Justin Croft : Antiquarian Books

(DICTIONARY, French-Latin). ~ Petit thresor des mots françois, selon l'ordre des lettres, ainsi qui'il les fuat escrire tournez en Latin. Revue et augmenté de plusieurs proverbes, dictions, & manieres de parler, Françoises & Latines...

Rouen: pour la Societé, 1666.

A French-Latin dictionary for Jesuit use. The earliest edition we have found being 1626 (Paris). The additions to this edition contain newer words and usages, together with place names. view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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(DICTIONARY, Dutch-French). MARIN, Pieter. ~ Groot nederduitsch en fransch woorden-boek, vervattende de woorden en spreekwyzen van den laagen, den boertigen, den gemenzaamen, en den vehreven styl: spreuken en spreekwoorden. Gelyk ook de gebruikelykste woorden der kunsten en wetenschappen, der hanteeringen, ambachten en uitspanningen in beide taalen. Grand dictionnaire, hollandois & françois, contenant les facons de parler basses, burlesques, familiers, & celles du stile soutenu, les sentences & les proverbes, les termes les plus usitez des arts & des sciences, ceux des professions, des metiers & des divertissements en l'une & l'autre langue...

Dordrecht: Joannes van Braam and Amsterdam: Adriaan Wor, G. onder de Linden, Jan van Eyl, 1730.

'Second edition', but actually the third, the first edition having appeared in 1701 and a second in 1710. It is accompanied by the third edition of the companion volume. These are especially valuable in providing technical translations for many specialist terms used in the trades, industries, crafts and commerce of the eitghteenth century. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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(BIBLE, in French.) ~ La Sainte Bible, qui contient le Vieux et le Nouveau Testament. Imprimée sur l'édition de Paris, de l'année 1805. Edition stéréotype, revue et corrigée avec soin d'après les textes Hebreu et Grec.

London: R. Watts "au frais de la Société pour l'impression de la Bible en langue Angloise et en langues étrangères," 1838-39.

One of numerous foreign-language editions published at this time by the British and Foreign Bible Society.This copy preserves the original British and Foreign Bible Society binding with elaborate panels stamped from a single plate. view more...

£95.00

US$142.10*

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CARY, Henry Francis, the Reverend. ~ The early French poets, a series of notices and translations... with an introductory sketch of the history of French poetry by his son the Rev. Henry Cary...

London: Henry G. Bohn, 1846.

First edition in book form, publisher's presentation copy of this important posthumous collection. Acquainted with both Coleridge and Lamb, Cary was one of the circle of Romantic authors cultivated by the publishers Taylor and Hessey. He is best remembered as the translator of Dante. He collected much of his material on the medieval French poets on a visit to France in 1821, and published several articles on that subject in the London Magazine. It is these that were republished posthumously in the present form with an introduction by the author's son. view more...

£120.00

US$179.50*

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VIDOCQ, Eugène François. ~ Memoirs of Vidocq, principal agent of the French police. Written by himself. Translated from the French. In four volumes...

London: Whittaker and Co., n.d. [c. 1828-1830s?]

Vidocq is recognised as the first detective novel, though it is loosely based on the real career of criminal-turned-investigator Vidocq. It first appeared in French in 1828-9 and in English in the same years. The first English edition was published by Hunt and Clarke and carried the additional name of Whittaker only in the two later volumes. It also contained a frontispiece portrait, not present here. Our issue, apparently using the sheets of the first English edition contains titles obviously tipped-in as cancels, bearing the name "Whittaker and Co." in all volumes. We have been unable to find records for this undated imprint in any of the catalogues consulted, though Whittaker also issued a dated edition of all four volumes in 1830, apparently without a portrait, as here. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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BERTHOLLET, Claude Louis. ~ Elements of the art of dyeing... translated from the French by William Hamilton...

London: by Stephen Couchman, and sold by J. Johnson, 1791.

First edition in English, very scarce, of Berthollet's important scientific contribution to the burgeoning European textile industry. Having collaborated with Lavoisier on the latter's pioneering chemical nomenclature and presented some seventeen memoirs to the Academy, the author was already an influential chemist when appointed inspector of dye works and director of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins in 1784. The Gobelins had their origins in the workshops of Flemish weavers brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1602 and were formally established by Colbert in 1667 as the "Royal Manufactury of Furnishings to the Crown". They became the pre-eminent centre for tapestry weaving in EuropeIn the Éléments de l'art de la teinture Berthollet "endeavored to place the ancient craft of dyeing on a scientific basis by a systematic discussion of its procedures, coupled with an attempt to find an adequate set of theoretical principles to explain the chemical actions involved. His explanation was that, depending on the variable physical conditions of temperature, quantity of solvent employed, and so forth, when a cloth was dyed the reciprocal affinities of the particles of the dye, the mordants, and the cloth itself were responsible for the kind and quality of dyeing. The colors produced were due to the oxidation of the mordant by the atmosphere" (DSB).The British edition appeared in the same year as the French, reflecting the market for such a treatise in a country where textile production was becoming one of the most important national industries. A second British edition appeared at Edinburgh the following year and several reprints appeared in the nineteenth century, presumably a measure of the popularity and utility of this scientific manual of dyeing in the British industrial revolution. view more...

£1300.00

US$1944.53*

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SAINT-PIERRE, Bernardin de. ~ Paul and Virginia. Translated from the French of Bernardin Saint-Pierre; by Helen Maria Williams, author of Letters on the French Revolution, Julia a novel, Poems, &c.

[N.p. but Paris: John Hurford Stone,] 1795.

First edition of this translation, a rare imprint from the English Press at Paris. The origin of this book has caused bibliographers some trouble - with its apparently English typography and use of catchwords, but rather outlandish overall appearance. It is described in some catalogues as being provincial English and it appears in the English Short Title Catalogue. Its true origin has been identified by John Bidwell of the Morgan Library, who writes in the online catalogue of that library "Given the French origins of the paper, type, plates and binding, and the quality of the typesetting, this edition was printed in Paris, almost certainly at the English Press of the expatriate radical John Hurford Stone, who was living with Helen Maria Williams at this time. Cf. Madeleine B. Stern, "The English Press in Paris and its successors," PBSA 74 (1980): 307-89."The type is indeed of ultimate English origin, being cast from Baskerville's punches by the Dépôt des caractères de Baskerville in Paris, established by Beaumarchais in 1791 and closed ca. 1795-1796. Beaumarchais (who considered Baskerville a genius) purchased the bulk of the Birmingham printer's punches from his widow after his death. Cf. John Dreyfus, "The Baskerville punches 1750-1950", The Library, 5th ser. 5 (1951): 26-48. (also cited by Bidwell).Helen Maria Williams was a central member of an important group of English radicals who had settled in Paris after the Revolution which included Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin and Thomas Paine. She formed an association with the radical printer Stone, who divorced his wife in 1794 and was possibly secretly married to Williams that year. Paul and Virginia was translated at the height of the Terror, when Williams was imprisoned in the Couvent des Anglaises on account of the war between England and France. Stone's English Press remained active throughout these years in the Rue de Vaugirard, succesfully printing works by authors such as Paine and Joel Barlow. view more...

£1800.00

US$2692.43*

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[RAGUENET, François, Abbé.] ~ Défense du parallèle des italiens et des français, en ce qui regarde la musique & les Opéra...

Paris: the widow of Claude Barbin, 1705.

First edition of this bitter polemic by a champion of Italian opera over its French rival, intended as a defence of the author's earlier Parallèle des Italiens et des Français. Raguenet, a scholarly French priest, had published the Parallèle in 1702 "which caused a lively controversy because of its author's manifest preference for Italian music. The Parallèle was the object of much discussion and created a small body of literature. An English translation... appeared in 1709, one German version... in 1722, and another...in 1759 and 1760. Le Cerf de la Viéville, a staunch supporter of Lully, answered in 1705 with a Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique française, which in turn elicited a rebuttal, Défense du Parallèle, from Raguenet in the same year" (Musical Quarterly). The spirited Défense pursues a page-by-page demolition of his critic's work, and inlcudes a defence of Raguenet's biography of Oliver Cromwell. Both the Parallèle and the Défense are important documents of eighteenth-century aesthetics, but both are rare in their first editions.The Stanford copy contains an engraved frontispiece, but none of the other library records or the bibliographies make mention of a frontispiece. There is no sign that one has ever been present or removed from our copy. view more...

£650.00

US$972.27*

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EDGEWORTH, Maria. ~ The orange man or the honest boy and the thief.

Paris: Truchy's French and English Library, 1835.

An English-language chapbook from Truchy's French and English Library series. A moral tale for young children it originally appeared in the first (1796) edition of The Parent's Assistant. Scarce. view more...

£100.00

US$149.58*

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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$635.71*

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LA FONTAINE, Jean de. ~ La Fontaine's Fables. Now first translated from the French; whit [sic] Elegant Engraved Figures. By Robert Thomson.

Paris: [G. Doyen] "at all the booksellers," n.d. [c. 1820.]

A very rare English edition and an interesting example of opportunistic publishing. This English La Fontaine was first printed by Brochot in 1805 and by Chenu in 1806, apparently both with and without illustrations (probably 16 plates). This edition uses the sheets of one of those editions (with their copious decorative tailpieces) and adds new titles on different paper and obviously different typography. The advertised "Elegant Engraved Figures" consist of 4 plates from the earlier edition, each marked "vol. 2" at the head and bound as a frontispiece to each volume. This copy is as issued, with the original printed labels. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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[FENN, Ellenor]. [Mrs.] LOVECHILD. ~ First lessons in English grammar with questions and exercises adapted to the capacities of young children.

Paris: Truchy's French and English Library, 1836.

Presumably, this is a later edition of The Child's Grammar (1798), though our title is not listed in Carol Percy's bibliography of Ellenor Fenn's works. Many of Fenn's works published under the psuedonyms of "Mrs Teachwell"and "Mrs Lovechild" were directed towards young girls and women. She wrote an entire series entitled "Mrs. Teachwell's Library for Young Ladies" and most of these works focus on how to teach and outline Fenn's idea of proper reading materials for the young. view more...

£95.00

US$142.10*

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(EROTICA). ["V.T.H.S.", pseud.] ~ La Rhétorique des putains, ou la fameuse maquerelle. Ouvrage imité d l'Italien, orné de joiles figures en taille-douce.

"Rome" [? France]: "aux dépens du Saint Pere," 1794.

An especially rare pornographic dialogue, purporting to be a didactic conversation between an older and a younger prostitute (Marthe and Angélique) presented in a series of "lessons". This edition is important for its inclusion of a series of bizarre plates originally intended for another work, "L'Arétin de la Révolution", of which only a single copy is known (according to Dutel). These rather crudely printed plates are humorous caricatures depicting a series of couples in Revolutionary dress and must be among the most extraordinary reflections of the Revolutionary period in the graphic arts.The French text was first printed in 1771, bearing only a slight resemblance to the stated Italian source (Rettorica delle Putane by Ferrante Pallavicino), and including 3 small plates. It was reprinted without plates in 1790 and then in 1794 (ours) with the introduction of the plates discussed. All editions are of exceptional rarity. view more...

£2000.00

US$2991.59*

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DUSAULX, Jean. ~ De la Passion du Jeu, depuis les temps anciens jusqu'a nos jours.

Paris: De l'Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1779.

First edition of this scarce study on the sociology of gambling by French writer and ex-gambler Jean Dusaulx (1728-1799). Tormented throughout his life by a passion for games, Dusaulx wrote this work drawing from his own experiences and sorrows and produced a very personal and outspoken discourse on gambling by outlining the philosophical, political, historical and moral problems associated with gaming during the eighteenth century. All levels of French society were tempted by gambling during the Enlightenment: the royal courts held regular games; and hosts frequently acted as bankers for games to entertain their guests. Dusaulx criticised the government's political and financial interests for the spread of gambling and the decline of public morals and in this text advised banishing the pack of cards altogether. The second part comprises a discussion on the introduction of state lotteries, which Dusaulx argues implicitly sanctioned private gambling and that the governments which organise them, contribute to the moral degradation of their subjects. The study is mainly concerned with gambling in France though there are other interesting chapters involving stories of gambling in other countries, including a translation of the Emperor of China's edicts on gambling. view more...

£950.00

US$1421.01*

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[LOUIS, Antoine.] ~ [Thesis.] D.O.M. Positiones anatomicae et chirurgicae. Ex Anatomia.

[Paris: Delaguette, 1749.]

First and only edition. The name of Louis Antoine will always be associated with the invention of the guillotine as a 'humane' method of execution in Revolutionary France: indeed the apparatus was initially named the 'louison' or 'louisette' after Dr. Louis. While properly the invention of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the beheading device was championed by the then secretary of the Academy of Surgeons and the construction of the first prototypes was carried out under his supervision.It is perhaps appropriate that the present short thesis submitted for admission to l'École royale de chirurgie over 40 years previously should have been a consideration of trauma to the head: though referring to direct blows to the head rather than decapitation. The thesis occupies an important place in the history of the surgical profession in France, not so much for its content, but for the fact that Louis chose to submit it in Latin in place of the more usual verancular. In so doing Louis was honoured with the title "Ma'tre de chirurgie" in recognition of the fact that he, and future surgeons, were to recognised as liberally educated scholars rather than mere practitioners. This step was to place the surgeon on a par with the physician in French medical heirarchies. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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(VIRGINITY. Manuscript.) ~ Traité de la Ste. Virginité; [Instruction sur la Vie Religieuse.]

n.p. [France], 1775.

An anonymous and probably unpublished treatise on female virginity, in French, and clearly intended as a practical manual for the instruction of novice nuns. The larger part is an extensive treatment of the religious purpose of the celibate life with examples from scripture and the church fathers and advice and instruction on the conduct that life. It provides lengthy discourses on the mental and physical temptations to be conquered: with chapters on the demeanour of the chaste and the avoidance of sinful thought and action. There are especially interesting passages on the face and the expressions of the devout, advising the avoidance of particular forms of gaze which might encourage temptation.The language is contemporary and vernacular, again suggesting practice rather than theory, and it might almost be described as conversational with a distinct first person authorial voice. The gender of the author is not immediately apparent, but it would be an interesting exercise to speculate upon the question through close analysis of the text.We have been unable to identify any contemporary printed text with this title suggesting that the work was either unpublished or circulated only in manuscript. view more...

£1800.00

US$2692.43*

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MILTON, John. ~ Como, Dramma con Maschere … rappresentato a Ludlow Castle, nel 1634, in presenza di Giovanni Egerton … Traduzione sostenuta ad litteram // Comus, Masque … représenté au Chateau de Ludlow, en 1634, devant John Egerton … Traduction littérale …

Paris, De l'Imprimerie de Charles Crapelet 1806.

First edition of these literal translations of Milton's Comus into French and Italian, commissioned, edited, introduced and privately printed, in a characteristically handsome manner, by Francis Henry Egerton, the eccentric eighth Earl of Bridgewater. The masque was first performed at Ludlow Castle before his ancestor John, the first Earl, and the edition here is based on the Bridgewater manuscript, copied for the Earl at that time. 'Having travelled to Paris in 1802 during the peace of Amiens, Egerton found himself under house arrest when hostilities were resumed, and he was not able to return to England until 1806 when Sir Joseph Banks procured his release' (Oxford DNB). The present work is a product of that period. He later returned to France, to a splendid house on the rue St. Honoré, where his increasing eccentricities included a menagerie of cats and dogs dressed as people and captive game for him to shoot in his garden. Best known as a patron of learning and a scholarly collector of manuscripts, he bequeathed £8000 for the publication of the famous Bridgewater Treatises (1833-6) and left his valuable collection to the British Museum. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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(LAW. Manuscript). GIGON DU BESSIX. ~ Dissertation sure les partages et les appanages de la maison de France.

[France], 1751.

An extensive manuscript treatise on the French system of apanages, probably unpublished. By the custom of apanage the younger sons of French kings were granted portions of the royal fiefs, which would revert to the crown on the extinction of the male line of each son. The system was deeply rooted in the politcal and legal structures of France and contributed greatly to the country's regional character.Gigon du Bessix, who had served as an avocat in the royal courts under Louis XV and his regents, cites several earlier (printed) works on the subject but seeks to present a comprehensive legal history of the subject. We have found no printed version of Gigon's text in any of the usual bibliographical sources. view more...

£1600.00

US$2393.27*

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[GRAILLARD DE GRAVILLE, Barthelemy Claude]. ~ Le Mage de Chica.

"Amsterdam, et se trouve a Paris" [probably Paris]: Cuissart 1759.

First edition, rare: a pre-revolutionary attack on feudalism and the French aristocracy through the thoughts of a wise man from a sacred caste of magi in an imaginary land. Graillard de Graville (1727-1764) was a Parisian journalist and writer. Worried by the effects of feudalism, the work solicits rebels to overthrow the anachronistic social structure of 1750s France. There is an extended explanation of why it has been necessary to create a fictional character, in which Graville spells out the faults of all of the existing Continents. Thus, he rejects America on the grounds that the Spanish have reduced all of the natives to ashes; Asia because they are too effeminate; Africa because 'mes Concitoyens ne pourroient souffrir qu'un Nègre eût les vertus d'un Européen'; and Europe because 'ce sont presque tous animaux de differentes especes, quoiqu'avec le même masque'. Having satisfied himself that no known land can furnish the perfect blend of the philosopher and the prodigy, he reluctantly reverts to the depiction of an entirely imaginary land of wise men. view more...

£975.00

US$1458.40*

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"HONORÉ" [Jean Claude Louis CHOUET]. ~ Abolition des guerres. La création de la navigation aérienne au moyen de ptéronaves.

Paris: chez l'auteur, 1889 [1890].

First edition, issue with a rare 1890 addendum. Honore's text is essentially a treatise on the possibilities of man-powered flight through his proposed construction of a 'pteronave' and its potential to bring peace and harmony to the world. However, in a complete about-turn, the remarkable 1890 addendum was added against a background of war-mongering in Europe and the recent alliance of Britain with Germany against France, its feverish headline urging: "L'heure des pteronaves est peut-être venue?... Il est urgent, pour la France, de songer à tous les moyens de défense". This early text on aerial flight opens with an introductory 'Préambule', which recounts his 1852 petition to the President of the Republic to construct "un Navire Aerien a vapeur" and his 1852 prediction that it would become possible to circumnavigate the world in just 15 days, ideas which at the time were considered sheer folly. The main text outlines in detail the engineering principles on which man-powered flight would operate, including mention of 'Les Hélicoptères' (p. 26) and its wider effects, optimistically predicting that it will "tuer la guerre pour l'avenir, au profit du bonheur de l'humanité". view more...

£700.00

US$1047.06*

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(TAHITI). ~ Ui Katorika o te vikario-rea apotoro i Tahiti. O te hapii mai i te mau mea Atoa e au ia faaroo hia e ia haapao hia e te taata Atoa i hinaaro i te tomo i te rai.

Saint-Cloud: Belin, n.d., c. 1840.

A rare Tahitian catechism prepared for the Vicariate Apostolic of Tahiti, with the text in Tahitian and French. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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[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$897.48*

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[FIELDING, Sarah, attributed to.] Mr. de la PLACE. ~ L'Orpheline angloise, ou histoire de Charlotte Summers, imitee de l'anglois de M. N****.

London [Liège?]: "et se trouve à Francfort, en foire, chez J. F. Bassompierre, libraire de Liége", 1756.

Third edition in French. This popular work is considered the first imitation of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and it is most likely this connection that led to speculation that Sarah Fielding, his novelist sister, was the anonymous author. The title was first published as The history of Charlotte Summers, the fortunate parish girl twice in 1750, before being translated into French for publication in 1751, with a second edition in French in 1752. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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COMBALUSIER, François de Paule. ~ Pneumato-Pathologia seu tractatus de flatulentis humani corporis affectibus...

Paris: Joannes de Bure, 1747.

First edition of this Parisian physician's first book, a treatise on the causes of flatulence. It was translated into French in an edition of 1754. view more...

£275.00

US$411.34*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Jeremy Bentham to his fellow-citizens of France, on Houses of Peers and Senates.

London: Robert Heward, 1830.

First edition. A pamphlet on bicameral legislatures. A French translation by Charles Lefebvre was published in Paris in 1831. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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AIGNAN, [François-Nicolas.] ~ Le prestre medecin, ou discours physique sur l'établissement de la medecine. Avec un traité du caffé et du thé de France, selon le systeme d'Hippocrate...

Paris: Laurent d'Houry, 1696.

First edition. Aignan was a royal physician who had studied at the University of Padua. This history of medicine is important for its later chapters on Arabic and French coffee, French tea and fermentation. It also considers quinine and its local substitutes with reference to Ramon Lull and Arnald de Villanova. Aignan cultivated barley and rye in Brittany, which he roasted to produce a "French coffee" a cheaper alternative to arabica beans. He also produced a medicinal tea made from various dried balm leaves. view more...

£1100.00

US$1645.37*

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[FOUQUET, Charles Louis Auguste de,] Duc de Belle-Isle [and Louis-Georges-Erasme CONTADES, marquis de]. ~ Lettres du Marechal Duc de Belleisle au Marachel de Contades; avec des extraits de quelques-unes de celles de ce dernier; trouvées parmi les papiers, aprés la Bataille de Minden. Suivant la copie de Londres, imprimée sur les originaux, par autorité du gouvernement de la Grande Bretagne.

The Hague: Pierre de Hondt, 1759.

One of several editions of 1759, professedly "suivant la copie de Londres" issued in both English and French; other editions rapidly appeared in Amsterdam, Paris, and The Hague.The Battle of Minden was an important victory for British, Hanoverian, Hessian and Prussian troops against the French and Saxons during the Seven Years War. The title appears to have been first published by order of the British government, who presumably seized upon the letters, which number French casualties and deaths at 11,000, as an important propaganda tool. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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(FABLES). PHAEDRUS, Caius Julius and Jean de La Fontaine. ~ Fables de Phedre, avec la contruction du texte et de la version interlinéaire, auxquelles on a joint les fables que La Fontaine a imitées de cet auteur.

Lyon: les Frères Perisse, 1790.

A nice Lyon-printed interlinear Latin/French fable book, presumably intended for the use of young students of Latin. Several fables of La Fontaine are appended at the end. view more...

£175.00

US$261.76*

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(FAUST, Johann). CAYET, Pierre-Victor Palma ~ Histoire prodigieuse et lamentable de Jean Fauste, grand magicien avec son testament et sa vie epouventable.

"Cologne, chez les Héritiers de Pierre Marteau" [i.e. Bruxelles G. de Backer], 1712

A very scarce edition. The translation, first published in 1598, is the oldest French translation of the 1587 Spies edito princeps of Historia von Doctor Johann Fausten. view more...

£650.00

US$972.27*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Essai sur la nomenclature et la classification des principales branches d'art-et-science; ouvrage extrait du Chrestomathia de Jérémie Bentham, par George Bentham.

Paris: Bossange Frères, 1823.

First French edition. In 1817 Bentham published Part II of Chrestomathia, his important work on education, an appendix of which contained an Essay on nomenclature and classification. Over the following five years the essay was translated into French by his young nephew George Bentham, who was profoundly influenced by his uncle's views on the logic of nomenclature, tabulation and arrangement throughout his subsequent illustrious career as a botanist. view more...

£375.00

US$560.92*

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[HOTMAN, François.] ~ La vie de Messire Gaspar de Colligny Seigneur de Chastillon, Admiral de France. A laquelle sont adiousté se Memoires sur ce qui se passa au Siege de S. Quentin.

Leyden: Bonaventure & Abraham Elzevir, 1643.

First Elzevir edition of this biography of the French protestant hero Gaspard de Coligny. Coligny had been appointed Admiral of France in 1552 and was captured at the siege of St Quentin in 1557. In the two years of his captivity he became a convinced Calvinist and went on to lead the French Huguenots in the religious wars against Catholic dominance in France. He was implicated in the murder of Francis, Duke of Guise in February 1563, an event which was to lead ultimately to the Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572, in which Coligny himself was killed under the direct supervision of the Duke's son, Henry.Coligny's life became an inspiration to Protestants throughout Europe. It was first printed in Latin in 1575 and had previously appeared in French earlier the same year, in a quarto edtion. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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(CHARLES X, King of France.) ~ Arrivée de Charles X en Angleterre.

[Marseille: Rouchon, n.d. ?1830.]

A rare Marseille-printed pamphlet announcing the arrival of the recently-abdicated French King at Porstmouth. The ex-King's party, consisting of two American ships (flying American colours) and several French vessels anchored at Spithead and made it known that Charles was aboard. Sir Colin Campbell boarded and several French emmissaries were landed to prepare the way for Charles' arrival on British soil. Charles had abdicated on 30 July 1830 (an event known as the July Revolution) at Rambouillet in favour of his cousin, the Comte de Chambord, and left for England.The text is an extract from the Constitutionnél of 21 August 1830. view more...

£75.00

US$112.18*

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(GEORGE II). COEUR, Jacob de. ~ Odes a la gloire de sa Majeste Britannique George II. et a la louange de son altesse serenissime le Duc de Cumberland: envoyées pour etrennes au premier Janvier de l'an 1744. Vieux stile.

La Haye: J.A. Barreau, 1744.

An apparently unrecorded eighteenth-century pamphlet published in The Hague as a New Year's greeting to George II, issued following his victory against the French at The Battle of Dettingen in 1743, while preserving Flanders from the predations of the French. This was the last battle at which British forces were led into battle by a reigning monarch. Coming to the defence of Marie Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia against Louis XV's French armies, British troops fought as part of the "Pragmatic Army", which also comprised Austrian, Hessian, Hanoverian and Dutch troops. George II's favourite son, the Duke of Cumberland, is also lauded by the author in a separate tribute, having been honourably wounded in the same battle. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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(QUAKERS). CLARKSON, Thomas. ~ Histoire des Quakers; traduite de l'anglais de Clarkson, et suivie de récit de la réforme opérée dans la prison de Newgate, a Londres, par le Comité des Dames.

Geneva and Paris: J.J. Paschoud, 1820.

First edition in French of Clarkson's very successful and influential A Portraiture of Quakerism (1806). It was widely reprinted and translated. Best known as a slavery abolitionist and author of Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade (1788) Clarkson was a lifelong Anglican who nonetheless confessed to being almost a Quaker or 'nine parts in ten of their way of thinking' (Oxford DNB). This French translation of the Portraiture includes a 17-page introduction by the editor, together with a 28-page assessment of the prison reforms led by the Quaker Elizabeth Fry and her Comité des Dames. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[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$897.48*

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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$411.34*

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BRONTE, Charlotte. ~ Jane Eyre ou les mémoires d'une institutrice par Currer Bell. Roman Anglais traduit avec l'autorisation de l'auteur par Mme Lesbazeilles-Souvestre.

Paris: Hachette, 1859.

A rare early edition in French, probably the first by Hachette who held the copyright until 1947, reprinting it numerous times. The translation had appeared first in 1854 (in two volumes), printed by Giraud. The previous Hachette edition (1855) to ours was actually just an abridgment by Dauran-Forgus. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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BLANC, Louis. ~ Organisation du travail... IV édition considérablement augmentée, précédée d'une introduction, et suivée d'un compte-rendu de la maison Leclaire...

Paris: Cauville Frères, 1845.

First published in 1839, this edition is of particular interest for the supplements, containing the 1843 accounts of the maison Leclaire, one of the first French companies to offer its employees a proportional share in profits. The accounts did not appear in later issues. view more...

£100.00

US$149.58*

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[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

US$972.27*

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[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

US$373.95*

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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

US$336.55*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Defense de l'usure, or letters sur les inconvenients des lois qui fixent le taux de l'intérêt de l'argent par Jérémie Bentham, traduit de l'anglais sur la 4e edition. Suivi d'un mémoire sur les prêts d'argent par Turgot. Et précédé d'une introduction contenant une dissertation sur le prêt à intérêt.

Paris: Malher et Compagnie, 1828.

Second French edition. One of Bentham's earliest and most influential publications, the title was first published as Defence of Usury in 1787. Bentham's critique of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations advocates free trade in money and was written in response to reports that the British government was planning to place further restrictions on interest rates. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[CHOUDARD]-DESFORGES, [Pierre Jean Baptiste]. ~ Tom Jones a Londres, comédie en cinq actes, en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding, répresentée, pour la première fois, par les comédiens Italiens ordinaires du Roi, le Mardi 22 Octobre 1782.

Paris: F. J. Baudouin, 1782.

First editions. A dramatic adaptation of Fielding's Tom Jones for the French stage by Choudard-Desforges, with its sequel. The plays were written for performance by the Comédie-Italienne, of which the playwright Desforges had been a member. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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(CALONNE, Charles Alexandre de). ~ Grande révolution arrivée à Londre [sic] et emprisonnement du sieur de Calonne pour l'avoir excité.

[Paris:] J. Calais , n.d. [c. 1791.]

First and only edition of this violent polemic against the disgraced minister Calonne, who had been blamed for the collapse of French finances on the eve of the Revolution. He fled to London and was at once denounced as a traitor. This rare pamphlet imagines his fate at the hands of a revolutionary mob in London. view more...

£90.00

US$134.62*

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WICKHAM, Louis and Paul DEGRAIS. ~ Le Radium son emploi dans le Traitement du Cancer des angiomes, chéloïdes, tuberculoses locales et d'autres affections... Avec 53 figures dans le texte.

Paris: J.-B. Baillière et fils, 1913.

First edition of this pioneering text in radiotherapy, issued as part of Les Actualités Médicales series, this copy inscribed by Paul Degrais to a leading French homeopath, Léon Vannier. Wickham, a French dermatologist and pioneer of radium therapy, began treating tumours and gynaecological conditions with radium in 1908. He and his younger colleague Degrais were among the first clinicians to treat human conditions with 'radiumtherapy' having obtained radium from the Curies. Wickham died in 1913, several months before his colleague Degrais inscribed this copy to Vannier. The work also appeared in an English translation printed in London in the same year. It was preceded by the larger work Radiumthérapie; instrumentation, technique, traitement des cancers, chéloïdes, naevi, lupus, prurits, névrodermites, eczémas, applications gynécologiques (Paris, 1909). view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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STUART, Robert. ~ Histoire descriptive de la machine a vapeur, traduite de l'Anglais de R. Stuart; précédée d'une introduction exposant la théorie des vapeurs; suivie de la description des perfectionnements faits en France, et des considérations générales sur l'emploi de ces machines.

Paris: Malher et Compagnie, 1827.

First edition in French of Stuart's pioneering early history of the steam engine, translated (with additional notes by the French editor) from the third English edition of 1825. The work describes the major inventions from Hero of Alexandria, through Caus, Branca, the Marquis of Worcester, Moreland, Papin, Newcomen, and Hulls, to Watt, Hornblower and Trevithick. The final 60 pages contain an appendix not found in the English editions designed to demonstrate the developments in steam engineering in France since 1815. Brunel is rightly claimed as a Frenchman. The title formed part of Malher et Compagnie's Bibliothéque industrielle and is very scarce. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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COTTIN, [Sophie Ristaud.] ~ Mathilde, ou Mémoires tirés de l'histoire des croisades.

London: Peltier, 1805.

First British edition, published in the same year as the French, of Madame Cottin's final novel, a tale set in the Crusadses. She died in 1807 at the age of 37. The 6 volumes, each with the Peltier imprint, have the distinction of each being printed by a different London printer: P. Da Ponte, W. Marchant, C. Spilsbury, C. and R. Baldwin, J. Brettell, and J.B.G. Vogel respectively. view more...

£225.00

US$336.55*

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HUME, David. ~ Le Génie de M. Hume, ou analyse de ses ouvrages, dans laquelle on pourra prendre une idée exacte des mœurs, des usages, des loix, et du gouvernement du peuple Anglois.

"Londres & se trouve à Paris, Chez Vincent" [printed at Paris], 1770.

First and only edition, apparently the last of numerous French translations of Hume's works to be published in his lifetime. It contains excerpts from his Essays (arranged thematically) and History of England (arranged chronologically). It was evidently aimed at a wider audience than the philosophical and appears as much a guide to the peculiarities of the British as to Hume's philosophy. view more...

£525.00

US$785.29*

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[BASTIDE, Jean François de.] ~ Les Têtes Folles.

"Londres" [ie. Paris?]: et se trouve à Paris, chez Tilliard, 1753.

First edition, probably printed in Paris. Written by French playwright, journalist and critic Bastide, this epistolary piece takes the form of a long and anguished love-letter, with the reader left waiting for the response of the young lady until the final tantalising pages. The finely-engraved (unsigned) frontispiece is a charming image of a lady in a garden before a bush laden with flower buds in the form of human faces. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Emancipate your colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Ao 1793. Shewing the uselessness and mischievousness of distant dependencies to an European state. Now first published for sale.

London: by C. and W. Reynell for Robert Heward, 1830.

First published edition. Bentham's early pamphlet, written in 1793, appeals to French to acknowledge that a distant dependency cannot be well governed by the mother country. "Is it then for their advantage to be governed by a people who never know, nor can ever know either their inclination or their wants?" (p.5). The first printing of 1793 was presumably circulated privately and our edition uses the sheets of that printing with a specially-printed title-page. view more...

£850.00

US$1271.43*

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NECKER, M. [Jacques]. ~ Du pouvoir exécutif dans les grands états.

[n.p., Paris?:], 1792.

First edition. An important political treatise on the relation between the executive power and the legislature by Necker, French statesman and finance minister of Louis XVI. His analysis and comparison of the systems of France, the United States, England and other European powers argued that separation of executive and legislative powers would lead to an imbalance of power, with the legislature enjoying unlimited and unchecked authority. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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[SALLE, Antoine de la, attributed to.] ~ Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles. Suivent les cent nouvelles contenant les cent histoires nouveaux qui sont moult plaisans à raconter en toutes bonnes compagnies ; par manière de joyeuseté.

"A La Haye" [but probably France], chez P. Gosse and J. Neaulme, 1733.

A nice edition of this famous collection of bawdy stories told at the court of Louis XI in the fifteenth century. Some 14 or 15 of the 100 stories are taken from Giovanni Boccaccio, and as many more from Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini or other Italian writers, or French fabliaux, but about 70 are probably original. view more...

£100.00

US$149.58*

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[LA PORTE, Joseph de, editor.] ~ Bibliothèque des génies et des fées...

Paris: Duchesne, 1765-[1764].

First edition of this extensive eighteenth-century fairy-tale collection. The Jesuit compiler Joseph de la Porte drew the tales from a variety of earlier sources (collections by Madame Louise Lévesque and Moncrif and versions by Mdame Fagnan and Henri Pajon printed in Le Mercure). The collection contanins: Merveilleux et Charmante; Le Prince des aigues marines; Le Prince invisible; Grisdelin et Charmante; Les Voyageuses; Le Prince Ananas & la Princesse Moustelle; Eritzine & Parelin; Minet-bleu & Louvette; Alidor & Thersandre; Caressant et Blanchette; Cornichon et Toupette; Néangir et ses freres Argentine & ses soeurs; La Princesse Minon-Minette et le Prince Souci and Aphranor et Bellanire. It was reprinted (in part) as a volume of the Cabinet des Fées in 1785, with the editor's name given.This copy has a distinguished provenance: bearing the arms of Anne-Léon II de Montmorency and hi wife, who were prominent in pre-Revolutionary French society before emigrating to Munster during the Revolution. The later bookplates are of La Rochefoucauld duc de Bisaccia: French ambassador in London and a supporter of the failed restoration of the French monarchy in the 1870s. view more...

£2000.00

US$2991.59*

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VERGIL, Polydore. ~ Les livres de Polydores Vergile d'Urbin, des inventeurs de choses, traduicts de Latin en Francois, et de nouveau reveuz & corrigez.

Lyon: Benoist Rigaud, 1576.

Scarce Lyon edition of Polydore Vergil's second and most famous book De inventoribus rerum ("History of Inventions") in French, with an interesting later Lyonnais provenance. In this ambitious work, Vergil addresses questions of origin, from the origin of the gods, man and languages to the origin of wine and liqueurs, marriage, magic, medicine, poetry, drama, geography and law. Drawing extensively on the Bible and original Greek and Latin texts, the title was one of the new encyclopaedias which attempted to disseminate the learning made available by the Renaisance humanists. The title was first published in Venice in 1499, with a revised and expanded edition appearing in 1521 (with the origins of the Christian Church); our edition was translated into French by Belleforest. An Italian by birth, Vergil spent much of his life in Britain, principally working as a Papal envoy under the direction of Adriano Castellesi da Corneto. Feted on his arrival as a cultured Italian, he enjoyed enduring royal favour of Henry VII and went on to write an important English history, the Anglica historia.The book contains the bookplate of Justin Godart, lawyer and Mayor of Lyon, who was a leading figure in the French Resistance (heading the Comité du Front National clandestin de libération de la France Zone Sud) during the Second World War. view more...

£850.00

US$1271.43*

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LEWIS, William. ~ Expériences physiques et chymiques sur plusieurs matières relatives au Commerce & aux Arts: ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois de M. Lewis, de la Société Royale de Londres; Par M. De Puisieux...

Paris: chez Desaint, 1768-1769.

First continental edition of Lewis's Commercium philosophico-technicum (first published London 1763-6) a work of considerable value in the history of the industrial and applied arts. The author was a member of the Royal Society and a founder of the Society for the Improvement of Arts and Manufactures. Much of the first volume and part of the second is devoted to the extraction and working of gold and includes much detailed information on its smelting (with furnaces illustrated) and its application to the arts including the gilding of paper and bookbindings, together with a history of alchemy. In the later volumes he considers the manufacture of glass, the working and properties of platinum, and the use of colours in paints, dyes and inks. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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[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

US$598.32*

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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

US$575.88*

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MARIN, [François Louis Claude.] ~ Histoire de Saladin, Sulthan d'Egypte et de Syrie, avec une introduction, une histoire abrégée de la Dynastie des Ayoubites fondée par Saladin, des notes critiques, historiques, géographiques, et quelques pièces justicatives.

Paris: Tilliard, 1758.

First edition of Marin's accomplished Middle Eastern history, a work which was widely-read and influential in the emerging orientalism in French culture. This was Marin's first truly succesful work and provided him with a literary reputation strong enough for him to be appointed Royal censor. The title was also published in the same year in the Hague by N. van Daalen. The maps depict Jerusalem, the crusader city of Acre (taken by Saladin in 1187) and the region of Acre. view more...

£950.00

US$1421.01*

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(BENTHAM, Jeremy.) DUMONT, Étienne. ~ De l'organisation judicaire, et de la codification, extraits de divers ouvrages de Jérémie Bentham, jurisconsulte Anglais, par Ét. Dumont, ancient member du conseil représentative de Genève.

Paris: Librairie de Hector Bossange, 1828.

First edition. Étienne Dumont's recensions of Bentham's writings were instrumental in establishing Bentham's international reputation, allowing him to reach a wider audience, but perhaps more importantly, presenting his ideas in a simplified and highly readable manner. Originally published in French, as with this title on judicial organisation, the recensions were variously translated into Spanish and later also into English, selling tens of thousands of copies in Europe and Latin America. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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[SMITH, Horatio.] ~ Torr Hill. By the author of "Brambletye house," etc., etc.,

Paris: [A. Belin for] A. and W. Galignani, 1827.

£200.00

US$299.16*

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[L'HERMITE, Jean Baptiste, seigneur de Soliers.] ~ Le Cabinet du Roy Louis XI. Contenant plusieurs Fragmens, Lettres missives, & secretes Intrigues du Regne de ce Monarche, & des autres Pieces tres curieuses, & non encores veu's. Receüillies de diverses Archives & Tresors.

Paris: Gabriel Quinet, 1661.

First edition of a scarce history of the reign of the late-medieval French king Louis Onze (1423-1483. Nicknamed "le prudent" for his diplomatic skills, Louis was instrumental in creating a united France through hard negotiation with noble factions, notably in Burgundy. Le Cabinet is illustrated throughout with Louis' diplomatic letters and includes his letter to Edward IV of England on the subject of the Duke of Clarence, the king's rebellious brother who had taken refuge in France. view more...

£575.00

US$860.08*

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BASILIUS VALENTINUS. ~ Les douze clefs de philosophie... Traictant de la vraye medecine metalique. Plus l'Azoth, ou le moyen de faire l'or caché des philosophes. Traduction francoise.

Paris: Pierre Mo't, 1659.

A rare early edition of two of the most important alchemical texts by Basilius Valentinus, together with Bernardus' treatise on the philosopher's stone. First printed in Latin in 1599 Les douze clefs, together with Azoth, first appeared in French in 1624, translated by David Laigneau and published together. Traicté de la nature de l'oeuf des philosophes also first appeared in French that year and was probably intended as an accompaniment. The 1659 edition is important for having been dedicated by the publisher to the English natural philosopher Kenelm Digby, then resident in Paris studying Paracelsian chemistry and expounding the efficacy of his "powder of sympathy", a variant of the Paracelsian "weapon salve". Our copy bears Digby's arms in early (though not demonstrably contemporary) manuscript on a label pasted to the verso of the title. Some copies, though by no means all, of Les Douze Clefs contain an engraved suite of "keys". Ours, like the copy described by Ferguson, appears never to have had them and one suspects the existence of a preliminary issue before the keys were prepared. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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(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

US$1308.82*

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[ALI ABENCUSIAN, pseudonym of Miguel de LUNA]. VIEUX-MAISONS, [Gilles de Rainssant, Sieur de], translator. ~ Histoire Veritable Contenant la vie de Jacob Almançor Roy d'Arabie, qui Conquist le Royaume d'Espagne sur le Roy Dom Roderic, Traduite d'Espagnol en Francois par le sieur de Vieux-Maisons Gentil-home Ordinaire de la Chambre du Roy.

Gervais Clousier, 1638.

First edition in French of the life of Almançor, the Arabic conqueror and ruler of Spain in the 10th century. It is translated from La verdadera historia del rey Rodrigo, en la cual se trata de la causa principal de la pérdida de España, y la conquista que della hizo Miramamol'n Almançor Rey que fue del Africa, y de las Arabias, y vida del Rey Iacob Almançor written by the Moorish apologist Miguel de Luna and published in two parts (1592 and 1600). Although published as a translation from an Arabic manuscript it was almost certainly an original historical work by de Luna.It is an important as a sympathetic account of the Moorish conquest of Spain and it offers numerous accounts of the humanity and cultivation of an Arabic prince. His pre-eminence in science and learning is dwelt upon and there is an interesting account of the formation of his vast library: he is said to have offered twice the market value for any book he found wanting from his collections. This rare French edition marks an early and interesting point in the emergent interest in the Arab world in France. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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[RAGUENET, François.] ~ Histoire d'Olivier Cromwel.

Paris: Claude Barbin, 1691.

First edition, with a second edition appearing in the same year. Raguenet, a highly cultured and scholarly French priest, wrote this history of Cromwell following the publication of his first work, the highly popular Histoire. His history of Cromwell has been highly acclaimed by modern historians; writing on the "prevailing sobriety of the seventeenth-century historiography of the war", Royce MacGillivray notes: "Remarkably rich in variety though it was, it never produced any parallel to the fantastic history of the war published on the continent in the lives of Cromwell by François Raguenet or by Gregorio Leti who plagiarized Raguenet." (Restoration Historian and the Civil War, 1974). view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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(EROTICA). ~ Julie philosophe ou le bon patriote. Histoire à peu près véritable, d'une Citoyenne active qui a été tour-à-tour agent & victime dans les dernieres révolutions de la Hollande, du Brabant & de la France.

[n.p. ?Paris], 1791.

First edition. A pornographic French Revolutionary novel of the greatest rarity, replete with allusions to some of the most important figures in contemporary society, including Mirabeau, Calonne, la comtesse de la Mothe and the arch-swindler Theveneau de Morande. Gay remarked on its unexpected perspective on the Revolution: "Aussi ce livre appartient-il à l'histoire, et sera t'il toujours lu et recherché lorsque beaucoup d'autres productions érotiques et frivoles auront disparu de la circulation et seront oubliées."The work was attributed to Andrea de Nerciat by Apollinaire in the introduction to his 1910 edition, but this attribution is not generally accepted. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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(PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY). ~ Origine et vices de la constitution Britannique; suivi d'un detail historique des elections pour le parlement en 1818.

Paris: [Denugon] for L'Huillier and Delaunay, 1818.

Rare first edition, in original wrappers. A critical commentary on the British constitution from a French perspective; the title was published following the 1818 general election of the United Kingdom, in which the weak Whig party gained a few seats, while the Tories led by the Earl of Liverpool retained a majority of about 90 seats. The pamphlet provides a detailed case history of political manoeuvring prior to the election to demonstrate the extent to which British political life was damned by archaic and corrupt practice. Singled out for particular censure was the existence of the "rotten boroughs" (Ilchester, Midhurst and Wendover) controlled by a minute electorate, usually in the pockets of the major landed interests. view more...

£75.00

US$112.18*

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LAMOTHE-LANGON, E[tienne] L[eon], Baron de. ~ L'Espion de Police, Roman de Moeurs.

Paris: Ambroise Dupont, 1826.

First edition of an interesting novel in which a young soldier and his lover are pitted against the malevolent and corrupt police informers of the reign of Louis XVIII. It predates the Memoirs of Vidocq, considered the first work of detective fiction, by a couple of years.Lamothe-Langon, and associate of Charles Nodier and a prolific writer trod a wayward path between fact and fiction in his many works. Many of his historical "memoirs" have been proved to be mostly fiction and his Histoire de l'Inquisition en France (1829) which purported to be a study of the French Inquisition and the great 14th century Witch crazes of southern France has been shown to be almost entirely a fabrication. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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(BREWING). [TOURNAI ORDONNANCES]. ~ Ordonnances de messieurs du magistrat de la ville & cité de Tournay des 26. 8bre & 15. novembre 1718, portant reglement pour les brasseurs & brasseuses, cabaretiers, cabaretires & débiteurs de bierres; comme aussi pour les commis & employez à la conservation des droits & impôts de cette ville, de même que pour les brouteurs, &c.

Tournai: Anselme du Puicht, 1718; 1721.

An appealing copy in fine original state, of the civic ordinances of the city of Tournai concerning all aspects of the beer trade: a trade which was then, as now, a central part of Flemish economy and culture. The civic ordinances, as in most Western European towns, were ultimately derived from medieval customary law. They are highly detailed and include regulations concerning brewing, distribution, wholesaling and retailing, prevention of adulteration, restriction on imports, the keeping of taverns, and taxation. Some of the ordinances are technical matters concerned with the brewing process, restriction of prices and record-keeping (brewers were required to record customers). Tournai was a French city until the end of the sixteenth century. In 1718 it would have been part of the Austrian Netherlands. Today it is in Belgium. view more...

£1750.00

US$2617.64*

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STRUTT, Joseph. Antoine Marie Henri BOULARD, translator. ~ Angleterre ancien, ou, Tableau des mœurs, usages, armes, habillemens, &c. des anciens habitans de l'Angleterre; c'est-à-dire, des anciens Bretons, des Anglo-Saxons, des Danois & des Normands. Ouvrage traduit de l'anglois de M. Joseph Strutt, par M. B***, & pouvant servir de suite aux Recueils de Montsaucon & de Caylus.

Paris: [widow Herissant for]: Maradin, 1789.

First editon in French of Strutt's antiquarian work, Horda Angel-cynnan: or, A compleat view of the manners, customs, arms, habits, &c. of the inhabitants of England (published in three volumes between 1774 and 1776). The illustrations in the French edition are re-engraved from those of the English edition which were mainly copied from a wide range of manuscript sources consulted by Strutt from the British Museum, Lambeth Palace Library, the Bodleian Library, and Oxford and Cambridge college libraries. The majority are from the Chronicle of Matthew Paris."Strutt may justifiably be regarded as the first serious historian of dress in England, and his pioneering works of scholarship were heavily drawn upon by nineteenth-century costume historians. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who doubted the reliability of artistic sources as historical evidence, he employed a comparative analysis of the manuscripts, showing that they were reliable indicators of changes not just in matters of dress but also of the 'manners and customs' of the time. He was one of the first to realize the potential value of visual material as a historical source rather than as simply serving an illustrative purpose. He showed an early appreciation of the intrinsic merit of medieval art and was unusual in producing near-facsimile engraved reproductions of the originals" (Harris in Oxford DNB). view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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HALIFAX, [George SAVILE, Marquis of]. ~ Conseils d'un homme de qualite a sa fille.

London: Matthew Gillyflower, 1697.

A very rare French edition (albeit with "Londres" imprint) of Halifax's Advice to Betty, a counsel for young ladies of high birth on how to behave and manage themselves despite the prevailing inequalities of the sexes. Halifax wrote the book for his young daughter and it was only intended to be privately circulated; however, a pirated edition appeared in 1688 as The Ladies New-Year's Gift, or, Advice to a Daughter and by 1765 it had reached its fifteenth numbered edition, with translations also appearing in French and Italian. An edition with the imprint "chez Jaques Partridge à Charing-Cross, & Matieu Gilliflower dans Westminster-Hall", had appeared in 1692, and ESTC does not list this 1697 edition. Bound with the probable first edition of La Chalotais' revolutionary programme for an enlightened public system of education. The Essai was praised by Voltaire and was widely reprinted in its first year. Several issues are dated 1763, and ours is usually (though not bibliographically certainly) considered the first. La Chalotais was instrumental in dismantling the apparatus of Jesuit education in France, and his programme is his proposal for its replacement. Based on the acquisition of reason before the considerations of religion, the system divides education into primary (up to 10 years) and secondary phases and he here considers the relative merits of letters, history, geography, natural history, mathematics, physics (including astronomy and mechanics), literature, logic and metaphysics. Any study of religion is confined to a tertiary phase. view more...

£950.00

US$1421.01*

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(STUART, Charles, Baron Stuart de Rothesay). ~ [5 fine blue morocco bindings by Simier from the Rothesay collection.]

1640-1650.

A handsome group, superbly bound in Paris by Simier for Charles Stuart, Baron Stuart de Rothesay, British ambassador to France 1815-24 and 1828-31. Charles Stuart was widely considered one of the most discriminating English connoisseurs and collectors in Paris: he bought extensively for himself and, on occasion, for George IV. After his return from Paris his purchases furnished Highcliffe Castle (Christchurch, Dorset) which he had built in romantic and picturesque style. His books are notable for their fine French bindings, like these by Simier in typical ornately gilt blue morocco. The contents of Stuart's exceptional library were sold by Sotheby and Wilkinson over 14 days in May 1855. Many seem to have returned to France, a French compliment to an Englishman's taste in binding. While books bearing the Rothesay arms occasionally appear in commerce it is rare to find them in groups such as this. The British Library contains several similar examples with identical decoration by Simier or red and blue morocco bindings.These quite probably formed part of a much larger (probably comprehensive) collection of works from the Elzevir and associated presses. Notable among them is the first appearance of Saumaise (Salmasius)'s edition of the erotic romance, Leucippe and Clitophon, the only suviving work of Achilles Tatius and Corvinus' edition of Clapmarius' De arcanis rerum publicarum, an important German work on the philosophy of state. view more...

£3400.00

US$5085.70*

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HOLBERG, Ludvig, 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

US$1720.16*

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(MANUSCRIPT NOVEL). ~ [A fictional narrative of the adventures of Valsain and Aspaisie and their friends Qisnhy and Carithe in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Northern Europe and America.]

[?France c. 1800-1801.]

A manuscript novel, almost certainly authorial and unpublished. It is in part a series of imaginary voyages, with a strongly utopian flavour, but fused with various other literary tropes, notably a captivity narrative and strong elements of the eighteenth-century French romans philosophiques and romans du sérail. It also contains long passages of social and political commentary upon the major European powers. This is a remarkable and wide-ranging text, clearly written over a considerable period of time, with several changes of style and with substantial additions and revisions: all in a single hand. The hero, Valsain (a French-born Knight of Malta) is a model of the universal man: widely travelled and educated in the languages and customs of many countries.In the first draft of the manuscript, the action begins almost immediately with the arrival of the Napoleonic fleet off Malta en route for their famous Nile expedition, which Valsain promptly joins. However, a lengthy addition occupying the final 11 pages, tells the story of his life before this and his adventures in North America where he lived for several years after the Wars of Independence, taking his chances as a soldier (a naval engagement between American and British ships is described) and his engagement to an American girl. The engagement was broken only by his need to return to France on a lengthy and much-delayed passage of eighteenth months, finding on his arrival a series of long-out-of-date letters from her family asking for news and finally giving up hope of seeing him again. He also made several expeditions to the Greek Islands, Constantinople, Smyrna and Alexandria. Valsain's adventures with Napoleon are short-lived, since he is captured on his return from Egypt and imprisoned in a cave, from where is rescued by a couple of young women. One of them, Aspasie, a native of the Greek island of Naxos, becomes his lover. In the manner of the conte orientale, she tells him her tale: an education with a French tutor on Naxos, her kidnapping and imprisonment in the harem at Alexandria and her escape from Osman Bey's household when in Egypt. Aspasie is cast as a perfect counterpart for Valsain: noble, European-educated (a perfect fusion of French and Greek culture) but with an uncommon knowledge of the languages and ways of the East. The couple settle on an island in the River Nile, the very model of the utopian household, soon finding another counterpart to their own lives in their friends Qisnhy and his wife Carithe, natives of Abyssinia who came to Egypt with a trading caravan. Conversations between the friends allow the author to engage in a series of allegories: with Qisnhy recounting a series of semi-magical journeys to unknown countries (glossed in the margin in the author's hand: Russia, Poland, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey etc). The descriptions of Britain and France occupy several pages and are clearly comments on the contemporary situation. Britain is characterised as rich, busy and commercially successful but damned by a corrupt political and legal system based on antiquity: two emblematical scenes are recounted: a typical British boxing prize-fight and the sale of a wife. France, by contrast, is depicted as economically troubled by former political strife but blessed with a powerful, visionary and energetic leader, clearly Napoleon himself.The final part of the narrative recounts the return of Valsain and Aspasie to their spiritual and cultural home in Napoleonic France: where Aspasie refinds her French tutor and Valsain finds himself in the service of the Emperor.This text is a significant discovery: and can be read as a richly-layered reflection of cultural attitudes in France at the height of Napoleonic enthusiasm. It contains important cross-cultural reflections on the characteristics of the inhabitants of the world, and the relative importance of innate "natural" traits, language, culture, religion, politics and education. The story is audacious in scope: linking the culture of the Orient with that of Europe and America in the adventures of a single hero, provoking a chain of questions on the European encounter with the rest of the world at this crucial moment of French expansionism and youthful American independence. As a source-text for understanding the nature and extent of Orientalism in France, the story of Valsaim and Aspasie is surely unique.The authorship of the manuscript is, at this stage, unknown. It is interesting to consider the gender the anonymous author. A notable feature of the text is a consistent interest in gender relations and especially in the position of women in society. Those societies (particularly British) which underestimate the potential of women are censured and Aspasie herself is seemingly offered as a model of female culture and education and a perfect equal to her mate, Valsain. One of the many long asides has Aspasie describing the origins and childhood of tutor, Amelie and the sources of her own model education. view more...

£8000.00

US$11966.36*

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BERKELEY, George. ~ Recherches sur les vertus de l'eau de goudron, où l'on joint des Réfléctions Philosophiques sur diverses autres sujets... Avec deux Lettres de l'Auteur...

Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1745.

FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH OF BERKELEY'S LAST WORK, Siris, a chain of philosophical reflections and enquiries concerning the virtues of tar-water (1744) and of his two letters on the subject to Thomas Prior. At the time of its publication, Siris was the most popular of the author's many works. Berkeley had observed the use of tar-water among the native Americans and came to regard it as a panacaea in medicine, setting up an apparatus for its manufacture. "He recommends it not only in fevers, diseases of the lungs, cancers, scrofula, throat diseases, apoplexies, chronic disorders of all kinds, but also as a general drink for infants. It strengthens their bodies and sharpens their intellects. It is good for cattle... It is good for all climates, land and sea, for rich and poor, high and low livers, and he had himself drunk a gallon of it in a few hours" (DNB).The Siris is, however, more than just a medical work and the consideration of tar-water led Berkeley into a lengthy chain of reflections on the principles of the universe and of divine providence. view more...

£475.00

US$710.50*

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BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, Jacques-Henri. ~ Chaumière Indienne...

Paris: P. Fr. Didot le jeune, 1791.

First edition, with the words "De l'imprimerie de Monsieur" preceding the imprint and with 130 pages. There are copies on papier velin (e.g. the British Library copy, which lacks a half-title) and paper with vertical chain-lines, as in ours. Several further edition, including piracies appeared in the same year, each with a different pagination. The true first edition is very scarce.Chaumière Indienne tells the story of a Englishman of the Royal Society seeking enlightenment through his travels to distant lands. "Born in Le Havre, [Bernardin de Saint-Pierre] took a delight even as a child in romantic day-dreaming, and after reading Robinson Crusoe set sail for Martinique at the age of 12." He later studied under the Jesuits, became a military engineer and something of nomad. "He became a geographer in Malta, a journalist in Holland, and engineer in Russia, in Warsaw and Vienna he lived by his wits; in Mauritius he appears to have lived as something of an opportunist. On his return to Paris he became a friend of J.-J. Rousseau, whose personality and philosophy were to have a profound influence on him" (New Oxford Companion to French Literature). view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[CARACCIOLI, Louis Antoine de.] ~ Le livre à la mode.

"Verte-Feuille, de l'imprimerie du Printemps au Perroquet," [Paris]: 'L'Année nouvelle,' [1759].

First edition of a famous bibliographical eccentricity, printed in green ink throughout. Caraccioli's text is ostensibly a polemic, suggesting that the tyranny of black ink should be swept away in favour of books printed in colours more suited to their subject. Addressing a youthful audience Caraccioli forsees a didactic funtion for such books, bringing a renewed pleasure to the task of learning, and he writes that Pascal, Descartes and Newton have had their day. While there is much semi-serious meditation on the nature of colour and its affect on the mind, one suspects a satirical intention, directed against the relentless quest for novelty in French literary society.The Preface announces a future publication in red ink, which duly appeared the following year. There are two issues of the Le livre à la mode, with slightly differing pagination and wording of the imprint. While our issue gives "printemps" the other gives "printems". view more...

£475.00

US$710.50*

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[BUTEL-DUMONT, Georges-Marie, attributed to.] ~ Journées Mogoles, opuscule décent d'un docteur Chinois...

"Imprimée a Dély. Et se trouve à Paris, Chez J.P. Costard" [Paris], 1772.

First edition. Journées Mogoles mixes a whole series of orientalist themes with Turkish, Indian and Chinese elements. To all this is introduced, in the second part, a charming and desirable English lady, Milady Fanni with whom the hero falls in love. The introduction warns: "Jeune filles ce Livre n'est pas pour vous" and Gay describes the stories as "d'un merveilleux qui frise l'indécence".In the course of her wooing, Fanni introduces the hero to an imaginary personal library (part 2, pp. 57-61) allowing him a glimpse of her annotated catalogue, with her notes on Voltaire and Montesquieu and remarks on D'Alembert, Diderot, Racine, Corneille, Shakespeare, Rouseeau, Toussain and Marmontel.The authorship is uncertain, but the novel is usually attributed to Butel-Dumont, whose other works are on economic and political subjects. He was secretary to the French ambassador in Russia and a Royal Censor. The attractive woodcut vignettes are signed by Jean Beugnet. view more...

£1000.00

US$1495.80*

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BREREWOOD, Edward. ~ Recherches curieuses sur la diversité des langues et religions, par toutes les principales parties du Monde. Par Ed. Brerewood, Professeur à Londres, et mises en François par I. de la Montagne.

Paris: Olivier de Varennes, 1640.

First edition in French of Enquiries touching the diversity of languages, and religions through the cheife parts of the world (London, 1614). This is a translation of the most important of Brerewood's many works, an enterprising early study of linguistics and ethnology. It is known especially for Brerewood's thesis that America had been peopled principally from Asia and thus that the native Americans were in fact of Asian descent. It evidently attained some currency in France and there are several seventeenth-century editions in French.The author's intention was to classify the cultures of the known world according to a fourfold division (Christians, Muslims, idolaters and Jews) and to understand the historical origins of Christianity. Reflecting the author's profession as mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College, the work is an interesting exercise in quantifying proportionally the relative influence over the globe of each of the dominant cultures. He concludes that if the known regions of the earth are divided into "30 equall parts" the Christian part was five, the Muslim six, the idolators' nineteen, with Judaism dispersed among them all. view more...

£480.00

US$717.98*

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(MARITIME LAW). ~ Ordonnance de Louis XIV, roy de France et de Navarre. Donée à Fontainebleau au mois d'Aoust 1681. Touchant la Marine.

Paris: Denys Thierry and Christophle Ballard, 1681.

First edition of Colbert's famous codification for Louis XIV, the basis of modern maritime law in all parts of the world. Derived from a combination of Roman law and from a mass of local custom and usage, the history of French maritime law thus codified represents an interesting case of the persistence of distinct Roman models alongside non-Roman law practiced in other fields.The Ordonnance also occupies an important place in the history of insurance, both in the field of marine insurance (which is fully described) and life insurance, since maritime law was one of the earliest instances in which lives may be insured as opposed to goods. It has been suggested that this resulted from the need for shipowners to insure cargos of slaves or against the possibility of the ransoming of captured passengers and crew. Slaves were legally 'goods' rather than people in their own right, so could be insured under the Ordonnance, while ransomed individuals would acquire a monetary "price". The codification of proceedure in these cases began a culture in which human life could be valued in monetary terms for the purpose of insurance. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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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].

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. Copies of the first are indeed rare: Worldcat listing 5 copies. Our edition is the second. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Draught of a new plan for the organisation of the judicial establishment in France: proposed as a succedaneum to the draught presented, for the same purpose, by the Committee of Constitution, to the National Assembly, December 21st, 1789.

[London?]: March, 1790.

First edition, rare complete. An early work by Bentham, published in seven sections, of which the first is Bentham's proposed draught, and the following six chapters consist of his analysis and observations of the draught. "The news that the Constitutional Committee had submitted on 21 December 1789 to the National Assembly a draught plan for a new judicial system prompted Bentham to prepare and print in instalments his own Draught of a new plan for the organisation of the judicial establishment in France. Instalments, translated by Dumont, began to appear in the Courier de Province, for 22-23 May and continued to do so until May. At the beginning of April he addressed a letter to the President of the National Assembly, and one hundred copies of the parts so far printed in England were sent to Paris through the French minister in London, Francois Barthelemy (Correspondence, iv)" (Chuo, p. 59). view more...

£1750.00

US$2617.64*

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(VOLTAIRE.) ~ Dialogue entre le dix-neuvieme et le vingtieme siécles, au moment où le premier va expirer, & le second commencer; précédé & suivi d'eclaircissemens & de notes. Par Mm. Legopanof & Alethowits. Ouvrage trouvé dans la Bibliothèque de Constantinople parmi les manuscrits du célèbre & mal célébré Voltaire.

"Constantinople" [Paris]: "2001" [1780].

First edition. It would be hard to find a work published with a more elaborate arsenal of fictitious obfuscations: supposedly printed at Constantinople in the year 2001, by the editors "Legopanof & Alethowits" with the claim that the text was found among various papers (improbably also in a library at Constantinople) of Voltaire. This satirical philosophical poem is written in the style of Voltaire's various Dialogues entres.... and is possibly the work of Antoine Rivarol, reactionary writer, epigrammatist and self-styled French count. A number of contemporary works of a philiosophical caste are singled out for ridicule (usually among the numerous footnotes), with Marmontel coming in for special censure with mockery of his Bélisaire ("Roman Philosophique, rempli de lieux communs de morale, & vuide d'action"); his Les Incas ("aussi dénué d'intéret que le prêcêdent"; and his translation of Lucan's Pharsale, the Contes Moraux, The work was included (without the preface and notes) in Œuvres complètes de Rivarol (Paris, 1808), v. 3, p. 314-322. We can find no further editions. view more...

£525.00

US$785.29*

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[BERKELEY, George, editor]; Richard STEELE [preface]; F. M. JANIÇON, translator. ~ Bibliotheque des Dames, contenant des regles génerales pour leur conduite, dans toutes les circonstances de la vie. Ecrite par une dame, & publiée par Mr. le Chev. R[ichard]. Steele, traduite de l'Anglois par Mr. Janiçon. Seconde edition.

Amsterdam: Du Villard et Changuion, 1719-24.

First complete edition in French, in 3 volumes, the earlier edition (1716) comprising volume 1 only. The work was originally published in English as "The ladies library. Written by a lady. Published by Mr. Steele." in 3 volumes in 1714; it was formerly attributed to Lady Mary Wray, but is now known accepted as having been compiled "from the several writings of our greatest divines" (preface) by George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne and philosopher, whose contract for it with Jacob Tonson is extant in the Osborn Collection at Yale. Steele's part in the publication was merely "to write a preface & to subscribe his name" (contract). Berkeley and Steele, fellow Irish compatriots in London, became close friends early in Berkeley's career and it was Steele's introduction to his own publisher Tonson which led to the publication of this work. "Berkeley undertook compilation of the three-volume Ladies Library (purporting to be 'by a Lady') for Tonson, for which Steele wrote a preface. This quite heavily edited set of readings on social convention, the family, and religion was intended to better women's education and social standing, and went through six editions in Berkeley's lifetime." (Stewart in Oxford DNB). view more...

£550.00

US$822.69*

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[LACOMBE, M. and Jean Baptiste Joseph WICAR.] ~ [Broadside]. Pictures, Statues, Basso Relievos, and Engraved Stones, of the Gallery of Florence, and the Pitti Palace, Engraved under the Direction of Mr. Lacombe, Painter, from the Drawings of Mr. Wicar; a Work dedicated To His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

[n.p., n.d., but London, c. 1800.]

A broadside advertisement and form of subscription, probably otherwise uknown, for a projected London issue of engraved plates after Wicar of treasures from the galleries of Florence. The Parisian publisher Lacombe was issuing plates in serial parts for his Tableaux, statues, bas-reliefs et camées de la Galerie de Florence et du Palais Pitti between 1789 and 1814. Our advertisement may have been for this French publication, or a projected English edition of which we find no trace in library catalogues.Having described the subjects, the publishers note that they will publish only 4 numbers in the first year "conscious of all the Obstacles that may impede the Publication of a Work which they propose to give in a most perfect Manner", though they state that 3 have already been printed.Though this copy has had the form of subscription torn off and submitted, it seems that the number of subscriptions failed to warrant publication. The place of the opening exhibition has been altered in contemporary manuscript from 41 St James's Street to 81 Pall Mall. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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[NERCIAT, André-Robert Andréa de.] ~ Felicia, ou Mes fredaines....

"Amsterdam" [?Paris], n.d. [ 1775.]

Probable first edition (according to Dutel's bibliography). Nerciat's novel, with its numerous examples of the heroine's unbridled lust, was described by Gay as "l'une des plus charmantes productions du siècle dernier". The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French describes it as "... a lively first-person narrative whose cheerful eroticism contrasts with the darker works of Laclos and Sade." It is one of the archetypal works of pre-Revolutionary erotica and was reprinted numerous times.The number of editions has bewildered bibliographers. Gay chose to place the illustrated Cazin editions first in the sequence (and does not list our edition). More recently, Dutel has suggested the more likely primacy of this undated, unillustrated "Amsterdam" imprint. Darnton lists the work among his 720 'forbidden books' (though he cites the Cazin edition) and notes 25 copies confiscated from Manoury at Caen. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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PASSE PARTOUT (Le) galant par Monsieur **** Chevalier de l'Ordre de l'Industrie & de la Gibeciere. ~

'A Constantinople [i.e. Holland?], A l'Imprimerie de Sa Hautesse', 1710.

Gay describes this gossipy little book as a "recueil de pièces satiriques, dirigées pour la plupart contre la clergé", with the Jesuites du College de Louis le Grand and Louis XIV's great general, the Maréchal de Villars singled out for special attention. The anonymous author satirically describes himself as "Chevalier de l'Ordre de l'Industrie & de la Gibeciere" ('chevalier d'industrie' means swindler in French and 'gibecièr' is a gamebag or satchel), but his real identity remains a mystery. This is the second edition. A more common issue with the imprint 'la présente année' is considered variously to have been printed from 1700 to 1708. The BL catalogue suggests Holland as the place of publication for our edition. No source hazards a guess at the author.De Courtin's work purports to be an early self-help manual which offers practical advice on dealing with jealousy in a marriage, which, as the advertisement proclaims: "De toutes les maladies de l'esprit, La Jalousie est assurément la plus dangereuse, & la plus difficile à guerir". Despite being described by Gay as an "ouvrage ennuyeux et mal ecrit", the frequency with which the title was reprinted after its first publication in 1764 is testament to its contemporary popularity.The final work Octavie ou l'Epouse fidelle was first published in 1683; this imprint is not dated, but other undated copies are suggested to have been published c.1700. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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[MAYEUR DE SAINT-PAUL, François.] ~ Le vol plus haut, ou l'espion des principaux théatres de la capitale; contenant une histoire abrégée des acteurs & actrices de ces mêmes theâtres, enrichie d'observations philosophiques & d'anecdotes récréatives. Dedié aux amateurs.

"Memphis: chez Sincere, Libraire réfugié au Puits de la Verité" [?Paris,] 1784.

First edition of a notorious libelle, directed against the Parisian theatrical world and some of its luminaries, usually attributed to the wayward actor Mayeur de Saint-Paul and occasionally to one or more associates: the arch-libellist Charles Thévereau de Morande, François Poultier and the actor Dumont. It includes a particularly grimy attack on the morality of the dancer François Nivelon (author of the English best-seller, Rudiments of Genteel Behavior) and a series of well-known actresses are accused of prostitution.This scurrilous exposé of several leading figures was not universally appreciated and the work was quickly banned. Robert Dawson found 43 copies listed in the registers of books held at the Bastille after having been confiscated at customs or elsewhere (Dawson, Confiscations at customs: banned books and the French booktrade, 2006, p. 258.)The work is here bound with an issue of Mayeur de Saint-Paul's earlier (and equally notorious) theatrical libelle: Le désœuvré. This issue has the title-page of the first edition (giving "Londres, 1781") but is without the preliminaries usually found with that edition. It is probable that these were never present in this copy and indeed it seems that there were several early issues with variant titles and pagination not fully ennumerated in the bibliographical catalogues.Both works are rare, having been subject to suppression over a long period of time. view more...

£850.00

US$1271.43*

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GATTEY, François. ~ Éléments du nouveau systême métrique, suivis des tables de rapports des anciennes mesures agraires avec les nouvelles...

Paris: Bailly and Rondonneau, 'An X' [1801].

First edition of an important practical guide to the new metric system, designed to counteract the persistence of local customary measurements in the regions of France and containing numerous tables for conversion from the old measures to the new. François Gattey was, with Legendre, one of the members of the convention established in 1795 to enact the definitive adoption of the metric system."One of the most significant results of the French Revolution was the establishment of the metric system of weights and measures....On June 19, 1791, a committee of 12 mathematicians, geodesists, and physicists met with Louis XVI, who gave his formal approval. The next day, the king attempted to escape from France, was arrested, returned to Paris, and was imprisoned; a year later, from his cell, he issued the proclamation that directed two engineers, Jean Delambre and Pierre Méchain, to perform the operations necessary to determine the length of the metre. The intervening time had been spent by the scientists and engineers in preliminary research; Delambre and Méchain now set to work to measure the distance on the meridian from Barcelona, Spain, to Dunkirk in northern France. The survey proved arduous; civil and foreign war so hampered the operation that it was not completed for six years. While Delambre and Méchain were struggling in the field, administrative details were being worked out in Paris. In 1793 a provisional metre was constructed from geodetic data already available. In 1795 the firm decision was taken to enact adoption of the metric system for France. The new law defined the length, mass, and capacity standards and listed the prefixes for multiples and submultiples. With the formal presentation to the assembly of the standard metre, as determined by Delambre and Méchain, the metric system became a fact in June 1799. The motto adopted for the new system was 'For all people, for all time'" (Ency. Brit.). view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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CHAMPIER, Symphorien. ~ Campus Elysius Galliae amoenitate refertus: in quo sunt medicinæ compositæ, herbæ et plantæ virentes: in quo quicquid apud Indos, Arabes, et Poenos reperitur, apud Gallos reperiri posse demonstratur.

Lyon: Melchior & Gaspard Trechsel, 1533.

First edition of two of the most influential and characteristic works by the renaissance physician and humanist, Symphorien Champier, colleague of Michael Servetus and François Rabelais at the Schools of Medicine at Lyons.In the Campus Elysius Galliae and Hortus Gallicus, Champier sought to reform the French pharmacopoeia and material medica, insisting that France had all the medical resources it needed in the form of herbs and medicinal plants without recourse to the exotic remedies espoused by the Arabic medical tradition. In doing this, Champier linked politics, culture, medicine and horticulture in praising the new cultural fertility of France (the Hortus Gallicus is dedicated to King Francis I). He cites various drugs known to be "pernicious and venomous" to Europeans, albeit perfectly suited to the inhabitants of other regions and other times (cf. Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous: local knowledge and natural history in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2007). Champier's thesis derives from his deep antipathy to the Arabic medical tradition: several of his many earlier works sought to purify Galenic and Hippocratic medicine of Arabic influence partly in the belief that by stripping away latter Arabic influence the physician was drawing closer to the pure Classical origins of western medicine. It also expresses his persistent critique of the occultist tradition, so deeply ingrained in medical theory and practice at the opening of the Renaissance.Champier's Renaissance attitudes to medicine may not have been original but they were certainly influential. Lyons was one of the most important centres of the Renaissance in France (witness his prominent contemporaries) and he was very prolific, writing or editing at least 45 individual books. Many of his works are hard to classify and their very diversity is typical of the spirit of the age. He has been criticised for attempting to uncover the truth by simply piling authority upon authority, drawing from history, poetry, philosophy, magic and medicine without distinction. This approach may be alien to the modern mind, but Champier wrote at the very beginning of the scientific Renaissance and his works are highly characteristic of the humanist cast of mind. "He shared with many humanists the capacity for oratorical exuberance. So that when Scaliger called him 'insolens, tumens, turgens,' perhaps this spirit should be interpreted as an indication that he was full of the 'spirit of the Renaissance,' that rare gas which the historical laboratory has never yet succeeded in holding in solution" (Thorndike). The three works here have separate titles but were almost certainly issued together. The Campus Elysius contains several additional tracts: De sanguinis missione; Epistola J. Champerii avunculo suo Symphoriano (dated 25 June 1532); Speculum medici Christiani (dedicated to Champier's son Antoine) and De Theriacâ gallicâ. The Periarcha is dedicated to Charles de l'Estang, protonotaire of Saint-Siége. Each work is notable for the careful typography characteristic of Champier's printed works: he worked closely with his printers (Dumaitre, Histoire de la medecine et du livre medical, p. 195).Symphorien Champier, was born into a bourgeois family at Saint-Symphorien-sur-Croise, near Lyon and studied at the University of Paris before 1495, when he matriculated at the medical school of Montpellier, which granted him his doctorate in 1504. He taught liberal arts in Grenoble and took a doctorate in theology in 1502. In 1509 he was appointed physician to Antoine Duke of Lorraine, who brought him to Nancy. Champier followed the duke several time to Italy, where he was involved in the battles of Agnadello (1509) and Marignano (1515). During his stays in Italy he won recognition as an academic teacher from the University of Pavia. In 1519 he became an alderman in Lyon, and for the last twenty years of his life he was at the center of the cultural Renaissance of that city, while simultaneously promoting the study of medicine by helping to found the College of the Holy Trinity and sponsoring translations of, and writing commentaries on, the works of Hippocrates and Galen. view more...

£7500.00

US$11218.46*

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[SHIRLEY, Laurence, fourth Earl Ferrers.] ~ An Account of the Execution of the late Laurence Earl Ferrers, Viscount Tamworth, and of His Lordship's Behaviour, From the Time of his being delivered into the Custody of the Sherriffs of London and Middlesex, Until the Time of his Execution. By the Authority of the Sherriffs.

London: sold by M. Cooper, 1760.

FIRST EDITION of the scarce licensed report of the celebrated case of the execution of the Fourth Earl Ferrers, Viscount Tamworth, said to have been the "first sufferer by the new drop just then introduced in the place of the barbarous cart, ladder, and mediaeval three-cornered gibbet" (DNB citing All the Year Round and Walpole's Letters). Ferrers had been found guilty of the murder of a household steward whom he had shot at his house at Staunton Harrold, Leicestershire, apparently as a result of a long-held grudge. His execution at Tyburn was a remarkable public spectacle as this report attests. The victim chose to dress for his execution in a pale suit embroidered with silver and was taken from the Tower in his own landau drawn by six horses "instead of the Mourning-Coach which had been provided by his friends" through the streets of London, which were lined with hundreds of thousands of spectators. Maintaining an elegant composure to the last and giving the customary tribute to his executioners (who squabbled over the five guineas he gave them) Ferrers submitted to the new apparatus which did its job with only limited success. The platform "instantly sunk down from beneath his Feet, and left him entirely suspended; but not having sunk down so low as was designed, it was immediately pressed down, and leveled with the rest of the floor." While it is admitted that Ferrers died only when "eased of all Pain by the Pressure of the Executioner" the account denies that the execution was bungled and specifically refutes reports that "his Lordship stood for some time on tip-toe". The account concludes with the conveyance of Ferrers's body to Surgeon's Hall to be dissected and anatomized according to the relatively recent act (25 Geo. II. C. 37 'An Act for Better Preventing the Horrid Crime of Murder'). view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[RIVEROL, Antoine de.] ~ Petit dictionnaire des grands hommes de la Revolution; par un Citoyen actif, ci-devant Rien.

Paris: "au Palais Royal, de l'Imprimerie Nationale," 1790.

First edition. Two issues of 1790 are known, ours and another in duodecimo, both with the same text. It is not possible to be sure of primacy. Riverol had acted as a royalist propagandist prior to the Revolution and his Petit dictionnaire de grands hommes is a brilliant catalogue of satires on the behaviour of leading cultural and political figures during 1789. It includes entries for Beaumarchais, Condorcet, Danton, Guillotin, La Clos, La Fayette, La Rochefoucauld, Mirabeau, Necker, Prudhomme and Robespierre ('le grand homme le plus petit.') view more...

£175.00

US$261.76*

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[AULNOY, Madame d'.] ~ Le Prince Désir.

[N.p., N.d., but probably Caen: Chalopin, c.1800-1810]

Rare chapbook style fairy-tale romance, which has the same design as the booklets published by Pierre Chalopin who worked in Caen around 1800-1810. The text is probably derived from that of Madame d'Aulnoy (1650/1-1705). view more...

£260.00

US$388.91*

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(COMMERCE.) ~ Tarif générale, ou comptes faits pour faire et recevoir des paimens en monnaies et espèces des Pays-Bas, de Brabant, de Hollande, de Liége, de Luxembourg, de France, d'Allemagne et d'Angleterre. Calculé d'après la loi du 28 septembre 1816 et les décrets des 18 août, 12 septembre 1810, et 30 novembre 1811. Suivi 1. De tableaux de monnaies anciennes et étrangères...

Brussels: M.-E. Rampelbergh, [n.d. c. 1816].

A commercial ready-reckoner for European merchants with attractive woodcuts of current and historic coins and with numerous vellum page tabs for easy reference. view more...

£125.00

US$186.97*

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SÉGUR, L.[ouis]-P.[hilippe], Comte de. ~ Contes, Fables, Chansons et Vers...

Paris: F. Buisson, Mongie l'a'né and Frère l'aïné at Rouen, "An IX" [1801.]

First edition of this collection of pieces by the historian and former statesman de Ségur. In the 5 years prior to the Revolution, de Ségur had acted as minister to Russia, having previously travelled widely in the Americas. His political career was ruined in 1789 and he was forced to live thereafter (until the Bourbon restoration) by his pen. Contes, Fables, Chansons et Vers contains several verses inspired by his political career, notably verses adressed to Catherine the Great and to Count Schouwalow, together with an epitaph composed on the death of Zémire, Empress Catherine's lap dog. view more...

£100.00

US$149.58*

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PIERRET, Paul. ~ Essai sur la mythologie Égyptienne...

Paris: Charles de Mourges frères, 1879.

Inscribed by the author. Pierret was curator of the Musée Égyptien at the Louvre. His essay on the cults of the sun-god was issued in this 48-page version and in a larger, simultaneous, edition with lithograph hieroglyphic apparatus. Pierret is best-known for his Vocabulaire hiéroglyphique. view more...

£30.00

US$44.87*

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[BRÉGHOT DU LUT, Claude, Antoine PERICAUD and Pierre-Alexandre GRATET-DUPLESSIS.] ~ Recueil de la chevauchée, faicte en la ville de Lyon: La dixseptiesme de Novembre 1578. Avec tout l'Ordre tenu en icelle.

Lyon: [J.M. Barret], [1829].

One of 100 copies on papier vélin of this critical edition of a sixteenth-century verse account of what, in English, would be called a 'skimmington ride' (a spontaneous and noisy procession to ridicule an erring husband or wife). The text had first been printed in the Collection de pièces relatives à l'histoire de France, but this version contains an interesting introduction with a brief survey of the appearance of the skimmington ride in English literature: Butler's Hudibras, the Tour of Doctor Syntax ("encore peu connu en France, mais qui a eu beaucoup de succès dans son pays natal") and Scott's Fortunes of Nigel. view more...

£50.00

US$74.79*

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(MANUSCRIPT). ~ [Metallurgy] Copie de Lettres... [Napoleonic-era letterbook].

[France:] 2 January - 29 December 1811.

A richly-informative manuscript, being the record of letters sent on behalf of a manufacturer of iron to a wide variety of tradesmen and officials, including the proprietors of factories and forges and craftsmen such as nail-makers, pin-makers, iron, wood and charcoal merchants. It apparently provides a complete record of all the letters sent by an unidentified manufacturer (probably in the region of Besançon) in the year 1811, the high watermark of the Napoleonic empire. The letters are almost all signed on behalf of Nourel or Mercier l'ainé (presumably proprietors) and are addressed to recipients the length and breadth of France (Paris, Nantes, Besançon, Dijon, Avignon to name but a few). The contents of the letters most commonly involve financial transactions and there is extensive data for prices and productivity to be gleaned from them. We must assume that this is one volume of a sequence of other annual volumes (it is labelled 'No 5') on the upper cover, but it provides a complete record for the year 1811. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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LE PAYS, René, Sieur du Plessis-Villeneuve. ~ Amitiez, amours et amourettes...

'Grenoble, & se vend a Paris': Charles de Sercy, 1664.

A rare and celebrated courtly collection of amatory letters and verses. It was reprinted numerous times (several editions appeared in the same year). Le Pays' post as a government official at Grenoble apparently left him ample leisure for literary composition, and this, his best-known work was much admired by the duchesse de Nemours, who became his patron. Several of the 1664 editions bear identical or very similar imprints, Gay denotes our edition (with the Sercy imprint) the second. Despite the number of editions, legitimate or pirated, printed in the same year all are now very rare outside France. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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SULLY, Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de. ~ Memoires de sages et royales oeconomies d'estat, domestiques, politiques et militaires de Henry le Grand, l'exemplaire des roys, le prince des vertus, des armes et des loix, & le pere en effet de ses peuples François. Et des servitudes utiles obeissances convenables & administrations loyales de Maximilen de Bethune l'un des plus confidens; familiers & utiles soldats & serviteurs du grand Mars des François. Dediez à la France, à tous les bons Soldats & tous peuples François.

"A Amstelredam: chez Alethinosgraphe de Clearetimelee, & Graphexechon de Pistariste, à l'enseigne des trois vertus couronées d'Amaranthe," n.d. [1638];

The Mémoires are the principal source for the political, economic, military and legal history of the reign of Henry IV ("le Grand"), compiled by the king's most able and most trusted minister. Henry's reign marked the rehabilitation of France's fortunes after the near-disintegration of the country during the Wars of Religion. Sully's collection represents a very immediate account of the period between 1570 and 1628, including episodes such as Henry's conversion to Catholicism (arguably a political expediency urged by Sully himself, who remained Protestant); the Edict of Nantes (which promised religious toleration for the Huguenots); negotiations with the English crown (both Elizabeth and James I); and war with Spain (in alliance with England). Sully's own contrubution to the state is amply recorded - he is remembered for his reorganisation of the country's finances and system of office-holding as well as for his engineering projects (the Place Royale and the Briare Canal linking Seine and Loire being the best known). The Mémoires are historiographically advanced and include both critical narrative and a large number of transcribed diplomatic material. They have, however, been criticized for partiality and for containing "many fictions, such as a mission undertaken by Sully to Queen Elizabeth in 1601, and the famous 'Grand Design,' a plan for a Christian republic [or a United States of Europe], which some historians have taken seriously" (Ency. Brit, 1911). The work was completed posthumously by a second volume (present here) under the editorship of J. Le Laboureur. The bibliography of this work has been contentious. For a long time, our edition with the coloured frontispieces was accepted as the first, published with a false imprint at the Chateau de Sully itself. It is now clear that there were actually as many as 3 issues bearing versions of these title pages: the exceptionally rare true first edition printed under Sully's eye (with a different collation to ours); our swiftly-produced contrefaçon of the same year, and one other pirate edition. Complete sets of any edition are rare. view more...

£1400.00

US$2094.11*

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(LOUIS XIII). [FANCAN, François Dorval-Langlois, sieur de.] ~ La chronique des favoris [drop-head title].

[N.p.]: [n.d., 1621.]

First edition of this satire directed against Charles Philippe d'Albert, duc de Luynes and his brothers, favourites of Louis XIII. Charles actually died as this pamphlet was published, but had become hugely unpopular as Constable of France, directing military operations against the Protestants. The satire ends with an earnest entreaty to Louis XIII to rule with a Council rather than through favourites, and to make peace with his exiled mother Marie de Medici.The satire was rapidly translated into English as The favovrites chronicle (also 1621, STC 15203). view more...

£125.00

US$186.97*

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BAUDELAIRE, Charles. ~ Un mangeur d'opium.

Paris: La Mandragore, 1945.

First edition thus. Of a total edition of 170 copies, this is one of 16 copies with an additional suite of plates and one original illustration. Un mangeur d'opium is an extract from Des Paradis Artificiels and is illustrated throughout with coloured woodcuts by Leon Masson. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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(MEDICAL HANDKERCHIEF). [BUQUET, A., engraver.] ~ Le médecin dans la poche.

Rouen: E. Renault, [n.d. but c. 1840-70.]

An unusual illustrated handkerchief by Renault on the theme of public health. The large central scene depicts a fairground quack pulling teeth and dispensing bottles of medicine (accompanied by a performing dog) while the 24 surrounding scenes present medical advice on the subject of a variety of common ailments. There are treatments for cuts and bruises, concussion, sea-sickness, coal asphyxiation, gout, stings, splinters and so on. At three of the four corners is a brief description of the use of medical syrops, tisanes, quinine and absinthe, with specific preparations recommended.The illustrated handkerchief was a speciality of Rouen, with the firm of Renault producing numerous series, with educational, commemorative or comic subjects. The engraved images, of which Buquet was the master recall contemporary comic paper illustrations. Le médecin dans la poche was evidently a popular line and was reprinted several times up to 1870. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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POILROUX, Jacques. ~ Traité de médecine légale criminelle...

Paris: Levrault, 1834.

First edition, rare, of this very comprehensive (and early) treatise on medicine in law. It is written from the perspective of a practising doctor (Poiloux worked in the Basse-Alpes region of France) and contains numeorous first hand accounts of medical evidence in police and criminal proceedings. Its contents include consideration of the corpse, evidence of a variety of violent deaths, suicide and infanticide. There is a lengthy chapter on the evidence of poisoning, another on the evidence of wounds, and a final chapter on gynaecological/obstetric evidence. It was reprinted in 1837. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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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

US$747.90*

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MOUSIN, Jean and Christophe CACHET, translator. ~ Pandora Bacchica furens, medicis armis oppugnata. H'c temulentiae ortus, & progressus ex antiquorum monumentis inuestigatur, Bacchi vis effrenis Aesculapij claua retunditur atque compescitur. Opus varietate curiosum, doctrina salutare...

Toul: Sebastien Philippe, 1614.

First edition in Latin of Mousin's Discourse de l'yvresse et yvrongnerie, which was first printed in 1612 (also by Philippe at Toul). Both Mousin and Cachet his translator were physicians to the Duke of Lorraine. This rare work is a remarkable and early work on the history and culture of drinking and excessive drinking from antiquity to the author's day. Written from both a medical and moral perspective it provides much detail on the consumption of wine. view more...

£2000.00

US$2991.59*

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[SAURIN, Bernard Joseph.] ~ Mirza et Fatmé, conte indien traduit de l'Arabe.

"A la Haye" [Paris], 1754.

First edition. A rare novel for young readers, in the form of a fairy tale set in India, with a full complement of requisite genies and magical occurrences; a preface by the "translator" tells of the discovery in Delhi of an Arabic manuscript from the library of the Grand Mogul. Saurin (1706-1781) was a dramatist and poet with a particular interest in contemporary English writing; he published translations and imitations of Pope, Thomson, Lillo, etc. He was very friendly with Helvétius, who secured him a pension which enabled him to abandon law and dedicate himself to writing. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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[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's edition of Sir Kenelm Digby's account of the "Powder of Symapthy", an alchemical preparation purported to cure wounds 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

US$598.32*

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FLEURY, [Claude, Abbé.] ~ Les devoirs des ma'tres et des domestiques...

Paris: Pierre Aubouin, Pierre Emery, et Charles Clouzier, 1688.

First edition of an illuminating treatise on the reciprocal duties of masters and servants. Divided into 2 parts: the first considers the responsibilities of the masters while the second considers those of the servants and is divided into different categories of servants: butlers, valets, chambermaids, coachmen and so on. view more...

£900.00

US$1346.22*

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[VARILLAS, Antoine, attributed to.] ~ Histoire du Wiclefianisme. Ou de la doctrine de Wiclef, Jean Hus, et Jerome de Prague. Avec celle des guerres de Boheme, qui en ont esté les suites. Dernier edition.

Lyon "Suivant la copie imprimée A Lyon, Chez Jean Certe, ru' Merciere, à l'enseigne de la Trinité," 1682.

First separate edition, attributed by some authors to Varillas; according to Michaud and Nouvelle biographie générale, it is an extract from his Histoire des revolutions arrivées dans Europe, though disavowed by him. The statements "Dernier edition" and "Suivant la copie imprimée a Lyon" on the title page would both appear to be false. This is a detailed account of the major medieval heresies especially those of John Wyclif and the Lollards in England and of Jan Hus in Bohemia.This copy contains some interesting later (probably eighteenth-century) notes in Italian at the rear concerning Wat Tyler (rather poetically rendered 'Gualtieri il pentolaio') and the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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LACAM, Pierre. ~ Le Mémorial historique et géographique de la patisserie contenant 2800 recettes de Pâtisserie, Glaces & Liqueurs orné de gravures dans le texte... 5eme edition... 5eme Mille.

Paris: Corbeil for the author, 1900.

First edition, very scarce of Mémorial des Glaces, a treasury of ice-cream and other sweet recipes from Belle Epoque Paris. The work was issued as a companion volume to a fifth edition Lacam's earlier classic Mémorial historique et géographique de la patisserie. view more...

£650.00

US$972.27*

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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. Its 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$448.74*

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(NAPOLEON BONAPARTE). "AHRIMAN I" (pseud). ~ Ought France to worship the Bonapartes?

London: [Collingridge for] Robert Hardwicke, 1863.

First edition of this anonymous pamphlet deploring the persistence of the Napoleonic cult. "The publication of these remarks has been elicited by a feeling of indignation and surprise, on learning, that, in any part of of the world, and especially in France, the man, whom a former generation cursed, should now be deemed worthy of being canonised" (from the Conclusion). The pseudonym "Ahriman" refers to the ancient Persian personification of evil. view more...

£40.00

US$59.83*

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(DEVOTION.) [LE LORRAIN, Jean]. ~ De l'ancienne coutume de prier et d'adorer debout le jour du dimanche, & de fête, & durant le tems de Pâque. Ou abregé historique des ceremonies anciennes et modernes, tiré des SS. Peres, des auteurs, & des conciles de chaque siecle, de l'histoire ecclesiastique, des liturgies grecques & latines, & des ordinaires, rituels, ceremoniaux, actes, constitutions, & statuts de chaque eglise. Où l'on traite en passant ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans l'ancienne discipline.

Liège [i.e. Rouen]: chez Henry van Rhyn [i.e. Guillaume Behourt], 1700.

First edition of this valuable chronological history of religious rites and ceremonies, from the early Jews to the seventeenth-century. Le Lorrain was chaplain of the cathedral at Rouen and it is not clear why the work was printed with a fictitious imprint. Examples are known with Liège and Delft imprints (no primacy) but both were printed at Rouen by Guillaume Behourt. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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(CHOISY, François-Timoléon, abbé de.) ~ Histoires secrettes de plusieurs demoiselles; Leurs Aventures galantes.

Paris: Tiger, n.d. [c.? 1800.]

First edition of this version of the adventures of pre-Revolutionary France's most famous transvestite. Born to a member of the household of the duke of Orleans in 1644 the young François-Timoléon was dressed as a girl by his mother. While that in itself was not uncommon in infancy, the young boy continued to dress thus until the age of eighteen. Attempting to revert to male dress thereafter, the young man continued to dress as a woman, reportedly to assist in his various amorous intrigues.He began to lead a clerical life, but finding the notoroius Bussy-Rabutin a neighbour in his benefice at Saint-Seine (Burgundy) his was never a straightforward career. He travelled to Rome and to China and wrote an engaging memoir, published in 1737. The record of his exploits as a woman were, however, left largely in his other manuscripts and published as Histoire de madame la comtesse de Barres (Antwerp, 1735) and again as the Vie de M. l'abbé de Choisy (Lausanne and Geneva, 1742). Our very rare chapbook version by Tiger (who was something of a specialist in galante histories) apparently draws on these accounts. The frontispiece presents a rather glum Choisy in women's dress. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.] ~ Histoire du maréchal de Fabert, lieutenant général des armées du roy, gouverneur des ville & château de Sedan &c.

Amsterdam: Henri Desbordes, 1697.

First edition of this biography of one of France's greatest seventeenth-century military leaders. Born at Metz in 1599, the son of a printer, Fabert commanded the garrison at Metz and became it's governor in 1638. He was made 'maréchal de camp' by Louis XII at the siege of Donchery, and became governor of Sedan in 1642. His success lay as much in his diplomatic skills as his undoubted military prowess.The author was prolific, being known also for his popular fiction, often based on historical figures. In his early life he had seen service with the Musketeers, experience which he used as the basis for his Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan (1700) which in turn was the inspiration for Dumas's Les Trois Mousquetaires. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[TIPHAIGNE DE LA ROCHE, Charles-François.] ~ L'Amour Dévoilé, ou le Système des Simpathistes, où l'on explique l'origine de l'Amour, des Inclinations, des Simpathies, des Aversions, des Antipathies, etc.

[n.p. ?Low Countries], 1749.

First editions. Tiphaigine de la Roche's L'Amour Dévoilé is a notable attempt to explain love and sexual attraction in mechanistic terms. The author considers the role of 'la matière Sympathique' which he believed to be a type of vapour exhaled by both animals and humans, and its action upon the senses of a member of the oppositie sex. This rational approach to the subject prefigures modern research into pheromones. Pernetti, author of the moral romance Histoire de Favoride was a canon of the cathedral at Lyon and a prominent antiquary of that city. He was also a freemason and wrote a short treatise on that subject view more...

£495.00

US$740.42*

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[L'ESTOILE, Pierre de]. ~ Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France. Contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans ce royaume depuis 1515. jusqu'en 1611. (Ed. Jean Godefroy).

Cologne [Brussels]: Heirs of Herman Demen, 1719.

A finely-illustrated history of France in the sixteenth and early-seventeenth century. The second part (1589-1611) is printed here for the first time; the first part originally having been published in 1621 as Journal des choses memorables advenues durant tout le regne de Henry III (Cioranesco 13602).The imprint is certainly false, and Brussels is the more likely origin, though the woodcut device on the first title is that of Antoine Vincent of Lyon. The frontispiece is notable and is a violent allegory of this turbulent century, the female personification of France is beset by a crowd of petitioners in the form of vagrants, a monk, nobles and merchants while in the background several brutal excutions are enacted, with the city of Paris and the towers of Notre Dame in the distance. It is the work of Richard van Orley (1663-1732), a Brussels painter and engraver, and engraved by François Harrewijn (1700-1764), also a Brussels engraver, pupil of Romeyn de Hooghe, known primarily for his portraits of historical figures. Harrewijn also supplied the excellent suite of 33 portraits of kings and queens (including Mary Stuart) and leading members of church and state. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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(HANDBILL). ~ A la Bonne Foy, Cour des Réligieux de l'Abbaye Saint Germain des Prés, la quatrieme Boutique

Paris: N. Fr. Valleyre jeune, c. 1773-83.

A lovely survival of a Parisian haberdasher's advertisement. From her shop oppositie the fan-makers in the courtyard of the Abbey of Saint Germain, Madame Roux (formerly Madame Varoquier) sold all manner of taffeta and laces, but seems to have been a specialist in ribbons. She advertises ribbons of numerous fabrics for collars, the hair, purse cords, and hats. This chance survival takes us to the colourful heart of the pre-Revolutionary Paris. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[CERFVOL, De, pseudonym.] ~ Mémoire sur la population, dans lequel on indique le moyen de la rétablir, & de se procurer un corps militaire toujours subsistant & peuplant.

"Londres" [but Paris], 1768.

First edition of an influential pro-divorce polemic and a significant contribution to the eighteenth-century population debate. Divorce, as opposed to anullment in exceptional circumstances) remained unlawful in France until 1792."The demographic argument for divorce... was made early in the century by Montesquieu, who suggested in his Lettres persanes that the higher birthrate among non-Christian populations was a result of their permitting divorce, Being able to divorce, he suggested, men were more ready to marry and produce children. This argument was taken up and embellished throughout the eighteenth century, for despite the fact that France's population increased by a healthy 30% or more between 1700 and 1800, there was a persistent belief... that France was experiencing a demographic decline. The most imaginative scenario was produced by Cerfvol (a pseudonym), whose rate of divorce tract production rivaled John Milton's: Cerfvol published five works on divorce between 1768 and 1770. The most important of them was his Memoire sur la population (1768) in which he published detailed (though largely spurious) statistics to prove that celibacy was increasing in France at each generation, that generations were failing to reproduce themselves, and that the logical conclusion would be the utter depopulation of France.The principal way to arrest this galloping celibacy and the attendant decline of population, Cerfvol wrote, was to legalize divorce. He recognized other factors at work in population decline - among them incontinence, unequal and excessive taxation, the use of wet nurses, and women's wearing corsets - but, he wrote: "Let us seek the true cause of depopulation nowhere else than in the indissolubility of marriage"" (Phillips, Untying the Knot: a short history of divorce, 1991).The work was suppressed by the Paris Parlement on the 28 February, 1769. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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MAZURE, F[rançois]. A[ntoin]. J[ean]. ~ Histoire de la Revolution de 1688, en Angleterre.

Paris: Librairie de Charles Gosselin and in London & Leipzig by Colburn, Saunders and Otley, Martin Bossange and Co., Treuttel et Wurtz, Treuttel Fils and Richter; Bossange Frères, Zirgès, 1825.

First edition, with a nice Maggs provenance. A history of England's Glorious Revolution of 1688, from the library of Henri, comte de Chambord, who was the Legitimist pretender to the crown of France from 1844 to 1883, having disputably reigned as Henri V, King of France and Navarre for just seven days in 1830 following the July Revolution. In similarly turbulent times for the monarchy, England's 'bloodless' Revolution of 1688 saw the downfall of James II, who was overthrown and replaced by William of Orange. This period marked the advent of modern parliamentary democracy in England, with an end to absolute monarchy and the introduction of the Bill of Rights, which remains a cornerstone of English constitutional law. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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[OLIVIER, Abbé Jean.] ~ L'Infortuné Napolitain ou Les Aventures du Seigneur Rozelli, qui contiennent l'histoire de sa naissance de son esclavage, de son état monastique, de sa prison dans l'Inquisition, et ses différentes figures qu'il a faites, tant en Italie, qu'en France, & en Hollande. Nouvelle edition, revue, corrigée & augmentée d'un grand nombre de figures en taille-douce.

Amsterdam: Henri Desbordes, 1761.

A comic picaresque novel and an anti-Jesuit satire recounting the life and adventures of Rozelli in a series of fanciful catastrophes and disasters, in the course of which he becomes a Catholic clergyman and then converts to Judaism. The title was first published in 1708 and went on to be republished a number of times during the eighteenth century, with translations into English, German and Dutch. The illustrations appeared first in an edition of 1729. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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[LONGUE, Louis Pierre de.] ~ Les Princesses Malabares, ou le Celibat Philosophique. Ouvrages interessant & curieux, avec des notes historiques & critiques.

Andrinople [Paris]: Thomas Franco, 1734.

First edition. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Théorie des peines et des récompenses, ouvrage extrait des manuscripts de M. Jérémie Bentham. Par Et[ienne]. Dumont. Seconde édition.

Paris & London: Bossange et Masson, 1818.

Second edition, ex-libris George Warde Norman, a notable nineteenth-century banker and financial writer. Bentham wrote two important works on reward and punishment in the 1770s and 1780s, recensions of which were first published by Dumont as Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811). Dumont's work was instrumental in establishing Bentham's reputation as one of the foremost European writers on crime and punishment. It was subsequently translated into English by Richard Smith, with some use of the original manuscript, and published as Rationale of Reward (1825) and the Rationale of Punishment (1830). view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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BENTHAM, Jeremy. ~ Tactique des assemblées législatives, suivie d'un traite des sophismes politiques; ouvrages extrait des manuscripts de M. Jérémie Bentham, par Ét. Dumont.

Geneva & Paris: J. J. Paschoud, 1816.

First edition. "In Tactique des assemblées législatives, suivie d'un traité des sophismes politiques, published in 1816, Dumont used Bentham's manuscripts to create the substantial essay on the organization of legislative assemblies of which Bentham himself gave a brief indication in his 'Essay on political tactics' (1791). In addition, Dumont included a version of Bentham's writings on political fallacies in this recension, from which and with the use of the original manuscripts Peregrine Bingham later produced The Book of Fallacies (1824)." (F. Rosen, ODNB). Dumont's recensions were key to establishing Bentham's growing international reputation, not least because of their clear and readable style. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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(EROTICA). ~ Théatre gaillard...

"Londres" [?Paris: Cazin], 1788.

The Théatre Gaillard was a notorious collection of erotic dramas of which earlier editions (the first was 1776) were the object of various confiscations by the authorities in France. This edition, ascribed to Cazin by Kearney, includes an entirely new suite of finely engraved erotic plates and is of exceptional rarity.The plays included are: Le Luxurieux by Legrand; le Tempérament by ?Grandval; Le Bordel, ou le J...-F... puni, by the comte de Caylus; l'Appareilleuse; la Comtesse d'Olonne by Bussy-Rabutin; Vasta, reine de Bordélie; la Nouvelle Messaline by Piron; Alphone l'impuissante; les Deux Biscuits; and les Plaisirs du Clo'tre. view more...

£2400.00

US$3589.91*

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[BONNEMAIN, Antoine-Jean-Thomas.] ~ Les chemises rouges, ou mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du règne des anarchistes.

Paris: Deroy & Maret, "An VII" [ 1799.]

First edition of this account of two of the most brutal episodes of the Terror - the execution of 9 members of the town council of Orleans implicated in a supposed murder attempt on Léonard Bourdon, member of the National Convention, and the summary execution of 54 men and women accused of having been part of a royalist plot against Robespierre, Collot d'Herbois and other members of the revolutionary government. The latter were hastily dressed in sack-cloth (the "chemises rouges") an attire reserved for murderers. They included the 19-year old Cécile-Aimée Renault, who was adopted as a martyr of the anti-revoultionary movement.The work provides detailed transcripts from the trials and biographical details of the accused. The engraved frontispiece to the first volume is a melodramatic rendering of the condemnation of the "Orleans 9" in the tribunal. view more...

£650.00

US$972.27*

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[AUBIGNÉ, Théodore Agrippa d'.] ~ Les aventures du Baron de Fæneste, comprise en quatres parties. Les trois premieres reveües, augmentees, & distinguees par chapitres. Ensemble, la quatriesme partie nouvellement mise en lumiere, le tout par le mesme auteur.

"Au Dezert" [Geneva]: imprimé au despens de l'autheur, 1640.

An early edition of Aubigné's controversial invective against the enemies of Protestantism in France, which takes the form of a prose dialogue between the Catholic courtier Baron de Fæneste, the satirical anti-hero and a Protestant gentleman named Enay. The pretentious affectations of the hero Fæneste (from the Greek phainesthai, to appear) are contrasted with the modesty of the country squire Enay (from einai, to be). The title was previously published in Maille in 1617, 1619 and 1620, and also in 1630 with the same false imprint as this edition. It was also published a number of times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably the 1855 edition which was edited by Prosper Mérimée. view more...

£375.00

US$560.92*

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(EROTICA). ~ La cauchoise, ou, Mémoires d'une courtisanne célèbre. Roman pour servir de suite à tous les bons ouvrages de la philosophie de la nature.

"A Libidinibus" [i.e. France?]: "Chez Sensualité, à la Délicatesse, rue du Tempérament, 10308070" [i.e. c. 1783.]

First edition. A famous pornographic novel - a first-person narrative of a young woman who becomes a prostitute - of which only two other copies are now traceable (Harvard and private collection). La Cauchoise is best known for its inclusion of a fictitious library catalogue of 49 pornographic works, some real, some invented, which has continuously intrigued bibliographers and publishers. The catalogue was dropped in all subsequent editions.The work was frequently reprinted in the nineteenth century, under this title and a variant, usually with a variation of our false imprint. The first edition is of exceptional rarity. There is no copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale or British Library, and Worldcat lists only the Harvard copy. view more...

£2500.00

US$3739.49*

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JUSSIEU, L[aurent]. P. de. ~ Simon de Nantua, or le marchand Forain, ouvrage qui a obtenu le prix fondé par un anonyme, et proposé par la Société pour l'instruction élémentaire; en faveur du meilleur livre destiné à servir de lecture au people des villes et des campagnes.

Paris: [Imprimerie de Fain] for "L. Colas, imprimeur-libraire de la Société pour l'instruction élémentaire", 1818.

First edition. This immensely popular novel was published by la Société pour l'instruction élémentaire following a competition, with a prize of 1000 francs donated by an anonymous benefactor, to write a work of no more than 250 pages which "seraient tracés avec simplicité, précision et sagesse, le principes de religion chrétienne, de morale, de prudence sociale" for the improvement of everyday town and country people. The popularity of the title led to numerous subsequent editions appearing in France, as well as translations into languages including Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Greek and even Breton. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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LINGUET, [Simon Nicolas Henri]. ~ Mémoires sur La Bastille, et sur la détention de M. Linguet, écrits par lui-même.

London [i.e. Berne: Weller]: T. Spilsbury, 1783.

An early edition of Linguet's memoir of his incarceration in the infamous Bastille prison from 1780-82. This issue is an imitation of the original edition in volume 10 of Annales politiques, civiles et litteraires du dix-huitieme siecle, which was published in 1783 also with the T. Spilsbury imprint. Numerous other editions with the false Spilsbury imprint of were also published in the same year on the Continent, most of which are presumed to have been printed in Brussels or Hamburg, with at least one further Berne imprint. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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(EROTICA). [SEDAINE, Michel Jean and Pierre Lalmand] ~ La tentation de S. Antoine, ornée de figures et de musique. [Le Pot-Pourri de Loth, orné de figures et de musique.]

"Londres" [Paris: Cazin], 1781.

First edition, de luxe issue on large paper of this pairing of libretti by Sedaine, complete with the 5 erotic plates absent in some copies, on account of their subject-matter.This is a bibliographically complex work. Dutel, in his recent bibliography describes and illustrates an edition of 1781 which has the same plates and pagination (though 1 leaf bearing the word "fin" is bound at the end of the second part in ours, where in his it is bound at the end of the first). However, he cites just "un feuillet de musique gravée" inserted, where ours has a full 20 pages between the 2 parts. Our copy is also clearly different from the point of view of size and paper. His copy measures just 18.8 × 12.4 mm and is apparently on ordinary paper, where ours is notably larger and is luxuriously printed on blue paper and papier vergé. Furthermore, in comparing the 2 title-pages with those he illustrates, while being identical in letterpress details, the typographical ornaments are completely different, though positioned similarly.Dutel also lists a second edition of (Londres, 1782) in even smaller format (18mo) but on blue and thick paper, with an additional part and plate. There were several later editions.Gay cites both 1781 and 1782 editions but it is impossible to tell whether his 1781 edition conforms to ours or Dutel's example, since he gives no pagination or exact size. Of the work he writes: "Ce volume, dont les exemplaires sont très rares, se paierent fort cher aujourd'hui, car lese gravures... sont fort bien exécutées... Tous les curieux de galanteries connaisent ces deux ouvrages, au moins de réputation." he notes the authorship of Sedaine in the first case and suggests Pierre Lalmand as the author of the second. He also admits that their literary quality is "fort mince" being "du pur libertinage" and of a sacrilegious quality. view more...

£2000.00

US$2991.59*

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[MOLÉ, Guillaume François Roger.] ~ Histoire des modes Françaises, ou révolutions du costumes en France, depuis l'établissement de la monarchie jusqu'à nos jours. Contenant tout ce qui concerne le tête des Français, avec des recherches sur l'usage des chevelures artificielles chez les anciens.

"A Amsterdam, et se trouve a Paris": Costard, 1773.

First edition of this much-cited work on the history of hair-styling and grooming, beards and wigs. view more...

£260.00

US$388.91*

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[PAGANUCCI, Jean.] ~ Manuel historique, géographique et politique des négocians, ou, Encyclopédie portative de la théorie et de la pratique du commerce

Lyon: Jean-Marie Bruyset, 1762.

First edition of this scarce and very extensive commercial encyclopaedia. Among its numerous subjects are trade laws, tarrifs and treaties, weights and measures, currencies, trade goods (including silk, wool and cotton), agricultural products (including wine), spices and medicines. The scope is global with interesting entries for American and Eastern colonies. view more...

£1250.00

US$1869.74*

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[ERARD, Claude.] ~ Plaidoyez de Mr.***, avocat au Parlement.

Paris: Jacques Le Febvre, 1696.

First edition of Erard's legal pleas, a presentation copy. Included as the seventh plea is Erard's presentation at the celebrated case of the Duc de Mazarin and his wife Hortense née Mancini. Hortense had been one of the mistresses of the English Charles II before entering into an unhappy marriage with the bizarre Armand Charles de La Porte, later Duc de Mazarin, whose jealously and psychosexual oddities led to her elopement to England (after a purported lesbian love affair) and request for divorce. The case is described in detail. It was printed in English in 1699. view more...

£700.00

US$1047.06*

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TEXIER, [Alex Adrien de]. ~ Les colons de toutes couleurs. Histoire d'un établissement nouveau a la côte de Guinée.

Berlin: George Decker, 1798.

First edition. A remarkable but little-known utopian novel set in Africa, exploring the theme of inter-racial marriage and relations between the inhabitants of "toutes couleurs". The work is revolutionary in every sense, applying the principles of 1789 to a newly-founded fictional colony, founded in Africa by refugees from the insurrection of Saint Domingue (later Haiti). Central to the novel is the marriage of Adrien and Zara, as an emblem of racial harmony. The fine plates depict mixed tableaux, notably the scene of a white woman suckling a black child, which graphically demolish the racial taboos of the previous era. Although several earlier novels had considered sexual relations between black and white, they almost always mirrored earlier stereotypes, with black protagonists in subordinate roles or as exotic interlopers: none provided a serious consideration of the possibility of complete integration of the type Texier describes.The work is dedicated to the Queen of Prussia (Princess Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick) and the first plate depicts the presentation of a portrait medallion to her husband, Frederick the Great. The fine plates were engraved by D. Berger, C. H. Grünler after J. D. Schubert and W. Chodowiecki. view more...

£3250.00

US$4861.33*

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MOUCHEZ, Ernest Barthélémy. ~ La photographie astronomique a l'Observatoire de Paris et la carte du ciel.

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1887.

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, OF A PIONEERING WORK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LUNAR AND STELLAR PHOTOGRAPHY. Mouchez was director of the Paris Observatory and commissioned two young astronomers, Prosper and Paul Henry, to prepare a photographic star atlas. "Arago had embarked on a program of improving Lalande's catalog of 50,000 stars with the aid of new, more precise measurements. Mouchez published the part observed up to 1875. Most notably, however, he enlisted the support of Sir David Gill, director of the Cape Observatory, to bring about an international astronomical congress at Paris in 1887. It was there decided to produce photographically a large-scale general map of the heavens and to establish a catalog giving the position and brightness of all stars up to the eleventh magnitude. Two young astronomers at the Paris observatory, the brothers Prosper and Paul Henry, both of whom were also talented opticians, had just completed an astrograph and Mouchez had it adopted for this gigantic undertaking, which took more than fifty years" (DSB).The first photograph (the frontispiece) depicts the moon's surface around the crater Eratosthenes; the second is of the Hercules cluster of stars; the third is a time-lapse series of depicting Jupiter, showing the rotation of the red spot; the fourth shows the rings of Saturn and the bands of Jupiter.This copy is inscribed by Mouchez to General Brugers, the future military governor of Paris. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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[CHEVRIER, François Antoine.] ~ Testament politique du maréchal duc de Belle-Isle.

"Paris: aux dépens des Libraires associés" [?Amsterdam], 1762.

First published in 1761 and also published in English in 1762. "Politique et social. Réflexions sur l'intolérance, qui est parfois nécessaire (mais dommages causés par l'émigration des protestants); les impôts, qui sont moins lourds que mal répartis; la néfaste célibat des prêtres; la nécessité des lois somptuaires, bien que 'le luxe qui perd un petit état en enrichit un grand'; le duel, qui peut mener à la destruction de l'espèce humaine; l'exemption d'impôts des pères de famille qui favoriserait la population..." (INED). view more...

£75.00

US$112.18*

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LAFAYETTE, Marie-Madeleine de, ~ La Princesse de Clèves.

"Amsterdam et se trouve a Paris" [probably Paris], 1786.

A nice copy of this famous novel, issued as volumes 4 & 5 of a set of the works of Madame de Lafayette, but bound separately here without the half-titles from the set and the spines numbered "I" and "II".The library of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex was sold at auction in 1844-45. view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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(LOUIS XIII). ~ Les actions du temps.

[N.p.]: 1622.

A rare satirical pamphlet aping the style of contemporary almanacs, addressing public grievances against Louis XIII's government. Despite government legislation against pamphleteers the incessant struggle between the king's advisers and those of his mother, the religious wars of the 1620s, and the opening campaigns of the Thirty Years' War kept pamphleteers and presses remarkably active at this time. view more...

£125.00

US$186.97*

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[EMERY, Antoine Joseph d'.] ~ Nouveau recueil de curiositez, les plus rares & admirables de tous les effects, que l'art & la nature sont capables de produire. Augmenté de plus de moitié, de merveilleux & beaux secrets gallands & autres, tres-utiles... de conserver leur santé...

Leyden: Pierre van de Aa, 1688.

A classic of the "Book of Secrets" genre. It had first appeared in 1674 with several further editions appearing in the following two decades. There are chapters of recipes, on wine, vinegars and conserving flowers, fruits etc.; the many other subjects include medical cures (a substantial section), fireworks, perfume and cosmetics. Copies of all editions are frequently mutilated or in poor condition (reflecting a utilitarian purpose).The attribution of the work remains problematical and it is occasionally catalogued under the authorship of the chemist Nicolas Lémery. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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(OPERA BILL.) (MEYERBEER, Giacomo, composer.) ~ Theatre Royal, Drury Lane This Evening, Monday, April 8th, 1833, Their Majesties' Servants will perform, (for the First Time this Season), Meyerbeer's Grand Opera of Robert The Devil With the Whole of the Music, for the First Time on an English Stage. On this occasion Mr. H. R. Bishop will preside in the Orchestra... To conclude with the Ballet Opera of The Maid of Cashmere. (With the whole of the Music, for the Eighth Time in this Country, by Auber,) Arranged and Adapted to the English Stage by Mr. H.R.Bishop...

[London:] SG. Fairbrother Printer, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, [ 1833.]

£150.00

US$224.37*

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(MEDICAL MANUSCRIPT.) (BARTHEZ, Joseph Paul). ~ Extraits du cours des vertus des Plantes, Par Mr. Barthez chancelier de l'université de medecine de l'année 1774.

[Montepelier: 1774 or slightly later.]

An extensive notebook on the medicinal virtues of plants, compiled by Joseph Marie Joachim Vigarous de Montagut from lectures given by the great physician Joseph Paul Barthez at the medical school at Montpelier. The lectures evidently comprised a very complete survey of the field and were arranged according to the Linnaean classification of plant taxonomy rather than a medical classification. Each plant is defined using Linnaean names and there follows a brief decription of its uses according a wide variety of previous writers. These include Cullen, Van Helmont, Boerhaave, Jussieu, Fernel, Gesner, Pringle, Fuller, Willis, Sydenham, Linnaeus and Floyer and Barthez's own opinion is then frequently recorded.Viagrous de Montagut evidently attended the Montpelier medical school from an early age. If he made his notes in or soon after they were delivered in 1774, then he must have been just 15 (having been born in 1759). 1774 was the year in which Barthez had been elevated to position of Chancellor at Montpelier. He had been born and educated at Montpelier, taking his doctor's degree in 1753, and then acting as a military physician before becoming joint editor of the Journal des savants and the Encyclopédie méthodique and later returning to Montpelier in 1759. He later became both physician to Louis XVI and an adviser to Napoloeon. He published several influential medical treatises and is remembered as a primary exponent of the theories of vitalism in explaining the nature of biological life.Barthez's autograph letter tipped in to this manuscript is of interest. Probably addressed to Vigarous himself, Barthez recalls having travelled with Vigarous' father as part of the "juri médical" and having recognised the many injustices he had suffered (quite probably in the aftermath of the Revolution). The letter seems to have been sent with a copy of one of Barthez's books. Vigarous published several works himself, including Cours élémentaire de maladies de femmes (1801). view more...

£1500.00

US$2243.69*

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(ALMANACH). ~ Le Jockei, ou le confident de mes plaisirs. Almanach chantant. Pour la présente année.

Paris: Langlois, [An VII, 1798-99.]

An attractive almanach with the text of numerous songs. Le Jockei appears unrecorded in any of the usual bibliographical resources (CCFr, KVK, Worldcat etc). No copy listed in the Bn online catalogue. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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[DESBIEFS, Louis.] ~ Sophie. Par M. D. B.

"A La Haye, et se trouve à Paris, chez Hochereau, l'a'né" [Paris], 1756.

First and only edition of a very scarce galante novel. According to Cioranescu, Desbiefs published all his known works (Passe-temps des mousquetaires ou le temps perdu; l'Heureuse victime; Nine and Sophie) between 1755 and 1756. The first of these consisted of 58 licentious stories and was reprinted by Gay in 1866. Sophie appears never to have been reprinted.The "La Haye" imprint is certainly false, and 'permission tacite' was granted at Paris on 18 novembre 1756 (CCFr catalogue). view more...

£850.00

US$1271.43*

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[CHOUDARD-DESFORGES, Pierre Jean Baptiste.] ~ Mille et un souvenirs, ou les veillées conjugales, recueil d'Anecdotes véritables, galantes, sérieuses, bouffonnes, comiques, tragiques, nationales, étrangères, merveilleuses, mystérieuses, etc. Manuscrit trouvé dans les papiers d'une succession...

"Hambourg: chez les principaux libraires", 1799.

One of two editions of 1799, the first year of publication. A series of erotic anecdotes: "Ouvrage érotique, fort immoral, mis à l'index, par mesure de police, en 1825" (Gay).Towards the end of a successful and mainly respectable literary and theatrical career, Choudard-Desforges published (anonymously) 2 erotic memoirs, Le Poète (1798) and the present Mille et un souvenirs. Both were far from respectable and the latter was banned, though reprinted at least twice in the nineteenth century. A very rare book, there are 2 issues dated 1799. Both give Hambourg but one has the imprint "chez les marchands de nouveautés" (noted by both Gay and Cioranescu as the only issue of that year) and has 5 volumes and the other (ours), a different setting in a more "modern" typeface with the complete text in 4 volumes. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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~ L'aventurier Chinois.

"A Pekin et se trouve a Paris chez Merigot le Jeune..." [?Paris], 1773.

First edition, rare, of an interesting philosophical novel which has been interpreted as a response to Voltaire's critique of optimisim in Candide. Reflecting the literary vogue for chinoiserie, the tale is set in China and the East Indies. It begins with an elaborate variation of the "lost manuscript" trope as an explanation of the origin of the text. The preface recounts how a Chinese philosopher loses a manuscript to a European merchant who makes a translation of it; while travelling onwards to Alexandria he purchases an Egyptian mummy and wraps it in the pages of his manuscript. Sending both mummy and manuscript to Paris, he finds them confiscated and is himself arrested on arrival. He is released and the mummy restored, while the manuscript somehow finds itself back in circulation aboard a ship of the Compagnie de Indes, travelling the world, where they were used to wrap some "petites miniatures assez indécents". The merchant miraculously comes upon them on a future trip to China, rescuing them and bringing them to publication (the latter playfully explaining the false Peking imprint). This preface is both an amusing variation on the trope and a wry comment on the politics of trade and confiscation of texts in pre-Revolutionary France.The tale itself has been extensively discussed as a repsonse to Voltaire, particularly in relation to the theme of women in an interesting article by A. Owen Aldridge, 'The Vindication of Philosophical Optimism in a pseudo-confucian imitation of Voltaire's Candide', Asian and African Studies 6, 1997, 2, p. 117-125. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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

La Haye, et se trouve à Paris, chez Duchesne, 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...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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[DODSLEY, Robert, attributed to.] ~ Le miroir des dames et de la jeunesse ou Leçons de toutes les vertus qui honorent les deux sexes. Ouvrage tiré d'un Manuscrit Indien Rempli de Maximes, et de Sentences. Appropriées a tous les Version libre de l'Anglois âges et a tous rangs. Version libre de l'Anglois.

Paris: [Firmin Didot for] Le Fuel & Delaunay, n.d., [c. 1820.]

An elegant little Didot production, presumably designed as a gift for children or parents, combining cursive and civilité typefaces with a lovely series of stipple-engraved plates. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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(OPERA BILL.) (GLUCK, Christoph Willibald.) ~ (ALCESTIS). Royal St.James's Theatre. King Street, St. James's. Under The Management of Mrs. Seymour. First Time On The English Stage Alcestis, A Lyrical Play, In Which Miss Vandenhoff, (Who is expressly engaged for this character) Will make her First Appearance. Mr. Barry Sullivan Will also make his First Appearance at this Theatre. The Choruses & Entr'Acte Music from the Works of the celebrated Maestro, Gluck. The Chorus will consist of 60 Voices. The Orchestra Considerably Increased. Musical Director, Sir H. R. Bishop.This Evening, Monday, January 15th 1855, And During The Week, Will Be Presented For The First Time On The English Stage, The Lyrical Play, Entitled Alcestis Adapted from the Greek of Euripides, By Henry Spicer, Esq. The Choruses and Entr'Acte Music from the works of the Celebrated Maestro, Gluck, Selected and Arranged by Mr. Wellington Guernsey. Musical Director, Sir Henry R. Bishop. The Orchestra has been Considerably Increased: Leader, Mr. C. Hall. An Efficient Chorus of 60 Voices Has Been Expressly Engaged... That which (Every Evening)... a Fairy Extravaganza. Being somewhat a distant relation (on the farther side) of the "Sleeper Awakened," written by the author of Shylock, and called Abon Hassan: Or, The Hunt After Happiness...

[London:] Hassan Steam Press, W S. Johnson,60, St.Martha's Lane,Charing Cross, [ 1855.]

£100.00

US$149.58*

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(MOLIERE.) ARTAUD, [Jean-Baptiste.] ~ La Centenaire de Molière, comédie en un acte, en vers et en prose; Suivie d'un Divertissement relatif à l'Apothéose de Molière par M. Artaud; Représentée pour la première fois par les Comédiens françois ordinaires du Roi, à Paris, le jeudi 18 février 1773. Et à Versailles, Devant Sá Majesté, le mardi 3 mars 1773.

Paris: [C. Simon for] la Veuve Duchesne, 1773.

First edition. This celebratory comedy in honour of the centenary of Molière combined a cast of over 20 characters from his most famous plays. It was popular enough to have spawned a number of printed editions, with or without music, all roughly contemporary. Ours, with 70 pages and music is the most elaborate, with its ornaments by Beugnet. It is the only edition noted by Cioranescu. view more...

£300.00

US$448.74*

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[VADÉ, Jean Joseph.] ~ Desserts de petits soupers agréables dérobés au chevalier du pélican, auteur du Déjeuné de la Rapée. Po'me Gaillardi-poissardi-marins-ironi-comique.

"De l'imprimerie de la joye" [?Paris], 1755.

First edition. A collection of popular and bawdy songs in the "poissarde" vein by the acknowleged master of this semi-ethnographic style, in which popular Parisian speech from the streets was transcribed in quasi-phonetic style. The publisher's catalogue lists a good number of other examples of publications in this style.This copy bears the inscription of Jules Bobin a close friend of J-K Huysmans and a colleague at the ministère de l'Intérieur. Bobin was a voracious bibliophile, specialising in the curious and occult. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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~ Le Fourbe puni ou le duel des rivales.

[n.p.] 1740

First edition of a rare galante novel which opens with a duel between two women. A second edition appeared in 1741.This is a distinct work from Marivaux's La Fausse Suivante ou le Fourbe puni, a comedy performed in 1724. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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[KRÜDENER, Barbara Juliane de Vietinghoff, Baronne de.] ~ Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G...

Paris: Henrichs, 1804.

First edition. This novel became a literary sensation in Paris, praised and loathed in equal measure: Napoleon hated it and suggested Mme. Krüdener wrote in German in future, while others placed it alongside Werther and La Nouvelle Hèloise in importance.Briefly married to a Russian diplomat, Mme. Krüdener left her husband in 1801 to pursue a literary and mystical career, the former ambition encouraged by Bernardin de Saint Pierre. Valérie, her first novel, was inspired by the author's romantic liaison with Alexandre de Skatieff and is in parts autobiographical. Mme. Krüdener became a celebrated figure in fashionable society, as her embrace of various spiritualist movements accelerated. She converted to Moravian pietism and championed a number of contemporary mystics. She held considerable influence in Paris and is said to have held sway over the mind of Czar Alexander I. view more...

£550.00

US$822.69*

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[NOGARET, François Félix.] ~ Le Fond du Sac, ou restant des babioles de M. X*** Membre éveillé de l'Académie des Dormans.

"Venise: chez Pantalon-Phébus" [Paris: Cazin], 1780.

First edition of a celebrated collection of gently licentious pieces in verse and prose by the courtier and prolific man of letters Nogaret. Fond du Sac is an elegant Cazin production, complete with the famous frontispiece, and 9 excellent engraved headpieces after Durand (one of which is represents a library interior with a group of women struggling with a large folio volume). Though neither seditious nor terribly immoral, the work appears in Robert Darnton's Corpus of Clandestine Literature (262) and was confiscated at customs in one instance. Fond du Sac was later reprinted several times. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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[COUSTELIER, Antoine-Urbain and Nicolas JONIN.] ~ Lettres de Montmartre par M. Jeannot Georgin.

"A Londres"[i.e. Paris?], 1750.

First editions of two scarce novels. Lettres de Montmartre is a rather lewd epistolary novel and an excellent example of the fashionable poissard genre, in which the dialect and grammar of popular speech is carefully imitated. Jeannot Georgin is an archetypal paysan parvenu in Paris, who takes advantage of all the delights of the city and even finds a degree of fortune. His letters to his father, his faithful sweetheart and the village priest back home chart his swift rise and fall (he wins a lottery and makes some advantageous connections) before his return to the countryside as a chastened man. Gay and others note the probable collaboration of Nicolas Jonin and that the work reputedly made Voltaire laugh.Lettres Siamoises uses the by-now ubiquitous trope of the oriental ambassador (Nadazir) observing the mores and morals of contemporary European society. The frontispiece depicting Nadazir is clearly copied from the images of Confucius from earlier editions of the works of the sage and the engraved vignette is a charming piece of chinoiserie. The work was reprinted in 1761 with the same pagination. view more...

£700.00

US$1047.06*

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(STERNE). GORGY, [Jean-Claude.] ~ Nouveau voyage sentimental. Par M. de Gorjy, (sous le nom d'Yorik). Nouvelle édition, beaucoup augmentée.

"Londres" [but probably Reims], Cazin, 1785.

A false London imprint of this imitation of Sterne by Gorgy. First published in 1784. view more...

£125.00

US$186.97*

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(FRENCH REVOLUTION. MANUSCRIPT.) ~ Mémoire sur les fonctions des Assemblées Administrative de District et de leurs Directoires.

[France: 1790.]

An interesting French revoutionary document, being a contemporaryscribal copy of the successive instructions issued to the newly established local district Assemblées during 1790 concerning their jurisdiction and operation. In September 1789 the Abbé Sièyes had instituted the development of an ideal administration for the French towns and countryside, dividing the territory into Departements, Districts, Cantons and Communes, each with their own elected assemblies, regardless of their historical administrative arrangements. The formation of these assemblies, which occupied an administrative level between the assemblies of the department and the canton, was an important legal and symbolic break with the local government of the Ancien régime. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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(FRENCH REVOLUTION.) ~ Discours, addressé [sic] à un certain peuple sur sa situation présente …

"a Londres: se vend chez W. Richardson" [but probably continental], 1789.

Second edition, a rare Revolutionary pamphlet, first published the year before, and amended here in light of the 'happy events' of the Revolution which 'obligent le zèle et la bonne foi de l'auteur … de donner ici, comme dans un postscrit, ou supplément, les corrections et additions que la justice et le changement des circonstances rendent nécessaires' (p. iii). The pagination in both versions, however, is identical.The author analyses the effects of a revolution in France by looking at the changes it would make under three headings – 'La Justice, l'utilité, la facilité'; gives a spirited criticism of what is now known as the anciene régime; and joyously lauds the actions of his revolutionary comrades. view more...

£850.00

US$1271.43*

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(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$119.66*

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COTTU, Charles. ~ On the administration of criminal justice in England; and the spirit of English government... translated from the French.

London: for Richard Stevens and Charles Reader, 1822.

First complete edition in English (a much abbreviated version had appeared in the Pamphleteer in 1821). An important sympathetic account of the English system of criminal law, especially trial by jury. In 1821, Cottu, a French magistrate and founder of the Societé de l'Amèlioration de Prisons, was commissioned by the French government to study English criminal justice. The resulting work was not only an attempt to reform the "barbarous" French system but was also an expert first-hand account of English justice. It was widely read and translated. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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(TREATIES). ~ [12 treaties between Britain and her allies following the French declaration of war in 1793] [comprising:] Convention between His Britannick Majesty and the Empress of Russia. Signed at London, the 25th of March, 1793. Published by authority.

London: Edward Johnston, 1793.

A collection of 12 scarce treaties between Britain and her allies following the French declaration of war in 1793 and one further treaty negotiated with Bavaria in 1800. The backbone of the British war policy, these 1793 agreements were designed to create an allied coalition against the French, of which the axis would be Britain and the German powers, with further support from subsidiary powers in the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic. However, the speed and efficiency with which these agreements were signed belies the complex and conflicting aims of each nation and the subsequent rapid disintegration of the policy.Britain's initial admiration for the evolving Revolution in France quickly changed to alarm with the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, followed by the French declarations of war on Britain and the Dutch Republic on February 1 and Spain on March 7. French war-mongering had already led to the annexation of Savoy, Belgium and the Rhineland in 1792 and French ambitions were spelt out by Danton in the National Convention: "The frontiers of France have been mapped by nature, and we shall reach them at the four corners of the horizon, on the banks of the Rhine, by the side of the ocean and at the Alps. It is there that we shall reach the limits of our Republic."Notably, the first two agreements were conventions signed with Russia, one uniting the two countries as allies against the aggressions of France and securing Russia's cooperation in the naval war, the other being a trade agreement, which finally settled a longstanding commercial dispute between Britain and Russia. Signed on the same day in March 1793, a contemporary commentator wryly noted that it seemed the two powers were competing as to "who shall be most fond and shall kiss the first". However, despite the apparent goodwill on both sides, the conventions never led to full and binding treaties.Similarly, the terms of the convention signed with Prussia unravelled almost as soon as the ink was dry and within two months Frederick William II was demanding significant additional terms. Lord Grenville, Britain's Foreign Secretary, took a dim view of such demands and having first shored up his own position by negotiating a separate agreement with Austria, he initially refused to comply with Prussian requests. However, under pressure from Pitt and Dundas, Grenville was forced to negotiate further with the Prussians, with the result that the Austrians were in turn estranged.Like Russia, the Spanish had their own motives for joining the war and despite the successful signing of the convention of Aranjuez, which committed both parties to explore the prospects of an alliance, a further agreement was never reached. Alliances with Portugal, Sardinia and Sicily proved equally problematic in the following months. view more...

£1200.00

US$1794.95*

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(THEATRE). [ANON.] ~ Love's Telegraph. A comedy in 3 acts.

London: Samuel French, n.d. [?1850].

Later edition (first 1846) issued as part of French's Acting Edition (Late Lacy's) series of this anonymous comedy. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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[BECCARIA,Cesare, marchese di.] ~ An essay on crimes and punishments, translated from the Italian. With a commentary attributed to M. de Voltaire. Translated from the French.

Edinburgh: for Bell & Bradfute, J. Fairbairn, and Mundell, Doig, & Stevenson, 1807.

A scarce Scottish edition. view more...

£125.00

US$186.97*

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DRUMMOND, Henry, editor. ~ On the condition of the agricultural classes of Great Britain and Ireland. With extracts from the parliamentary reports and evidence, from 1833 to 1840. And remarks by the French editor, published at Vienna...

London: John Murray, 1842.

First edition in English, very scarce, of this translation of De l'agriculture et de la condition des agriculteurs en Irlande et dans la Grande Bretagne (1840), based on the parliamentary commission of 1833-6. The first volume is entirely devoted to Ireland and the second to Great Britain. The second volume contains much of banking interest in addition to the agricultural materials. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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GALLINI, Giovanni-Andrea. ~ Critical observations on the art of dancing; to which is added, A collection of cotillons or French dances.... [A new collection of forty-four cotillons, with figures properly adapted; also the music for six select dances, two of which may be used as cotillons.]

London: for the author; and sold by R. Dodsley; T. Becket, and P. A. de Hondt; J. Dixwell; and Mr. Bremner's music shop, [? 1770.]

First edition (second issue) of the Critical Observations and the third edition of the Treatise. Gallini's elegantly produced dance treatises were influential in raising the intellectual status of dancing in British society.The Critical Observations first appeared in an undated edition, probably of 1765, with a dedication to the society belle Elizabeth [née Gunning] Duchess of Argyll. When re-issued using the same sheets a cancel dedication was inserted; again to Elizabeth Duchess of Argyll, but adding her new title Duchess of Hamilton also: hence the likely date of issue of 1770. Some copies appear to contain both cancel and cancelland, but ours has apparently never contained the earlier dedication. The Treatise on the art of Dancing had first appeared in 1762 and was also re-issued in 1765. All three editions probably used the same sheets. The work contains interesting materials on dancing across the world, including a section on American dance. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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[HOLBERG, Ludvig, Baron]. ~ Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum novam telluris theoriam…

Copenhagen and Leipzig: Jacob Preuss, 1741.

First 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...

£2250.00

US$3365.54*

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(BENTHAM, Jeremy.) HEPP, Ferdinand Carl Theodor. ~ Jeremias Bentham's Grundsätze der Criminalpolitik in einem Auszuge und systematischen Zusammenhange dargestellt von Dr. Ferd. Carl Th. Hepp.

Zübingen, C. F. Osiander, 1839.

First edition of Hepp's digest of Bentham's judicial theory, based on Dumont's French recensions. view more...

£260.00

US$388.91*

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BURDON, William, Captain. ~ Le marechal de poche d'un cavalier, qui enseigne, comment se servir de son cheval en voyage et les remedes qui conviennent dans les maladies et accedents en route... traduit de l'Anglois par M. S. M. Officier Suisse.

La Haye: C. de Rogissart & Soeurs, 1737.

First edition in French, rare, of one the the most popular eighteenth century works of equestrian medicine: The Gentleman's pocket-farrrier. First printed in 1730, it was reprinted numerous times in the eighteenth century in England and translated for use on the continent. There were several French editions but the first is rare. view more...

£925.00

US$1383.61*

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[CASTÉRA, Jean Henri.] ~ Vie de Catherine II, Imperatrice de Russie.

Paris: An V de la Republique, 1797.

A very scarce edition, at least two other editions of which were published in the same year by F. Buisson in Paris illustrated with six engraved portraits. This was the first biography in French of Catherine II, published the year after her death. Pandering to the anti-Russian sentiment then prevailing in France, Castéra sourced much of his material from the French ambassador to Russia, comte de Ségur. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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PENN, William. ~ Histoire abrégée de l'origine et de la formation de la société dite des Quakers, ou sont exposés clairement leur principe fondamental, leur doctrine, leur culte, leur ministere, et leur discipline, precedée d'une introduction ou il est traité en peu de mots des dispensations anterieures de dieu aux hommes... nouvellement traduite de l'Anglois par Ed. P. Bridel.

Londres [genuine]: J. Phillips, 1790.

First edition of Bridel's French translation of A brief account of the rise and progress of the people called Quakers. The British Library catalogue records two issues one with the date wrongly given as 1740 otherwise identical to ours and our issue with the date corrected. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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(THEATRE). TOBIN, John. ~ The honey moon: a comedy, in five acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane, with universal applause.

London: for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, by T. Davison, 1805.

First edition of an attempt to recreate the comedy of Shakespeare and Fletcher. Rejected by Covent Garden in 1804, the play was never seen by its author, who died of tuberculosis on board ship bound for the West Indies in 1804. It was finally staged at Drury Lane in January 1805 and proved a resounding success, being later translated into French and revived for the American stage. view more...

£90.00

US$134.62*

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ROMILLY, Sir Samuel. ~ The speech of Sir Samuel Romilly, in the House of Commons, on the twenty-eighth of June, 1814, on that article in the treaty of peace which relates to the slave trade.

London: J. M'Creery for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1814.

First separate edition, to be distinguished from the appearance of the speech as pp. 407-430 of volume 4 of The Pamphleteer (1813). This is an important speech advocating the inclusion of stipulations in the peace treaty with Napoleon that the French should abandon the slave trade. Romilly, a lawyer of French extraction, maintained a broadly Whig outlook throughout his career, and had been a vocal opponent of slavery since 1787, when he joined the committee against slavery, making friends with Wilberforce and Bentham. A major argument levelled against abolition by the British in 1807 was that other nations would continue the trade regardless. Romilly, whose interests were whole-heartedly European was one of the most important forces in British politics for a wider movement towards abolition, recognising that slavery would only be abolished with European concensus. His contention in this speech was that the treaty was far to weak on the subject of slavery, stipulating as it did that the French abandon slavery in its colonies within 5 years. For Romilly, this was 5 years too many, especially since France showed every intention of breaking that deadline. view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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(MILITARY MANUSCRIPT). C[HASTELET, Paul Hay, Marquis de.] ~ Traité de la Guerre, ou Politique Militaire.

"Paris: Girard", n.d. [c.1668.]

An attractive seventeenth-century military manuscript, a very early copy of Chastelet's Traité de la Guerre, neatly executed, and conforming to the pagination of the first printed edition quite precisely - the printed version containing 277 pages. A later bibliographical note to the endpaper asserts that this must "sans aucune doute" be Giard's manuscript for his edition. This is perhaps unlikely: early manuscript copies of hard-to-come-by imprints are an important (if under-appreciated) aspect of the contemporary circulation of new books.Chastelet's treatise (dedicated to the King) covers all aspects of war: types of troops, garrisons, ranks, invasion, battle, morale, treatment of casualties, defence, sieges, sea warfare, civil wars, discipline, military law, espionage and treaties. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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BIENVILLE, D. T. de. ~ La nymphomanie, ou, Traité de la fureur utérine, dans lequel on explique avec autant de clarté que de méthode, les commencemens & les progrès de cette cruelle maladie, dont on développe les différentes causes; ensuite on propose lesmoyens de conduite dans les diverses périodes, & les spécifiques les plus éprouvés pour la curation.

Londres [Paris?], 1789.

The first full-length study of excessive female sexual desire, then considered both a medical and moral complaint. Nymphomanie was first published in 1771 and became something of a best-seller, running to several editions before the century's end. It was translated and printed in England in 1775. The "Londres" imprint of our French edition is certainly false. Among the causes of nymphomania, Bienville identifies eating rich food, consuming too much chocolate, dwelling on impure thoughts, reading novels, or performing "secret pollutions". view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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SENDIVOGIUS, Michael. ~ A new light of alchymy: taken out of the fountain of nature and manual experience, to which is added a treatise of sulphur. Written by Micheel Sandivogius. i.e. anagrammatically, divi leschi genus amo. Also nine books of the nature of things, written by Paracelsus, viz. Of the generations, growths, conservations, life, death, renewing, transmutation, separation, signatures of natural things. Also a chymical dictionary explaining hard places and words met withal in the writings of Paracelsus and other obscure authors. All which are faithfully translated out of the Latin into the English tongue, by J. F. MD.

London: A. Clark for Thomas Williams, 1674.

Sendivogius was regarded by contemporary alchemists as being the true possessor of the philosopher's stone, and in orthodox scientific terms his work is important for his observations on the components of air, leading to an argument that "contains the first idea of the existence of air" (DSB XII, 307).De lapide philosophorum was first printed at Prague in 1604 and thereafter became known as Novum lumen chymicum. The Tractatus de sulphure altero naturae principio, which frequently appeared with it (as here) first appeared at Cologne in 1616. This English translation by "J.F." (either John French or John Freke) appears with an English version of De rerum naturae, the classical Paracelsian text and an alchemical dictionary. It had been first printed in English in 1650, making our edition the second. view more...

£1650.00

US$2468.06*

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PLAYFAIR, William. ~ A fair and candid address to the nobility and baronets of the United Kingdom; accompanied with illustrations and proofs of the advantage of hereditary rank and title in a free country...

London: W. Lewis, for the proprietors of family antiquity, 1809.

First edition of Playfair's resounding endorsement of the benefits of an hereditary nobility, an unapologetically elitist thesis aimed squarely at fashionable republicanism. Playfair is a fascinating figure who grew up among the intelligentsia of the industrial revolution (Watt, Boulton, Priestley and other members of the Lunar Society were early associates). He also invented the graph, the bar-chart and the pie-chart and was one of the promoters of the Scioto land company which aimed to settle French emigrants on the Ohio river. He also edited the first critical edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which is alluded to on the title-page of this work. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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(THEATRE). WHITEHEAD, William. ~ The Roman father, a tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's Servants.

London: for R. Dodsley; and sold by M. Cooper, 1750.

First edition. Whitehead was son of a Cambridge baker. "His first major piece was The Roman Father, a tragedy based on Corneille's Horace, performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 24 February 1750. The play was a tremendous commercial success: it was reprinted frequently after its first publication in 1750, adapted by Whitehead for revival in 1767, and even translated into French; and it brought Whitehead into contact with Garrick (though he had already written a flattering poem to the actor on his appointment as patentee at Drury Lane), who played the leading role. This was the beginning of an association lasting over twenty years" (ODNB). view more...

£75.00

US$112.18*

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(TRADES and CRAFTS.) ~ Der rechtschaffne Professionist, ein Taschenbuch für alle Handwerker. Erster Theil enthält das beste Reisebuch für Handwerksgesellen, welche geschickte, gut und glückliche Menschen werden, und mit Nutzen ihre Wanderschaft zubringen wollen... [Zweiter Theil...] Vierte Auflage.

Meissen: Friedrich Traugott Uz, [n.d. c. 1826.]

A later (fourth) edition of this rare handbook for travelling journeymen, who had completed their apprenticeship but had not yet become a master. Designed as a pocket book the work contains the necessary information for his educational journey: indispensible travellers' tips about distances, lodgings, behaviour, notable towns, basic medicine, currencies and measures, language (with a short pronouncing dictionary of German, French, English and Italian), chronology and basic astronomy.The book is styled a "taschenbuch" and thus was probably usually issued with the hand-coloured pictorial wrappers. This copy is more sophisticated and ultimately more practical, retaining the wrappers but being placed in a wallet style binding with pockets for the accompanying charts. This binding may be considered a publisher's production: the imprint of the folding map describes the publisher Uz as "Buchbinder in Meissen". view more...

£900.00

US$1346.22*

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LEE, Miss [Sophia Priscilla]. ~ The chapter of accidents: a comedy, in five acts, as it is performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market.

London: for T. Cadell 1780.

First edition. "Lee planned her first play, The Chapter of Accidents (1780), while in debtors' prison with her father in 1772, and had written a novel before that. It was not until her father was on his deathbed, leaving his four daughters without prospect of any provision, however, that she overcame her reluctance to publish. Having submitted The Chapter of Accidents to Thomas Harris (d. 1820), manager of the Covent Garden Theatre and her father's employer at the time, she endured his contemptuous treatment and delays until the elder George Colman (1732–1794) produced it to acclaim at the Haymarket Theatre on 5 August 1780. A serio-comic play influenced by Diderot's Le père de famille, it was controversial in eliciting sympathy for a heroine who fails to maintain perfect virtue. It was performed over a hundred times in London and Bath by the early nineteenth century, was often reprinted, and was translated into French and German" (ODNB). view more...

£100.00

US$149.58*

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ROSS, Alexander. ~ Virgilii evangelisantis Christiados libri XIII. In quibus omnia quæ de Domino nostro Iesu Christo in utroque Testamento, vel dicta vel prædicta sunt, altisona divina Maronis tuba suavissime decantantur…

London: Richard Thrale, 1638.

A cento in Virgilian verse giving the principal Biblical events from the death of Abel to the ascension of Christ, mainly concerning the life of Christ and the prophecies of his Messiahship, the text extensively revised and enlarged from the author's Virgilius evangelisans, sive, Historia Domini & Salvatoris Nostri Jesu Christi (1633). Ross was born in Aberdeen but spent much of his later life in England, being vicar of Carisbrooke in the Isle of Wight from 1634 to his death twenty years later. He was a voluminous and well-regarded writer, and is best known for his translation of the Koran (from the French), the first version in English.This is an interesting copy, its binding bearing Tudor rose devices on the covers, a relatively late example of what was in any case a rare emblem among bookbinding tools. Our copy is without the printed title, like the copy (Universty of Minnesota) reproduced for Early English Books Online. It retains a neat stub, suggesting deliberate cancellation rather than loss. The book is known for the variances in its makeup, notably in the final leaves. In our copy there are stubs of 2 cancelled leaves before the final leaf (a cancel) the text ending correctly p. 312 and the imprimatur of William Bray dated 1637. view more...

£825.00

US$1234.03*

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HALLER, [Albrecht.] M. le Baron de. ~ Usong, histoire oriental. Traduit de l'Allemand.

Paris & Lausanne: Valade and Fr. Grasset, & Compagnie, 1772.

First French edition. Baron Haller (1708-1777) was a famous Swiss botanist and poet; his many prestigious positions listed on the title page include "Président de la Société Royale de Gottingue, & de la Société Économique de Berne, and Associé de l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris, &c, &c." Usong (1771) was one of three philosophical romances which he published between 1771 and 1774 in which he outlined his views on the relative merits of despotism, limited monarchy and aristocratic republican government. Usong is a staatsroman in which Haller demonstrates his profound admiration for Eastern political systems. Though set in a fictional Persia, the political arrangements of the ideal state are drawn from Chinese Confucian theory where government rests on the principle of accountability.Two further issues of this title also appeared in 1772: the first in Lausanne published by Grasset, and a second published in Paris and Frankfurt by Jean Georg Esslinger. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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ROBINS, Benjamin. ~ New principles of gunnery: containing, the determination of the force of gun-powder, and an investigation of the difference in the resisting power of the air to swift and slow motions. By Benjamin Robins, F. R. S.

London: for J. Nourse, 1742.

First edition."New Principles of Gunnery transformed ballistics into a Newtonian science. Galileo's vacuum theory was the only practical theory before 1742, but only for low-velocity mortars as demonstrated in Bélidor's Le bombardier français (1731). Robins made it applicable for gunpowder weaponry in general. His key contribution was the invention and utilization of the ballistic pendulum. With Huygens's law of pendulum motion and Newton's law of linear momentum, he deduced the bullet's impact velocity from the subsequent swing angle. Robins then used the ballistic pendulum to verify his interior-ballistics theory, relying on Boyle's law, the thirty-ninth proposition from book one of the Principia, and the pneumatic chemistry techniques of Francis Hauksbee the elder and Stephen Hales. By applying Newton's second law of motion to velocity measurements at varying ranges, Robins also obtained the air-resistance force acting on musket balls. This revealed the significant limitations of Galileo's vacuum ballistics theory and of Newton's air-resistance function when approaching the speed of sound" (Steele in Oxford DNB).Robins was born of Quaker stock in Bath. He was initially self-educated but was later taught by the Newtonian editor Henry Pemberton and became a significant exponent of Newton's physics. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1727. His New principles of gunnery was widely-read and was translated into German by Euler and also into French. view more...

£950.00

US$1421.01*

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ALDROVANDI, Ulisse. ~ De Piscibus Libri V. Et De Cetis Lib. Unus; Ioannes Cornelius Uterverius… collegit. Marc Antonivs Bernia in lucem restituit... cum indice copiosissimo.

Bologna: Nicoló Tebaldini, 1638.

Francis Willughby's copy of the fourth edition (first 1613). Ulisse Aldrovandi's unprecedented survey of the fish species was conceived as part of the author's extraordinarily ambitious project to build the first complete 'scientific' zoological encyclopedia. Only two of the parts, the Ornithology and De Animalibus Insectis, were published during his lifetime, whilst De Piscibus was edited by his pupils from his manuscripts. Aldrovandi's concern with actual observation and with descriptions from specimens, explicit in the building of his own museum of natural history, became compelling when the naturalist met Guillaume Rondelet in Rome, where the French physician was collecting specimens for his own work. The two spent days examining species in Rome's fish market, and the Italian naturalist started gathering material for what became one of the greatest collections of his time. As a scientist of the l6th century, Aldrovandi was necessarily dependent, for the parts related to exotic species, on the accounts of earlier or foreign naturalists, in particular Gesner, Salviati, Belon and Rondelet. Nevertheless, his study is the first complete ichthyological work which attempts to substitute, correct and integrate the received traditional literature with as much direct observation as possible, in the spirit of a new, modern scientific and experimental attitude. The scientific and demonstrative approach emerges particularly in the care and abundance of illustrative apparatus, which the author conceived as necessary complement to the text rather than as an ornamental addition.Francis Willughby (1635-1672), one of the foremost naturalists to come before Linnaeus owned and marked this copy, evidently in the course of the preparation of his own De Historia Piscium (1686). The unique weight of Aldrovandi's influence on the major subsequent works on natural history, culminating in Linnaeus's monumental survey, is evident in this association copy. view more...

£3250.00

US$4861.33*

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Justin Croft : Rare & Fine Antiquarian Books - Specialist in antiquarian books, especially in the field of literature, history, social sciences, religion, art and architecture, science and medicine

French