Eighteenth Century

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 1239
[SHRUBSOLE, William and Samuel DENNE.]

[SHRUBSOLE, William and Samuel DENNE.] ~ The history and antiquities of Rochester and its environs: to which is added, a description of the towns, villages, gentleman's seats, and ancient buidlings situate on, or near the road from London to Margate, Deal, and Dover: embellished with copper-plates.

Rochester: printed and sold by T. Fisher; sold also by S. Crowder, London,  1772.
First edition. "Mr Thomas Fisher was the first who established a Printing-office in Rochester, for many years exhibited a pattern of extreme assiduity in business, and became an Alderman of that corporation. He died Sept. 29, 1786, at which time he was preparing a new edition of the History of Rochester, of which Mr. Shrubsole of Sheerness was the original compiler. Many gentlemen furnished materials for the work, and none contributed to it more largely than the Rev. Samuel Denne..." (Harris).   view more...
£200.00
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 1246
 

FELTHAM, John. ~ A tour through the Isle of Mann, in 1797 and 1798; comprising sketches of its ancient and modern history, constitution, laws, commerce, agriculture, fishery &c. Including whatever is remarkable in each parish, its population, inscriptions, registers, &c.... Embellished with a map of the island and other plates.

Bath: by R. Cruttwell and sold by C. Dilly in London, Jones in Liverpool, Brown in Bristol, Ware in Whitehaven, Woolmer in Exeter,  1798.
First edition of a rather elegant Bath-printed work. Feltham's tour includes, as an appendix, the text of the 1703 Isle of Man land settlement, commonly known as the "Manx Magna Carta."   view more...
£200.00
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 1249
 

[HARDY, Thomas.] ~ The patriot. Addressed to the people, on the present state of affairs in Britain and in France. With observations on Republican government, and discussions of the principles advanced in the writings of Thomas Paine.

Edinburgh: for J. Dickson and G. Nichol in London,  1793.
First edition of a rather reactionary consideration of Paine's republicanism which includes notice of the earlier critique by John Quincy Adams. A second edition appeared later in the same year. Hardy was a Scottish cleric, not to be confused with the radical Thomas Hardy, founder of the London Corresponding Society. Their positions cannot have been much farther apart.   view more...
£150.00
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 1250
 

(SOCIETY OF THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE.)  ~ A letter to Mr. Hugh Bell, chairman of the Convention of Delegates.

[?Edinburgh,  ?1792.]
First edition of this pamphlet subscribed "a burgher of Edinburgh" charging the chairman of the Scottish Convention of Delegates with having allowed the electoral principles of the Society of Friends to become confused with the far more radical and un-parliamentary politics of Thomas Paine. Scarce.   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1253
[SIRET, Pierre-Louis.]

[SIRET, Pierre-Louis.] ~ L'Homme au Latin, ou la destinée des savans, histoire sans vraisemblance.

"Londres:" John Nourse,  1769.
A rare satire by the multilingual philologist Siret, considered by Martin to be plagiarised from Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Two imprints of 1769 are known, one (probably the first) giving Geneva and the other London. The London imprint is certainly fictitious, the imprint being continental, but evidently not French. The typography perhaps suggests a German origin.   view more...
£275.00
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 1254
[COYER, Gabriel François, Abbé.]

[COYER, Gabriel François, Abbé.] ~ Chinki, histoire cochinchinoise qui peut servir à d'autres pays.

"Londres,"  1768.
First edition, presumed first issue. Appearing in the same year as Voltaire's l'Homme aux 40 écus, Chinki was often attributed to Voltaire. Another issue of the same year contains a subtitle claiming the work as a sequel to Voltaire. The plight of the peasant Chinki at the hands of his Cochinchinese masters is a thinly veiled critique of the economic policies of the French state before Turgot. Several other issues appeared in the same year with the false London imprint: they were probably all printed inside France.   view more...
£400.00
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 1257
(NEWTON). PEMBERTON, Henry.

(NEWTON). PEMBERTON, Henry. ~ Elémens de la philosophie newtonienne... traduit de l'Anglois [by Elias de Joncourt]..

Amsterdam and Leipzig: Arkstée & Merkus,  1755.
First edition in French of perhaps the mostly widely-read early work on Newton, the View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy (first published in England in 1728). Pemberton's explanation of Newton's thought for a lay audience is valuable for having been written from the point of view of a friend and contains a good number of anecdotes. Pemberton had been as close to Newton as any other scientist and had superintended the editing of the definitive third edition of the Principia mathematica. The View was read in part to the dying Newton. It is often cited as evidence that Newton did not need to see an apple drop to formulate his theory of gravitation: Pemberton tells us simply that the idea came to him while sitting alone in a garden. Though the English edition was very popular and is not now especially rare, the continental translations are very scarce indeed. They are, however, important. Newton's acceptance in Europe was famously slow and it is through works such as Pemberton's that his thought became more widely understood. In addition to the French translation by de Joncourt there is an earlier Italian translation of 1733.   view more...
£875.00
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 1260
MABLY, Gabriel Bonnot, Abbé de.

MABLY, Gabriel Bonnot, Abbé de. ~ Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des États-Unis d'Amérique...

Amsterdam: J. F. Rosart & Comp,  1784.
First edition, the first of two states, with p. 159 misnumbered 59 and G7 signed C7. Among the earliest sustained accounts by a Frenchman of the American nation and embodying Mably's views on the preparation of the Constitution. It was written and published at the request of John Adams.   view more...
£650.00
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 1261
CHAUCER, Geoffrey.

CHAUCER, Geoffrey. ~ The poetical works... in fourteen volumes. The miscellaneous pieces from Urry's edition 1721, the Canterbury Tales from Tyrwhitt's edition of 1775.

Edinburgh: Apollo Press, by the Martins,  1782 [-1783].
An excellent set of the works of Chaucer printed by the Apollo Press for the Bell's Poets series (which ran to 109 volumes). The Chaucer set was issued last in the series and is often to be found separately bound as an entity in its own right. It includes introductory materials from Tyrwhitt's edition, including the Life of Chaucer, textual notes and an excellent glossary. The distinctive engraved title pages represent one of the few 18th-century sequences produced prior to the Romantics and presents a refreshingly "ungothic" view.   view more...
£600.00
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 1262
MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat, baron de.

MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat, baron de. ~ Lettres persanes... nouvelle edition, augmentée de douze Lettres qui ne se trouvent point dans les précédentes; et suivie du Temple de Gnide.

"Londres" [but Paris],  1784.
A particularly nice copy of Montesquieu's satire on French (especially Parisian) society in which the king, the absolute monarchy, the Parliament, the Academy, the University, and the Catholic church are all very transparently ridiculed. Purporting to be the correspondence of Persian travellers in Europe, the work expressed opinions far more cutting than was traditionally possible, since the views expressed purport to be those of Mohammedans. It was first printed in 1721, and appears here in this false "Londres" imprint with Montesquieu's early short erotic novel, Temple de Gnide.   view more...
£385.00
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 1263
GUYS, Jean-Baptiste.

GUYS, Jean-Baptiste. ~ La baguette mystérieuse ou Abizai.

La Haye, et se trouve à Paris,  1755.
First edition of a very scarce amorous novel in the oriental mode. A follower of Crébillon fils, Guys is described by Dufrenoy, in no uncertain terms, as one of the "Crébillonnistes décadents" who developed the more undesirable elements of the orientalist genre.   view more...
£475.00
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 1266
(SCOTISM). ASCARGORTA, Juan de.

(SCOTISM). ASCARGORTA, Juan de. ~ Manual de confessores, ad mentem Scoti, por el R.P. Fr. Juan de Ascargorta, de el Orden de N.S.P.S. Francisco, lector jubilado, custodio, y examinador synodal. Van anadidas las direcciones, practicas para los nuevos confessores, y al fin las definiciones.

Seville: for Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros,  [1743].
A confessor's manual arranged according to the Scotist system favoured by the Franciscans: a system named after the thirteenth-century Oxford theologian John Duns Scotus. It was first printed in 1713.   view more...
£325.00
US$632.03*
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 1268
[BURNET, Sir Thomas.]

[BURNET, Sir Thomas.] ~ Le Chevalier de St. George, réhabilité dans sa qualité de Jacques III. par de nouvelles preuves. Avec la relation historique des suites de sa naissance, par Mr. Rousset, membre de l'Académie des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, &c.

"A Whitehall, de l'ancienne imprimerie du Cokpit", [?Amsterdam],  1745.
A very scarce French work with a false "Whitehall" imprint on the subject of James Stuart (variously the Old Pretender or Chevalier de St. George) recognised by the French and much of Catholic Europe as James III, rightful king of England and Scotland. This is in part a French translation of the Whig Thomas Burnet's incendiary pamphlet of 1713: Some new proofs by which it appears that the Pretender is truly James the Third which is here wrongly attributed (p.10) to the author's brother, Gilbert Burnet. A translation of that work into French first appeared in 1715 but a large part of our much enlarged 1745 edition is given over to a "Relation Historique" of the birth of James and of his claims to the British throne and is offered by the anonymous author as a work of particular contemporary interest. 1745 was the year of the failed "forty-five" rebellion of the Jacobites under James's son, Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is over double the length of the 1715 translation.   view more...
£650.00
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 1273
[BAKER, Thomas].

[BAKER, Thomas]. ~ Traité de l'incertitude des sciences. Traduit de l'anglois [translated by Nicolas Berger].

Paris: Pierre Miquelin and Jacques Piget,  1714.
First edition in French of Baker's Reflections upon Learning (1699), a work designed to display the inadequacies of human knowledge and reason and to emphasize the ultimate need for belief in revelation. It proved controversial (provoking an angry response from geologist and physician John Woodward) and was widely reprinted. Bacon and Descartes are closely considered.   view more...
£250.00
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 1274
M'QUHAE, William.

M'QUHAE, William. ~ The difficulties which attend the practice of religion, no just argument against it. A discourse from James, chapter I, verse 12.

Edinburgh: by Balfour and Smellie,  1775.
First and only edition of M'Quhae's only published work, a sermon preached in the presence of Charles, Lord Cathcart. M'Quhae, though unprolific in published work, had been a major influence on the young James Boswell, who had written his early "Journal of My Jaunt, Harvest 1762" for M'Quhae and John Johnston. The 21-year-old Boswell had met M'Quhae in 1761 and found in him a firm and sympathetic friend. "Only three years Boswell's senior, he had come into Lord Auchinleck's household as domestic tutor... By that time Boswell himself had passed beyond the need of a tutor's ministrations, and was able to associate with the new governor on purely social and friendly terms, M'Quhae's manliness pleased him greatly. At the University of Glasgow he had been a favourite pupil of Adam Smith; he was well educated, loved polite literature, and, though he had decided to be a clergyman in the country, was not without a relish for the scenes of active life" (Pottle, Boswell, Earlier Years, p. 75-6). The friendship did not however survive Boswell's European tours and M'Quhae lived a relatively quiet life as minister of St Quivox from 1764. He became, however, a respected member of the "New Licht" faction within the Church of Scotland, a movement which reflected the liberal attitudes of the Enlightenment against the conservative and Calvinsist "Old Licht faction". Burns humorously referred to him in "The Twa Herds" as "That curs'd rascal ca'd M'Quhae", and mentioned also "M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense."   view more...
£1500.00
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 1275

"GINGLICUTT, John," pseud. ~ A brief account of Mr. John Ginglicutt's treatise concerning the altercation or scolding of the ancients. By the author.

London: for J. Roberts,  1731.
First edition of a nice little satire attributed variously to Swift or (more likely) John Arbuthnot. In the form of an advertisement for a forthcoming work (never issued) the Account described the author's heritage as son of a London purveyor of "fishes of a testacious kind, which exert their stimulating Quality on the Constitutions of such as eat them, and in the Discourse of such as vend them." The fish-wife's son then proceeds to sing the praises of the language of abuse as the true heir to the debating style of the ancients.   view more...
£275.00
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 1277
KAMES, Henry HOME, Lord. Mathieu Antoine BOUCHAUD, translator.

KAMES, Henry HOME, Lord. Mathieu Antoine BOUCHAUD, translator. ~ Essais historiques sur les loix, traduits de l'Anglois, par Mr. Bouchaud... avec des notes et une dissertation du traducteur.

Paris: [Quillau for] Vente,  1766.
First edition in French. In his introduction to this translation of Kames' first two "Essays on several subjects concerning British antiquities", Bouchaud explains how he has somewhat reorganized his original and added his own extensive critical and expository notes, as well as a 103 page dissertation on the law of property (the subject of the second essay) "Observation sur la loi Cincia". Bouchaud omitted Kames' essays on the history of British law, which he judged would be of little interest to a French audience - but the very different reception of even the more general essays (translated here) in Britain and France marks the gulf between two different traditions of jurisprudence.   view more...
£850.00
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 1278
STUART, Gilbert.

STUART, Gilbert. ~ An historical dissertation concerning the antiquity of the English constitution.

Edinburgh: printed for A. Kincaid & J. Bell; and for W. Sanby, J. Dodsley, E. Dilly, and T. Cadell, London,  1768.
First edition of this influential Scottish Enlightenment contribution to the debate over the origins of English liberty. "Published in 1768, the work summarizes the history of English liberty from the time of the first Britons to the Norman invasion. Implicit in this whiggish perspective was a challenge to David Hume, whose History of England had put a relativist historiographical agenda at the forefront of the debate on the nature of British liberty. In this ambitious attempt to synthesize the conjectural method of such writers as Kames and Adam Ferguson with the controversial approach of his relative Thomas Ruddiman, Stuart applied the legal scholarship of Montesquieu and John Dalrymple" (Zachs, Oxford DNB). The title-page bears a quote from Montesquieu on the origins of the British political system concluding "Ce beau systême a été trouvé dans le bois."   view more...
£850.00
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 1279
ROBINSON, Nicholas.

ROBINSON, Nicholas. ~ A new theory of physick and diseases, founded on the principles of the Newtonian philosophy. By Nicholas Robinson, M.D...

London: for C. Rivington, J. Lacy and J. Clark,  1725.
First edition. Robinson was born in Wales but gained his MD at Reims in 1718. He was also a protegé of Richard Mead to whom the present work is dedicated. Much of the work is practical (it includes several medical recipes at the end) but the theory is based on the "Newtonian" premise: "Is not the mechanism of the body conducted by the same laws that support the motions of the greater orbs of the universe?"   view more...
£450.00
US$875.11*
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 1280
MONBODDO, James Burnet, Lord.

MONBODDO, James Burnet, Lord. ~ Of the origin and progress of language. [Vols. 1-6, with vols. 1 and 3 "second edition"].

Edinburgh: J. Balfour and T. Cadell in London,  1784-92.
The major British contribution to the Enlightenment debate on the origin of language and a work important for its proto-evolutionary anthropological accounts of mankind. A brilliant lawyer, Monboddo honed his intellectual powers as curator of the Advocates' Library and was exceptionally well-read in continental Enlightenment philosophy (though he disapproved of much of it). Like his continental counterparts (notably Rousseau) Monboddo began his enquiry into language with the very origins of mankind from the point of view of natural history, using Buffon and (in the second edition of the first volume here) Tyson's account of the Orang-Outang (1699). Volume 2 is a remarkable attempt at a universal grammar. The remaining volumes constitute an Aristotelian philosophical rhetoric based on Cicero. The work was not taken entirely seriously by contemporaries such as Johnson and Kames, but in the past half-century scholars have considered its attempts to relate human and animal behaviour, a pioneering fusion of anthropology and linguistics, more favourably.Volumes 1 and 3 were reprinted as a "second" edition in 1774 and 1786 [as in the present copy] as the publishers discovered that they had not printed a sufficient number. Some copies have mixed sets accordingly. (Alston).    view more...
£4250.00
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 1281
HUME, David.

HUME, David. ~ The life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself.

London: for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell,  1777.
First edition, first issue (with the reading "myself" on p. 29), Hume's final summation of his life and philosophy and the work he intended as his "funeral oration" (p. 35). Printed at the end is the Letter from Adam Smith to the publisher William Strahan on Hume's final days.   view more...
£950.00
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 1283
 

WALLACE, Robert. ~ Various prospects of mankind, nature, and providence.

London: for A. Millar,  1761.
First edition of the work considered the origin of Malthus's population calculus as used in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). Wallace had first introduced a geometrical account of population-growth in his Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind (1753). "In his Various Prospects of Mankind, [Wallace] had at first suggested community of goods as a solution of the social problem and then pointed out that the increase of population, which would result from communism, was a fatal flaw in his own solution" (Cambridge History of English and American Literature, sub. Malthus).   view more...
£600.00
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 1284
BUCHAN, David Stewart Erskine, Earl of,

BUCHAN, David Stewart Erskine, Earl of,  ~ Essays on the lives and writings of Fletcher of Saltoun and the poet Thomson: biographical, critical, and political. With some pieces of Thomson's never before published. By D.S. Earl of Buchan.

London : printed for J. Debrett,  1792.
First edition of these essays in which Buchan praised the ancient Scottish constitution and criticized the corruptions he detected in the present British constitution.   view more...
£150.00
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 1286
[DALRYMPLE, David, Sir.]

[DALRYMPLE, David, Sir.] ~ Proposals for carrying on a certain public work in the city of Edinburgh.

[Edinburgh,  1752.]
First edition of a humorous and scatological skit on Sir Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto's Proposals for carrying on certain public works in the city of Edinburgh which had appeared in the same year: the pioneering work of Enlightenment urban improvement which persuaded the town council to begin its celebrated building projects. Dalrymple's rather ungenerous pamphlet is concerned principally with sewers and the public "necessary-house" and it has recently been argued that while satirical in tone it was actually meant seriously. Dalrymple demonstrated a longstanding and enlightened interest in public health and hygiene as part of the regeneration of human societies (Patrick Cadell sub. Dalrymple, Oxford DNB).   view more...
£550.00
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 1292
LETTSOM, John Coakley.

LETTSOM, John Coakley. ~ Histoire de l'origine de la médecine, par M. Coakley Lettsom... traduite de l'anglois par M. H***.

"Londres & se trouve à Paris, Rue des Cordiers, No. 4; et chez La Ve[uve] Hérissant; Théophile Barrois le jeune,"  1787.
First edition in French, bearing an obviously false "Londres" imprint, of History of the origin of medicine (London, 1778). Lettsom, the physician and Quaker philanthropist was a prolific author on medical subjects and his name is especially associated with the foundation of the Medical Society of London (as a Quaker, he was excluded from the Royal College of Physicians).   view more...
£225.00
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 1295
HOLBERG, Luvig, Baron.

HOLBERG, Luvig, Baron. ~ Voyage de Nicolas Klimius dans le monde souterrain, contenant une nouvelle téorie de la terre, et l'histoire d'une cinquiême monarchie inconnue jusqu'à present. Ouvrage tiré de la bibliothéque Mr. B. Abelin; et traduit du latin par Mr. de Mauvillon.

"Copenhague" [but Dresden]: Jaques Preuss,  1741.
First edition in French, published very shortly after the first Latin edition. The Subterranean Voyage of Nicolas Klim is one of the classics of speculative and utopian fiction, written fifteen years after Swift's Gulliver's Travels and often compared favourably with that work. It is the first fully developed novel to be set in the earth's interior, a setting which has been utilised countless times in later science fiction. Klim, a poor student, falls through a hole in the earth just outside the Norwegian town of Bergen and finds himself on the inside of the earth's crust. He lands on the planet Nazar (which orbits a sun at the centre of the earth's cavity) where he finds a nation that lives according to the laws of reason and nature. The peasantry are considered very highly and therefore are the most distinguished class in the state; many of the highest offices are held by women, who are in every way equal to the men. Nazar presents an enlightened utopia, very much in the mould of the ideals of Montesquieu and Voltaire (who Holberg admired enormously) but Klim also travels to other states where the perfect state of society is not so fully developed or is perhaps degenerate, allowing a vivid comparison of political, social and philosophical systems.Holberg (like his hero Klim) was a native of Bergen at a time when Norway and Denmark existed as a twin kingdom. He saw himself as a fully European writer and the equal of the French philosophes. The majority of his works, including the present, first appeared in Latin, the universal language. The adventures of Nicolas Klim were immediately popular and were rapidly translated into all the major European languages.   view more...
£1150.00
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 1300
(JOSEPH II, Holy Roman emperor.)

(JOSEPH II, Holy Roman emperor.) ~ The emperor's new code of criminal laws. Published at Vienna, the 15th of January, 1767. Translated from the German, by an officer.

Dublin: John Rea for Moncrieffe, White, Byrne, and Moore,  1787.
A very good collection of three scarce tracts on the subjects of liberty and free-speech. I. [Joseph II]. First Dublin edition, printed in the same year as the first Austrian (and first London) editions of Joseph II's Allgemeines Gesetz über Verbrechen und derselben Bestrafung: the enlightened legal code which famously abolished the death penalty and judicial torture. The "Josephine code" as it became known was a milestone in the reform of European legal procedure and was widely applauded by liberals across Europe.II. [Paine]. First New York edition (and probably first American edition, though a Philadelphia imprint is dated the same year). Paine's letter (first printed in London the previous year) referred to the royal proclamation against seditious writings, issued May 21, 1792, directed particularly against the second part of Paine's Rights of man. As the half title here indicates the Letter was effectively "a third part to Rights of Man, in which he insisted that representative government relies upon a prior right of manhood suffrage—a principle he had not previously clarified (partly, it seems, to avoid drawing attention to the limits on the franchise within the French constitution). The Letter also set out a plan for a British convention to provide for a reform of parliament, a proposal which issued the following year in reform societies taking an increasingly confrontational attitude to the government, and subsequently in draconian sentences being handed down to delegates of the British Convention held in Scotland at the end of 1793 by Lord Justice Clerk and Judge Braxfield and in the arrest and indictment for treason of leading English radicals in the summer of 1794" (Oxford DNB).III. [Muir]. The second American edition of one of the most vigorously-debated trials associated with the movement towards free-speech in the later eighteenth-century. Muir was arrested for his participation in the meetings of the radical Society of Friends of the People at Edinburgh and subsequently convicted of sedition and made an example of by conservative enemies of reform, being sentenced to transportation. His sentence was widely protested against in Europe and America and his case was discussed in Parliament. This second American edition contains an Appendix in which one such parliamentary discussion is related. The trial was first printed at Edinburgh in 1793.   view more...
£2000.00
US$3889.39*
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 1309
[FIELDING, Sarah, attributed to.]

[FIELDING, Sarah, attributed to.] ~ L'orpheline angloise, ou histoire de Charlotte Summers, imitée de l'anglois de M. N**** par Mr. de la Place.

"Londres et se trouve à Paris" [probably printed in Paris]: chez Rollin fils,  1752.
A rare edition of the French translation of The history of Charlotte Summers; the first imitation of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and translated by Fielding's own French translator. The work is occasionally, though not securely, attributed to Sarah Fielding. L'orpheline angloise had first appeared the previous year also with a (false) Londres imprint. ESTC lists a total of 5 copies only for the two editions and no UK copies of our 1752 edition.   view more...
£600.00
US$1166.82*
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 1310
HELIODORUS of Emesa.

HELIODORUS of Emesa.  ~ Amours de Theagénes et Chariclée. Histoire Ethiopique...

"Londres" [but Paris],  1743.
First edition of this anonymous translation of the third century Greek romance Aethiopica, a work highly prized in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe as perhaps the earliest prose adventure. It was admired and imitated by European authors such as Racine, Mme de Scudéry, Marin le Roy de Gomberville, Cervantes, and Aphra Behn and exercised a profound influence on the development of the European novel. This translation is sometimes ascribed to Louis-François de Fontenu.   view more...
£500.00
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 1380
[DIGBY, Kenelm.] DIONIS, Charles.

[DIGBY, Kenelm.] DIONIS, Charles. ~ Dissertation sur le taenia, ou ver-plat, dans laquelle on prouve que ce ver n'est pas solitaire. Avec une lettre sur la poudre de sympathie, propre contre le rhumatisme simple ou gouteux.

Paris: P. G. Le Mercier,  1749.
First edition. While Dionis's consideration of the tape worm is fascinating enough (with its refutation of the theories of Nicolas Andry de Boisregard) the work is principally interesting for its larger part: Dionis' edition of Sir Kenelm Digby's account of the "Powder of Symapthy", an alchemical preparation purported to cure at a distance. Made from dried green vitriol, this was a variant of the well-known Paracelsian 'weapon salve' which cured wounds by being applied, not to the patient, but to the offending weapon. It is a measure of the endurance of belief in this cure that Dionis entered into a contemporary dispute concerning its use and provides a recipe for it. Pp. 65-266 here are occupied by Dionis's introduction and by Digby's text, first published in 1658.   view more...
£400.00
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 1313
FIELDING, H[enry.]

FIELDING, H[enry.] ~ Les avantures de Joseph Andrews, et du ministre Abraham Adams, publiées en anglois, en 1742... et traduits en François, à Londres, par une Dame Angloise, sur la troisiéme edition.

"Londres" (but France), A. Millar,  1743.
A very scarce edition in French dated the same year as the first, translated by Pierre François Guyot Desfontaines (not by the "Dame Anglaise" given in the title). Desfontaines was a key figure in establishing the popularity of the English novel in France. ESTC distinguishes 2 issues with the false Millar imprint with differing collations and probably different printers. Ours concords with the second which may be later. Both are very scarce.   view more...
£500.00
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 1314
 

(VESPUCCI). [CANOVAI, Stanilao.] ~ Lettera allo stampatore Sig. Pietro Allegrini a nome dell'autore dell'Elogio premiato d'Amerigo Vespucci.

[Florence,  1789.]
First edition of Canovai's first defence of his Elogio di Amerigo Vespucci (1788), the work which had stated that the fifteenth-century Italian navigator had reached America before Columbus and was the true discoverer of the continent that was to take his name. The Elogio was to provoke a storm of controversy between the Italians who believed that their countryman Vespucci was the first discoverer and those who regarded his accounts as spurious. Canovai's detailed and indignant defence is primarily levelled at the detractions of the Italian philologist Bechi. It was followed by another of the same year.   view more...
£260.00
US$505.62*
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 1315
 

(VESPUCCI). [CANOVAI, Stanilao.] ~ Lettera II. allo stampatore Sig. Pietro Allegrini a nome dell'autore dell'Elogio premiato d'Amerigo Vespucci.

Cortona and Florence: Mulinelli and Pagni,  [1789].
First edition of Canovai's second defence of his Elogio di Amerigo Vespucci (1788), the work which had stated that the fifteenth-century Italian navigator had reached America before Columbus and was the true discoverer of the continent that was to take his name. The Elogio was to provoke a storm of controversy between the Italians who believed that their countryman Vespucci was the first discoverer and those who regarded his accounts as spurious. The "Lettera II" counters the criticisms of Bartolozzi and Tiraboschi and is no less splenetic than the first.   view more...
£260.00
US$505.62*
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 1316
 

(VESPUCCI). [PELLI BENCIVENNI, Giuseppe.] ~ Difesa di Amerigo Vespucci.

Florence: G. Allegrini,  1796.
First edition, rare. The Tuscan historian takes issue with the persistent claims that Amerigo Vespucci's claims to have discovered the American continent before Columbus were false. His particular stimulus was a work by Antonio Eximendo on Macchiavelli (Cesena, 1795) in which Vespucci had been once more dismissed as an impostor, despite Canovai's recent attempts to reclaim Vespucci as an Italian hero.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1322
HAEBERLIN, Franz Dominicus.

HAEBERLIN, Franz Dominicus. ~ Analecta medii ævi ad illustranda jura et res Germanicus.

Nuremberg & Leipzig,  1764.
First edition. A digest of the laws, customs and charters relating to the privileges of the Hanseatic League, the alliance of trading guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic and North Seas in the medieval period. Nearly half of the work relates to representation of the League in England and the charters granted by English kings.   view more...
£150.00
US$291.70*
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 1323
 

(THEATRE). [SHERIDAN, Frances Chamberlaine.] ~ The dupe, a comedy. As it is now acting at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's servants. By the author of the Discovery.

London: for A. Millar,   1764.
First edition of the second of Mrs Sheridan's comedies. Dublin born, Frances Sheridan became a much respected novelist (Miss Sidney Biddulph) and playwright, admired by Johnson, Boswell and Young. The Dupe was produced at Drury Lane by George Colman before being withdrawn after three nights, allegedly because 'of the theatrical cabals of a popular actress [Kitty Clive]' (ODNB).   view more...
£60.00
US$116.68*
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 1325
 

(THEATRE). O'KEEFFE, John.  ~ The prisoner at large: a comedy. In two acts. As performed at the Theatre Royal in the Hay Market with universal applause.

Dublin: for Messrs. H. Chamberlain, D. Williams, H. Colles, L. White, P. Byrne and 8 others in Dublin,   [1789].
A farce, first printed in London 1788, with this probably a pirated edition.   view more...
£125.00
US$243.09*
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 1329
 

(THEATRE). COLMAN, George, the Elder. ~ The man of business, a comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden.

London: for T. Becket,   1774.
First edition. Epilogue spoken by Mrs. Bulkley (although on account of its length many lines omitted from the theatre).   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1330
 

(THEATRE). [KELLY, Hugh.] ~ The school for wives. A comedy. As it is performed at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.

London: for T. Becket,   1774.
First edition of a popular comedy which achieved five editions within two years, and had various stage revivals during the next forty years. Kelly was born in Killarney, the son of a Dublin tavern keeper. Becoming a lawyer in London to support a growing family he found considerable success in the theatre. "Kelly's third play, The School for Wives (1774), was the most successful drama in Drury Lane's 1773–4 season. Another comedy involving marriages and disguises, the play ran for twenty-four nights. It was printed in five editions and was seen in 1805 in Bath" (ODNB). He died in 1777 from complications arising from a failed operation at the New Street Bagnio to remove an abcess in his side.   view more...
£95.00
US$184.75*
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 1331
 

(THEATRE). BROOKE, Henry. ~ Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of his country. A tragedy. As it was to have been acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.

London: for R. Dodsley,  1739.
First edition. Variant without the list of subscribers but with printed price (one shilling and six-pence). Epilogue by Mr Ogle.   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1332
 

(THEATRE). ARNE, Tho[mas] Aug[ustine]. ~ The guardian out-witted. A comic opera. At the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden. The musick composed by Tho. Aug. Arne, Doctor in music.

London: for J. and R. Tonson, and T. Lowndes,   1764.
One of two editions of 1764. This is the libretto of the opera and is ascribed to Arne (who also wrote the music) though he apparently denied the attribution (Nicoll).   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1333
 

(THEATRE). COLMAN, George, the Elder. ~ The English merchant, a comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.

London: for T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt; and R. Baldwin,  1767.
First edition. Based on Le café ou l'ecossaise by Voltaire and with an epilogue written by David Garrick.   view more...
£80.00
US$155.58*
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 1335
 

(THEATRE). COWLEY, Mrs. [Hannah]. ~ Albina, Countess Raimond; a tragedy, as it is performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market.

London: T. Spilsbury for J. Dodsley; R. Faulder; L. Davis; T. Becket [and 7 others in London],   1779.
First edition of Hannah Cowley's first tragedy. The play began a bitter controversy between Cowley and Hannah More, who produced a strikingly similar play, Percy, shortly afterwards. A charge of plagiarism was levelled at More but never proved. Their exchange appeared in the St James's Chronicle and was reprinted in the Gentleman's magazine.   view more...
£125.00
US$243.09*
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 1336
 

(THEATRE). COWLEY, Mrs. [Hannah]. ~ The belle's stratagem, a comedy, as acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden.

London: for T. Cadell,   1782.
First authorised edition of a play considered Cowley's masterpiece. It was dedicated to Queen Charlotte. Two pirated editions were published in Dublin in 1781.   view more...
£125.00
US$243.09*
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 1337
 

(THEATRE). CAREY, George Saville.  ~ The dupes of fancy, or every man his hobby; a new farce: in two acts. As performed at the King's Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market, with great applause.

London: for Alex. Hogg; and sold by T. Lewis and by all other booksellers and stationers in every city, borough, town, and village in Great Britain and Ireland,   1792.
First edition of one of the few plays by Carey to have actually been performed on the London stage.   view more...
£95.00
US$184.75*
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 1339
 

(THEATRE). BIRCH, Samuel. ~ The adopted child, a musical drama, in two acts. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

London: for C. Dilly,   1795.
First edition. Birch was a man of many talents and occupations, like many of his theatrical contemporaries. He earned his living variously as a politician, playwright, and pastrycook.   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1341
 

(THEATRE). HOLCROFT, Thomas. ~ Duplicity: a comedy. As it is performed at the Theatre-Royal, in Covent-Garden.

London: for G. Robinson,   1781.
First edition. "Duplicity, whose plot resembles the story of Edward Moore's popular tragedy The Gamester, was staged at Covent Garden on 13 October 1781 and was performed six more times, but was postponed on several occasions because of a leading actor's illness" (ODNB).   view more...
£110.00
US$213.92*
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 1354
 

(THEATRE). JACOB, Hildebrand.  ~ The fatal constancy. A tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's servants.

London: for J. Tonson,   1723.
First edition of a blank-verse tragedy acted six times at Drury Lane, twice by command of the princess of Wales.   view more...
£80.00
US$155.58*
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 1358
 

(THEATRE). [JOHNSTONE, James.] ~ The disbanded officer; or, the Baroness of Bruchsal: a comedy. As performed at the Theatre Royal in the Hay-Market.

London: for T. Cadell,  1786.
First edition of the only play by Johnstone to be listed by Nicoll. It also appeared in a Dublin imprint later that year.   view more...
£150.00
US$291.70*
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 1360
 

(THEATRE). BOADEN, James. ~ The secret tribunal: a play. In five acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden.

London: G. Woodfall, for T. N. Longman,   1795.
First edition. Boaden was an important exponent of the Gothic taste in the theatre and dramatised a number of key Gothic texts. "The Secret Tribunal opened on 3 June 1795, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Boaden's play, which is derived from Hermann von Unna (1788) by Benedikte Naubert, introduced the institution of the Secret Tribunal or Inquisition to Gothic fiction in English. The device was later employed by such writers as Ann Radcliffe in The Italian (1797), Mathew Gregory Lewis in The Monk (1795), and by Charles Robert Maturin in Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)". "James Boaden", in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 89: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists, Third Series. Edited by Paula R. Backscheider, Gale Group, 1989, pp. 25-37.    view more...
£150.00
US$291.70*
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 1361
 

(THEATRE). BOADEN, James. ~ The Italian monk, a play, in three acts; and first performed the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 1797.

London: for G.G. and J. Robinson,  1797.
First edition. Adapted from Mrs Radcliffe.   view more...
£150.00
US$291.70*
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 1362
 

(THEATRE). BOADEN, James. ~ Cambro-Britons, an historical play, in three acts. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on Saturday, July 21, 1798. With a preface.

London: for G. G. and J. Robinson,   1798.
First edition. Nicoll's appended note states that this is "a very interesting specimen of early melodrama". "In Cambro-Britons (1798), set in the time of Llewelyn and Edward I, Boaden gothicizes Celtic myth, drawing partly on Gray's ode The Bard" (ODNB).   view more...
£150.00
US$291.70*
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 1364
 

(THEATRE). MACKLIN, Charles. ~ The man of the world. A comedy. As performed at the Theatres-Royal, Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden.

London: John Bell,   1793.
First published Dublin 1785.   view more...
£60.00
US$116.68*
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 1365
 

(THEATRE). DENIS, Charles. ~ The siege of Calais. A tragedy. From the French of Mr. de Belloy. With historical notes.

London: J. Lister, for J. Fletcher and Co., and T. Davies,   1765.
First edition, translated from the French of M. de Belloy [Pierre Laurent Buyrette].   view more...
£80.00
US$155.58*
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 1367
 

(THEATRE). [YOUNG, Edward]. ~ The brothers. A tragedy. Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.

London: for R. Dodsley,   1753.
First edition of a work which marked the end of Edward Young's theatrical ambitions. He withdrew the play from rehearsal at Drury Lane in 1724 while seeking a place in the Irish church and it was not to be performed or published for many years. It is based directly on Corneille's Persée et Démétrius.   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1368
 

(THEATRE). AYSCOUGH, George Edward. ~ Semiramis, a tragedy: as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane.

London: for J. Dodsley,   1776.
First edition. Based on the play by Voltaire.   view more...
£75.00
US$145.85*
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 1370
 

(THEATRE). DENT, John. ~ Too civil by half, a farce in two acts, as performed with universal applause, at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane.

London: for J. Stockdale,   1783.
First edition.   view more...
£125.00
US$243.09*
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 1372
[LA GRANGE, Nicolas de, translator.]

[LA GRANGE, Nicolas de, translator.] ~ Histoire de Miss Indiana Danby, traduite de l'anglois. Par M. de L***. G***.

"Londres, et se trouve à Paris, chez Ch. J. Panckoucke" [probably Low Countries],  1767.
First edition in French of this epistolary novel first published anonymously in English by "a lady" in 1765, rare both in its English and French forms. The French translation was apparently issued with both a "Londres et Paris" and also an "Amsterdam et Paris" imprint. Barbier lists the latter only. A further 2 volumes appeared to complete the English set (1767) but were apparently never issued in translation.   view more...
£450.00
US$875.11*
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 1373
[HAYWOOD, Eliza, translated by the Chevalier de FLEURIAU.]

[HAYWOOD, Eliza, translated by the Chevalier de FLEURIAU.] ~ L'étourdie ou Histoire de Miss Betsy Tatless, traduite de l'Anglois.

A la Haye: De l'Imprimerie de D. Monnier,  1754.
A rare "La Haye" imprint of the first edition in French of Haywood's most important and influential novel: The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751). Barbier lists the edition bearing the imprint of Prault at Paris (also 1754) only and not this La Haye edition of the same year. Haywood's novel is considered to have created the domestic novel with its focus on marriage rather than on courtship, which had been the organizing subject and trope through the time of Richardson's Clarissa (see Backscheider in ODNB). It found considerable success in translation and was reprinted several times in French.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1376
 

DAUPHIN, citoyen de Verdun. ~ La dernière Héloïse, ou, Lettres de Junie Salisbury recueillies et publiées par M. Dauphin, citoyen de Verdun.

Paris and Brussels: B. Le Franq,  1784.
This imitation of Rousseau's Héloïse appeared in 1784 and was immediately popular. Several editions are dated 1784: one with a Paris imprint, another (illustrated) with a "Londres" imprint and our edition probably printed in the Low Countries. Copies are usually to be found with a frontispiece or plates, but this attractive copy is bound without.   view more...
£125.00
US$243.09*
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 1379
CREBILLON, Claude-Prosper-Jolyot de,

CREBILLON, Claude-Prosper-Jolyot de, "Crebillon fils". ~ Le Sopha, Conte Moral.

"A Gaznah, de l'imprimerie Très-Pieux, Très-Clément & Très-Auguste Sultan des Indes. L'an de l'Hegire MCXX. Avec privilege du Susdit."  [1742].
First edition (but see below). A celebrated novel of comic transformation, Le Sopha tells of an unfortunate young courtier, who for the sake of former sins is transformed into a piece of furniture, the sopha of the title. He is not to be reincarnated as a man until a man and a woman sincerely in love with each other had consummated their passion on him. It apparently secured Crebillon's temporary banishment from Paris (its characters were rather closely based on prominent society members) but became hugely popular and was translated into English by Eliza Haywood and William Hatchett. Dufrenoy saw it as a key work in the development of the oriental genre in the French novel, and certainly it spawned a host of imitations.While Tchemerzine and Cioranescu list a previous edition under the name Le Sopha couleur de rose, Tchemerzine states that he has never seen a copy and we have been unable to locate it in any of the usual library catalogues. Other bibliographers (e.g. Jones) prefer to list ours as the first and it is probable that the earlier "edition" never existed or is so rare as to have eluded bibliographers thus far.   view more...
£800.00
US$1555.76*
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 1391
HOBBES, Thomas, translated by Paul Heinrich Dietrich von HOLBACH.

HOBBES, Thomas, translated by Paul Heinrich Dietrich von HOLBACH. ~ De la nature humaine, ou exposition des facultés, des actions & des passions de l'ame, ... Par Thomas Hobbes: ouvrage traduit de l'anglois.

'Londres' [i.e. Amsterdam], [s.n.],  1772.
First edition in French of Humane Nature: or, The fundamental elements of policie. Being a discoverie of the faculties, acts, and passions of the soul of man, from their original causes... Holbach considered the essay, which first appeared in English in 1650 (he incorrectly states 1640 in his introduction) as one of Hobbes best works. The Londres imprint is false and work was published in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey.   view more...
£1250.00
US$2430.87*
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 1392
[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]

[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.] ~ Les apparences trompeuses ou les amours du Duc de Nemours et de la marquise de Poyanne.

n.p. [?Rouen],  1715.
First edition of this rare clandestine novel which appeared with neither an author's name or place of publication. The work has an interesting place in the popular literature of the eighteenth-century. By telling an alternative story of the loves of the Duc de Nemours, Courtilz would have been well aware that it would be read with Madame de La Fayette's Princesse de Clèves (1678) in mind, since Nemours played the leading male part in that landmark novel. This may of course have been a straightforward ploy to pass off an inferior novel as something of a sequel, but recent critical studies have suggested a more interesting relationship. Assaf, for example, has read the novel as a palimpsest of the Princesse (that is, more than just a pastiche) or "un commentaire sur la dégradation de la magnificence et de la galanterie qui caractérisèrent la France au fort d'un règne, en plein désarroi au moment où s'écrit ce texte." Certainly, the death of Louis XIV in the year of publication and the accession of the 5-year-old Louis XV brought to an end a period of unparalleled magnificence at court, heralding a more troubled political and social scene in which the galanteries of aristocratic life would be viewed far more circumspectly by those outside.   view more...
£600.00
US$1166.82*
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 1393
BARLOW, Joel.

BARLOW, Joel. ~ The vision of Columbus: A poem in nine books.

London: C. Dilly and J. Stockdale, "Hartford N.E. printed London re-printed,"  1787.
First London edition and first edition respectively. Barlow's ambitious philosophical poem, dedicated to the king of France and sponsored by George Washington, received great acclaim on publication and he was proclaimed a genius both by his peers and the public at large. As the imprint here notes, it was first printed in Barlow's native America (also in 1787).Five pieces of runic poetry represents the first translation of any Icelandic-Eddic literature into English and is among the earliest of Percy's many translations of ancient and exotic poetry. His greatest later success was the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765).   view more...
£625.00
US$1215.43*
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 1409
WEBER, Friedrich August.

WEBER, Friedrich August. ~ Opuscula semiologica. I. De signis ex sputo.

Ulm: August Lebrecht Stettin,  1778.
First edition.   view more...
£375.00
US$729.26*
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 1411
CARVALHO, Joao Jorge de.

CARVALHO, Joao Jorge de. ~ Gaticanea, ou, Cruelissima guerra entre os caes, e os gatos, decidida em huma sanguinolenta batalha na grande praca da Real Villa de Mafra...

Lisbon: Francisco Luiz Ameno,   1781.
First edition of this marvellously illustrated mock epic, a battle of the sexes between cats (women) and dogs (men) in the Portuguese town of Mafra. The author includes numerous contemporary political and society figures. The two large folding plates by Manuel da Silva Godinho are fine evocations of the battle and one is set before the enormous baroque palace of Mafra, the folly of royal extravagance that had nearly bankrupted the Portuguese kingdom earlier in the century. There were two issues of the first edition, one (as here) with a directions to binder leaf at end, the other without, but no precedence has been established. It was reprinted in 1816 and 1828.   view more...
£1400.00
US$2722.57*
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 1418
RETZ, Jean François Paul de Gondi de,

RETZ, Jean François Paul de Gondi de, ~ Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz. Containing, the particulars of his own life, with the most secret transactions of the French court and the civil wars. Translated from the French. In four volumes...

London: for T. Becket, T. Cadell, and T. Evans,  1774.
The Memoirs were first printed in English in 1723 and were immediately popular. Chesterfield recommended them wholeheartedly. "The best Memoirs that I know of, are those of Cardinal de Retz. --- I hardly know any Book so necessary for a young Man to read and remember; you will there find how great Business is really carried on, very differently from what People who have never been concerned in it imagine. In short you will, in every Page of that Book, see that strange inconsistent Creature, Man, just as he is" (reproduced on the title-page of our edition).   view more...
£425.00
US$826.50*
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 1420
[MOORE, Edward and others, editor] GALTIER DE S. SYMPHORIEN, translator.

[MOORE, Edward and others, editor] GALTIER DE S. SYMPHORIEN, translator.  ~ Le monde, ouvrage critique. Dans lequel on voit, sous les traits d'une plaisanterie fine & délicate, une peinture fidele des ridicules qui regnent aujourdui dans les mœurs & dans les usages des Anglois. Traduit de l'Anglois du World, d'Adam-Fitz-Adam. Par M. Galtier de S. Symphorien.

La Haye: [s.n.]  1756.
First edition in French of selections from Edward Moore's periodical The World, which he had edited under the nom de plume of Adam Fitz-Adam. The journal was originally issued in 210 weekly numbers 1753-56 and included anonymous contributions from Moore, Chesterfield, Lyttelton, Horace Walpole and Soame Jenyns. The first collected edition appeared in 1756 (the year of our French translation). The journal's intention was satirical: to mock the moeurs of fashionable English society, a theme which would have appealed to a contemporary French audience,who may in any case have suspicious of the tastes of the refined Englishman. The editor of these French selections adds a playful "avertissement" by way of an introduction.This copy bears the arms of Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort, duc de Duras (1715-1789); at various times maréchal de France, governor of Brittany and Franche-Comté. He became a member of the Académie française in 1775.   view more...
£1100.00
US$2139.17*
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 1429
PASSERI, Giovanni Battista.

PASSERI, Giovanni Battista. ~ Lucernae fictiles Musei Passerii.

Pesaro: [Niccolo] Gavelli,  1739 [-1743-1751.]
First edition of this celebrated illustrated account of Passeri's collection of oil-lamps. The collection was feted in its day as the best of its kind, but scholars have subsequently proved Passeri to have been the most gullible of collectors and that his collection consisted almost entirely of fakes. The work is thus a rather remakable testimony to the unfortunate fervour of an eighteenth-century collector. The frontispiece in volume 1 is a portrait of the Archbishop Friderico Lantio de Ruvere, engraved by Carlo Gregori after Giuseppe Menabuoni; emblematic title vignette by Giovanni Battista Passeri, engraved by Vincenzo Franceschini. The plates and head- and tail-pieces, are engraved after Giuseppe Menabuoni, mainly by Vincenzo Franceschini.   view more...
£1800.00
US$3500.45*
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 1435
 

DUCLOS, Charles Pinot. ~ Acajou et Zirphile, conte.

"A Minutie" [?Paris],  1776.
First published in 1744 Duclos' satrical fairy-tale provoked outrage and delight in different quarters. It's publication arose from a bet: the Comte de Tessin had commissioned a suite of engravings from Boucher for a fairy tale, but was unexpectedly recalled to Sweden. Boucher then took them to Mlle Quinault's salon where a contest was held to write a fairy tale around his bizarre scenes (including flying hands and genies in chamber pots). Apparently Voisenon, Caylus, and Duclos submitted entries but only Duclos's has survived. The first edition, like ours, was purported to be printed at 'Minutie' ('Trifles'). It's preface "to the public" is an agressive attack on the frivolities of literary Paris, the very readership at which the book was aimed. The tale itself is also a parody of the fashionable fairy-tale genre and involves two evil genies, a prince and princess (Acajou and Zirphile), and a good fairy. It inspired a response from Fréron and a comic-opera by Favart. The rare first edition of 1744 was printed in quarto with reproductions of Boucher's original illustrations. It was reprinted in duodecimo soon after and exists in several further eighteenth-century editions, including an English translation.   view more...
£300.00
US$583.41*
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 1440
(PERREAU, Robert and Daniel and Margaret Caroline RUDD).

(PERREAU, Robert and Daniel and Margaret Caroline RUDD). ~ The trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau's on the King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol-Delivery, held for the City of London before the Right Hon. Jonn [sic] Wilkes, Lord Mayor of the City of London...

London: T. Bell,  1775.
First editions. The case of the Perreau brothers and their associate Mrs. Rudd resulted in one of the most sensational forgery trials of the century; it resulted in the execution of the Perreaus and the astonishing aquittal of Mrs Rudd. It captivated contemporaries and exercised considerable subsequent fascination. Boswell, for example, was apparently so interested in the plight of Mrs Rudd that he sought her out in the weeks following the trial and later secured her as a mistress. Modern historians have examined the trials as a valuable barometer of contemporary attitudes to money, banking, speculation, publicity, sex and gender relations.Robert and Daniel Perreau began and ended their lives together, being identical twins (born on the Isle of St Kitts, West Indies) and were executed, hand in hand, on the gallows at Tyburn. Their crime was forgery. Robert had established himself as a vety succesful London apothecary, while Daniel pursued a more precarious career in a variety of speculative activities and partnered the captivating Margaret Rudd. It was probably Daniel to persuaded his brother to "play the alley" (invest in stocks) at the London Exchange. A major loss following a failed stock gamble led to the forging of bonds to re-assure their creditors, a ruse which was quickly spotted by the Drummond bankers in London. Upon accusation, the two Perreaus and Mrs Rudd, proceeded to blame each other (and the trials are quite detailed on the nature of the forgery) so that it soon became apparent that if the Perreaus were acquitted then Rudd would be found guilty and vice versa. The trials thus became an extraordinary public spectacle, arousing support and antipathy for each party in equal measure. Robert Perreau was formerly an upstanding citizen with wealthy clients throughout the capital, while Mrs Rudd proved herself capable exercising influence over jury and public with her powerful personality and attractive physical appearance. In the event the Perreaus were found guilty but their execution was delayed pending the outcome of Mrs Rudd's trial. The second pamphlet here is a remarkable testament to her abilities in controlling public opinion, being published in the period between the Perreaus' trial and their ultimate execution and representing her own view of the case and her erstwhile collaborators.The Hope of Craighall provenance of our copies is worth noting, since the Hopes, like the Drummonds, were Scottish merchant bankers in the English capital.   view more...
£875.00
US$1701.61*
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 1445
THOMSON, John.

THOMSON, John. ~ The universal calculator; or the merchant's, tradesman's, and family's assistant. Being an entire, new, and complete set of tables, adapted for dealers in every branch of trade, by wholesale or retail, and all families. Shewing, at one View, The Amount or Value of any Number or Quantity of Goods or Merchandise, from One to Ten Thousand, at all the various Prices, from One Farthing, in regular progression, to Thirty Shillings; in 280 different Tables. Also, At the foot of each Table is shown the Division of the Pound, Yard, &c. into the following Particulars, entirely new, and not to be found in any other Book, viz. For Dealers by Weight, such as Grocers, &c... For Dealers by Measure, such as Milliners, Haberdashers, &c... There are also added, Twenty-Seven Tables, Shewing the Exchange on Bills, Commission or Brokerage on Goods, &c. from 1/8 to 5 per Cent. and Tables, shewing the amount of any Salary, Income, Expence, &c. by the Day, Week, Month, or Year. By John Thomson, Accomptant in Edinburgh, Author of the Tables of Interest, and Tables for Calculating the Price of all kinds of Grain.

Edinburgh: [Murray & Cochran] for W. Creech and C. Elliot, Edinburgh; and C. Dilly, in the Poultry, London,  1784.
First edition of this very scarce set of Edinburgh merchant's tables. Thomson, styled "accomptant" in the title, also prepared various tables of interest and currency for tradesman. The book is dedicated "To the honourable the Master, Assistants, and other members of the Company of Mechants, of the City of Edinburgh". As was typical for similar works of essential reference printed across the border in England, the work bears Thomson's signature, guaranteeing them to be both correct and genuine.   view more...
£750.00
US$1458.52*
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 1456
PAINE, Thomas.

PAINE, Thomas. ~ Reasons for wishing to preserve the life of Louis Capet. As delivered to the National Convention...

[London:] for James Ridgway,  [1793].
One of two 1793 issues (differing slightly in pagination from each other). Perhaps surprisingly for such an ardent anti-monarchist, Paine argued vociferously for Louis' life to be spared: he saw no benefit in such an execution. He believed that it would provide a pretext for the English (under their own tyrant-king, George III) to declare war on France and would be badly viewed in America, France's foremost ally.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1458
VERDY DU VERNOIS, Adrien-Marie-François de.

VERDY DU VERNOIS, Adrien-Marie-François de. ~ Hommage à la vertu guerrière, ou Éloges de quelques-uns des plus célèbres officiers français qui ont vécu et qui sont morts sous le règne de Louis XV.

Hombourg-ès-Monts: Henri Pierre Wolff,  1779.
First edition. A very scarce compilation of the lives of six prominent French military leaders of the eighteenth century. It includes a 35-page biography of Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, commander of the French forces in Canada. The other lives included are of Adrien-Maurice, Duc de Noailles; Jean-Baptiste-François, Marquis de Maillbois; François de Chevert; Louis Beau de Mascaron and le Chevalier Dorigny.   view more...
£275.00
US$534.79*