[BALDELLI, Giovanni Battista].

Elogio di Niccolò Machiavelli.

Londra, 1794. 

Uncommon first edition of this speech in praise of Machiavelli, given to the Reale Accademia Fiorentina on 7 August 1794 by the Florentine soldier, politician, and historian Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni (1766–1831).

£325

LOCKE, John, and Francis BACON.

The conduct of the understanding. Essays, moral, economical, & political.

London, C. Daly, [c.1850].

A good copy of this surprisingly rare printing of two works by Locke and Bacon, printed by Charles Daly, who also printed works by, inter alia, Coleridge, Combe, and Swift. One issue had appeared in 1841, with the address of Red Lion Square; the current issue is undated, with an address in Greville Street,...

£125

KRUG, Leopold.

Abriss der Staatsökonomie oder Staatswirtschaftslehre.

Berlin, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1808.

Rare first edition. Krug was a civil servant whose writings on political economy and statistics had to be carved out of ‘the odd spare hour’. From 1805 to 1834 he was heavily involved in the development and expansion of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, during which time he conducted numerous statistical...

£350

KIPLING, Rudyard (1865-1936).

The Seven Seas.

London, Methuen, 1896.

One of 150 copies printed on handmade paper of the first English edition of Kipling’s anthology. This copy from the library of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her biographers concur in singling out Kipling as her best-loved poet, and not just on the grounds of her many assertions. In the...

£3750

KING, John, barrister at law.

A Report of the Cases of the King v. Wright, and the King v. De Yonge, who were severally tried for...

Butterworth, and J. Cooke (Dublin), 1811.

?First edition. The question of forgeries, which were punishable by death, was an important one during the debates; it gave an argument to the bullionists.

£100

[QUARITCH.]

Guillaume Postel (1510–1581).

Quaritch, 2006.

A catalogue of a collection of the works of the Renaissance scholar and Arabist, Guillaume Postel. ‘Not only does it include editions of quite exceptional rarity, to be found in few libraries on either side of the Atlantic, but it illustrates every moment of Postel’s extraordinary career and...

£60

BARTOLI, Adolfo.

Scenari inediti della Commedia dell’arte. Contributo alla storia del teatro popolare italiano.

Florence, Sansoni, 1880.

Rare first edition, one of only 350 copies, of a foundational source for the study of Commedia dell’Arte. The exceptionally well-loved and widely-performed form of drama is the subject of the author’s pioneering study: he examines tropes, characters, plots, structures and lines of ‘scenarios’...

£500

GUAZZO, Marco.

Historie di M. Marco Guazzo di tutti i fatti degni di memoria nel mondo successi dal 1524 sino a l’anno 1549....

Venice, Giolito, 1549.

First edition thus, this copy owned by the future Pope Clement XII, of a remarkable history of recent and contemporary events, first published in 1540 and here updated by almost ten years, resuming the account of world event and Italian politics and including references to American history from 1522.

£3600

MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.

A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...

[Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.

First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.

£125

JEVONS, William Stanley.

La moneta ed il meccanismo dello scambio.

Milan, Fratelli Dumolard, 1876.

First Italian edition of ‘a most readable volume’ (DNB), written quite late in Jevons’s life and published in English the previous year as part of The International Scientific Series. ‘In preparing this volume, I have attempted to write a descriptive essay on the past and present monetary systems...

£50

[ISELIN, Isaak]. [WANDALL, Peder Topp trans.]

Philosophiske og Patriotiske Drømme af en Menneskeven. Oversatte af Peder Topp Wandall.

Copenhagen, Aug. Frid. Stein, 1774.

First Danish edition of Iselin’s earliest work, the very successful Filosofische und patriotische Träume. First published in 1755, a couple of years after his deeply affecting journey to France, having met among others Rousseau, Fontenelle and Buffon. His reformist version of utopia, a response to...

£250

[INDUSTRIOUS POOR, Charitable Corporation for the Relief of.]

The present state of the unhappy sufferers of the Charitable Corporation...

London, [n.p.], 1733.

First and only edition of an anonymous plea to Parliament for the rescue of the Charitable Corporation for the Relief of the Industrious Poor, a pawnbroker which granted credit at low interest to the ‘deserving poor’ who left a pledge. Founded in 1707, in the 1720s the Corporation came under scrutiny...

£250

HURRY, Thomas.

Tables of interest, from one pound to five hundred millions, for one day; by which the interest for any sum of money...

[Yarmouth], Printed for the author, and sold by Messrs. Robinson, London; and Downes and March, Yarmouth, 1786.

One of two editions published in 1786, the other one undated, ESTC does not give any precedence. Tables for calculating interest at a quarter, half, three-quarters, three, four, and five percent; intended as a quick reference for bankers and merchants. Hurry precedes his tables with four pages of example...

£150

[HILLER, Johann Adam, editor].

Anecdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter französischer, deutscher, italienischer, holländischer...

Leipzig, Lankisch, 1762.

Scarce first edition of Hiller’s two-volume collection of literary, philosophical and historical anecdotes. The editor’s note at the end mentions the contemporary publication of a French work of similar inspiration, and states the editor’s intention to translate it and publish it as a sequel to...

£175

HERYNG, Zygmunt.

Teorja i praktyka ekonomji.

[Warsaw, G. Centnerszwer], 1897.

First edition, very rare, of Heryng’s Theory and practice of economics. Zygmunt Heryng, Polish economist and political activist, was deeply concerned with economics as a science. He saw it as a systematic and conscious pursuit of efficiency in resource allocation in relation to targets. One of the...

£150

[HENRI IV.]

Edict du roy, portant deffences de porter sur les habits aucuns draps, ne toille d’or ou d’argent. Paris, P....

Paris, F. Morel and P. Mettayer, 1620.

Three very scarce works on the subject of luxury clothing and accessories employing gold and silver, of significance for the insights they provide into debates around economic and moral regulation in France in the early 17th century.

In his edict of 1607, Henri IV condemns such luxury clothing as ‘vaine...

£1950

HAREL, Charles.

Ménage sociétaire ou Moyen d’augmenter son bien-être en diminuant sa dépense, avec indication de quelques...

Paris, Bureau de la Phalange, à la librairie Sociale, 1839.

1. First edition of this work by the entrepreneur and inventor Charles Harel (1771-1852), a friend and disciple of Charles Fourier’s. This plan describes Harel’s project for the founding of a community of 200 celibates: a utopia of communal life detailing rules (‘love’, ‘the library’etc.)...

£975

HADLEY, Arthur Twining.

Economics. An account of the relations between private property and public welfare.

New York and London, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.

First edition. ‘In Economics Hadley went further than Marshall by explicitly developing the interrelations between property rights, economic evolution and economic efficiency. Hadley utilized the real world examples of the fisheries and mining to demonstrate the impact of ill-defined property rights...

£175

[LUZAC, Elie, attributed].

L’homme plus que machine.

‘A Londres’ [Leiden?], 1748.

First edition of this attack against materialism and La Mettrie’s L’homme machine, published in the same year. The work was included in the 1774 edition of the Oeuvres of La Mettrie, volume III.

£250

[KERNER, Johann Georg.]

Reise über den Sund.

Tübingen, in der J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1803.

Rare first edition of this historical, political and economic analysis of Sweden, in epistolary form, complete with a folding table detailing land tax revenues by region.

£250