DRYDEN, John.

Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.

First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...

£400

COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].

The Watchman. No. I [III, IV]. Tuesday, March 1 [17, 25], 1796. Published by the Author …

Bristol: and sold by the Booksellers and Newscarriers in Town and Country.

Three (of ten) issues of The Watchman, Coleridge’s first journalistic endeavour, very rare: published in March to May 1796.

£750

JOHNSON, Samuel.

Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are added some Poems never before printed. Published...

… London: Printed for A. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1788.

First edition. Mrs Piozzi, when she was Mrs Thrale, was Johnson’s principal correspondent for a decade; her edition of Johnson’s letters is the ‘first publication and canonization of a large body of his correspondence’ (Oxford DNB). The Letters sold well, notwithstanding some complaints of manipulative...

£650

[SMOLLETT, Tobias].

The Adventures of Roderick Random … in two Volumes … The second Edition.

London: Printed for J. Osborn … 1748.

Second edition, with ‘major imaginative changes’, and frontispieces which appear here for the first time. Even though there were only a few weeks between the first and second editions, Smollett found time to make a number of significant corrections in the text, on average about one substantive change...

£500

ROSCOMMON, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of.

Poems … to which is added an Essay on Poetry, by the Earl of Mulgrave, now Duke of Buckingham....

London: Printed for J. Tonson … 1717.

First edition of this collection, notable for Richard Duke’s unfinished Review, a vehement satire in response to, and in the allegorical manner of, Absalom and Achitophel, and featuring Dryden as one of the figures satirised. According to Tonson in the preface, it was written ‘a little after the...

£400

PRIOR, Matthew.

Poems on several Occasions.

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1709.

First authorised edition, preceded by Curll’s pirated collection of 1707. In the preface Prior complains that in Curll’s edition poems by other authors have been misattributed to him and that some of his own poems are ‘transcribed … so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine’....

£400

POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:

from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...

Printed in the Year 1702

Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...

£425

HALIFAX, George Savile, Marquis of.

Miscellanies … viz. I. Advice to a Daughter. II. The Character of a Trimmer. III. The Anatomy...

London: Printed for Matt. Gillyflower … 1700.

First edition, the issue without the two rows of ornaments to the title-page, and with Q4-R3 uncancelled. Defoe’s Letter to a Dissenter (first published 1688) rather than Halifax’s was printed in error on leaves Q4-R3, and these leaves are cancelled in later issues (in the present copy Q4 is torn...

£450

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor.

Biographia Literaria; or biographical Sketches of my literary Life and Opinions … Vol I[-II].

London: Rest Fenner … 1817.

First edition. Coleridge’s estimates of contemporary German poets and philosophers are justly celebrated, and the long autobiographical passages and critical analyses of Wordsworth and of Lyrical Ballads are of primary interest. ‘Though maddeningly unsystematic in structure, the book is a touchstone...

£450

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

OVERBURY, Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife. With Additions of new Characters, and many other Witty Conceits never before...

London, Printed by John Haviland, for A. Crooke … 1638.

Sixteenth edition of the most popular character book of the early seventeenth century.

£600

ALVAREZ DE ARENALES, Jose.

Noticias historicas y descriptivas sobre el gran pais del Chaco y Rio Bermejo; con observaciones relativas...

Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del Plata], 1850.

Rare second edition, after the first of 1833, of this analysis of the Chaco and Rio Bermejo regions of Paraguay, divided into three sections. The first covers the geography, population and natural history of the area, the second relates the conquest of Paraguay and Peru, containing extracts from various...

£100

BARDUZZI, Bernardino.

A Letter in Praise of Verona [1489]. In the original Latin Text with an English Translation by Betty Radice.

Verona, [Officina Bodoni,] 1974.

First edition, No. 34 of 150 copies: an elegant facsimile reprint of one of Verona’s rarest incunables. Barduzzi’s eulogistic letter to Giovanni Nesi was first printed in 1489 by Paulus Fridenperger. The Latin text is followed here by an English translation and a biographical postscript by Giovanni...

£375

BEARDÉ DE L’ABBAYE.

Essays in agriculture: or, a variety of useful hints, for its improvement, with respect to air, water, earth,...

London, T. Carnan, 1776.

First and only edition in English. Little is known of Beardé; born at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he won the 1766 prize offered by the Agricultural Society of Saint Petersburg with his Essay in answer to the question ‘Est-il plus avantageux à un état que le paysan possède en propre...

£200

BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.

Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à nos jours, suivie...

Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.

First edition of ‘the first major history of political economy’ (The New Palgrave). Blanqui (1798–1854) taught at the Institution Massin, where he came into contact with J. B. Say, who was greatly impressed by him. In 1833, he succeeded Say as holder of the chair of political and industrial economy...

£125

CAGNAZZI, Luca de Samuele.

Analisi dell’ economia privata e pubblica degli antichi relativamente a quella de’ moderni …

Naples, Società filomatica, 1830.

First edition. Cagnazzi (1764–1852) was originally a teacher of mathematics by profession, receiving a professorship at Naples in 1806. ‘His life was full of trouble; having been concerned in political intrigues, he had to flee from Naples and, after wandering, nearly always on foot, through Italy...

£125

GEE, Joshua.

The trade and navigation of Great-Britain considered: shewing that the surest way for a nation to increase in riches,...

London, A. Bettesworth, C. Hitch … and S. Birt, 1738.

Fourth edition of Gee’s most important work, first published in 1729. Written at a time of declining exports, decaying agriculture and high unemployment Trade and navigation discusses foreign trade with strong protectionist tendencies. Gee is keen to improve trade with the North American colonies,...

£250

[ALEXANDRIA, Battle of, 1801.]

Plan of the action of the 21st of March fought near Alexandria by the French under Gn. Menou and...

A detailed plan accurately illustrating the movements of the British and French armies at the battle of Alexandria. In it, Sir Ralph Abercrombie was fatally wounded but the action was considered a British victory as the French were forced out of Egypt soon after. This plan is signed ‘J. W. Hamilton’.

£650

HOLLANDER, Jacob Harry.

Economic Liberalism.

New York and Cincinnati, The Abingdon Press, [1925].

First edition, dedicated ‘to the memory of Herbert B. Adams, who first taught me the meaning of liberalism’.

£50

ISHERWOOD, Christopher.

Berlin Stories.

New York: New Directions, [1945].

First American edition to combine the two Berlin novels, originally published by the Hogarth Press as Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, in 1935 and 1939 respectively.

£150