Search results
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FLORIAN, Jean-Pierre Claris de.
‘Stella a pastoral Romance … Translated from the French’.
[?England, early nineteenth century.]
An apparently unpublished manuscript translation of Florian’s popular romance Estelle (1788), a pastoral set in the Cévennes in the fifteenth century; it is in prose but regularly interspersed with poetry. There were two published English translations: Stella, a pastoral Romance...
£950
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[GAMES AND RECREATION.]
Trattato de’ giochi e de’ divertimenti permessi, o proibiti ai Cristiani.
Rome, Michel'Angelo Barbiellini, 1768.
First edition of a treatise on games and recreation compiled in Rome by the publisher Barbiellini, with the purpose of providing a comprehensive ethical evaluation of all manner of diversions.
£650
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MEFFRET, Johann.
Sermones Meffreth alias Ortulus regine de tempore. Pars hyemalis.
[Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, not after 1485.]
A volume of sermons with early English annotations, in a binding featuring tools attributed to an early Cambridge workshop known as the Unicorn Binder.
£6500
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PASSI, Carlo.
La selva di varia istoria … la quale avanti andava attorno stampata sotto nome finto di Annotationi dell’Infortunio,...
Venice, Altobello Salicato, 1572.
An unsophisticated copy of Passi and Ruscelli’s elaborations and explanations of Paolo Giovio’s history of his own time, bound in contemporary limp vellum reusing manuscript waste.
£500
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‘RIZZA, Zanclevio’, pseud. [i.e. Vincenzo LAZZARI GUERRA], editor and contributor.
Piccola raccolta di...
‘Medina’ [i.e. Mori], ‘Frangipane Mozza-Sai’ [i.e. Michelini e Tetoldini], 1788.
A very rare collection of satirical verses by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian authors, published under a false Medina imprint, edited and with some poems previously unpublished by ‘Zanclevio Rizza’, now for the first time identified with Vincenzo Lazzari Guerra.
£500
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ROCCA, Bernardino.
De’ discorsi di guerra … libri Quattro, dove s’insegna a’ capitani, et soldati il modo di condurre esserciti,...
Venice, Damiano Zenaro, 1582.
First edition of Rocca’s military treatise, from the library of the world’s oldest defence and security think tank.
£450
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BATTY, John.
The Scope and Charm of antiquarian Study … Revised and enlarged …
London, George Redway, 1883.
First edition of The Liberty of independent historical research, second edition of The Scope and Charm of Antiquarian Study.
‘What is the use of bothering your head about the past?’ asks John Batty, a Yorkshire antiquary; he provides an answer in this beguilingly written guide...£150
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CORNEILLE, Thomas.
Il Pirro, tragedia … tradotta dal francese e recitata da’ signori cavalieri del Collegio Clementino nelle...
Bologna, Longhi, [1700?].
A very uncommon set of eight early translations by Thomas Corneille (1625–1709), the younger brother of Pierre, 'le Grand Corneille', published in the context of the Italian Accademie.
£750
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CLEVELAND, John.
With Additions, never before printed …
London, Printed by S. G. for John Williams … 1665.
The first title here was one of the most popular collections of mid-seventeenth century verse, with seventeen editions in the first eighteen years from 1651. At the end are some short prose pieces including ‘The Character of a Diurnal-Maker’. Editions after 1659 include ‘Additions’: 33 new poems...
£650
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‘SANCTA CLARA, Abraham a’, i.e. Johann Ulrich MEGERLE.
Coraggio e viltà, l’uno nella virtù, l’altra nel vizio....
Trento, Giovanni Parone, 1717.
Scarce first and only Italian edition of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s emblematic moral treatise Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt, printed in Trento with one hundred striking – albeit somewhat provincial – woodcuts after the engravings in the first German edition of 1707.
£2250
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ZACHARIÄ, Just Friedrich Wilhelm.
Les quatre parties du jour, poëme traduit de l’allemand de M. Zacharie.
Paris, J. B. G. Musier fils, 1769.
First edition in French of this proto-Romantic poem on the times of day, splendidly bound with the arms of its dedicatee, the mentally ill Christian VII of Denmark and Norway.
£1500
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ANDERSEN, Hendrik Christian.
Création d’un centre mondial de communication.
Paris, 1913.
First French editions of both parts of this ambitious urban planning project envisioning a utopian world capital, in which art and architecture would function as vehicles of world peace.
£2250
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[‘HYSON, Timothy’, pseud. Thomas LOWNDES].
A Letter to Mr. Richard Twining, Tea Dealer, and One of the Candidates for...
London, [C. Roworth] for the author, 1827.
Second edition of the Letter to Mr Richard Twining, a public denunciation of the candidacy of the tea merchant Richard Twining (1749-1824) for a directorship of the East India Company in 1810. Twining, who had already been instrumental in the development of tea prices and taxation for many...
£250
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SAY, Jean-Baptiste.
Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.
Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].
Rare first edition of Say’s utopia, our copy presented to a politician from Calvados, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Which institutions are capable of establishing morality among a people?’. Say treats...
£2500
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[MAISTRE, Xavier de.]
Voyage autour de ma chambre par M. le Chev. X*** *** O. A. S. D. S. M. S. [Officier au service de Sa Majesté...
Turin, 1794 [Lausanne, Isaac Hignou, 1795].
First edition, rare, of the celebrated fantasy novel Voyage around my Room, a parody of the grand travel narrative tradition, written by Xavier de Maistre (1763–1852), a Savoyard officer in the army of the Kingdom of Piedmont–Sardinia, during the forty-two days he spent in solitary confinement...
£2800
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[DE LA GUTHÈRE.]
Du bon usage des eaux de Baignieres.
Agen, Antoine Bru … 1680.
Scarce second edition, revised, a guide to the waters at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in southwest France by a local physician, with a new dedication to the ten-year-old Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc de Maine (1670–1736), son of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan.
£600
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[FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.]
Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...
Ghent, F.& R. Buyck, 1912.
First separate edition, seemingly unrecorded, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium.
£195
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[BYRON, George Gordon, Lord.]
Edward FINDEN, illustrator. [Landscape and Portrait Illustrations of Byron.]
[London, John Murray, 1833–4.]
Finden’s attractive engraved illustrations to the works of Byron, taken after drawings and paintings by Turner, Stanfield, Weston, and others, and his portraits of the Romantics after paintings in the Murrays’ collection, here with an autograph letter from the engraver to the Edinburgh publishers...
£850
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DONALDSON, Florence.
Lepcha Land or six Weeks in the Sikhim Himalayas ... With a Map showing Route, and 106 Illustrations. Photographs...
London, Sampson Low Marston & Company, 1900.
First edition of Florence Donaldson’s account of the Lepcha (or Rong) people of the Himalayan state of Sikkim in India, our copy from the library of the botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the first European permitted to trek through Sikkim.
£400
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KAVAN, Anna; Karl Theodor BLUTH.
The Horse’s Tale.
London, Gaberbocchus Press, [1949].
Uncommon first edition of this novel authored jointly by Kavan and her psychiatrist and friend Karl Theodor Bluth, written from the perspective of an ex-circus horse trying to find a place in postwar society and artistic circles, a criticism of prevailing trends in 1940s psychiatric treatment.
£850