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 1495
(DICTIONARY, French-Latin).

(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$388.94*
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 1489
(DICTIONARY, Dutch-French). MARIN, Pieter.

(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...
£1200.00
US$2333.64*
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 1165
(BIBLE, in French.)

(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$184.75*
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 1121
CARY, Henry Francis, the Reverend.

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$233.36*
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 1365
 

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

London: J. Lister, for J. Fletcher and Co., and T. Davies,   1765.
First edition, translated from the French of M. de Belloy [Pierre Laurent Buyrette].   view more...
£80.00
US$155.58*
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 1398
VIDOCQ, Eugène François.

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$777.88*
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 1205
 

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$777.88*
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 1131
BERTHOLLET, Claude Louis.

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$2528.10*
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 1204
[BERRY, Mary.]

[BERRY, Mary.] ~ A comparative view of the social life of England and France, from the restoration of Charles the second, to the French Revolution.

London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,  1828.
First editions. Berry, Horace Walpole's protegée and later editor, here provides a richly detailed account of English society from Mid-Georgian to mid-Victorian and of France in the same period. There are especially valuable accounts of Napoleon, Mme de Sta'l, and Princess Caroline. Both works are scarce.    view more...
£450.00
US$875.11*
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 1160
[RAGUENET, François, Abbé.]

[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$1264.05*
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 1352
 

(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$291.70*
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 1443
EDGEWORTH, Maria.

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$194.47*
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 1418
RETZ, Jean François Paul de Gondi de,

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

London: for T. Becket, T. Cadell, and T. Evans,  1774.
The Memoirs were first printed in English in 1723 and were immediately popular. Chesterfield recommended them wholeheartedly. "The best Memoirs that I know of, are those of Cardinal de Retz. --- I hardly know any Book so necessary for a young Man to read and remember; you will there find how great Business is really carried on, very differently from what People who have never been concerned in it imagine. In short you will, in every Page of that Book, see that strange inconsistent Creature, Man, just as he is" (reproduced on the title-page of our edition).   view more...
£425.00
US$826.50*
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 1560
 

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 (wtih 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 bound as a frontispiece to each volume. This copy is as issued, with the original printed labels.   view more...
£800.00
US$1555.76*
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 1420
[MOORE, Edward and others, editor] GALTIER DE S. SYMPHORIEN, translator.

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

La Haye: [s.n.]  1756.
First edition in French of selections from Edward Moore's periodical The World, which he had edited under the nom de plume of Adam Fitz-Adam. The journal was originally issued in 210 weekly numbers 1753-56 and included anonymous contributions from Moore, Chesterfield, Lyttelton, Horace Walpole and Soame Jenyns. The first collected edition appeared in 1756 (the year of our French translation). The journal's intention was satirical: to mock the moeurs of fashionable English society, a theme which would have appealed to a contemporary French audience,who may in any case have suspicious of the tastes of the refined Englishman. The editor of these French selections adds a playful "avertissement" by way of an introduction.This copy bears the arms of Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort, duc de Duras (1715-1789); at various times maréchal de France, governor of Brittany and Franche-Comté. He became a member of the Académie française in 1775.   view more...
£1100.00
US$2139.17*
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 1182
DRUMMOND, Henry, editor.

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$875.11*
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 1442
[FENN, Ellenor]. [Mrs.] LOVECHILD.

[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$184.75*
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 1562
DUSAULX, Jean.

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 rendered 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 gripped by gambling during the Enlightenment, the royal courts held regular games; and hosts frequently acted as bankers for games to entertain their guests. Dusaulx, satirists, chroniclers and moralists criticised and blamed the government's political and financial interests for the spread of gambling and the decline of public morals. Dusaulx in this text advised banishing the pack of cards all together and re-establishing a sense of honour and sociability. The second work comprises a discussion on the introduction of state lotteries, which Dusaulx argues implicitly sanctions and encourages private gambling and 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$1847.46*
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 1260
MABLY, Gabriel Bonnot, Abbé de.

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

Amsterdam: J. F. Rosart & Comp,  1784.
First edition, the first of two states, with p. 159 misnumbered 59 and G7 signed C7. Among the earliest sustained accounts by a Frenchman of the American nation and embodying Mably's views on the preparation of the Constitution. It was written and published at the request of John Adams.   view more...
£650.00
US$1264.05*
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 1552
(TEXTILES). Notebook of instructions, patterns and recipes for making linen and paper flowers for use on textiles.

(TEXTILES). Notebook of instructions, patterns and recipes for making linen and paper flowers for use on textiles. ~ 

[Low Countries:  1743 and later.]
The work of an eighteenth-century nun, this exceptional manuscript brings together detailed instructions for the dyeing of linen cloth using natural and chemical dies, for making artificial flowers from the dyed cloth, for their application to ecclesiastical vestments, altar cloths and hangings, and for the correct combination of iconographic elements. The bold penwork and wash designs comprise sprays of flowers and foliage (sunflowers, panseys, tulips and carnations) are delightful expressions of a long-established tradition of work in Cambrai linen in the Low Countries. The technical data concerning dyes and their practical application is especially valuable since it is the work of a craftswoman with detailed experience of their use. There are numerous asides (sometimes in the form of added slips or addenda) ampliying or modiying the instructions given. As well as cloth, there are also instructions for colouring vellum and paper.The production of the manuscript in a bilingual context is interesting. The main text is in French, but there are translations of the names of dyes into Flemish and some of the later additions are also in Flemish. It was probably prepared at a convent of St Godelieve for the use of the nuns (a note in French and Flemish tells us that it is not to be given or lent to anyone outside). A prominent note "ora pro Sr. Marie Placida Bens" may provide the author/artist's name. The loosely inserted notes include more recipes for dyes and instructions for use (mainly in Flemish), several more coloured designs (beasts, fruit and flowers), and cuttings from the decorative borders of three medieval manuscripts.As a whole the manuscript provides a remarkable insight into contemporary craft practices and evidence for female participation in a well- established traditional industry.   view more...
£2750.00
US$5347.91*
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 1551
[HOLBERG, Ludvig, Baron].

[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$4375.57*
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 1372
[LA GRANGE, Nicolas de, translator.]

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

"Londres, et se trouve à Paris, chez Ch. J. Panckoucke" [probably Low Countries],  1767.
First edition in French of this epistolary novel first published anonymously in English by "a lady" in 1765, rare both in its English and French forms. The French translation was apparently issued with both a "Londres et Paris" and also an "Amsterdam et Paris" imprint. Barbier lists the latter only. A further 2 volumes appeared to complete the English set (1767) but were apparently never issued in translation.   view more...
£450.00
US$875.11*
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 1403
BOGUET, Henry, edited by Montague SUMMERS.

BOGUET, Henry, edited by Montague SUMMERS. ~ An examen of witches drawn from various trials of many of this sect in the district of Saint Oyan de Joux, commonly known as Saint Claude, in the county of Burgundy, including the procedure necessary to a judge in trials for witchcraft / by Henry Boguet, chief judge in the said county; translated by E. Allen Ashwin, edited by the Rev. Montague Summers.

[London:] John Rodker,  1929.
One of 1275 copies (this copy unnumbered) of a translation of Boguet's Discours des sorciers, first published in French at the opening of the seventeenth-century.   view more...
£40.00
US$77.79*
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 1138
COMBALUSIER, François de Paule.

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$534.79*
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 1392
[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]

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

n.p. [?Rouen],  1715.
First edition of this rare clandestine novel which appeared with neither an author's name or place of publication. The work has an interesting place in the popular literature of the eighteenth-century. By telling an alternative story of the loves of the Duc de Nemours, Courtilz would have been well aware that it would be read with Madame de La Fayette's Princesse de Clèves (1678) in mind, since Nemours played the leading male part in that landmark novel. This may of course have been a straightforward ploy to pass off an inferior novel as something of a sequel, but recent critical studies have suggested a more interesting relationship. Assaf, for example, has read the novel as a palimpsest of the Princesse (that is, more than just a pastiche) or "un commentaire sur la dégradation de la magnificence et de la galanterie qui caractérisèrent la France au fort d'un règne, en plein désarroi au moment où s'écrit ce texte." Certainly, the death of Louis XIV in the year of publication and the accession of the 5-year-old Louis XV brought to an end a period of unparalleled magnificence at court, heralding a more troubled political and social scene in which the galanteries of aristocratic life would be viewed far more circumspectly by those outside.   view more...
£600.00
US$1166.82*
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 1312
(FABLES). PHAEDRUS, Caius Julius and Jean de La Fontaine.

(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$340.32*
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 1158
['PHILO-PATRIAE, Eugenius,' pseud.]

['PHILO-PATRIAE, Eugenius,' pseud.] ~ A succinct description of France wherein is a character of the people, customs, &c. of that kingdom : sent by a gentleman now travelling there, to his friend in England : dedicated to that eminent and learned physician, Dr. Martin Lister, and may serve as a supplement to his Journey to Paris.

[London:]  1700.
First edition of a very scarce English account of France and the French. The work is offered by its anonymous author as a supplement to Lister's Journey to Paris (1699) which was widely lampooned for its partiality to the French and offers an amusing corrective to Lister's enthusiasms. The Frenchman is characterised as no more advanced in temperament than his ancestors, the ancient Gauls: "as Rash, Hairbrain'd, and Headstrong now, as when Julius Caesar wrote his Commentaries... His discourse commonly runs on two Wheels, Treason or Ribaldry." French women are not spared: "You cannot collect a better Character of a French-woman, than from her continual Prating and Babling." Despite the tone, there are good descriptions of contemporary Paris and Orleans, the Universities and the Jesuit order, all drawn from the author's journeys through France.   view more...
£475.00
US$923.73*
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 1534
 

[JUSTINIAN I.] ~ Les Institutes impériales de Justinian, joinctes avec la jurisprudence françoise... naguères faict en latin par M. Jacques Buchereau,... et maintenant mises en françois par Guy de La Roche...

Paris: Guillaume de la Nou',  1580.
First edition of this rare combination of a French translation of the Institutes of Justinian and a very extensive marginal gloss, also in French. The gloss, which relates the Roman law to French historical and near-contemporary practice in the courts, at times amounts to almost two-thirds of the printed page, surrounding just a few lines of the Justinian. The translation itself appears to be that of Nicolle de Lescut, first printed in 1543, and the gloss is that of Jacques Buchereau ("Conseiller et Referendaire" in the French Chancery), originally composed in Latin (published in Paris in 1576) but translated by Guy de la Roche "Advocate". The collection, being entirely in the vernacular besides the headings of the books, appears to be aimed at a non-specialist legal audience.The "Polwarth" inscription, probably early eighteenth-century, suggests that the book was in Scotland from at least this date.   view more...
£1400.00
US$2722.57*
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 1455
(CHARLES X, King of France.)

(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$145.85*
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 1110
[HOTMAN, François.]

[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$972.35*
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 1256
(QUAKERS). CLARKSON, Thomas.

(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$583.41*
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 1309
[FIELDING, Sarah, attributed to.]

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

"Londres et se trouve à Paris" [probably printed in Paris]: chez Rollin fils,  1752.
A rare edition of the French translation of The history of Charlotte Summers; the first imitation of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and translated by Fielding's own French translator. The work is occasionally, though not securely, attributed to Sarah Fielding. L'orpheline angloise had first appeared the previous year also with a (false) Londres imprint. ESTC lists a total of 5 copies only for the two editions and no UK copies of our 1752 edition.   view more...
£600.00
US$1166.82*
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 1458
VERDY DU VERNOIS, Adrien-Marie-François de.

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

Hombourg-ès-Monts: Henri Pierre Wolff,  1779.
First edition. A very scarce compilation of the lives of six prominent French military leaders of the eighteenth century. It includes a 35-page biography of Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, commander of the French forces in Canada. The other lives included are of Adrien-Maurice, Duc de Noailles; Jean-Baptiste-François, Marquis de Maillbois; François de Chevert; Louis Beau de Mascaron and le Chevalier Dorigny.   view more...
£275.00
US$534.79*
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 1268
[BURNET, Sir Thomas.]

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

"A Whitehall, de l'ancienne imprimerie du Cokpit", [?Amsterdam],  1745.
A very scarce French work with a false "Whitehall" imprint on the subject of James Stuart (variously the Old Pretender or Chevalier de St. George) recognised by the French and much of Catholic Europe as James III, rightful king of England and Scotland. This is in part a French translation of the Whig Thomas Burnet's incendiary pamphlet of 1713: Some new proofs by which it appears that the Pretender is truly James the Third which is here wrongly attributed (p.10) to the author's brother, Gilbert Burnet. A translation of that work into French first appeared in 1715 but a large part of our much enlarged 1745 edition is given over to a "Relation Historique" of the birth of James and of his claims to the British throne and is offered by the anonymous author as a work of particular contemporary interest. 1745 was the year of the failed "forty-five" rebellion of the Jacobites under James's son, Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is over double the length of the 1715 translation.   view more...
£650.00
US$1264.05*
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 1273
[BAKER, Thomas].

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

Paris: Pierre Miquelin and Jacques Piget,  1714.
First edition in French of Baker's Reflections upon Learning (1699), a work designed to display the inadequacies of human knowledge and reason and to emphasize the ultimate need for belief in revelation. It proved controversial (provoking an angry response from geologist and physician John Woodward) and was widely reprinted. Bacon and Descartes are closely considered.   view more...
£250.00
US$486.17*
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 1292
LETTSOM, John Coakley.

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

"Londres & se trouve à Paris, Rue des Cordiers, No. 4; et chez La Ve[uve] Hérissant; Théophile Barrois le jeune,"  1787.
First edition in French, bearing an obviously false "Londres" imprint, of History of the origin of medicine (London, 1778). Lettsom, the physician and Quaker philanthropist was a prolific author on medical subjects and his name is especially associated with the foundation of the Medical Society of London (as a Quaker, he was excluded from the Royal College of Physicians).   view more...
£225.00
US$437.56*
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 1159
PENN, William.

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$1166.82*
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 1191
BLANC, Louis.

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$194.47*
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 1120
BRONTE, Charlotte.

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$291.70*
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 1269
STUART, Robert.

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$777.88*
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 1457
[JAMES II, King of England.]

[JAMES II, King of England.] ~ Declaration du Roy de la Grande Bretagne. A tous ses fidèles sujets pour leur commander de l'assister contre le Prince d'Orange & ses Adherants.

Paris,  1692.
A translation of His Majesties most gratious declaration to all his loving subjects, commanding their assistance against the Prince of Orange and his adherents (St. Germain, 1692). It is probably the first edition in French, though we find at least 2 issues among the few copies located by the CCFr, one with the date 1692, the other undated. Following his exile at the Glorious Revolution, James made several abortive attempts to regain the English throne. In April 1692 a full-blown invasion of England was planned and a series of pamphlets were issued from his 'court' at St Germain asking his subjects (and interested Frenchmen) to assist the expedition. His hopes were thwarted by the English defeat of the French at the naval battle of La Hogue in May.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1117
WICKHAM, Louis and Paul DEGRAIS.

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$388.94*
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 1373
[HAYWOOD, Eliza, translated by the Chevalier de FLEURIAU.]

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

A la Haye: De l'Imprimerie de D. Monnier,  1754.
A rare "La Haye" imprint of the first edition in French of Haywood's most important and influential novel: The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751). Barbier lists the edition bearing the imprint of Prault at Paris (also 1754) only and not this La Haye edition of the same year. Haywood's novel is considered to have created the domestic novel with its focus on marriage rather than on courtship, which had been the organizing subject and trope through the time of Richardson's Clarissa (see Backscheider in ODNB). It found considerable success in translation and was reprinted several times in French.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1277
KAMES, Henry HOME, Lord. Mathieu Antoine BOUCHAUD, translator.

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

Paris: [Quillau for] Vente,  1766.
First edition in French. In his introduction to this translation of Kames' first two "Essays on several subjects concerning British antiquities", Bouchaud explains how he has somewhat reorganized his original and added his own extensive critical and expository notes, as well as a 103 page dissertation on the law of property (the subject of the second essay) "Observation sur la loi Cincia". Bouchaud omitted Kames' essays on the history of British law, which he judged would be of little interest to a French audience - but the very different reception of even the more general essays (translated here) in Britain and France marks the gulf between two different traditions of jurisprudence.   view more...
£850.00
US$1652.99*
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 1253
[SIRET, Pierre-Louis.]

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

"Londres:" John Nourse,  1769.
A rare satire by the multilingual philologist Siret, considered by Martin to be plagiarised from Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Two imprints of 1769 are known, one (probably the first) giving Geneva and the other London. The London imprint is certainly fictitious, the imprint being continental, but evidently not French. The typography perhaps suggests a German origin.   view more...
£275.00
US$534.79*
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 1313
FIELDING, H[enry.]

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

"Londres" (but France), A. Millar,  1743.
A very scarce edition in French dated the same year as the first, translated by Pierre François Guyot Desfontaines (not by the "Dame Anglaise" given in the title). Desfontaines was a key figure in establishing the popularity of the English novel in France. ESTC distinguishes 2 issues with the false Millar imprint with differing collations and probably different printers. Ours concords with the second which may be later. Both are very scarce.   view more...
£500.00
US$972.35*
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 1357
 

(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$175.02*
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 1391
HOBBES, Thomas, translated by Paul Heinrich Dietrich von HOLBACH.

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

'Londres' [i.e. Amsterdam], [s.n.],  1772.
First edition in French of Humane Nature: or, The fundamental elements of policie. Being a discoverie of the faculties, acts, and passions of the soul of man, from their original causes... Holbach considered the essay, which first appeared in English in 1650 (he incorrectly states 1640 in his introduction) as one of Hobbes best works. The Londres imprint is false and work was published in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey.   view more...
£1250.00
US$2430.87*
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 1421
HUME, David.

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$1020.97*
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 1173
THÜMMEL, Moritz August von.

THÜMMEL, Moritz August von. ~ Wilhelmine, po'me héroï-comique traduit de l'allemand de M. de Thümmel, par M. Huber.

Leipzig: heirs of Weidmann & Reich,  1769.
First edition in French, prized for its charming suite of plates and vignettes after Oeser. The plates are finely-wrought and highly individual, while the vignettes add a comic touch. Oeser was a confirmed classicist, aligning himself against mannerism, and is perhaps best remembered as drawing master to Goethe. Thümmel's comic prose-epic was first published in 1764 and became a European best-seller.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1561
 

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de. ~ Oeuvres choisies de Cervantès. Traduction nouvelle, par H. Bouchon Dubornial.

Paris: Imprimerie des Sciences et des Arts,  1807-1808.
An attractive illustrated French edition. Though entitled "Oeuvres choisies", this edition comprises Don Quixote only and is complete as issued. The translator is described on the title-page as "Ancien Ingénieur des Ponts et Chausées de France, et ancien premier Professeur de l'Academie Royale et Militaire Espagnole."   view more...
£900.00
US$1750.23*
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 1416
ROMILLY, Sir Samuel.

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$875.11*
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 1425
[JOHNSON, Samuel,

[JOHNSON, Samuel, "the Whig."] ~ Julien l'apostat ou abrege de sa vie. Dans lequel, on voit l'horreur que les meilleurs Chrétiens d'entre ses sujets témoignoient publiquement contre lui, en Paroles, en Actions & méme dans leurs Devotions publiques; avec une Comparison du Papisme & du Paganisme; et une autre idee Generale du Papisme, avec un Petit traité de l'Antechrist. Traduit de l'anglois.

[n.p.],  1688.
First edition in French of Johnson's polemic against the succession of the Duke of York (later James II). Published in English in 1682 "It was an overnight sensation... The tract drew an elaborate parallel between the fourth-century apostate emperor, Julian, and the Catholic successor to the crown, James, duke of York. The moral of the story was that, as the primitive Christians of the fourth century had openly resisted their pagan emperor, so the English might oppose a popish prince. The tract justified both the efforts of whigs to exclude the duke of York from the throne as well as active resistance to him. Julian Johnson, as Johnson soon became known, was praised and celebrated by fellow whigs" (Zook in Oxford DNB). The work was supressed and the remaining copies burnt. Johnson was imprisoned for seditious libel.The French edition, presumably aimed at a continental Protestant audience was issued in the year of James's effective abdication and escape to France. In certain French eyes, the thrust of its argument seems to have become quickly diverted towards their own monarch, since in 1696 it was issued under a false Cologne imprint under a new title La peste du genre humain, ou la vie de Julien l'Apostat. Mise en paralelle avec celle de Louis XIV.   view more...
£480.00
US$933.45*
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 1484
Prayer book.

Prayer book. ~ 

[Northern Italy, c.  1799.]
A very attractive manuscript prayer book, probably prepared by or for a woman, in the manner of a book of hours with prayers for specific times of day, days of the week, saints days and moments within the mass. The inserted slips (both printed and manuscript) are additions made by the owner, probably representing prayer cards or slips distributed in church and taken home for private devotion: they include names of special saints (Wilbert, Nicanor the Deacon, Cresentius, Matilda, Luke etc) and, in one case, perhaps a local woman, "Lucrezia Garimberti". The largest of the printed cards, all of which have the character of being printed locally on a rudimentary press, records the papal decree licensing the Society of the Sacred Heart (dated 2 January 1799).   view more...
£300.00
US$583.41*
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 1108
LEWIS, William.

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$972.35*
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 1254
[COYER, Gabriel François, Abbé.]

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

"Londres,"  1768.
First edition, presumed first issue. Appearing in the same year as Voltaire's l'Homme aux 40 écus, Chinki was often attributed to Voltaire. Another issue of the same year contains a subtitle claiming the work as a sequel to Voltaire. The plight of the peasant Chinki at the hands of his Cochinchinese masters is a thinly veiled critique of the economic policies of the French state before Turgot. Several other issues appeared in the same year with the false London imprint: they were probably all printed inside France.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1262
MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat, baron de.

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

"Londres" [but Paris],  1784.
A particularly nice copy of Montesquieu's satire on French (especially Parisian) society in which the king, the absolute monarchy, the Parliament, the Academy, the University, and the Catholic church are all very transparently ridiculed. Purporting to be the correspondence of Persian travellers in Europe, the work expressed opinions far more cutting than was traditionally possible, since the views expressed purport to be those of Mohammedans. It was first printed in 1721, and appears here in this false "Londres" imprint with Montesquieu's early short erotic novel, Temple de Gnide.   view more...
£385.00
US$748.71*
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 1285
(SACKVILLE, George, Viscount).

(SACKVILLE, George, Viscount). ~ Truth develop'd, and innocence protected: or, the merits and demerits of the late Commander in Chief of the British forces in Germany set forth... Humbly addressed to both Houses of Parliament...

London: for J. Scott,  1760.
First edition. Subscribed "a Free Citizen" this anonymous pamphlet defends Viscount Sackville, who was then being mauled by the press and the establishment, accused of incompetence and disobedience in the debacle of the Battle of Minden (1 August 1759). Though the combined Prussian-Hanoverian-British army under Prince Ferdinand defeated the French, the victory was marred by Sackville's conduct and he was widely vilified, provoking a storm of pamphlet literature. The hapless Sackville was court marshalled and dismissed from Army service but then went on to be Secretary of State for America (perhaps contributing to the British defeat in the colonies).   view more...
£250.00
US$486.17*
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 1444
FÉNELON, François de Salignac de La Mothe-,

FÉNELON, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, ~ Instructions for the education of a daughter, by the author of Telemachus. To which is added a small tract of instructions for the Conduct of Young Ladies of the Highest Rank. With Suitable Devotions Annexed. Done into English, and revised by Dr. George Hickes. The second edition.

London: for Jonah Bowyer,  1708.
Second edition, first published the previous year. Fénelon's treatise on the education of daughters in French polite society was translated for the use of the English by an anonymous friend of Bishop George Hickes for the specific use of a noble lady, her name disguised in the text as 'Antiope', and her daughters and published by Hickes. Chapters include "The use of Histories for Children", "Beauty and Ornaments", "Wit and Delicacy", "Housewifery and neatness", "Care of Health" and "Reading and Choice of Books."   view more...
£225.00
US$437.56*
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 1172
[LA VIEUVILLE D'ORVILLE, Adrien de, comte de Vignacourt.]

[LA VIEUVILLE D'ORVILLE, Adrien de, comte de Vignacourt.] ~ La comtesse de Vergi, nouvelle historique, galante & tragique. Par Mr L. C. D. V .

Paris: Jean Musier,  1722.
First edition, this issue giving the printer's name Jean Musier. Jones lists 3 variants of the imprint: Robinot, Musier or Pepingué. All issues are otherwise identical and were evidently issued simultaneously by agreement between these three printers. A historical novel set in the reign of Philippe Auguste (1165-1223). It appeared in English as The tragical history of the Chevalier de Vaudray and the Countess de Vergi (1726) while the French text was later reprinted as part of the Bibliothèque de campagne.   view more...
£250.00
US$486.17*
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 1174
[THOREL DE CAMPIGNEULLES, Charles Claude Florent de.]

[THOREL DE CAMPIGNEULLES, Charles Claude Florent de.] ~ Le nouvel Abaillard ou Lettres d'un singe, au docteur Abadolfs; traduites de l'Allemend.

"Aux Indes, & se trouve à Paris, chez les libraires qui débitent les Nouveautés,"  1763.
First edition of this rather pretentious satire on Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise in the form of a series of letters written by a monkey to his teacher. Part of the work is set in the French colony of Saint Dominique and provides "une excellente dissertation sur la relativité de la vertu" (Dufrenoy). Gay is less complimentary of the work as a whole: "Le tout est peu plaisant et même fort ennuyeux." Bengesco attributes a sequel to Candide to Thorel de Campigneulles.   view more...
£400.00
US$777.88*
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 1540
 

[GRACIAN, Baltasar.] SAVAGE, [John], translator.  ~ The art of prudence: or, A companion for a man of sense Written originally in Spanish by that celebrated author Balthazar Gracian; now made English from the best edition of the original, and illustrated with the Sieur Amelot de la Houssaie's notes, by Mr. Savage.

London: Daniel Brown, J. Walthoe and T. Benskin,  1702.
First edition of this translation. Gracian's Oraculo manual y arte de prudencia is a classic seventeenth-century Spanish work of moral instruction and is one of the original self-help books. It was first published in 1647 and previous English translations had appeared in 1685 and 1694; Savage's edition was probably translated from a French version. The enduringly popular work is composed of a series of 300 maxims covering moral topics such as 'The way to live long', 'in prosperity to prepare for adversity' and 'To speak with the vulgar but to think with the wise'.   view more...
£175.00
US$340.32*
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 1257
(NEWTON). PEMBERTON, Henry.

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

Amsterdam and Leipzig: Arkstée & Merkus,  1755.
First edition in French of perhaps the mostly widely-read early work on Newton, the View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy (first published in England in 1728). Pemberton's explanation of Newton's thought for a lay audience is valuable for having been written from the point of view of a friend and contains a good number of anecdotes. Pemberton had been as close to Newton as any other scientist and had superintended the editing of the definitive third edition of the Principia mathematica. The View was read in part to the dying Newton. It is often cited as evidence that Newton did not need to see an apple drop to formulate his theory of gravitation: Pemberton tells us simply that the idea came to him while sitting alone in a garden. Though the English edition was very popular and is not now especially rare, the continental translations are very scarce indeed. They are, however, important. Newton's acceptance in Europe was famously slow and it is through works such as Pemberton's that his thought became more widely understood. In addition to the French translation by de Joncourt there is an earlier Italian translation of 1733.   view more...
£875.00
US$1701.61*
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 1167
BASILIUS VALENTINUS.

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$5834.09*
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 1461
STRUTT, Joseph. Antoine Marie Henri BOULARD, translator.

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$1458.52*
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 1340
 

(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$145.85*
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 1502
CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, Count.

CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, Count. ~ The Courtier. Written in Italian by Balthasar, Count Castiglione. In four books. I. Of the Form and Manner of a Court Life. II. Of the Qualifications of a Courtier. III. Of the Accomplishments of a Court Lady. And, IV. Of the Duty of a Prince. Hic est Ille. Translated from the original.

London: printed for A. Bettesworth, E. Curll, J. Battley, J. Clarke, and T. Payne,   1724.
First edition of this translation by Robert Samber of the classic Renaissance manual of etiquette and deportment. "Many of [Samber's] works, such as The Courtier, translated from the original by Castiglione, demonstrate th