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 354
 

ALBERT, Prince Consort of Victoria, Queen of England. ~ The Principal Speeches and Addresses of his Royal Highness The Prince Consort; with an introduction, giving some outlines of his character.

London: John Murray,  1862.
"Two editions of the Prince Consort's Speeches were published by the Society of Arts in 1857..... The present volume contains in addition to the speeches previously printed, a speech made by H.R.H at the Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Aberdeen, Sept. 14, 1859; and his address on opening the International Statistical Congress held in London, 16th July, 1860; together with several minor speeches made by the Prince since the year 1857. This volume also contains some extracts from a memorandum written by the Prince in reference to the office of Commander-in-Chief."   view more...
£25.00
US$37.58*
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 485
[ALI ABENCUSIAN, pseudonym of Miguel de LUNA]. VIEUX-MAISONS, [Gilles de Rainssant, Sieur de], translator.

[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$751.65*
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 908
(ALMANACH).

(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$375.82*
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 111
(ARMENIAN).

(ARMENIAN). ~ Compendiose notizie sulla congregazione de' monaci Armeni Mechitaristi di Venezia nell'isola di S. Lazzaro. [Title also in Armenian].

[Island of San Lazzaro, Venice: Tipografia di Sudetta Isola,  1819.
First edition of a lovely example of the Armenian typography of the Mekhitarist monks of the island of San Lazzaro in the Venetian lagoon. The island was granted to a small group of Armenian monks led by Mekhitar escaping Turkish persecution in 1717. The monastery (which came to occupy the entire island) became a centre of scholarly renown in the fields of oriental study and philology, welcoming scholars from all over the world. Byron notably spent part of 1816 on the island studying Armenian. This scarce history is in both Armenian and Italian, and includes several notices of the earlier productions of the Mekhitarist press.   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 436
[AUBIGNÉ, Théodore Agrippa d'.]

[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$563.74*
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 93
BAILEY, Samuel.

BAILEY, Samuel. ~ The rationale of political representation. By the author of Essay on the formation of opinions, &c. &c.

London: R. Hunter,  1835.
First edition. Bailey is best-known as one of the most persistent critics of David Ricardo, but his works of the 1830s are concerned with representation, the most pressing issue of the decade. "The politics displayed in these works are those of a moderate utilitarian radical with a strong objection to state interference" (Oxford DNB).   view more...
£450.00
US$676.48*
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 97
 

BAILEY, Samuel. ~ Discourses on various subjects; read before literary and philsophical societies.

London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman,  1852.
First edition.   view more...
£275.00
US$413.41*
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 78
BAYLEE, John T.

BAYLEE, John T. ~ Statistics and facts in reference to the Lord's-day...

London: Seeleys and J.H. Jackson,  1852.
First edtion. Baylee was clerical secretary of the Society for promoting the due observance of the Lord's-day.    view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 492
[BECCARIA,Cesare, marchese di.]

[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$187.91*
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 81
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$150.33*
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 883
[BONNEMAIN, Antoine-Jean-Thomas.]

[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$977.14*
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 380
 

(BOSWELL, James). Pottle, Frederick A, editor. ~ Boswell's London Journal 1762 - 1763.

London: William Heinemann,   1951.
Reprint, first published in 1950.   view more...
£15.00
US$22.55*
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 891
(BREAD). [House of Commons Report].

(BREAD). [House of Commons Report]. ~ Report from the Committee in laws relating to the manufacture, sale, and assize of bread. [Communicated by the Commons to the Lords.] Ordered to be printed 6th July 1815.

[London],  1815.
First editions of two detailed reports on the flour and baking trade, with detailed interviews conducted with dealers and bakers in town and country and statistical appendices.   view more...
£250.00
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 856
 

(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$2630.77*
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 44
 

BROUGHAM and VAUX, Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron. ~ The present state of the law. The speech of Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P., in the House of Commons, on Thursday, February 7, 1828, on his motion, that an humble address be presented His Majesty, praying that he will graciously be pleased to issue a commission for inquring into the defects occasioned by time and otherwise in the laws of this realm, and into the measures necessary for removing the same.

London: Henry Colburn,  1828.
First edition of Brougham's famous six-hour speech (the longest in the history of the Commons) which kick-started the long-overdue reform of the British legal system. In the course of the speech "he exposed flaws in virtually every area of law (omitting only chancery reform and the criminal law) and staked his claim to be parliament's prime champion of law reform. Brougham's speech struck the perfect note. He showed himself to be committed to a widescale reform of the legal system, while resisting Bentham's iconoclasm. In preparing the speech he had in fact received much guidance (and many manuscripts) from Bentham, who still considered Brougham as the man best placed... to advance his projects for codification and the abolition of the common law" (Oxford DNB).Though the recipient's name has been erased, this copy has a presentation inscription by Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Lady Holland, the celebrated literary and political hostess. It provides an interesting sidelight on her political sympathies.   view more...
£125.00
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 30
[BRÉGHOT DU LUT, Claude, Antoine PERICAUD and Pierre-Alexandre GRATET-DUPLESSIS.]

[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$75.16*
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 388
 

BULLOCK, Charles, the Reverend.  ~ The Home Life of The Prince Consort.

London: Home Words Publishing Offices,   [n.d.]
Second edition.   view more...
£15.00
US$22.55*
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 138
[BURNET, Sir Thomas.]

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

"A Whitehall, de l'ancienne imprimerie du Cokpit", [?Amsterdam],  1745.
A very scarce French work with a false "Whitehall" imprint on the subject of James Stuart (variously the Old Pretender or Chevalier de St. George) recognised by the French and much of Catholic Europe as James III, rightful king of England and Scotland. This is in part a French translation of the Whig Thomas Burnet's incendiary pamphlet of 1713: Some new proofs by which it appears that the Pretender is truly James the Third which is here wrongly attributed (p.10) to the author's brother, Gilbert Burnet. A translation of that work into French first appeared in 1715 but a large part of our much enlarged 1745 edition is given over to a "Relation Historique" of the birth of James and of his claims to the British throne and is offered by the anonymous author as a work of particular contemporary interest. 1745 was the year of the failed "forty-five" rebellion of the Jacobites under James's son, Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is over double the length of the 1715 translation.   view more...
£650.00
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 454
 

(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$135.30*
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 316
(CARADOC, of Llancafarn, Saint.)

(CARADOC, of Llancafarn, Saint.) ~ Die Historie van Walles, in sich haltend derer Printzen von Walles Leben und Thaten, von Cadwalader... biss auf Lhewelinum... Vormahls geschrieben in Brittischer Sprache von Caradoco Lhancarvanensi; nachmahls von D. Powel in Englisher publiciret, und von Mr. Wynne vermehret; ietzo aber aus dieser ins Teutsche gebracht.

Coburg: Paul Gunther Pforenhauer,   1725.
First edition in German of the Welsh medieval Chronicle of the Princes, commonly known as the Chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarfan. The German version is taken from the English translation by H. Lhoyd, edited by David Powel, first printed in 1584 and later augmented by William Wynne. The German translation is by Philipp Georg Huebner and is dedicated to Anton Ulrich, Duke of Saxony.Sabin notes of the first English edition that "a special interest in this work for the American collector consists in its relation of the most ancient 'Voyage and Discovery of the West Indies, performed by Madoc, the sonne of Owen Guined, prince of North Wales, anno 1170'" (Sabin 40914). This episode is found also in the German edition.   view more...
£800.00
US$1202.64*
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 884
[CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore.]

[CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore.] ~ The life and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the beggars. Being An impartial Account of his Life, from his leaving Tiverton School at the Age of Fifteen and entering into a Society of Gipsies; wherein the Motives of his Conduct are related and explained: The great Number of Characters and Shapes he has appeared in through Great Britain, Ireland, and several other Places of Europe: with his Travels twice through great Part of America: Giving a particular account of the origin, government, laws, and customs of the gipsies, with the Method of electing their King. And a dictionary of the cant language used by the mendicants.

London: for J. Buckland, C. Bathurst and T. Davies,  1793.
The celebrated life of a colourful swindler and impostor, first published in 1745 and reprinted numerous times. This is one of two editions printed for Buckland, Bathurst and Davies in 1793. The final 5 pages contain a notable cant dictionary.Carew fell in with a band of gypsies as a wayward young boy. "After a year and a half Carew returned home for a time, but soon after resumed a career of swindling and imposture, which saw him deceive people to whom he had previously been well known. Eventually he embarked for Newfoundland, but stayed only a short time. On his return to England he passed as the mate of a vessel, and eloped with the daughter of a respectable apothecary from Newcastle upon Tyne, whom he later married.Carew soon returned to the nomadic life, and when Clause Patch, a Gypsy king or chief, died Carew was elected his successor. He was convicted of being an idle vagrant, and sentenced to be transported to Maryland. On his arrival he attempted to escape, but was captured and made to wear a heavy iron collar; he escaped again, and encountered some Native Americans, who removed his shackles. On departure he travelled to Pennsylvania. He was then said to have swum the Delaware River, after which he adopted the guise of a Quaker, and made his way to Philadelphia, then to New York, and finally to Boston, where he embarked for England. He escaped impressment on board a man-of-war by pricking his hands and face, and rubbing in bay salt and gunpowder, so as to simulate smallpox" (John Ashton, rev. Heather Shore in Oxford DNB).This biography is variously attributed to Bampfylde Moore Carew himself, to Robert Goadby and to his wife Mrs. Goadby.    view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 401
[CASTÉRA, Jean Henri.]

[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$601.32*
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 395
[CERFVOL, De, pseudonym.]

[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$1127.47*
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 87
CHALMERS, Thomas.

CHALMERS, Thomas. ~ Sermons preached in the Tron church, Glasgow.

Glasgow: for John Smith and Son, William White and Co in Edinburgh and Longman et al in London,  1819.
First edition, very scarce, of a work reprinted twice in the following decade. Chalmers was a pioneer social reformer whose work was carried out in the context of his poor parish in the rapidly industrializing city of Glasgow. "Chalmers became convinced that the fundamental problem in Glasgow and other Scottish cities was the breakdown of communal spirit. The middle and upper social orders had lost their sense of personal responsibility for the poor and unchurched. Moreover, many of the poor had become degraded to the status of 'paupers', dependent on institutional poor relief and suffering a loss of self-respect. His reading of Malthus convinced him that the major cause of poverty was the growth of population beyond the capacity of the country's agricultural resources to sustain it in decent comfort" (Oxford DNB).   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 858
CHAMPIER, Symphorien.

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$11274.72*
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 280
(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$112.75*
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 106
(CHARTISM). The rise and fall of Chartism in Monmouthshire.

(CHARTISM). The rise and fall of Chartism in Monmouthshire.  ~ 

[Newport: John O'Dwyer for] A.H. Bailey in London... "to be had of all the principal booksellers in Monmouthshire, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh and throughout the kingdom generally",  1840.
First edition of this very scarce Newport-printed account of the Monmouth rising and its genesis, the most violent episode in the history of Chartism. Twenty-four Chartists were killed by soldiers or died later of their injuries: more than twice the death toll of the Peterloo Massacre.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 662
[CHEVRIER, François Antoine.]

[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$112.75*
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 889
(CHOISY, François-Timoléon, abbé de.)

(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
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 113
 

(CHURCH OF ENGLAND). SEABURY, Samuel, the Reverend. ~ The continuity of the Church of England in the sixteenth century: two discourses: with an appendix and notes...

New York: Pudney & Russell,  1853.
First edition of a work "designed to explain and defend the position of the Church of England, so far as it involves that of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States" (Preface). Seabury was of a dynasty of American protestant churchmen: his grandfather (also Samuel) had been the first American Episcopal bishop.   view more...
£120.00
US$180.40*
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 300
CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

CICERO, Marcus Tullius. ~ [The complete works, in Latin].

Paris: Simon de Colines & Robert Estienne,  1543-1547.
An exceptionally rare complete set of the Colines-Estienne Cicero in a handsome uniform binding. Publication of the 10-volume series was begun by Simon de Colines in 1543 and completed by his stepson Robert Estienne in 1547. Some of the the individual volumes are very rare in themselves, some never having been seen by Renouard, the bibliographer of Simon de Colines.Cicero was the supreme orator of the Roman Empire and was pre-eminent among the classical authors valued by Renaissance humanists: "The ancient writer who earned their highest admiration was Cicero. Renaissance humanism was an age of Ciceronianism in which the study and imitation of Cicero was a widespread concern." (Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources). Such was the stature of Cicero that the word "humanism" was often interchangeable with "Ciceronianism." In the sixteenth-century Cicero represented several ideals: his language and composition were a model for any use of language, particularly Latin. His works were, for the humanists, the epitome of eloquence. As a philosopher, he combined both wisdom and eloquence, a combination which became the Renaissance ideal. He was also a man of the world, embodying the highest ideals of the renaissance philosopher or politician. Needless, to say his works were at the centre of the university curriculum in the sixteenth-century, and demand for complete and accurate editions of all his works was consistently strong. Few such editions can match the utility and functional beauty of the Paris Colines-Estienne editions.The individual volumes comprise the following:I. [Orations]. Orationum volumen primum [-tertium]. Paris: Simon de Colines, 18 November 1543-1544. Three vols, 1: ff. 424; 2: ff. 348 (misnumbered 356, due to faulty foliation, which skips from 208 to 217), [2] (last blank); 3: ff. 359 (misnumbered 357 due to faulty foliation: ff. 320 and 321 numbered 312 and 319 respectively), [1]. All three titles within Colines's "Figura architectonica" border. Text in italic; capital spaces with guide-letters. (See Renouard, Estienne, p. 70, note ad 14.). Appended to Part 2 are two Latin elegiac poems by H. Sussannaeus, addressed, respectively, "Ad Ioan. Gelinum Britonem Dioeceseos Briocensis" and "Ad Anianum Samesmynum Aurelium."II. [De Officiis & other philosophical works]. Officia diligenter restituta. Eiusdem De amicitia, & De senectute... Paradoxa, & Somnium Scipionis. Cum annotationibus Erasmi Roterodami, & Philippi Melanchthonis. Item, Annotation[ibus] Bartholomaei Latomi in Paradoxa. Paris: S. de Colines, 1543. ff. 174, [48] leaves. Title neatly backed, presumably at time of binding. With the comments of Erasmus and Melanchthon.III. [Philosopical works]. De Philosophia, prima pars [Philosophia volumen secundum]. Paris: Simon de Colines, May 1545-10 October 1545. Two vols, 1: ff 317, [3] (last two blank); 2: ff. 256. Colines's "Tempus IV" device on both titles. Texts in italic, capital spaces with guide-letters. Last leaf torn with loss of blank lower forecorner, neatly repaired by backing at time of binding. The full titles are (Vol. 1): De Philosophia, prima pars, id est, Academicarum quaestionum editionis primae liber secundus, editionis secundae, liber primus. De finibus bonorum & malorum libri V. Tusculanarum quaestionum libri V; (Vol. 2): Philosophia volumen secundum, id est, De natura deorum libri III. De divinatione libri II. De fato liber I. De legibus libri III. De universitate liber I. Qu. Ciceronis de petitione consulatus ad M. fratrem liber I.IV. [Letters to His Friends]. Epistolae familiares, diligentius quam quae hactenus exierunt, emendatae. (Edited by Claude Chaudière). Paris: Simon de Colines, 8 February 1545. Ff. 327, [8] (last blank). Colines's "Tempus IVb" device on title (being a variant of "Tempus IV", here signed with the cross of Lorraine). Text in italic, headings in roman, index in smaller roman; extensive use of Greek. A rare book of which we can locate only one other complete copy (Glasgow, an incomplete copy was described in Schreiber's Colines catalogue [no. 218], then believed to be unique). Renouard, whose note for this edition is particularly garbled and incomplete, states that this is the only Colines imprint to bear Henri [sic] Estienne's device. The text was overseen by Claude Chaudière, Regnault's son. In the preface Claude Chaudière emphasizes his position as Colines's grandson on his mother's side, and the care he has taken in establishing the text. After Colines's death, in 1546, Regnault and Claude were to take over his printing house. Ff. TT3-6, comprise Chaudière's Latin translations of Cicero's Greek citations: "Graecorum quae in his epistolis sparsim interferuntur, Latina interpretatio", and some passages concerning Cicero from Catullus, Quintilian, Silius Italicus, and Pliny the younger.V. [Rhetorical Works]. Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium. lib. IIII. De inventione lib. II. Topica ad Trebatium lib. I. Oratoriae partitiones lib. I. Paris: Simon de Colines, 1545. Ff. 218, [6] (last two blank). Colines's "Tempus V" device on title (its first [and only?] use: reproduction in Renouard, p. 404). Text in italic; use of Greek.VI. [De Oratore]. De Oratore ad Quintum fratrem lib. III, etc. Paris: Robert Estienne, 1546. Ff. 281, [3]. Estienne device on title. VII. [Letters to Atticus & Brutus]. Epistolae ad Atticum [Epistolarum ad Brutum liber]. Paris: Robert Estienne, 1 April 1547. Two parts in one volume: ff. 336 and 142, [2] leaves (last blank). Estienne device on title.   view more...
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 69
 

(CIVIL LIST.) ~ The Devil's menagerie of state paupers. An alphabetical list of places, pensions, sinecures, grants, and compensations.

[London: Glover,  1832.]
First edition of this very scarce exposé of individuals receiving state pensions and other favours, with marvellous woodcut illustrations. The engraved title gives "No 1" at its foot. The British Library record also gives a second issue of the same year.   view more...
£475.00
US$714.07*
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 75
COBBETT, William.

COBBETT, William. ~ Cobbett's two-penny trash; or politics for the poor. Vol.1 [parts 1-12]; [Vol. 2 parts 1-12].

London: by the author,  1831-2.
First edition, a complete run (there was no issue for March 1832). Cobbett's earlier Political Register had been denounced as "two-penny trash", a name he gladly adopted for this later work.    view more...
£700.00
US$1052.31*
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 76
COBBETT, William.

COBBETT, William. ~ Cobbett's paper against gold: containing the history and mystery of the Bank of England, the funds, the debt, the sinking fund, the bank stoppage, the lowering and raising of the value of paper-money; and shewing, that taxation, pauperism, poverty, misery and crimes have all increased, and ever must increase, with a funding system. No.1[-15].

[London]: W. Molineux,  [1817.]
First published in the Political Register 1810-15; then in two vols in 1815; then in parts (as here) in 1817. At the opening of the nineteenth-century Cobbett "became increasingly obsessed with financial issues, especially the national debt and the government's increasing reliance upon paper money. He opposed these trends for the rest of his days, regularly decrying government debts and paper currencies in his writings, notably in his Paper Against Gold (1815). By the early 1820s Cobbett was convinced that the debt was too large ever to be paid off, and accordingly vowed to roast himself on a gridiron if the government could restore payment in specie without defaulting on the debt (henceforth Cobbett and his critics included sketches of gridirons in their writings and cartoons)" (Oxford DNB).   view more...
£200.00
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 99
COLQUHOUN, Patrick.

COLQUHOUN, Patrick. ~ A treatise on the commerce and police of the river Thames: containing an historical view of the trade and port of London; and suggesting means for preventing the depredations thereon, by a legislative system of river police. With an account of the functions of the various magistrates and corporations excercising jurisdiction on the river; and a general view of the penal and remedial statutes connected with the subject...

London: for Joseph Mawman,  1800.
First edition of this celebrated treatise by the Benthamite reformer and pioneer of the London police forces.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 92
 

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$601.32*
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 317
[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]

[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$450.99*
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 346
[D'URFEY, Thomas.]

[D'URFEY, Thomas.] ~ The Weesils. A satyrical fable: giving an account of some argumental passages happening in the Lion's Court about Weesilions taking the oaths.

London: [n.p.], printed in the year.  1691.
First edition of D'Urfey's anonymously published satire on William Sherlock, lampooning his notorious abandonment of nonjuror principles and satirising the reputed influence of his much-reviled wife. A Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist, Sherlock had allied himself with the nonjurors in 1689 by conspicuously refusing to take the oath to the newly crowned William and Mary. Onlookers were stunned Sherlock subsequently performed a complete about-face and very publicly prayed for the King and Queen as de facto sovereigns in 1690, a move which inevitably provoked much scorn from all sides. D'Urfey himself was a popular comic playwright whose career had flourished under the patronage of Charles II. Briefly left in the political wilderness during the more sober reign of James II, the coronation of William III in 1689 offered new opportunities which D'Urfey was quick to exploit. Having pledged himself to the whigs, he wrote birthday songs and odes for the king and queen and further curried favour by producing a series of anonymous poems in which he satirised those opposed to the new regime.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 152
[DALRYMPLE, David, Sir.]

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

[Edinburgh,  1752.]
First edition of a humorous and scatological skit on Sir Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto's Proposals for carrying on certain public works in the city of Edinburgh which had appeared in the same year: the pioneering work of Enlightenment urban improvement which persuaded the town council to begin its celebrated building projects. Dalrymple's rather ungenerous pamphlet is concerned principally with sewers and the public "necessary-house" and it has recently been argued that while satirical in tone it was actually meant seriously. Dalrymple demonstrated a longstanding and enlightened interest in public health and hygiene as part of the regeneration of human societies (Patrick Cadell sub. Dalrymple, Oxford DNB).   view more...
£550.00
US$826.81*
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 80
[DAVENANT, Charles.]

[DAVENANT, Charles.] ~ A discourse upon grants and resumptions. Showing how our ancestors have proceeded with such ministers as have procured to themselves grants of the crown-revenue; and that the forfeited estates ought to be applied towards the payment of the publick debts... the second edition.

London: for James Knapton,  1700.
Second edition, published in the same year as the first, of this protest against the policy of gifting forfeited lands away by the crown and proposing precedents for their resumption. Contains the 8-page postscript clarifying an apparent criticism of the Duke of Leeds.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 686
 

[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$676.48*
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 467
 

DONNE, John. ~ Biathanatos. A declaration of that paradoxe or thesis, that self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise. Wherein the nature, and the extent of all those lawes, which seeme to be violated by the act, are diligently surveyed.

London: for Humphrey Moseley,  1648.
First edition, second issue, giving the date '1648'. Keynes suggests that the work was first published in 1647, since although it is undated, it first appears in the Stationers' Register in the autumn of 1646. The second issue uses the unsold sheets of that first issue with a cancel title.Donne frankly admits his fascination for the act of suicide in his Preface "...whensoever any affliction assailes me, mee thinks I have the keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presentes it selfe so soone to my heart, as mine own sword." He chose not to publish his meditations on the subject and only circulated the Biathanatos among friends in manuscript. He sent a copy to Sir Edward Herbert, and, in 1619, another to Sir Robert Karre, writing: "It was written by me many years since; and because it is upon a misinterpretable subject, I have always gone so near suppressing it, nor many eyes to read it: onely to some particular friends in both Universities, then when I writ it, I did communicate it: And I remember, I had this answer, That certainly, there was a false thread in it, but not easily found: Keep it, I pray, with the same jealousie; let any that your discretion admits to the sight of it, know the date of it; and that it is a Book written by Jack Donne, and not by D. Donne: Reserve it for me, if I live, and if I die, I only forbid it the Presse, and the Fire: publish it not, but burn it not; and between those, do what you will with it'"(cited by Keynes). It was published posthumously by John Donne the younger, and dedicated by Lord Herbert's sone Phillip.   view more...
£3000.00
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 73
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
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 95
DUNCKLEY, Henry.

DUNCKLEY, Henry. ~ The charter of the nations; or, free trade and its results: an essay on the recent commercial policy of the United Kingdom, to which the council of the National Anti-Corn Law League awarded their first prize.

London: W. and F.G. Cash and M'Glashan in Dublin and Menzies in Edinburgh,   1854.
First edition, presentation copy. The Anti-Corn Law League offered prizes for essays showing the results of the repeal of the corn-law and the free-trade policy, and Dunckley, a pioneering journalist of social causes, gained the first prize of £250 for this work   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 265
 

(EDUCATION, America). GOULD, Benjamin Apthorp Jr. ~ An American University. An oration before the Connecticut Beta of the phi beta kappa fraternity at Trinity College, Hartford, 1856, July 15.

Hartford: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company,  1856.
First edition. Having graduated at Harvard College in 1844, Gould studied mathematics and astronomy under C. F. Gauss at Göttingen, Germany, and became the first American to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy. He later discovered the southern portion of a belt of bright stars on the edges of the Milky Way now called the Gould belt in his honour    view more...
£40.00
US$60.13*
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 287
 

(ENGLAND). BLACK, Adam and Charles, publishers. ~ Black's Guide to England and Wales containing plans of the principal cities, charts, maps, and views, and a list of hotels.

Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black,  1870.
   view more...
£45.00
US$67.65*
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 493
[ERARD, Claude.]

[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$1052.31*
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 879
(EROTICA).

(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
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 489
(FAUST, Johann). CAYET, Pierre-Victor Palma

(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$977.14*
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 893
FLEURY, [Claude, Abbé.]

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$1352.97*
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 446
[FOUQUET, Charles Louis Auguste de,] Duc de Belle-Isle [and Louis-Georges-Erasme CONTADES, marquis de].

[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$225.49*
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 448
(FRENCH REVOLUTION. MANUSCRIPT.)

(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$1127.47*
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 452
(FRENCH REVOLUTION.)

(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$1277.80*
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 125
(FRIENDLY SOCIETIES).

(FRIENDLY SOCIETIES). ~ Rules and orders to be observed by the Union Society, Macclesfield. Founded January 28th 1783... revised by the committee.

Macclesfield: P. Hall,  1817.
A very rare set of Friendly Society regulations, with additonal evidence of their operation in the form of slips and notes of payment to a member. Though the history of this form of co-operative insurance goes back to early times it is considered to have formally begun in England with the Acts encouraging their formation of the late eighteenth-century. Thousands of such societies sprang up at the opening of the nineteenth century. Though initially encouraged, they were also viewed with suspicion in some quarters as hot-beds of political sedition. The Macclesfield rules are notable in this respect, being insistent on the exclusion of all topics of political or religious dispute in meetings, anyone contravening was to be either fined or expelled.    view more...
£400.00
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 846
 

(GAMBLING). MUMFORD, Erasmus. ~ A letter to the club at White's. In which are set forth the great expediency of repealing the laws now in force against excessive gaming, and the many advantages that would arise to this nation from it.

London: printed for W. Owen, at Homer's Head, near Temple-Bar,  1750.
First edition. White's was one of London's pre-eminent gentlemen's clubs, with a membership largely consisting of peers and policiticians, which by 1750 had acquired a reputation for excessive gambling. In this pamphlet Mumford (a pseudonym?) satirically takes to task the club's members who had passed new legislation restricting gambling while continuing to play avidly at the club. As Mumford remarks: "Besides, we have some odd queer Maxims in our Heads, that the Law is the same for the King and the Cobler, &c. nor is there in any A-t of P-l-nt that has come to my Knowledge, any Exception of this same House call'd White's, and the good Company who frequent it."    view more...
£600.00
US$901.98*
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 43
GATTEY, François.

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$375.82*
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 338
(GEORGE II). COEUR, Jacob de.

(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
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 890
[GIFFARD, Elizabeth.]

[GIFFARD, Elizabeth.] ~ [Manuscript music book containing lessons, songs, dances and airs for the harp.]

[n.p., n.d. but England, c.  1800-1810.]
An attractive manuscript of music for the harp, probably Welsh and including popular dances and songs together with versions of "Rule Britannia" and "God Save the King".It is noted on one leaf that the piece of music 'Midnight Cerus' by B.Cunnah, was "Blowed June 29th 1807 at Nerquis Hall" [Flintshire]. The other pieces include a number by Cunnah, several with Welsh titles. Cunnah, of Ruabon, was apparently a proponent of Celtic music and published a collection, New Welch music, at rougly the same time.The owner was almost certainly the young Miss Elizabeth Giffard of Nerquis, who is noted in the parish records as having contributed to the new organ and seating of the chapel in 1809-10.   view more...
£850.00
US$1277.80*
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 17
(GLOGOV.)

(GLOGOV.) ~ Auspicio D.T.O.M. Indultu Invictiss. R. Imp. D. Rudolphi II. semp. augusti, & c. suffragio: illustris, & magnifici, domini: Johan-Albert Rhai, à Zilinou. Phil. & J.V. Doct. S. Caes. Maj. &c. Consil. Com. Pal. & Imp. &c. Eq. Aur. C. Rom. Orat. & Poetae Caes. &c. Dextrâ: Nobilis, Clariss, & Ampliss. Dn. M. Joh. Hornii, Hall. Not. Apost. & Imp. &c. eiusdem &c. à Secr. ordinarii, &c. Laurus Poetica missa Christophoro Preis, Fraunstadiensi, SS. Th. Stud. A. 1609.

Glogau: Joachim Funck,  [?1609.]
An unusual and ephemeral production, comprising a series of Latin congratulatory verses printed in Glogov addressed variously to Christophorus Preis, Rudolph II, Joannes-Albertus Rhajus, Johannes Hornius and Johannis Georgius a Rottenberg 'pharmacopaeo Pragensi'. Few substantial printed works emanated from the town in the seventeenth century (a particularly volatile and violent period for such a contested territory). The relatively few contemporary imprints consist mainly of similar collections of formal orations and odes on the occasion of civic and private celebrations (notably marriages and funerals) issued by Funck and his press.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 918
GREEN, John.

GREEN, John. ~ [Caption title:] The Royal seraphine. A new musical instrument, invented and manufactured only by J. Green, 33, Soho-Square.

[London: L. Harrison, n.d., c.  1833.
A rare prospectus for a new keyboard instrument, the immediate precursor of the harmonium: the instrument which was to revolutionise public music-making, especially church music, in Victorian England and abroad. Green was the first to patent the use of a vibrating metal bar acted upon by wind to reproduce the sound of a much larger organ, thereby allowing a practical and inexpensive keyboard intstrument to be installed in even the smallest meeting house.Green notes in his prospectus that "the sound is produced on a principle never before thus applied to musical purposes; the nearest approach to it, though at an immeasurable distance, being the Jew's Harp, the musical Snuff Box, and a small Chinese instrument [the shêng]." A major advantage of the free reed system he proposed was trueness of pitch in all climates: he mentions examples of the instrument succesfully shipped to India, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia and America and notes "he has heard of one being sold in India for 200 guineas; and in New York it has excited an extraordinary sensation, being regularly used as the organ in Grace Church..."   view more...
£300.00
US$450.99*
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 100
GREGG, William Rathbone.

GREGG, William Rathbone. ~ Essays on political and social science, contributed chiefly to the Edinburgh Review.

London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans,  1853.
First edition in book form of these influential essays. Gregg was son of a Cheshire millowner and was commissioner of Customs and comptroller of the Stationery Office. The collection includes essays on social philosopy, taxation, investments, the working classes, socialism, labour relations and electoral reform. A scarce work.   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 321
 

GRENVILLE, [William Wyndham Grenville, Baron]. ~ Substance of the speech of the Right Hon. Lord Grenville, in the House of Lords, November 30, 1819. On the Marquis of Lansdowne's motion, that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the country, and more particularly into the distresses and discontents prevalent in the manufacturing districts, and the execution of the laws with respect to the numerous meetings which have taken place. Pp. [iv] (half title and title), 62, [2] (advert).

London: John Murray,  1820.
An interesting collection of speeches by leading lights of British politics given between 1819-1822. The majority relate to distresses of the countryside and the manufacturing districts.   view more...
£175.00
US$263.08*
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 378
 

(GRONOW, Rees Howell). ~ The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow: being anecdotes of the camp, court, clubs, and society, 1810-1860.

London: John C. Nimmo,  1900.
New edition of Captain Rees Howell Gronow (1794 - 1865) amusing meditations on his extensive travels and observations of society, nobility, culture, the court of Napoleon III, the Duke of Wellington, Chateaubriand, Louis XVIII, Madame de Stael, fashionable society throughout Europe. With illustrations by Joseph Grego.   view more...
£75.00
US$112.75*
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 441
HALIFAX, [George SAVILE, Marquis of].

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$1428.13*
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 885
(HANDBILL).

(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$450.99*
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 123
 

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

Edinburgh: for J. Dickson and G. Nichol in London,  1793.
First edition of a rather reactionary consideration of Paine's republicanism which includes notice of the earlier critique by John Quincy Adams. A second edition appeared later in the same year. Hardy was a Scottish cleric, not to be confused with the radical Thomas Hardy, founder of the London Corresponding Society. Their positions cannot have been much farther apart.   view more...
£150.00
US$225.49*
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 79
HELPS, Alfred, Sir.

HELPS, Alfred, Sir. ~ The claims of labour. An essay on the duties of the employers to the employed.

London: William Pickering,  1844.
First edition.   view more...
£65.00
US$97.71*
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 394
 

HOBSON, J. A. ~ John Ruskin Social Reformer.

London: James Nisbet & Co,  1898.
First edition.   view more...
£50.00
US$75.16*
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 294
HOLT, Ardern.

HOLT, Ardern. ~ Fancy dresses described; or what to wear at fancy balls... third and greatly enlarged edition. With additional coloured illustrations.

London: Debenham & Freebody, Wyman & sons,  [1882].
You're going to fancy dress party in 1882. You want to go as a nun? A Burmese peasant? Marie Antoinette? Salome? A watercress gatherer? Perhaps a carrier pigeon? This book tells you how. It did first in the edition of 1879, but without the full complement of coloured plates found here.   view more...
£60.00
US$90.20*
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 13
[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$751.65*
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 585
(HUMOROUS DRAWINGS. MANUSCRIPT.)

(HUMOROUS DRAWINGS. MANUSCRIPT.) ~ (Album containing 31 pen and ink drawings with calligraphic borders and text, partly in the form of a comic narrative).

[Probably Kintbury, Berkshire, Barton Court or Speen Hill House, , n.d. [c.  1850.]
An engaging Victorian album compiled for amusement, perhaps by a youngster. The majority of the drawings (21) form a narrative: a lonely young man obtains a gaggle of geese for company, he then meets a charming young lady and is invited to dinner, to which he takes a goose for the table saying "pray accept this bird as a token of my gallantry". He hears her at the piano and resolves to learn the flute, with which he serenades her at her window (folding flaps in the accompanying drawing reveal her sillhouetted figure). Advised to go to Africa for his health, he takes a final walk with his sweetheart in Kensington Gardens. He adventures in Africa, coming upon a princely castle (rendered in quasi-Indian style rather resembling the Brighton Pavilion) where he rescues a fair damsel from a giant (actually in Turkish costume with a sabre). He is imprisoned in a tower and is rescued by the damsel with a rope ladder, in neat reversal of fairy-tale convention and returns home safely to is friends.The remainder of the album illustrates "in" jokes and limericks: with a rather grotesque rendering of a baby as the "Barton Court Pet" and woolly lapdog as the "Speen Hill Pet". On another leaf a young lady knits rabbit-wool mittens for her mother in illustration of a limerick below: the whole composition owing a debt to Edward Lear.   view more...
£2600.00
US$3908.57*
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 67
HUNT, Henry.

HUNT, Henry. ~ To the radical reformers, male and female, of England, Ireland, and Scotland.

"Ilchester Bastile, 26th day, 7th month, 2nd year of the Manchester massacre, without retribution or enquiry, April 11" [London: Thomas Dolby,]   1821.
Two rare issues of Henry Hunt's radical addresses from Ilchester jail, where he was imprisoned for his part in various reform meetings and the events leading to the Peterloo Massacre. At least 47 separate issues were printed, and they were later published as an addenda to Hunt's Memoirs.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 617
 

INGELO, Nathanael. ~ Bentivolio and Urania, in six books. The fourth edition with large amendments. Wherein all the obscure words throughout the book are interpreted in the margin, which makes this much more delightful to read than the former editions.

London: A[nne].M[axwell]. and R[obert].R[oberts]. for Dorman Newman, at the Kings Arms in the Poultrey,  1682.
Fourth, amended edition. First published in two instalments in 1660 and 1664, Ingelo's best-selling work of moral and religious instruction was soon reprinted with a second edition in 1669 and the third in 1673. The fourth edition, 1682, included "large amendments. Wherein all the obscure words throughout the book are interpreted in the margin". Each of the two volumes was printed by a different printer and ESTC records indicate that they were not intended to be issued together.   view more...
£300.00
US$450.99*
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 62
INGLIS, Henry David.

INGLIS, Henry David. ~ The Channel Islands: Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, &c: (the results of a two year's residence).

London: Whittaker, Treacher, Arnot,  1834.
First edition of a scarce work which ran to several editions. Inglis, son of an Edinburgh advocate, was a prolific travel writer. His monograph on the Channel Islands was prepared during a two-year stint as editor of the Jersey Newspaper The British Critic.   view more...
£450.00
US$676.48*
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 89
(IRELAND.) NICHOLLS, George.

(IRELAND.) NICHOLLS, George. ~ Poor laws - Ireland. Three reports by George Nicholls, Esq., to her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the home department,

London: by W. Clowes and sons,  1838.
First edition. Nicholls examined the state of affairs in Belgium and Holland before making his recommendations, which were strenuously in favour of the introduction of Poor laws in Ireland.   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 112
 

(JESUITS). OLIVER, George, the Reverend. ~ Collections towards illustrating the biography of the Scotch, English, and Irish members of the Society of Jesus.

London: Charles Dolman,  1845.
First edition, one of 250 copies of this valuable biographical dictionary.   view more...
£150.00
US$225.49*
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 333
[L'ESTOILE, Pierre de].

[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$901.98*
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 699
[L'HERMITE, Jean Baptiste, seigneur de Soliers.]

[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$864.40*
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 334
LACTANTIUS, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus.

LACTANTIUS, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus. ~ Divinarum institutionum libri septem proxime castigati et aucti. Eiusdem De ira Dei liber I. De opificio Dei liber I. Epitome in libros suos, liber acephalos. Phoenix. Carmen de dominica Resurrectione. Item index in eundem rerum omnium, Tertulliani Liber apologeticus cum indice.

[Venice: heirs of Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano,  1535.]
The second Aldine edition, the first having appeared in 1515, immediately after the death of Aldus Manutius.These are the important works of the convert Lactantius (?250-?325), sometimes described as "the Christian Cicero". He was a pupil of Arnobius and native of the province of Africa. He received an appointment as professor of rhetoric from Diocletian, and spent part of his life at Nicomedia in Bithynia, later appointed by Constantine to educate the Prince Crispus in Gaul. His works include 'De opificio Dei', which contains a description of the body and soul of man, and can be seen as a supplement to the fourth book of Cicero's 'De re publica'; 'The Divine Institutes', is considered the greatest of all his works and was written against two opponents of Christianity and is a comprehensive survey of the arguments then available in favour of the new religion; 'De ira dei', an able discussion of the problem with which it deals, correcting the false conclusions of the chief philosophical schools. 'De ave Phoenix' is a medley of heathen and Christian elements, and generally believed genuine. Included is the Liber apologeticus of Tertullian. The edition is based upon manuscripts found in the Monastic Library of Monte Cassino. With prefaces of Paulus Manutius and his friend, the humanist, Joannes Baptist Egnatius.   view more...
£1100.00
US$1653.63*
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 660
 

(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$2405.27*
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 71
LESTER, C. Edwards.

LESTER, C. Edwards. ~ The glory and the shame of England...

New York: Harper & brothers,  1841.
First edition.   view more...
£135.00
US$202.94*
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 458
 

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$225.49*
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 285
(LONDON). BANKS, John Henry, & Co.

(LONDON). BANKS, John Henry, & Co. ~ A Balloon View of London [as seen from Hampstead].

London: "published as the act directs, May 1st 1851, by, Banks & Co... Effingham Wilson,"  1851.
The very scarce first edition of Banks's famous Balloon View, issued to coincide with the opening of the Geat Exhibition: and depicting Crystal Palace in its orginal site in Hyde Park. The map was frequently reissued in following decades and the first edition is now very hard to find.   view more...
£2000.00
US$3006.59*
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 291
(LONDON). HERBERT, Henry, publisher.

(LONDON). HERBERT, Henry, publisher. ~ London (illustrated). A complete guide to the places of amusement, objects of interest, parks, clubs, markets, docks, principal railway routes, leading hotels, and also a directory, in a concise form, of first class reliable houses in the various branches of trade. Seventh year of publication.

London: Henry Herbert & Co,  1878.
A very attractive and scarce Victorian guide to London, copiously decorated and illustrated and especially interesting for the series of photographic illustrations by Elliot and Fry, mainly depicting current luminaries of the London stage (Mesdames Albani and Marie Roze, the Bateman sisters, J.B. Buckstone, D. James and T. Thorne, Henry Neville, Miss Ada Swanborough, the Vokes sisters, the Girards, Miss Heath, Lydia Thompson, Edward Righton and Moore & Burgess (managers of the Saint James Minstrel troupe).   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 297
 

(LONDON). KELLY, publisher. ~ Kelly's map of the suburbs of London.

London: Kelly's Directories Ltd, n.d.  [c.1870].
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£60.00
US$90.20*
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 289
 

(LONDON). LEIGH, Samuel, publisher. ~ Leigh's new picture of London, or, A view of the political, religious, medical,literary, municipal, commercial and moral state of the British metropolis presenting a luminous guide to the stranger on all subjects connected with general information, business, or amusement to with are subjoined a description of the environs, and a plan for viewing London in eight days.

London: for Leigh and Son, and Baldwin and Craddock,  1834.
   view more...
£150.00
US$225.49*
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 298
 

(LONDON). MACQUEEN-POPE, W[alter]. ~ Haymarket: theatre of perfection.

London: W.H. Allen,  1948.
   view more...
£10.00
US$15.03*
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 286
(LONDON). MOGG, E[dward].

(LONDON). MOGG, E[dward]. ~ Mogg's London and its Environs for 1855, Exhibiting a Circle of Three Miles from the General Post Office. And an index to three thousand places.

London: W Mogg,  [1855].
   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 295
 

(LONDON). NEVILL, Ralph and Charles Edward JERNINGHAM. ~ Piccadilly to Pall Mall, manners, morals, and man.

London: Duckworth & Co.,  1908.
First edition.   view more...
£35.00
US$52.62*
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 288
 

(LONDON). SLADEN, Douglas. ~ Sladen's London and its Leaders (illustrated).

London: Sands & Co,  [1902].
First edition of a fascinating survey of Edwardian London society. It includes lists of leading hostesses (with portraits), leading Americans, the nobility, fashionable hotels and restaurants and so on.    view more...
£45.00
US$67.65*
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 290
 

(LONDON). TIMBS, John. ~ Curiosities of London exhibiting the most rare and remarkable objects of interest in the metropolis with nearly sixty years' personal recollections... a new edition, corrected and enlarged.

London: Virtue & Co.,   1876.
First published in 1855 Timbs's Curiosities is a wonderful catalogye of London facts and eccentricities: alchemists, coffee houses, Chelsea buns, fogs, law courts, railway termini, prisons - they're all here.   view more...
£75.00
US$112.75*
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 296
 

(LONDON). WHEATLEY, Henry B. ~ Round about Piccadilly and Pall Mall; or a ramble from the Haymarket to Hyde Park. Consisting of a retrospect of the various changes that have occurred in the court end of London.

London: Smith, Elder & Co,  1870.
First edition.   view more...
£75.00
US$112.75*
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 721
 

(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
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 49
(LOUIS XIII). [FANCAN, François Dorval-Langlois, sieur de.]

(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
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 887
 

[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$601.32*
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 318
LOVEDAY, R[obert].

LOVEDAY, R[obert].  ~ Loveday's Letters Domestick and Forrein. To several persons, occasionally distributed in subjects philosophicall, historicall, & morall. By R. Loveday Gent. the late translator of the three first parts of Cleopatra.

London: J.G. for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Corn-hill,  1659.
First edition. The letters and poems of Robert Loveday were published posthumously by his brother Anthony in 1659 and subsequently reprinted several times. Loveday's education at Peterhouse, Cambridge, was interrupted by the Civil War and he became a secretary in the Clinton family; in this capacity he travelled extensively throughout England, spending time at the Clintons' seat, Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, and at the Clares' residence, Thurland House, Nottinghamshire. Loveday was an accomplished translator whose most notable work was a three-volume translation of La Calprenède's Cléopâtre; however it is arguably his letters which remain his greatest legacy. By all accounts an unusually charming and attractive personality (even the running title reads 'Loveday's Letters. The Perswasive Secretary'), Loveday's agreeable style may be illustrated by a touching display of fraternal love which he pays his brother: "I am deep in your debt for abundance of loving expressions, and want words to tell you how tenderly I entertained them; the task is too big to let you know how dear you are to me; do me but the Courtesie to fancy an affection, pure, unbiassed, unreserved, that scorns limits, loaths change, and is onely less excellent than that which makes Angels clap their wings".   view more...
£850.00
US$1277.80*
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 61
MACKENZIE, Eneas.

MACKENZIE, Eneas. ~ A descriptive and historical account of the Town and County of Newcastle upon Tyne, including the Borough of Gateshead.

Newcastle: Mackenzie and Dent,  1827.
First edition.    view more...
£525.00
US$789.23*
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 230
MADDISON, Ralphe.

MADDISON, Ralphe. ~ Great Britains remembrancer, looking in and out. Tending to the increase of the monies of the Commonwealth. Presented to his Highness the Lord Protector, and to the High Court of Parliament now assembled...

London: for Tho[mas] Newcomb, and are to be sold by Humphrey Moseley,  1655.
An expanded version of Maddison's Englands looking in and out (1640). Maddison, a forward looking and enterprising landlord was a vocal advocate for the regulation of the money markets, arguing that foreign exchangers and unscrupulous merchants had devalued the currency for personal gain. He developed his ideas in the work above mentioned to include the demand that an accurate account be kept and made available of the balance of trade. "In 1655 he published an updated version of his 1640 tract entitled Great Britain's remembrancer, looking in and out; tending to the increase of the monies of the Commonwealth. Presented to his highness the lord protector and to the high court of parliament now assembled (1655). His recent experience of office can account for new calls for a bank, a council for the mint, and free ports, but his general economic views remained unchanged" (ODNB).   view more...
£400.00
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 104
MALCOLM, John.

MALCOLM, John. ~ Sketch of the political history of India from the introduction of Mr. Pitt's bill, A.D. 1784, to the present date...

London: James Moyes for William Miller,  1811.
First edition, large paper copy. A second edition appeared later the same year and the work was expanded and re-issued as The Political History of India in 1826. The first edition is very scarce. Malcolm was one of the most distinguished administrators and diplomats to serve with the East India Company and the rising Indian empire. "He was the ideologue par excellence of British India … His insight, his imagination, his willingness to think outside accepted patterns, and, above all, his capacity to bring in a range of considerations far beyond that of which others were capable, all mark him out as a man of real intellectual genius" (Yapp, cited in Oxford DNB).   view more...
£450.00
US$676.48*
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 72
(MALTHUS.) [WHATELY, Richard, later Archbishop of Dublin.]

(MALTHUS.) [WHATELY, Richard, later Archbishop of Dublin.] ~ Hints on the cultivation of the peat-bogs in Ireland, with a view to the increase of population, security, and public happiness, especially in that part of the Uited Kingdom. In a letter to the Rev. T. Malthus.

[London: by the Pamphleteer,]  1816.
First edition of a letter published as a contribution to The Pamphleteer (vol. 9, no. 17, 1817) but issued also as an offprint (as here) with an imprint "Original 1816". The proposal to drain the peat-bogs and colonize the countryside, and also to resettle convicts and paid-off soldiers (an alternative to Botany bay) has led to the assumption (Mullen) that it is the work of Whately.   view more...
£400.00
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 862
(MANUSCRIPT NOVEL).

(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
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 32
(MANUSCRIPT).

(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$526.15*
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 398
MARIN, [François Louis Claude.]

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$1428.13*
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 651
(MARITIME LAW).

(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$4509.89*
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 101
 

MARSHALL, John. ~ An account of the population in each of six thousand of the principal towns and parishes in England and Wales, as returned to Parliament at each of the three periods, 1801, 1811, & 1821... shewing also the estimated annual value of the real property in each town and parish as assessed to the property tax in 1815...

London: for the author, R. Jennings and W. Chaplin,  1831.
First editions of these massive statistical works compiled while Marshall was employed on the commission to inspect the boundaries of the cities and boroughs, for purposes of the Reform Bill. All are very scarce in commerce.   view more...
£750.00
US$1127.47*
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 482
MARTINELLI, Vincenzio.

MARTINELLI, Vincenzio. ~ Istoria del governo d'Inghilterra e delle sue colonie in India, e nell' America Settentrionale, scritta da Vincenzio Martinelli a sua eccellenza il Sig. principe D. Lorenzo Corsini.

Florence: Gaetano Cambiagi,  1776.
First edition of this Italian account of the constitution of England, of which the largest part is devoted to a description of the British colonies in the East Indies and in America. The chapters on the East Indies include several reflections on the tea and coffee trade, and the introduction of coffee to London in 1652. Published in the year of the American Revolution it includes descriptions of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New England, New York, New Jersey, Nova Scotia, Hudson's Bay, Newfoundland, and Canada.   view more...
£900.00
US$1352.97*
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 684
[MAYEUR DE SAINT-PAUL, François.]

[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$1277.80*
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 396
 

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$225.49*
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 74
McCULLOCH, John Ramsey.

McCULLOCH, John Ramsey. ~ The principles of political economy: with a sketch of the rise and progress of the science.

London: for William Tait in Edinburgh, Longman in London and Curry in Dublin,  1830.
Second edition "corrected and greatly enlarged" of the most influential manual of political economy before Mill.    view more...
£225.00
US$338.24*
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 483
MENA, Antonio Manuel de.

MENA, Antonio Manuel de. ~ Estado general del Imperio Rusiano ò Moscovita, desde su origen hasta la toma de Azoff en la presente guerra. Tomo I... [Tomo II].

Madrid: Lorenzo Francisco Mojados,  1736-38.
First edition of this very scarce Spanish history of the Russian empire.The subtitle to volume one reads "Que contiene una introduccion à la historia de los czares, en que se trata del imperio Rusiano en general: descripcion geographica, hermosura, bondad, abundancia, comercio, y riqueza de aquella monarquia: de los diferentes pueblos, que habitan baxo de sus dominios, Lapones, Samoides, Ostiakos, Tartaros, etc. sus modales, habito, edificios, forma de vivir, armas, govierno, y religion; con todo lo demás perteneciente á una noticia general de la Moscovia. Y las vidas de todos los monarcas, que han sido dueños de Rusia, hasta la muerte del czar Juan Basilio el Cruel, que fuè año de 1584. Sur autor don Manuel Antonio de Mena."Volume two is subtitled: En que continuando la historia de sus czares, se contienen las vidas de Theodoro Basiliovitz, Boris Gudenou, Demetrio, Zuski, Ladislao, Miguèl Romanoff, y Alexo Michaelovitz, padre del esclarecido heroè Pedro el Grande, una relacion de las cerèmonias antiguamente observadas en las coronaciones de los czares, y una noticia del origen, fuerzas y progressos de los Cosacos.    view more...
£1250.00
US$1879.12*
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 98
(MILL, John Stuart.) BAIN, Alexander.

(MILL, John Stuart.) BAIN, Alexander. ~ John Stuart Mill. A criticism: with personal recollections.

London: Longman, Green, and Co.  1882.
First edition in book form.   view more...
£65.00
US$97.71*
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 107
MOLESWORTH, William Nassau.

MOLESWORTH, William Nassau. ~ The history of the Reform Bill of 1832.

London: Chapman and Hall, Ireland and Co. in Manchester,  1865.
First edition. Molesworth had been rector of St Martin's and vicarage of St Paul, Canterbury during the Reform Bill period and witnessed the especially stormy scenes the Bill occasioned in East Kent.   view more...
£65.00
US$97.71*
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 171
MOORE, Frank.

MOORE, Frank. ~ Songs and ballads of the American revolution.

New York: D. Appleton & Company,  1856.
First edition. A selection of verses from the songs sung by the Revolutionary War patriots. Each is preceded by a brief description of the author and background of each song. The volume includes The Irishman's epistle to the troops in Boston.   view more...
£100.00
US$150.33*
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 372
 

MORLEY, John. ~ The Life of William Ewart Gladstone.

London: Macmillan and Co,  1905-6.
First published 1903.   view more...
£30.00
US$45.10*
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 894
MOUSIN, Jean and Christophe CACHET, translator.

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$3006.59*
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 283
(NAPOLEON BONAPARTE).

(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$60.13*
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 434
NECKER, M. [Jacques].

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$1202.64*
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 96
NEILD, James.

NEILD, James. ~ An account of the rise, progress and present state of the Society for the discharge and relief of persons imprisoned for small debts throughout England and Wales...

London: "for the benefit of the charity", Nichols and son,  1802.
First edition of this remarkable survey of the prisons of Britain. Neild, penal reformer and philanthropist, made weekly prison visits in his capacity as treasurer of the Society for the discharge and relief of persons imprisoned for small debts (also known as the Thatched House Society).   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 402
(NELSON, Horatio, Viscount Nelson). CHARNOCK, John.

(NELSON, Horatio, Viscount Nelson). CHARNOCK, John. ~ Nelson's leben nach dem Englishen.

Bremen: Johann Heinrich Müller,  1807.
First German edition of Charnock's biography of Nelson, very well preserved in its original binding. First published in English in 1806, the work is notable for Charnock's use of Nelson's original letters and first-hand accounts of his life. The fine engraved plates appear to have been specifically prepared for this German edition.   view more...
£600.00
US$901.98*
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 671
[NERCIAT, André-Robert Andréa de.]

[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$1202.64*
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 926
 

(OPERA BILL.) (COOKE, Thomas Simpson, composer.) ~ Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. This Evening, Saturday, May 2, 1829. His Majesty's Servants will act (By Particular Desire) 42nd time, a new Drama, in two Acts, called Charles the XIIth... After which, the Farce of The Portrait of Cervantes... To conclude with (for the 12th Time) a New Grand Melo-Dramatic Fairy Tale, entitled Thierna-Na-Oge Or The Prince of the Lakes. The Overture and Music composed and selected by Mr. T. Cooke. The whole produced under the direction of Mr. W. Barrymore... Monday next, May 4, will be produced, (for the first Time) A New Grand Opera, Masaniello; Or The Dumb Girl of Portici... The new Melo-Dramatic Fairy Tale of Thierna-na-Oge; Or, The Prince of the Lakes, Every Night! Colman's Comedy of the Jealous Wife.

London: J.Tabby, Printer, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, [  1829.]
Cooke's Thierna-na-Oge is one of the first operas by an Irish-born composer to make use of the country's rich store of legends: Thierna-na-Oge being the mythical Irish Atlantis. 1829 was its first season.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 928
 

(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.]
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£100.00
US$150.33*
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 925
 

(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.]
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£150.00
US$225.49*
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 924
 

(OPERA BILL.) (ROSSINI, Gioachino,) ~ [William Tell.] Brilliant Success And Most Extraordinary Combination Of Attractions! Rossini's Guillaume Tell! Mr. Van Amburgh and His Lions!! and The New Ballet of The Spirit of Air!!! On The Same Evening. Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The Public is requested to take notice that the Overture will commence at a Quarter before seven o'clock. This Evening, Friday, December 14th, 1838, Her Majesty's Servants will perform Rossini's renowned Opera (in Four Acts) of Guillaume Tell...After the Opera Mr.Van Amburgh Will Exhibit A Series of Extraordinary Performances, With The Whole Of His Trained Animals To conclude with the First Act of the grand Fairy Ballet, entitled The Spirit Of Air!...

[London:] W.Wright, Printer Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, [  1838.]
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£100.00
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 927
 

(OPERA BILL.) (VERDI, Giuseppe.) ~ (Otello). Royal Lyceum Theatre... Italian Opera... Friday, July 5th, 1889, at 8.20 p.m., First Peformance in London of Otello Grand Opera, in Four Acts, By Verdi. Libretto by Arrigo Boïto. (The Opera is founded on Shakespeare's tragedy.) The Music of "Otello" published by G.Ricordi, London and Milan.

[London,  1889.]
Rare opera bill advertising the first performance in England of Verdi's Otello.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 923
 

(OPERA BILL.) (WEBER, Carl Maria.) ~ Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden. The Last Time of acting before the Holidays, Mr. Fawcett's Night Saturday next, March 18, 1826. The performance of the Evening will commence with The Overture to Der Freischütz, Which, the Composer, Carl Maria Von Weber, has kindly volunteered to conduct in the orchestra, for that Night only. After which will be revived the Comic Opera of Love in a Village... With the musical Farce of A Roland for an Oliver... To which will be added (in one act) the ballet of The Deserter of Naples To conclude with The Ceremony of Shooting a Deserter. Tickets and Places to be had of Mr. Fawcett, 4, Tavistock-street, Covent-Garden; and at the Box-Office, Hart-street.

[London:] W. Reynolds, 9, Denmark-court, Strand, [   1826.]
A rare Covent Garden bill, advertising a unique performance of the overture of Weber's opera Der Freischütz, conducted by the composer himself. Weber had recently arrived in London and was at Covent Garden to compose and produce Oberon, based on Christoph Martin Wieland's poem of the same name. The composer was already seriously ill with tuberculosis and he died in London in June.The main peformance on the night of March 18th was of the Thomas Arne's ballad opera Love in a Village, accompanied by Thomas Morton's A Roland for an Oliver and The Deserter of Naples.   view more...
£500.00
US$751.65*
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 332
(OXFORD UNIVERSITY).

(OXFORD UNIVERSITY). ~ Parecbolæ sive excerpta e corpore statutorum universitatis Oxoniensis. Accedunt articuli religionis XXXIX in Ecclesia Anglicana recepti: nec non juramenta fidelitatis et suprematus. In Usum Juventutis Academicæ.

Oxford: Clarendon Press,   1794.
A very pretty eighteenth-century copy of the Oxford University statutes.   view more...
£150.00
US$225.49*
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 487
[PAGANUCCI, Jean.]

[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$1879.12*
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 447
(PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY).

(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$112.75*
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 339
 

PENN, William, Robert BARCLAY and Joseph PIKE. ~ Three treatises in which the fundamental principle, doctrines, worship, ministry and discipline of the people called Quakers, are plainly declared. The first, by William Penn, in England; the second by Robert Barclay, in Scotland; the third, by Joseph Pike, in Ireland. [PENN, William. A brief account of the rise and progress of the people called Quakers... The sixth edition;] [BARCLAY, Robert. The anarchy of the ranters, and other libertines; the hierarchy of the Romanists, and other pretended churches, equally refused and refuted, in a two-fold apology for the Church and people of God, called in derision, Quakers;] [PIKE, Joseph. An Epistle to the National Meeting of Friends, in Dublin, concerning good order and discipline in the Church.]

Philadelphia: re-printed by Joseph Crukshank,   1770.
First edition thus. A collection of treatises on the Quakers, each with separate title page and pagination; the first is signed separately, the second and third continuously. "The three treatises are sometimes found in separate issues. When collected, a list of books to be sold by Benjamin Ferriss, in Wilmington, pp. [4], is generally found added."(Evans). The publication of works defining and defending the Quaker faith, while distancing it from more extreme elements at its fringes, was central to seventeenth-century efforts to bring Quakerism into the mainstream of religious life. Penn and Barclay both played pivotal roles, publishing numerous important works, in addition to their notable diplomatic efforts. Barclay's The Anarchy of the Ranters was first published in 1676, Penn's Brief Account followed in 1694 and Pike's Epistle appeared in 1726. All three titles were republished a number of times over the following century, including an edition of Barclay's The Anarchy of the Ranters with Pike's Epistle, published in Philadelphia by B. Franklin and D. Hall in 1757.   view more...
£300.00
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 53
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$901.98*
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 29
 

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$45.10*
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 91
 

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$526.15*
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 129
(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$450.99*
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 435
[RAGUENET, François.]

[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$450.99*
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 70
RAYMENT, Robert.

RAYMENT, Robert. ~ The corn-trade of Great Britain, for eighteen years, from 1748, to 1765. Compared with the eighteen years, from 1771, to 1788. Shewing the national loss in the latter period to have been above twenty millions of money...

London: for T. Whieldon,  1790.
First edition.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 251
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$638.90*
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 83
RICHMOND, Alexander Bailey.

RICHMOND, Alexander Bailey. ~ Narrative of the condition of the manufacturing population; and the proceedings of government which led to the state trials in Scotland, for administering unlawful oaths, and the suspension of the habeas corpus act, in 1817, with a detailed account of the system of espionage adopted at that period, in Glasgow and its neighborhood. Also, a summary of similar proceedings, in other parts of the country, to the execution of Thistlewood and others, for high treason, in 1820.

London: for John Miller,  1824.
First edition of Richmond's remarkable account of industrial unrest in the Scottish weaving trade. Though having spent much of his early life in Ireland, Richmond, a weaver, found himself at the heart of the Scottish weaving trade at a critical moment in industrial history. He was first accused of fomenting unrest among textile workers and later of being a government agent charged suppressing an alleged "reform" conspiracy. A duplicitous figure, Richmond had earlier been courted by Robert Owen who offered him a post of assistant schoolmaster at New Lanark, an offer retracted when Richmond's political principles were found dubious. This work was reprinted in 1825.   view more...
£500.00
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 120
 

(RIDLEY, Nicholas, Bishop.) ~ ... Some account of the life and martyrdom of the right reverend Dr. Nicholas Ridley, Lord Bishop of London.

Bristol: J. Chilcott, sold at the Depository, 6, Clare Street, Bristol; and by L.& G. Seeley, Fleet Street, London,  1839.
This is no VI in the series issued by the Church of England Tract Society "instituted in Bristol, 1811" (from the title). It was first published in 1815 but we can find no other record of this 1839 Bristol imprint.   view more...
£50.00
US$75.16*
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 6
 

[RIDPATH, George.] ~ Parliamentary right maintain'd or the Hanover succession justify'd. Wherein The Hereditary Right to the Crown of England asserted &c. Is Consider'd, in III. Parts. The Ist Examins the Plea from Scripture. The II. That from the Laws & History of England, for Indefeasible Right, Nonresistance & Disposition of the Crown by Will. The III. Whether the Parliament, can repeal the Hanover Succession, as now Establish'd by the Treaty of Union. With Reflections on the Treasonable Schemes of the Party, as they occurr in their Book: & Particularly that of a new lurking pretender.

[London?],  1714.
First edition of this vigorous defence of the legality of the Hanover succession over the Stuarts and of parliamentary right by George Ridpath, whig polemicist, libellist and bigamist. Anonymously issued, it was written in exile in Scotland and Holland, its author having been convicted of libel: "the attorney-general said that he 'had for some years past outwent all his predecessors in scandal'" (DNB). It represents an attack on George Harbin's Hereditary right of the crown of England and reflects the popular sentiment that while George I was a German king who knew little of England and spoke little English, he was at least a Protestant and thus preferable to the hereditary catholic alternative, James Edward Stuart, the "new lurking pretender". In in letters to the English minister at the Hague Ridpath described the difficulties of distributing this work from his place in exile: "Copies were sent by various ships to different ports in England; but many were lost or thrown overboard by the captains, who dared not land them, or were returned because no one dared receive them" (DNB). This casts an interesting light on the assumption (expressed in the ESTC catalogue) that work was printed in London.   view more...
£300.00
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 18
 

[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$263.08*
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 340
 

ROBERTSON, Joseph. ~ On scholastic offices in the Scottish Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

[N.p., ?Edinburgh or Aberdeen]: printed for private circulation,  1853.
Scarce first edition of this work on the medieval Scottish church, inscribed by the author: "James T. Gibson Craig esqe with the author's compliments." Nineteenth-century author and historian, Joseph Robertson (1810-66) wrote widely on the history of Scotland; this pamphlet preceded by some years his seminal work on medieval ecclesiastical history, Concilia Scotiae (1866), a two-volume edition of the pre-Reformation Scottish church's canon law and constitutions.   view more...
£50.00
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 250
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$676.48*
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 155
RONQUILLO, Pedro.

RONQUILLO, Pedro. ~ The idea of the court of France, and the method of their proceedings, from the time of the Peace of Nijmeguen, until the spring of the year 1684. Supposed to be written by Don Pedro Ronquillo, the Embassador of Spain at the Court of England. Done out of Spanish into English.

London: for A. and J. Churchil,  1704.
First edition in English of this diplomatic memoir by the Spanish ambassador to England. The anonymous editor suggests that the work was actually written in England but that it was first printed (in Spanish) in 1684 in Cologne. That first edition appears very rare.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 390
 

(RUSKIN). QUENNELL, Peter ~ John Ruskin: the portrait of a prophet.

London: Collins,  1949.
First edition.   view more...
£10.00
US$15.03*
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 38
 

SACHEVERELL, Henry. ~ A sermon preach'd before the honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's Westminster, on Friday, May 29. 1713.

London: for Henry Clements,  1713.
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£35.00
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 41
 

(SACHEVERELL, Henry.) ~ A list of the lords who protested against some proceedings, in relation to the case of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, in the House of peers; with their lordships reasons for entring their protestations.

London:  1710.
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£55.00
US$82.68*
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 40
 

(SACHEVERELL, Henry.) [BURNET, Gilbert.] ~ The Bishop of Oxford his speech in the House of Lords on the impeachment of Dr. Henry Sacheverell.

London: for Jonah Bowyer,  1710.
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£45.00
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 37
 

(SACHEVERELL, Henry.) [BURNET, Gilbert.] ~ The Bishop of Salisbury his speech in the House of Lords, on the first article of the impeachment. of Dr. Henry Sacheverell.

London:  1710.
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£40.00
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 39
 

(SACHEVERELL, Henry.) [KING, William.] ~ A vindication of the Reverend Dr. Henry Sacheverell, from the false, scandalous, and malicious aspersions cast upon him in a late infamous pamphlet, entitled, The Modern Fanatick. Intended chiefly to expose the iniquity of the faction in general, without taking any considerable notice of their poor mad tool B-t in particular. In a dialogue beteen a Tory and a Wh-g.

London: for H. Clements,  [1711.]
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£70.00
US$105.23*
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 896
SCOT, Reginald.

SCOT, Reginald. ~ The discoverie of witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, the knaverie of conjurors, the impietie of inchantors, the follie of soothsaiers, the impudent falshood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practises of pythonists, the curiositie of figurecasters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggerlie art of alcumystrie, the abhomination of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of naturall magike, and all the conveiances of legierdemaine and juggling are deciphered: and many other things opened, which have long lien hidden, howbeit verie necessarie to be knowne. Heereunto is added a treatise upon the nature and substance of spirits and divels, &c...

[London : Henry Denham for William Brome],  1584.
First edition of the first systematic and rational account of the practice of witchcraft in England.   view more...
£24000.00
US$36079.11*
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 910
(SCOTLAND).

(SCOTLAND). ~ Minuts of the proceedings in Parliament... Edinburgh: the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, 1706-07.

Edinburgh: by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson,  1706-7.
Accounts of the proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, which include text of resolutions agreeing to the Union of Scotland and England. complete with the names of those present and lists of those voting 'aye' or 'nay' on various bills printed on accompanying oblong folio sheets, plus 3 additional items.Although there are several known examples of complete volumes of the Minutes of the Union, our copy clearly demonstrates that each Minute was separately issued and later bound together. Most of the individual minutes here show signs of being previously folded or otherwise kept separately (with consequent dust-staining in some cases)   view more...
£6000.00
US$9019.78*
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 109
(SCOTLAND).

(SCOTLAND). ~ The beast is wounded. Or information from Scotland, concerning their reformation. Wherein is briefly declared, the true cause and ground of all the late troubles there; and the reasons why they have rejected the bishops, with their courts, canons, ceremonies and service books. Hereto is added some fruitfull observations, upon the former declaration by Jo. Bastwicks younger brother.

[Amsterdam: "Richt Right" press,] "printed in the yeare that the bishops had their downfall in Scotland,"  [1638].
First edition of this rare Puritan pamphlet on the downfall of the Scottish bishops, written from an apocalyptic perspective and printed in the Low Countries. Though the foot of the title give "The first part" no more parts were printed. ESTC notes that the "Confession of Faith was intended to be bound between quires B and C, but is frequently missing [as here] or misbound" and that the various editions of the Confession are catalogued separately by the STC.   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 852
[SCOTLAND.] [CROKER, John].

[SCOTLAND.] [CROKER, John].  ~ Silver medal struck to commemorate the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland.

  1707.
One of three medals struck on the occasion of the Act of Union, which received the royal assent on the 6th of March, 1707 and came into operation on the 1st of May of that year. The Union is indicated here by the impaling of the English and Scottish arms on the British shield, by the conjunction of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew upon the shield held by the unicorn, and by a rose and thistle growing on the same stalk upon the lion's shield.The engraver John Croker (born in Dresden and became assistant to the chief engraver at the Royal Mint in 1697, under Sir Isaac Newton, producing his first English medal in the same year. He succeeded as chief engraver in 1705, designing dies for all the gold and silver coins during the reigns of Anne and George I, plus many similar commemorative medals.   view more...
£800.00
US$1202.64*
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 10
 

(SCOTTISH ROYAL BOROUGHS.) ~ A Bill Proposed to be submitted to the consideration of Parliament [drop-head title], for Correcting the Abuses, and supplying the Defects, in the internal Government of the Royal Boroughs, and in the manner of accounting for the Property, Annual Revenues, and Expenditure of the same, in that Part of Great Britain called Scotland. Prepared by The Committee of Delegates,

[Edinburgh:  1787.]
Rare. The first item is known in two editions, both probably of the same year: ours and another entitled 'The Heads of a Bill...' The second item is a defensive memorandum also relating to the ancient constitutional liberties in the Scottish boroughs granted by charter and legitimised by immemorial custom. These antiquated liberties had been under continual scrutiny since the middle ages, but were more clearly threatened by the atmosphere of political reform of the 1780s.   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 226
SETTLE, Elkanah.

SETTLE, Elkanah. ~ Eusebia triumphans. The Hannover succession to the imperial crown of England, an heroick poem.

London: for John Nutt,  1702.
First edition of the Restoration dramatist's celebratory poem in rhymed heroic verse on the future of the Hanoverian succession, bound like many of his works in a presentation binding under the instruction of the author, or even (as has been suggested) by the author himself. This example is without the armorial centrepiece found on many of his bindings: Settle habitually presented copies of his works to potential noble patrons and added their arms. Settle was a very prolific playwright whose reputation has perhaps been unjustly coloured by the attacks of contemporaries such as Dryden, who wrote of Settle's work: "free from all meaning, whether good or bad, / And, in one word, heroically mad" (Absalom and Achitophel). Certainly his language is extravagant, even bombastic, but this reflects Settle's genius for spectacle. In 1680 he had been engaged by the Earl of Shaftesbury to create a pageant for one of his anti-Catholic Pope-burning events in the City of London, a spectacle which was said to have cost £1000 to produce.   view more...
£800.00
US$1202.64*
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 86
 

SIMPSON, James. ~ The philosophy of education, with its practical application to a system and plan of popular education as a national object. Second edition.

Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, Longman & Co and others in London, John Cumming and others in Dublin,  1836.
Second edition. A pioneering work of the educational reform movement.   view more...
£100.00
US$150.33*
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 82
SLANEY, Robert Aglionby.

SLANEY, Robert Aglionby. ~ Essay on the beneficial direction of rural expenditure...

London: for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,  1824.
First edition. Contains substantial material on agricultural improvement and on cultural expenditure (including festivals, public libraries, public art collections, charities, banks, infirmaries and fever hospitals).   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 657
[SMITH, Horatio.]

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

Paris: [A. Belin for] A. and W. Galignani,  1827.
Smith's popular historical romance set at Glastonbury in the time of Henry VIII and the Reformation. This edition was printed for Galignani's popular foreign language bookshop in Paris in the year following the first English edition. It was also published in French in 1827. Though printed in Paris, this copy seems to have soon found a German home: the handsome contemporary binding uses German marbled paper and beneath the pastedowns are visible sheets of printer's waste bearing bold black-letter text.   view more...
£200.00
US$300.66*
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 124
 

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

[?Edinburgh,  ?1792.]
First edition of this pamphlet subscribed "a burgher of Edinburgh" charging the chairman of the Scottish Convention of Delegates with having allowed the electoral principles of the Society of Friends to become confused with the far more radical and un-parliamentary politics of Thomas Paine. Scarce.   view more...
£75.00
US$112.75*
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 229
SPELMAN, Sir Henry.

SPELMAN, Sir Henry. ~ Tithes too hot to be touched. Certain treatises, wherein is shewen that tithes are due. By the law of nature, scripture, nations, therefore neither Jewish, Popish, or inconvenient. Written by Sr. Henry Spelman Knight, and others. With an alphabeticall table.

London: for Philemon Stephens,  [1636].
First edition. Spelman was one of the most prolific of the early Stuart antiquaries. Profoundly concerned with the continuity of English institutions, he was a champion of the payment of tithes to the church and wrote several works in defence of the system. His De non temerandis ecclesiis: a Tract of the Rights and Respect due unto the Churches (1613), a criticism of the appropriation of church property for profane purposes, was influential enough to encourage the jurist John Selden to publish a response The Historie of Tithes (1618), which refuted the contention that tithes were justified by both history and constant usage. The present treatise, published posthumously from Spelman's papers by Jeremy Stephens, takes up the debate with Selden once more. It was reprinted in 1637 as The Larger Treatise on Tithes.   view more...
£575.00
US$864.40*
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 353
 

SPIELMANN, M[arion]. H[arry]. ~ John Ruskin A Sketch of His Life, His Work, and His Opinions with Personal Reminiscences; Together with a Paper by John Ruskin entitled "The Black Arts".

London: Cassell and Company,  1900.
First edition, including a Reprint of the paper by Ruskin entitled "The Black Arts" which was first published in The Magazine of Art.   view more...
£35.00
US$52.62*
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 313
STILLINGFLEET, Edward.

STILLINGFLEET, Edward. ~ The unreasonableness of separation: or, An impartial account of the history, nature, and pleas of the present separation from the communion of the Church of England. To which, several late letters are annexed, of eminent Protestant divines abroad, concerning the nature of our differences, and the way to compose them. By Edward Stillingfleet, D.D. Dean of St. Pauls, and chaplain in ordinary to His Majesty.

London: printed by T[homas]. N[ewcomb]. for Henry Mortlock, at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard,  1681.
First edition of Stillingfleet's major work, urging unity in the Church of England in the face of emerging dissent at home and in the American colonies. It was developed from the author's controversial sermon The Mischief of Separation preached on 11 May 1680 before the whig lord mayor of London, Sir Robert Clayton, which caused a furore among Dissenters. Passionately committed to Protestant unity, Stillingfleet accused the Dissenters of an innate tendency to sectarianism which threatened the entire Protestant enterprise in the face of Catholic resurgency in England."Stillingfleet was clearly taken aback by the opposition to his sermon. In 1683 he produced a major work, The Unreasonableness of Separation, which enlarged upon the earlier sermon. Even if occasional conformity were accepted as the norm there would be no end to dissenters pressing for their various ideas of a perfect church, and so perpetuating schism. He admitted that various reforms were desirable in the Church of England, especially in the church courts to restore the puritan ideal of church discipline; but dissenters maintained their nonconformity only because of certain 'accidental appendices' and some 'circumstantials of worship' whereas the Church of England's schism with Rome rested on doctrinal issues—a very different matter" (Till in Oxford DNB).The work has considerable historical value, since Stillingfleet presents a very careful anatomy of the various phases of dissent, both in England and abroad. There are several interesting accounts of the early churches in North America and discussions of the debates between Roger Williams, John Cotton and Samuel Gorton.   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 379
 

STRACHEY, Lytton, ~ Elizabeth and Essex, a tragic history.

London: Chatto & Windus,   1928.
First edition.   view more...
£20.00
US$30.07*
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 284
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$1127.47*
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 874
(STUART, Charles, Baron Stuart de Rothesay).

(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$5111.21*
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 154
STUART, Gilbert.

STUART, Gilbert. ~ The history of the establishment of the Reformation of religion in Scotland...

London: for J. Murray and J. Bell,  1780.
First edition of Stuart's account of the Scottish Reformation from 1517 to 1561.   view more...
£275.00
US$413.41*
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 46
SULLY, Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de.

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$2104.61*
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 400
SWIFT, Jonathan.

SWIFT, Jonathan. ~ The history of the four last years of the Queen. Published from the last manuscript copy, corrected and enlarged by the author's own hand.

London: for A. Millar,  1758.
First edition, without the variant mis-prints. Written around 1713, Swift's defence of Queen Anne and her efforts to negotiate the peace treaty of Utrecht was finally published posthumously in 1758 amid extraordinary rumours that the published version was a forgery. Dr. Johnson said that "it seemed by no means to correspond with the notions I had formed of it from a conversation that I once heard between the Earl of Orrery and old Mr. Lewis" (Life of Swift, 1758) and Macaulay described it as "falsely attributed to Swift". In 1897 a letter to The London Times claimed that the lost manuscript had been found in Dublin, finally putting an end to the rumours. Swift's own attempts to publish the work earlier were apparently obstructed by the machinations of Viscount Bolingbroke, Earl of Oxford and others.   view more...
£300.00
US$450.99*
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 28
 

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$150.33*
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 919
(TAHITI).

(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$375.82*
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 8
 

[The Journal of the proceedings of the Lords Commissioners of both nations, in the treaty of union, which began on the 16th April 1706, and was concluded on the 22nd of July following...] ~ 

Edinburgh:  [1706.]
Three rare and fundamental texts of the Treaty of the Union which which united the countries of Scotland and England under the new name of "The United Kingdom of Great Britain." The first item is apparently very rare. It is known in two editions of 1706, one with 164 pages, and another with just 79. The latter is relatively common compared with the former. Comparison with the Harvard copy as described in the online catalogue suggests that the 164p. edition may not have been issued with a title. The 'Articles of Union' following were evidently issued with the 'Journal', but are also found separately.   view more...
£600.00
US$901.98*
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 920
(TRADES and CRAFTS.)

(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$1352.97*
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 403
(TREATIES).

(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$1803.96*
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 90
[TUFNELL, Edward Carlton.]

[TUFNELL, Edward Carlton.] ~ Character, object and effects of trades' unions; with some remarks on the law concerning them.

London: James Ridgway and sons,  1834.
First edition, presentation copy. "Appointed an assistant commissioner by the royal commission on the poor laws in July 1832 to conduct local investigations into the working of the poor law, Tufnell visited Edinburgh to obtain Thomas Chalmers's views on poor relief. In the following year he was a member of the royal commission on children's employment in factories. He published in 1834 Character, Objects, and Effects of Trades Unions, which restated many of the contemporary objections to trade unions" (Oxford DNB).   view more...
£975.00
US$1465.71*
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 302
(TUSCANY). GALLUZZI, Riguccio.

(TUSCANY). GALLUZZI, Riguccio. ~ Istoria del Granducato do Toscana sotto il Governo della casa Medici... edizioni seconda.

Florence: Gaetano Cambiago,  1781.
Second edition, published in the same year as the first.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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 301
(TUSCANY). PIGNOTTI, Lorenzo.

(TUSCANY). PIGNOTTI, Lorenzo. ~ Storia della Toscana sino al principato con diveri saggi sulle scienze, lettere e arti...

Pisa: Didot,  1813-14.
First edition. An important history of Tuscany which found considerable European success. It was published the year after Pignotti's death and includes an engraved plate of his monument. It was published in English in 1823. Pignotti was born in Figline Valdarno, Tuscany. A doctor and lecturer at Pisa University, his literary output includes the collection Favole e novelle (1782) a light-hearted satire on contemporary society, the pre-Romantic poem La tomba di Shakespeare (1779), and mock-heroic poem La treccia donata (1808).   view more...
£475.00
US$714.07*
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 695
[VADÉ, Jean Joseph.]

[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$1127.47*
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 255
[VARILLAS, Antoine, attributed to.]

[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$601.32*
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 282
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$413.41*
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 440
VERGIL, Polydore.

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$1277.80*
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 167
 

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

[Florence,  1789.]
First edition of Canovai's first defence of his Elogio di Amerigo Vespucci (1788), the work which had stated that the fifteenth-century Italian navigator had reached America before Columbus and was the true discoverer of the continent that was to take his name. The Elogio was to provoke a storm of controversy between the Italians who believed that their countryman Vespucci was the first discoverer and those who regarded his accounts as spurious. Canovai's detailed and indignant defence is primarily levelled at the detractions of the Italian philologist Bechi. It was followed by another of the same year.   view more...
£260.00
US$390.86*
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 168
 

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

Cortona and Florence: Mulinelli and Pagni,  [1789].
First edition of Canovai's second defence of his Elogio di Amerigo Vespucci (1788), the work which had stated that the fifteenth-century Italian navigator had reached America before Columbus and was the true discoverer of the continent that was to take his name. The Elogio was to provoke a storm of controversy between the Italians who believed that their countryman Vespucci was the first discoverer and those who regarded his accounts as spurious. The "Lettera II" counters the criticisms of Bartolozzi and Tiraboschi and is no less splenetic than the first.   view more...
£260.00
US$390.86*
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 169
 

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

Florence: G. Allegrini,  1796.
First edition, rare. The Tuscan historian takes issue with the persistent claims that Amerigo Vespucci's claims to have discovered the American continent before Columbus were false. His particular stimulus was a work by Antonio Eximendo on Macchiavelli (Cesena, 1795) in which Vespucci had been once more dismissed as an impostor, despite Canovai's recent attempts to reclaim Vespucci as an Italian hero.   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 131
(VICTORIAN SEASIDE).

(VICTORIAN SEASIDE). ~ Recollections of Deal.

London: Newman & Co.,  n.d. [c. 1864.]
A rare miniature seaside souvenir from Deal, Kent. Though undated, several of the views depict the iron pleasure pier opened in 1864 and perhaps this ephemeral item was printed to accompany the opening. The views present a rather elegant view of a Victorian seaside town full of fashionably attired promenaders. The town would have been working hard to dispel its reputation for infamy and gloom reported earlier in the century by Cobbett ("a most villainous place. It is full of filthy looking people") and later by Dickens in Bleak House. Besides the pier there are images of the esplanade, castle, barracks and church.   view more...
£400.00
US$601.32*
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 661
 

(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$2705.93*
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 389
 

WALFORD, L. B. ~ Memories of Victorian London.

London: Edward Arnold,  1912.
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£15.00
US$22.55*
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 264
WALWORTH, Mansfield T[racy].

WALWORTH, Mansfield T[racy]. ~ The dignity of man, an address before the Victory Lyceum Association.

Albany: Atlas & Argus Print,  1857.
First and only edition of a rousing address on the subject of man's duty to resist tyranny, with dramatic invocations of the revolutionary wars. Walworth had begun his career as lawyer before losing interest and turning to literature. He wrote a number of romantic novels which achieved considerable popularity (including Mission of Death, Lulu, Hotspur, Storm cliff, Warwick, Delaphme, or the Sacrifice of Irene, Beverly, or the White Mask). His life was ended by his own son who shot him during a family quarrel in 1873.   view more...
£150.00
US$225.49*
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 94
 

WATTS, John. ~ The facts of the cotton famine.

London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co and Ireland & Co in Manchester,  1866.
First edition. An important work written in response to the disastrous effects of the American civil war on Lancashire's staple industry, by a prominent early socialist.   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 618
WEIZMANN, Chaim.

WEIZMANN, Chaim. ~ Trial and error the autobiography.

New York: Harper and Brothers,  [1949].
Presentation first edition of the autobiography of the first President of Israel, with an excellent and well documented provenance: "To Admiral Sir John Edelsten with cordial regards Chaim Weizmann […] 27.VI.50".The dedicatee, Admiral Sir John Edelsten, added an additional note in his own hand: "This book was presented to me by President Weizmann of Israel on the occasion of my visit to Telaviv in 1950. I was the first naval officer of any nation to fire a 21 gun salute to the new State of Israel.This book is of great interest in that it was the only copy left of the original edition. When the President was revising the book he used this copy only, & one can see the thumbing outside, where in places the gold lettering has disappeared completely. His staff were loath to produce this book when he asked for a copy to present to me, but he insisted & here it is. J H Edelsten. 27.VI.50." John Edelsten rose rapidly through the ranks of the Royal Navy and following an exemplary war-time record, he became a full admiral in February 1949 and was appointed as commander-in-chief, Mediterranean, the following year. Possessing outstanding organisational and diplomatic skills, Edelsten played a key role in fostering British strategic relations in Israel. Following his visit to Haifa in July 1950, Edelsten reported that Israel's 'siege mentality' and severe economic problems made her more amenable to defence talks with the West. This assessment was one of the British government's key indicators of Israel's pro-Western disposition.   view more...
£2000.00
US$3006.59*
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 68
WHATELY, Richard, Archbishop of Dublin.

WHATELY, Richard, Archbishop of Dublin. ~ Thoughts on secondary punishments, in a letter to Earl Grey... to which are appended, two articles on transportation to New South Wales, and on secondary punishments; and some observations on colonization.

London: for B.Fellowes,  1832.
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to the Halesworth book club.   view more...
£250.00
US$375.82*
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 118
 

WHITELEY, Henry. ~ Three months in Jamaica, in 1832: comprising a residence of seven weeks on a sugar plantation.

London: [Samuel Bagster for], Hatchard and Son,  1833.
First edition, first issue. A scarce and influential anti-slavery pamphlet. Whiteley shocked his readers with graphic accounts of the treatment of slaves in Jamaica. Two issues of 1833 are known, ours and another for the Anti-Slavery Society (also by Bagster) which is called a "verbatim reprint" of our Hatchard issue.   view more...
£350.00
US$526.15*
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* Given as a guide only. Based on an exchange rate of £1 = US$1.503296 for the day 11 March 2010 but liable to fluctuate.

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11 March 2010