Search results
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GOFFE, Thomas.
The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First. A Tragedie.
London, Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett for Richard Meighen, 1632.
First edition of this violent Near Eastern tragedy influenced by Marlowe and Shakespeare, this copy with rare and unrecorded issue points.
£3000
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CULPEPER, Thomas.
The English Physician enlarged: with three hundred, sixty, and nine Medicines made of English Herbs that were...
London, Peter Cole, 1653.
Second (first octavo) edition, enlarged with ‘very many Additions to every Sheet’, of Culpeper’s magnum opus, The English Physician (1652), this copy from the library of Thomas Elwood (1639–1714), the Quaker friend of John Milton who provided him with the cottage at Chalfont St Giles...
£1850
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[BECKFORD, William.]
Vathek, conte arabe.
Paris, Chez Poinçot ... 1787.
First Paris edition of Beckford’s Gothic masterpiece in the original French, so considerably revised from the Lausanne edition (also 1787) as to amount to ‘almost a new version’ (Chapman & Hodgkin, p. 127). Beckford also took the opportunity to expand the notes from one to twenty-four pages.
£3250
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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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[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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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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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
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[GIRALDI, Giovanni Battista.]
Giuditio sopra la tragedia di Canace et Macareo con molte utili considerationi circa l’arte tragica,...
(Colophon:) Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi, 4 May 1550.
First edition of this criticism, in the form of a dialogue, of Speroni’s play Canace et Macareo, which sparked one of the most remarkable literary debates of the time. The text was previously attributed to Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, but the authorship of Giraldi is now generally accepted....
£650
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ROTH, Henry.
Call it Sleep.
London, Michael Joseph, 1963.
First UK edition of Roth’s precocious masterpiece, generally regarded as the finest novel of Jewish immigration to America before and after the turn of the century.
£250
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GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von; Thomas HOLCROFT, translator.
Herman and Dorothea. A Poem, from the German …
London, Biggs and Cottle (Bristol), for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1801.
First edition in English of Hermann und Dorothea (1798), translated into verse by the radical, novelist, and friend of Godwin, Thomas Holcroft. Goethe’s epic, set against the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, was immensely popular in its day; Goethe praised Holcroft’s rendition...
£350
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[JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.]
The Boke of Justices of Peas the Charge with all the Processe of the Cessions, Warrantes Supercedias &...
[Colophon: London, Richard Pynson], [1505–6?].
First edition(?), very rare, of the first printed guide for Justices of the Peace, issued with a short guide to land law.
£27500
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ROUGEMONT, François de; [Sebastião de MAGALHÃES, translator].
Relacam do estado politico e espiritual do imperio da China, pellos...
Lisbon, Joao da Costa, 1672.
Portuguese translation, the first appearance of the text, 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,...
£2500
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NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández.
Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China. Descripcion breve...
Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676.
Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689).
£4750
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[CARTOUCHE.]
The Life and Actions of Lewis Dominique Cartouche: who was broke alive upon the Wheel at Paris, Nov. 28. 1721. N.S....
London, printed for J. Roberts … 1722.
First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, of this life of the French highwayman Louis Dominique Bourguignon, alias ‘Cartouche’, broken on the wheel in 1721.
£1750
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CHALKHILL, John.
Thealma and Clearchus. A pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq;...
London, Printed for Benj. Tooke … 1683.
First edition of Chalkhill’s unfinished pastoral poem, with the corrected state of the title, designating the author as ‘an acquaintant and friend of Edmund [originally ‘Edward’] Spencer’.
£1850
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[CHAPBOOK.]
Narrow Escape from the Punishment of Death, or, The Case of John Taylor and John Burton, who were left for Execution...
London: Printed by Augustus Applegath and Edward Cowper … Sold by F. Collins … and Evans and Sons … [c. 1820–1826].
An uncommon early chapbook from the press of Augustus Applegath (1788–1871), interpreting the real-life stay of execution for two sheep-stealers as an act of divine providence.
£225
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COUPÉ, Jacques-Michel.
De la moralité des sépultures et de leur police ...
Paris, Calixte Vollant, an IX [1800–1801].
A scarce and most interesting pamphlet on dealing with the dead, written in the aftermath of the French Revolution by the cleric and politician Jacques-Michel Coupé (1737–1809), a member of the Club des Jacobins who had voted for the death of Louis XVI as a deputy of the National Convention.
£475
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[DEATH CERTIFICATES.]
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
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[FRANKLAND, William.]
A large collection of manuscript correspondence relating to the death of William Frankland.
[Manchester, Slaidburn, and Blackburn, June 1886–May 1888].
An interesting archive relating to the death of William Frankland, a Lancashire railway worker killed in a shunting accident, consisting largely of manuscript correspondence from his father’s landlords – two solicitors evidently working pro bono – fighting to obtain an insurance payout from...
£650