those uniust accusations,...

    London, Robert Waldegrave, 1584.

    First edition of a lively dialogue set in an inn, between four characters: Philedonos, the innkeeper, Orthodoxos, a puritan cleric, Philodoxos, a lawyer, and Philochrematos, a bishop’s chaplain. The preface ‘To the Reader’ makes clear the anti-clerical and anti-Catholic intent of the work, but...

    £3500

  8. DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.

    Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um] artium et theologie doctoris in divi Thome de Aq[ui]no co[m]mentaria...

    Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 25 January 1514.

    Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian commentaries. The first, by the Dominican philosopher Dominic of Flanders (c. 1425–1479), analyses two works by Thomas Aquinas: his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (on the nature of scientific axioms), and his De fallaciis...

    £3000

  9. [SCOTT, Walter, Sir.]

    Ivanhoe; A Romance. By “The Author of Waverley,” &c. … In three Volumes … Second Edition.

    Edinburgh, [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Archibald Constable & Co., and London, Hurst, Robinson, & Co., 1820.

    Stated second edition but in fact a third issue of the first, published on 15 January; the first issue, published on 20 December the previous year, is similarly dated 1820.

    £375

  10. MILNE, A. A.; E. H. SHEPARD, illustrator.

    The House at Pooh Corner.

    London, Methuen & Co., 1928.

    First edition, first impression, of A. A. Milne’s classic final collection of tales about Winnie the Pooh and friends, and the first introduction of Tigger.

    £650

  11. KAVAN, Anna & K.T. BLUTH.

    The Horse’s Tale.

    London, Gaberbocchus Press, [1949].

    First edition of the novel written jointly by Kavan and her psychiatrist and friend Karl Theodor Bluth. Anna Kavan (1901-1968), born Helen Emily Woods, began her writing career in 1929, publishing a series of novels under her married name of Helen Ferguson. After the breakdown of her second marriage...

    £850

  12. SILIUS ITALICUS, C.; John CAREY, editor.

    Punicorum libri XVII, sedulâ recensione accurati [cover: Recensuit et...

    London, T. Davison for Rodwell & Martin, J. Booker, Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, G. & W. Whittaker, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Co., T. Cadell,...

    First and only ‘Regent’s Classics’ edition of Silius Italicus’s epic poem on the Second Punic War, an attractive copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed boards.

    £100

  13. STATIUS, P. Papinius; John CAREY, editor.

    Opera, sedula recensione accurata [cover: Recensuit et accuravit Joannes...

    London, T. Davison for Rodwell & Martin, J. Booker, Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, G. & W. B. Whittaker, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Browne,...

    An attractive copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed boards, of the ‘Regent’s Classics’ pocket edition of Statius.

    £120

  14. DREYER, Georges, Lieutenant Colonel, R.A.M.C.

    A Simple Procedure for Testing the Effects of ‘Oxygen Want’ on Flying Men.

    [?London: Air Medical Research Committee], [1918].

    First edition. Pathologist Georges Dreyer (1873-1934), born into a Danish Navy family, studied natural sciences in Denmark, Germany and England with a ‘passionate precision of technique and a loathing of slipshod thought [that] characterized all his work’; was appointed to the chair of pathology...

    £0

  15. PEACOCK, Thomas Love.

    Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spell. A Poem.

    London, T. Hookham, Jun., and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818.

    First edition of Peacock’s last and most ambitious poem, inspired by his enthusiasm for Greek poetry in the company of Shelley. A mythological narrative set in ancient Thessaly, Rhododaphne tells the story of the shepherd boy Anthemion, in love with the mortal girl Calliroë, and of the...

    £750

  16. SALLUST.

    C. Crispi Sallustii de conjuratione Catilinae historia. Eiusdem de bello Iugurthino ...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1544.

    Estienne’s edition of the works of Sallust, annotated by an early English reader.

    £1500

  17. ZAPPI, Giambattista and Faustina.

    Rime di Giambattista Felice Zappi e di Faustina Maratti sua consorte.

    Nice, Société typographique, 1781.

    Uncommon Nice printing of the collected poetry of one of the most prominent literary couples of early eighteenth-century Rome, Faustina Maratti (1679–1745) and her husband Giambattista Zappi (1667–1719). First published after Zappi’s death in 1723, the collection consists of seventy-three...

    £200

  18. GUILLÉN, Jorge, and Reginald GIBBONS, translator.

    Fuera del mundo. Translated by Reginald Gibbons.

    Trenton, New Jersey, Eleutherian Printers, [1981].

    First edition of the Spanish text and of the English translation by the poet Reginald Gibbons.

    £550

  19. [BENN, Anthony, father, and Charles Anthony BENN, son.]

    NICHOLS W., MAYLAND, GROOM, J., photographers. Photographic...

    Late 1850s–early 1900s.

    A charming collection of photographs and newspaper cuttings spanning some fifty years, compiled by a father and son during their Cambridge days, including a letter of thanks from Trinity Hall to the son, Charles Anthony Benn, for his endowment to the college, which now funds the Benn Bursary.

    £1200

  20. CHALKHILL, John.

    Thealma and Clearchus. A pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq;...

    London, Printed for Benj. Tooke … 1683.

    First edition of Chalkhill’s unfinished pastoral poem, with the corrected state of the title, designating the author as ‘an acquaintant and friend of Edmund [originally ‘Edward’] Spencer’.

    £1850