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TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).
Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...
Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.
First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.
£2800
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DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.
Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...
Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.
A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.
£3000
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ZEVIANI, Giovanni Verardo.
Del flato a favore degl’ipocondriaci.
Verona, Antonio Andreoni, 1755.
Rare first edition of the first medical treatise on tympanites, a distention of the abdomen caused by the accumulation of gas in the gastro-intestinal tract, linking it with hypochondria and melancholy.
£650
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[SORKOČEVIĆ, Antun, also known as Antoine de SORGO.]
Fragments sur l’histoire politique et littéraire de l’ancienne...
Paris, Imprimerie de Madame Porthmann, 1839.
First edition, very scarce, of this collection of short pieces on Dubrovnik by the Croatian writer and composer Antun Sorkočević (1775–1841).
£350
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[ROUSSEAU, Pierre.]
Considérations sur le théatre de l’opéra. Novembre 1822.
[Paris,] de l’imprimerie de Rignoux, [1822].
Very rare proposal for a new opera house in Paris by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1829), annotated by the author and accompanied by an autograph letter.
£475
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[PRIMER.]
Nouvel alphabet en français, divisé par syllabes.
Orléans, ‘Chez Berthevin, libraire’, [c. 1820].
An unrecorded Orléans-printed devotional primer, including litanies to the Christ Child (with vertically-printed refrains) and the duties of children toward their parents.
£450
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MILL, John Stuart, and Nikolai Gavrilovich CHERNYSHEVSKY, translator.
Osnovaniia politicheskoi ekonomii s nekotorymi...
St. Petersburg, [n.p.], 1865.
First complete edition of Mill’s Principles in Russian, translated by the economist, nihilist and social critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), ‘corrected and expanded from the most recent (fifth) edition of Mill’s book, published in 1864 in New York’ (‘From the publisher’, our...
£3750
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MARLOWE, Christopher, and Konstantin BAL’MONT, translator.
Tragicheskaia istoriia doktora Fausta [The Tragedy...
Moscow, K.F. Nekrasov, 1912.
First edition in book form, scarce, of Balmont’s translation of Marlowe’s Faustus, first published over two issues of the journal Zhizn in 1898.
£500
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ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.
Rus’ [Russia] …
Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1923–4.
First edition of the first two parts of an epic novel, which describes rural life in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Three more parts came out over the next 12 years; complete copies are very rare.
£1200
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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
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STAUNFORD [Stanford], William, Sir.
Les Plees del Coron, Divisees in Plusors Titles & Comon Lieux. Per Queux Home Pluis Redement...
[London], Richard Tottell, 1583.
The definitive edition, and that owned by Thomas Jefferson, of the first book devoted entirely to criminal law. First published posthumously in 1557 and based on Bracton and the Year Books, Les Plees deals in turn with offences, jurisdiction, appeals, indictments and defences. The third...
£3000
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[BIBLE, Ecclesiasticus.]
Σοφια Σειραχ sive Ecclesiasticus, Graece ad exemplar Romanum, et Latine ex interpretatione...
Franeker, Gilles van den Rade, 1596.
First editions of two scholarly works by the distinguished Flemish theologian and orientalist Joannes Drusius (1550–1616), who served as professor of oriental languages at Oxford and Leiden, and then of Hebrew at Franeker.
£1250
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MILL, John Stuart, and Edward Livingston YOUMANS.
Новѣйшее образованiе: его истинныя цѣли и требованiя....
St Petersburg, Izdanie “Russkoi knizhnoi torgovli”, 1867.
First edition in Russian of these two works, published in the original that same year.
£100
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SMITH, Albert Richard.
The Story of Mont Blanc …
London, David Bogue, 1853.
First edition of Smith’s famous book on Mont Blanc, a lovely copy formerly in the possession of his sister, Laura Eady.
£1275
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[OBSTETRICS and GYNAECOLOGY.]
‘De morbis mulierum’.
Italy, 1779.
A most interesting unpublished manuscript on diseases in women, examining their causes, symptoms, and cure.
£950
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KAFKA, Franz, and Jean CARRIVE, translator.
L’épée. Deux textes suivis d’un N.B. du traducteur.
Paris, [Imprimerie des 2 Artisans], 1939.
First separate edition in French of Das Schwert, and of an aphorism from Er: Aufzeichnungen aus dem Jahre 1920 (‘Er war früher Teil einer monumentalen Gruppe…’). The translations, by Jean Carrive, first appeared in Giration in July 1939, and are issued here as a tirage à part.
£250
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ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.
...
[Moscow,] “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1927.
First edition, containing three stories: that of the title, Chelovecheskaia dusha (‘Human soul’), and Zvezdy (‘Stars’).
£400
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PONTIFICAL-MISSAL,
Use of Luçon, in Latin, with readings for the Fourth Week of Lent and Holy Thursday in the Temporal;
France (Paris), late fourteenth century.
A rediscovered leaf from the Missal of Etienne de Loypeau, bishop of Luçon, with a miniature by the so-called Master of Death and border decoration attributable to the ‘A Master’ of the Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry.
£17500
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NIEUHOF, Jan; Athanasius KIRCHER; and John OGILBY, translator.
An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United...
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
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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