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  1. [CALLIGRAPHIC SCORES.]

    Two anonymous manuscript scores.

    London, 1820s.

    Two charming productions, sent as anonymous gifts, presumably to the wife or daughter(s) of Col. Thomas Nuttall (or Nuthall) (d. 1829) of the Madras Cavalry.

    £850

  2. CAMPBELL, Thomas.

    Gertrude of Wyoming; a Pennsylvanian Tale. And other Poems.

    London, T. Bensley, for the Author ... 1809.

    First edition of Campbell’s most re-printed poem, based on a massacre of American patriots by British forces and their Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) allies in 1778. Its portrayal of ‘pastoral innocence evoked only to be destroyed by the savagery of war (embodied in this case by Mohawk allies of...

    £650

  3. DE MOIVRE, Abraham.

    The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.

    London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.

    First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.

    £14000

  4. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

    £6500

  5. [JOHNSON, Samuel.] 

    The Prince of Abissinia.  A Tale … 

    London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley … and W. Johnston … 1759. 

    First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral. 

    £4500

  6. [JUVENILE.]

    A Token of Remembrance from a Mother to her absent Children, comprising simple Tales, Dialogues, and easy Poetry, adapted...

    London, William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill, 1822.

    First edition of this collection of moral tales and poetry for children, compiled by a mother for her young daughter, from the lending library of the newly established Coast Guard.

    £350

  7. LEE, Edwin.

    The Principal Baths of Germany [– The Baths of Nassau Baden and the adjacent Districts; – The Baths of central...

    London, Whittaker & Cp., Paris, Galignani & Cp., and Frankfurt & Wiesbaden, Charles Jugel 1840 [– 1841].

    First edition, scarce, of Edwin Lee’s two-volume survey of palliative bathing spots in Germany, including an appendix on the ‘Cold Water Cure’, a combination of induced sweating and cold-water therapy ‘of late very much in vogue’ (appendix).

    £350

  8. MACDONALD, Alexander.

    ‘Instructions and regulations for the formations and movements of horse artillery by Captain A: Macdonald...

    [England, 1827.]

    Scarce manuscript of an unpublished work on the formations and movements of horse artillery by the distinguished soldier and Waterloo veteran Major-General Alexander Macdonald CB (1776–1840), illustrated with twenty-five coloured diagrams.

    £1500

  9. MAUGHAM, William Somerset; Graham SUTHERLAN, illustrator .

    Cakes and Ale, or the Skeleton in the Cupboard. With an original...

    London, [Windmill Press for] William Heinemann, [1954].

    No. 132 of 1000 copies, signed by both author and artist. Cakes and Ale (1930) was Maugham’s favourite work; this limited edition was published in honour of his eightieth birthday.

    £350

  10. DODSON, Owen.

    ‘Black Mother Praying’ …

    Reprinted from Common Ground. [1944?].

    Very rare separate printing of Dodson’s ‘Black Mother Praying’, re-printed (but not quite an offprint) from the periodical Common Ground, Winter 1944, where it was titled ‘Black Mother praying in the Summer of 1943’ and was dedicated to ‘Negro mothers everywhere’. ‘Black Mother...

    £150

  11. [ABC.]

    Petite géographie amusante abécédaire nouveau offrant pour chaque lettre de l’alphabet une carte coloriée avec l’explication...

    C. Lehuby, ‘Librairie de l’enfance et de la jeunesse’, [1851].

    A charming and very rare ABC intended to teach children European geography, from A for Allemagne to Z for Zara in Dalmatia, published just a few years after the upheavals of the revolutions of 1848.

    £3750

  12. [DEATH.]

    Certificates recording the deaths of three women.

    Rome, 1762–1819.

    An interesting set of death certificates for three female residents of Rome, issued respectively by the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the hospital of San Salvatore (now San Giovanni in Laterano).

    £750

  13. WYCHERLEY, William.

    The Posthumous Works … in Prose and Verse. Faithfully publish’d from his original Manuscripts, by Mr. Theobald....

    London: Printed for A. Bettesworth, J. Osborn, W. Mears, W. and J. Innys, J. Peele, T. Woodward; and F. Clay. 1728.

    First edition of an important collection, comprising 308 maxims, one short essay and a large number of previously unpublished poems (the third paginated sequence), based on manuscripts acquired from Captain Thomas Shrimpton, Wycherley’s sole executor.

    £850

  14. GIGLI, Mariano.

    Esperimento del nobile giovinetto Francesco Piazzi d’anni dieci non compiuti sulle sette lingue italiana, francese,...

    Milan, Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1818.

    First and only edition, rare, of a series of 450 translation exercises in French, Spanish, English, German, Latin, Greek, and Italian, posed to the ten-year-old linguistic prodigy Francesco Piazzi by his tutor as the culmination of his highly experimental method of linguistic instruction.

    £1250

  15. [BREWER, George.]

    The Siamese Tales, being a Collection of Stories told to the Son of the Mandarin Sam-Sib, for the Purpose of...

    London, Vernor & Hood and Champante & Whitrow, 1796.

    First edition of an anonymously published collection of ‘Siamese tales’, written as fables to increase their appeal to children.

    £950

  16. BOUTMY, C.

    ‘Exercitium quotidianum dedicatum perillustri domino domino vice comiti de Haro et d’Enghien &c a C. Boutmy 1760’.

    [Belgium, 1760.]

    An attractively bound unpublished devotional manual composed by one C. Boutmy (unidentified) for his patron Henri vicomte de Haro et d’Enghien.

    £450

  17. GOELICKE, Andreas Ottomar.

    Disputatio physica experimentalis exhibens aliquot naturae phaenomena, quae per attractionem vulgo fieri...

    Halle, Johann Montag, [1704].

    Scarce academic disputation on experimental physics led by the German physician and professor Andreas Ottomar Goelicke (1671–1744).

    £275

  18. ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.

    Histoire de la mission des peres Capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...

    Paris, François Huby, 1614.

    Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy, of the first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed...

    £30000

  19. [RICHARDSON, Jonathan.]

    The general Address (in two Parts) of the Outinian Lecturer to his Auditors…

    London, Printed by W. Nicol, late Bulmer & Co., 1822.

    Rare first edition of a revised version of the valedictory lecture given by the Outinian Society on 31 December 1818 to mark the centenary of the death of William Penn (1644–1717), founder of the Pennsylvania Colony, drawing on information supplied by the Society’s founder, Penn’s grandson.

    £1600

  20. [CURLL, Edmund, editor.]

    Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne, M.A. by several Hands.

    London, Printed in the Year 1736.

    First separate edition, amusing but in no way ‘impartial’, of this biography of the age’s leading antiquary, Thomas Hearne (1678–1735).

    £450