Search results
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[CARTHUSIANS. GUIGO DE CASTRO, compiler.]
Repertorium statutoru[m] ordinis cartusiensis per ordinem alphabeti.
Basel, Johann Amerbach, 1510.
First printed edition of the Statutes of the Carthusian Order, printed at the expense of the editor, Gregor Reisch (c. 1467–1525), author of the Margarita philosophica, for distribution to members of the Order only.
£7500
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[CHOIRBOOK.]
Large historiated initial ‘I’.
Italy (Umbria), c. 1300.
A very elegant initial in a style characteristic of Umbrian illumination of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It can be compared to the oeuvres of the First Master of the Gubbio Choir Books and the Master of the Deruta-Salerno Missals, the latter named after two Missals made...
£4500
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COLONNA, Fabio.
Φυτοβασανος, sive Plantarum aliquot historia …
Naples, Orazio Salviani, 1592.
First edition, a landmark in botanical illustration, ‘the first strictly botanical book with intaglio prints’ (Blunt).
£4000
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DU HALDE, Jean-Baptiste.
A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet,...
London, T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738 [–1741].
The first complete English translation of Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description géographique … de l’Empire de la Chine (1735), the ‘Bible of European sinophilia’ (Löwendahl). Based on the reports of major Jesuit missionaries, and shaped by the earlier Historia of Martini...
£15000
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EUCLID.
Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.
Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).
£18000
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EUSEBIUS CAESARIENSIS; RUFINUS AQUILEIENSIS, translator.
Historia ecclesiastica.
Rome, Johannes Philippus de Lignamine, 15 May 1476.
The Syston Park copy of the earliest history of the Christian Church, written in the early fourth century; this is probably the third edition. It was translated into Latin in the early fifth century by Rufinus of Aquileia, who extended the text down to the time of Theodosius at the end of the...
£4500
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HAKLUYT, Richard.
The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most...
London, ‘George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie’, 1589.
First edition, a fine copy, with the world map, in a strictly contemporary London binding, of the first collection of English voyages.
£350000
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HAKLUYT, Richard.
The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-Land,...
London, George Bishop, Ralph Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598 [–1600].
Second edition, first issue of ‘Hakluyt’s monumental masterpiece, and the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period’ (Penrose), complete with the section on the conquest of Cadiz by Essex (vol. I, pp. 607-619) ordered suppressed by Elizabeth I in 1599 (in ESTC state 1a).
£20000
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HUGO, Victor.
Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].
Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.
First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.
£7500
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[AGRICULTURE.] BEIJING MUNICIPAL BUREAU FOR AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.
农业机械安全生产挂图 [Nongye jixie anquan shengchan...
[Beijing], China Agriculture Press for Xinhua Bookshop, [late 1970s].
Very rare complete set of posters promoting the modernisation of agriculture at the outset of China’s economic reform.
£1750
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[CHINA.]
Notes of a Journey from Canton to Wu-chow-fu.
S.l., [c. 1862].
Extremely rare account of an early journey by a Westerner into the interior regions of China, navigating the Xi river upstream from Guangzhou to Wuzhou.
£450
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[GO Keitai 吳啓太 and TEI Eihō 鄭永邦.]
官話指南 [Guanhua zhinan; ‘A Guide to Mandarin’].
Kiukiang [Jiujiang], Central China Press, 1893.
Very rare edition of this guide to Mandarin printed by a Methodist missionary press in Kiukiang (Jiujiang).
£1750
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FLOWER, Stanley Smyth.
Album of 14 watercolours of India and Malaya.
India and Malaya, October 1894 to August 1895.
A charming album of vivid watercolour views of India and Malaysia, painted by a British zoologist and army officer during his time serving in India and the Straits Settlement.
£750
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IDES, E[vert] Ysbrants.
Three Years Travels from Moscow over-land to China: thro’ Great Ustiga, Siriania, Permia, Sibiria, Daour,...
London, W. Freeman, J. Walthoe, T. Newborough, J. Nicholson, and R. Parker, 1706.
First edition in English of this important account of an early embassy to China, our copy from the library of Sir Erasmus Gower, commander of the Macartney Embassy, Britain’s first and pivotal delegation to the Qing Empire.
£2750
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[IRWIN, Eyles.]
Eastern Eclogues; written during a Tour through Arabia, Egypt, and other Parts of Asia and Africa, in the Year...
London, for J. Dodsley, 1780.
First edition of these travel-inspired poems by the Calcutta-born East India Company servant Eyles Irwin (1751–1817), composed during his journey from India to England in 1777, and containing several interesting references to the British presence in India.
£850
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JOHNSON, Samuel.
A Dictionary of the English Language: in which the Words are deduced from their Originals, and illustrated in...
London, W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, T. and T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, A. Millar, and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755.
First edition of ‘the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography’ (PMM), this copy preserving 19D and 24O both in the first state.
£20000
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KEATS, John.
Endymion. A poetic romance … with engravings by John Buckland-Wright.
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, [1947].
No. 200 of 500 copies of the Golden Cockerel Endymion (the first 100 specially bound in full vellum), also found in brown buckram rather than red as here; Buckland-Wright’s greatest work and one of the most important Golden Cockerel publications, begun in 1943 but not completed until...
£1750
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KOO, T. Z. [Tsu-Jen KU].
Songs of Cathay. An Anthology of Songs current in various Parts of China among her People.
Shanghai, Association Press, [1931].
First edition, fourth impression, of a collection of twenty-five traditional Chinese songs compiled by the Chinese Christian leader Tsu-Jen Ku (1887–1971).
£275
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LATHAM, Simon.
Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training...
London, Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Harison, 1633.
First collected edition (third edition of volume I, originally published in 1614 and reissued in 1615, second edition of volume II, originally published in 1618).
£8500
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LEVEY, Michael.
The later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen … second edition.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Revised second edition of Levey’s catalogue of the later Italian paintings in the Royal Collection, from Carracci to Zuccarelli and including the largest group of Canalettos in the world, a specially bound duplicate of Elizabeth II’s presentation copy.
£475