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  1. [PHILIPPINES and CHINA.]

    Album of one hundred gelatin silver prints of the Philippines and China.

    The Philippines, c. 1915.

    A fascinating album documenting the Philippines – its towns, street scenes, indigenous peoples, and landscapes – in the early days of American colonial rule, likely compiled by an American officer stationed in the islands.

    £1500

  2. POUND, Ezra.

    An Autobiographical Outline.

    [New York], Nadja, (colophon: March) 1980.

    First separate edition, numbered 114 of 226 copies, in an attractive binding by David Sellars.

    £1200

  3. RAIMONDI, Eugenio.

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa.

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626.]

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking hunting plates. The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  4. RICCI, Giovanni, and Ercolano PORTA.

    Storia della missione francescana e del Vicariato Apostolico del Hunan meridionale dalle sue...

    Bologna, Stabilimenti tipografici riuniti, 1925.

    First and only edition of this history of the Franciscan Mission in Southern Hunan, an important copy bound for presentation by the Vicar Apostolic of Southern Hunan to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.

    £750

  5. ROUGEMONT, François de; [Sebastião de MAGALHÃES, translator].

    Relacam do estado politico e espiritual do imperio da China, pellos...

    Lisbon, Joao da Costa, 1672.

    First edition in any language of the Dutch Jesuit François de Rougemont’s history of mid seventeenth-century China, published a year before the Latin original. Inspired to join the Chinese missions after meeting the famed Jesuit sinologist Martino Martini in Louvain, Rougemont arrived in Macao...

    £2500

  6. [SHANGHAI.]

    Shanghai of To-day. A Souvenir Album of fifty Vandyke Gravure Prints of “the Model Settlement”. Introduction by...

    Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Kelly and Walsh, 1930.

    Third edition, revised and enlarged (first 1927 with only thirty-eight plates), of this photobook showing the landmarks of Shanghai, our copy in a deluxe binding (likely for presentation) and with contemporary Shanghai provenance.

    £1250

  7. SICARDO, José.

    Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones...

    Madrid, Francisco Sanz, 1698.

    Rare first edition of this important and comprehensive account of Christian missions to Japan by the Spanish Augustinian José Sicardo (1643–1715).

    £12000

  8. [SINO-VIETNAMESE.]

    ‘朱柏盧家訓 Instructions familières du Dr Tchou-Pou-Lou’.

    [Vietnam?, late nineteenth century.]

    A set of manuscript lessons and exercises in classical Chinese, partly unique and likely compiled by Frenchmen in late nineteenth-century Vietnam.

    £3500

  9. TRAVERS, John.

    A Letter to the Editor of the Courier Newspaper, in Reply to an Article inserted in that Journal of the 22d August,...

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1834.

    Second, expanded edition of this tract on reforming the duties on tea imported from China to Britain, this copy presented to the Sinologist Sir George T. Staunton, member of the Select Committee on Tea Duties and author of the letter appended here, likely with his annotations and corrections; bound...

    £850

  10. [WALEY, Arthur.]

    康熙字典 [Kangxi zidian; ‘The Kangxi Dictionary’].

    Shanghai, Dianshizhai for Jiujingzhai, Guangxu 22 [1894].

    Nineteenth-century Shanghai edition of the Kangxi Dictionary, this set with an autograph note from the great Sinologist and translator Arthur Waley identifying the text for a previous owner.

    £1250

  11. WILLIAMSON, Thomas; Samuel HOWITT, illustrator.

    Oriental Field Sports; being a complete, detailed and accurate Description of the...

    London, J. McCreery for H. R. Young, 1819.

    Second quarto edition, one of the most beautiful of all hunting books, first published in 1805–7.

    £3250

  12. MARKHAM, Sheila.

    A Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade, with an Introduction by Nicolas Barker.

    London, 2007.

    First paperback edition of the first collection of Markham’s interviews with antiquarian booksellers.

    £20

  13. WINES, Enoch Cobb.

    A Peep at China, in Mr. Dunn’s Chinese Collection; with miscellaneous Notices relating to the Institutions...

    Philadelphia, for Nathan Dunn, 1839.

    Scarce first edition of a guide to the remarkable collection of Chinese artefacts accumulated by the American businessman Nathan Dunn (1782–1844).

    £1250

  14. [WUHAN.]

    武汉影集 [Wuhan yingji; ‘Wuhan Album’].

    Wuhan, 国营长虹摄影图片社 [State Changhong Photographic Agency], [1950s].

    Exceptionally rare promotional photobook depicting views of Wuhan with a striking cover and twelve gelatin silver prints tipped in.

    £150

  15. YAMAZAKI Kane’ichirō 山崎 鋆一郎.

    满洲の展望 [Manshū no tenbō, i.e. Views of Manchuria].

    Dalian, Kane’ichirō Yamazaki for Kinjirō Hamai, 10 May Shōwa 7 [1932].

    A highly illustrated photobook on Manchuria published soon after the Japanese invasion.

    £650

  16. ARENA, Antoine.

    Antonius de Arena Provençalis de bragardissima villa de Soleriis ad suos compagnones, qui sunt de persona friantes,...

    London [i.e. Paris, Joseph-Gérard Barbou], 1758.

    A fine copy of the 1758 edition of this popular macaronic poem by the Provençal poet Arena (c. 1508–63), first published in 1528, an early example of the genre and an important primary source for the basse-dance, a court dance performed in France and England between 1450 and 1550.

    £1100

  17. ARNOLD, Edwin, Sir.

    Enfin: A Poem, hitherto unpublished ...

    New York, Thomas Perry Stricker for Julian Biddulph Arnold, February 1936.

    First edition, one of only fifty copies hand-printed by the self-taught printer Thomas Perry Stricker, presented by the editor – the author’s son – and accompanied by his autograph note regarding the printing and planned circulation of the poem.

    £350

  18. BEARDSLEY, Aubrey, art editor; Henry HARLAND, literary editor

    The Yellow Book.  An Illustrated Quarterly.  Volume...

    London [– & New York], Elkin Mathews & John Lane [– John Lane, The Bodley Head], and Boston, Copeland & Day, April 1894 [− April 1897]. 

    An excellent set of the first edition of The Yellow Book, the decade-defining illustrated quarterly that captured the spirit of decadence and aestheticism and gave its name to ‘the Yellow Nineties’. 

    £1750

  19. BLANFORD, William Thomas.

    Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia, made during the Progress of the British Expedition...

    London, Macmillan and Co., 1870.

    First edition of the geologist and naturalist William Thomas Blanford’s study of Abyssinian flora and fauna, undertaken during Britain’s military expedition through the country in 1868 and supplemented by hand-coloured lithographic plates, including those of bird species newly discovered by the...

    £300

  20. BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett.

    Poems before Congress …

    London, [Bradbury and Evans for] Chapman and Hall, 1860.

    First edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’), published a year before her death.

    £200