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  1. [CHIARI, Pietro (attributed).]

    L’Americana ramminga cioè Memorie di donna Jnnez di Quebrada scritte da lei stessa, ed ora pubblicate...

    Venice, Angelo Pasinelli, 1763.

    First edition, rare, of ‘the first Italian novel with a pan-American outlook’ (Catucci, trans.).

    £3750

  2. EPIPHANIUS.

    Κατα αιρεσεων ογδοηκοτα το επικληθεν Παναριον … Contra octoginta haereses...

    Basel, [Johann Herwagen, 1544].

    Editio princeps of the Greek text of Epiphanius’s great compendium of heresies, in a particularly attractive and well-preserved contemporary pigskin binding.

    £5000

  3. ALEXIS OF PIEDMONT (i.e. Girolamo RUSCELLI?).

    The Secretes of the reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount: contayning excellent...

    London, Henry Bynneman, for John Wight, 1568.

    The Secrets of Alexis of Piedmont in English, complete in all four parts – fourth edition of part I, third editions of parts II and III, and first edition of part IV.

    £4500

  4. [PONTIFICAL.]

    Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII. primum, nunc denuo Urbani Papae Octavi auctoritate recognitum.

    Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1663.

    An attractive Plantin-Moretus Pontifical, splendidly preserved in a richly baroque binding.

    £4500

  5. [CATECHISM.]

    A B C D … Orazione Dominicale … Salutazione Angelica …

    Bologna, [Ferdinando Pisarri] ‘all’insegna di S. Antonio’, [early 1700s].

    An apparently unrecorded ABC and catechism for children, illustrated with small woodcuts, printed at Bologna in the early eighteenth century, most likely by Ferdinando Pisarri (1659–1737).

    £3500

  6. DONNE, John.

    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ...

    London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.

    Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him. It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer.

    £13500

  7. LACTANTIUS.

    Opera.

    [Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.

    Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...

    £25000

  8. PORTA, Giambattista della.

    De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...

    Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.

    The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.

    £2500

  9. SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.

    L. Annei Senecae opera, et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendu[m] utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod....

    Basel, ‘in officina Frobeniana’, 1529 [(colophon:) Basel, Johann Herwagen, March 1537].

    Second Erasmus edition of the moral essays and letters of Seneca, owned and annotated by Ludovicus Carinus (d. 1569), friend and later foe of Erasmus himself.

    £5000

  10. BUXTON, Thomas Fowell.

    The African Slave Trade and its Remedy …

    London, John Murray, 1840.

    First complete edition of the principal anti-slavery work of the politician and abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), a presentation copy to a fellow abolitionist, James Pearson, dated 5 November 1840.

    £750

  11. BRADLAUGH, Charles.

    Catalogue of the library of the late Charles Bradlaugh.

    London, Mrs H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1891.

    Only edition of this private production, printed by Bradlaugh’s daughter, Hypatia, at the press of her husband, a printer, ‘not merely to publish a descriptive list of the volumes contained in the library in order to facilitate their sale, but to make somewhat of a memento of Mr Bradlaugh himself’...

    £100

  12. BERNARD of Clairvaux.

    Opera omnia, tam quae vere germana illius esse nemo inficias eat, quam quae spuria & supposititia (quanquam...

    Paris, [Nicolas Bruslé for] Sébastien Nivelle, [1571-] 1572.

    A rare Parisian edition of the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, beautifully preserved in a contemporary Spanish plateresca binding with elaborate fore-edge lettering.

    £3750

  13. RHOADS, James Evans.

    Autograph letter signed (‘James E. Rhoads’) to Henry Horniman.

    Philadelphia, 22 July 1869.

    A letter from the first president of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. Rhoads (1828–1895) helped establish the college as a nondenominational, internationally respected school, and the first higher education institution to offer graduate degrees to women.

    £100

  14. VORAGINE, Jacobus de.

    Lombardica historia que a plerisque aurea legenda sanctorum appellatur.

    Strasbourg, [Georg Husner,] 1502.

    Jacobus de Voragine’s influential Legenda Aurea in a contemporary gilt-lettered binding with an incunable fragment used as the rear pastedown. This copy is also notable for its extensive sixteenth century manuscript additions relating to Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg and former ownership...

    £8000

  15. SMITH, Albert.

    A large archive of printed and manuscript material, including drafts of shows and lectures, including portions of...

    [1820s to 1860s.]

    Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860) trained as a surgeon but shortly afterwards turned to the world of letters, becoming a regular contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany and Punch; he adapted works by his friend Dickens for the theatre and edited The Man in the Moon (1847–9). ‘During...

    £15000

  16. NIEUHOF, Jan; Athanasius KIRCHER; and John OGILBY, translator.

    An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces,...

    London, John Macock for the author, 1669.

    First English edition, beautifully illustrated, recounting the Dutch traveller Jan Nieuhof’s journey as part of Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keizer’s embassy to Peking between 1655 and 1657. Having previously been employed by the Dutch West India Company in Brazil, Nieuhof joined the Dutch...

    £4000

  17. SPON, Jacob.

    Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 par Jacob Spon docteur medecin...

    Lyons, Antoine Cellier, 1678.

    Very rare first edition of ‘one of the most important accounts of travels in the Levant, and the first description of Athens which was systematic, detailed, and trustworthy’ (Blackmer).

    £4750

  18. SCHÜBLER, Johann Jacob, et al.

    Designs for furniture, funerary monuments, garden buildings.

    Augsburg, [c. 1710s–20s].

    An interesting sammelband containing over fifty handsome engraved plates with late Baroque designs for furniture, monuments, and summerhouses, published at Augsburg by Jeremias Wolff (1663–1724) and his heirs, and by Joseph Friedrich Leopold (1668–1727).

    £3750

  19. GREGORY IX; Charles DUMOULIN, commentator.

    Decretales Gregorii Noni pontificis cum epitomis, divisionibus, et glossis ordinariis,...

    Lyons, Pierre Fradin for Hugues de la Porte and Antoine Vincent, 1559.

    Lyons edition of the Decretals of Gregory IX with the controversial commentary of the French jurist Charles Dumoulin (1500–1566), thoroughly censored in manuscript by the inquisitor general of Genoa.

    £3500

  20. KANT, Immanuel.

    Immanuelis Kantii opera ad philosophiam criticam. Volumen primum, cui inest Critica rationis purae Latine vertit...

    Leipzig, for Engelhard Benjamin Schwickert, 1796.

    First Latin translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, extensively annotated by a contemporary critical hand.

    £2500