Justin Croft : Antiquarian Books

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

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

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

£260.00

US$505.62*

order now

add to basket

BACON, Francis, Sir. ~ Essays, or counsels, civil and moral. By Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, And Lord High Chancellor of England.

Glasgow: R. Urie, 1752.

A nice eighteenth-century Glasgow edition of the most read work by the father of the English renaissance. view more...

£190.00

US$369.49*

order now

add to basket

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

London: C. Dilly and J. Stockdale, "Hartford N.E. printed London re-printed," 1787.

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

£625.00

US$1215.43*

order now

add to basket

BARNES, Joshua. ~ Gerania: a new discovery of a little sort of people anciently discoursed of, called pygmies· With a lively description of their stature, habit, manners, buildings, knowledge, and government, being very delightful and profitable. By Joshua Barnes, of Emanuel College, Cambridge.

London: W.G. for Obadiah Blagrave, 1675.

First edition: the first book in English on pygmies. It's author was a contemporary of Milton's at Cambridge and became a prominent Hellenist. Although pure fantasy, Gerania was influential and is believed to have influenced Swift's invention of Lilliput: "[Swift] may have read Joshua Barnes's description of a race of "Pygmies" in his Gerania of 1675" (Ency. Brit.)Gerania is one of the best examples of English seventeenth-century utopian literature. Linking history, classical antiquity and pseudo-ethnology, Barnes gives a fanciful account of an expedition to the head of the Ganges to find the 'blameless pygmies' mentioned in Homer's Iliad, painting a delightful, if idealised, vision of their Eden-like existence: "Their Habit was of the woolly Moss of Trees, most artificially cemented with Gum, and interspersed with delectable Posies; about their Necks they wore pleasant chains of odiferous Flower, the smell of which was their chiefest aliment…" "Barnes... leapt into the project of connecting classical and biblical antiquity, beginning with Gerania (1675), an English prose account of an expedition to visit the 'blameless pygmies' mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Their harmonious community resembled Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, but its laws had been established by Homer himself, a wandering sage versed in Greek, Persian, and Hebrew philosophy, as well as Christianity avant la lettre" (Haugen in ODNB). view more...

£1500.00

US$2917.04*

order now

add to basket

BAUDELAIRE, Charles. ~ Un mangeur d'opium.

Paris: La Mandragore, 1945.

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

£400.00

US$777.88*

order now

add to basket

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

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

First edition, with the words "De l'imprimerie de Monsieur" preceding the imprint and with 130 pages. There are copies on papier velin (cf. the British Library copy, which lacks a half-title) and paper with vertical chain-lines, as in ours. A pirate edition of the same year has the same words preceding the imprint, but only 94 pages. Chaumière Indienne tells the story of a Englishman of the Royal Society seeking enlightenment through his travels to distant lands. "Born in Le Havre, [Bernardin de Saint-Pierre] took a delight even as a child in romantic day-dreaming, and after reading Robinson Crusoe set sail for Martinique at the age of 12." He later studied under the Jesuits, became a military engineer and something of nomad. "He became a geographer in Malta, a journalist in Holland, and engineer in Russia, in Warsaw and Vienna he lived by his wits; in Mauritius he appears to have lived as something of an opportunist. On his return to Paris he became a friend of J.-J. Rousseau, whose personality and philosophy were to have a profound influence on him" (New Oxford Companion to French Literature). view more...

£300.00

US$583.41*

order now

add to basket

[BREWER, George.] ~ The Siamese Tales: being a collection of stories told to the son of the Mandarin Sam-Sib, for the purpose of engaging his mind in the love of truth and virtue. With an historical account of the kingdom of Siam. To which is added the principal maxims of the talapoins. Translated from the Siamese.

London: for Vernor and Hood, and Champante and Whitrow, 1796.

First edition of Brewer's anonymously-published collection aimed at a juvenile audience. The miscellaneous writer and novelist had visited China in his youth when serving as a midshipman, but it is unclear where he gathered his materials for these purported translations. Some of the Tales appeared also in the European Magazine, to which Brewer contributed (Oxford DNB). view more...

£800.00

US$1555.76*

order now

add to basket

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

Paris: Hachette, 1859.

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

£150.00

US$291.70*

order now

add to basket

BUCHANAN, George. ~ Paraphrasis Psalmorum Davidis poetica multo quam antehac castigatior; auctore Georgio Buchanano, Scoto, po'tarum nostri saeculi facilè principe. Adnotata sunt argumenta, & carminum genera. Accesserunt duae eiusdem Buchanani tragoediae sacrae: Jephthes, & Baptistes sive Calumnia.

London: Richard Field, 1592.

A rare London pocket edition of Buchanan's Latin verse paraphrases of the Psalms: "The work which more than any other has secured to [Buchanan] his eminent place among modern Latin poets. Buchanan's translation of the Psalms may fairly be considered one of the representative books of the sixteenth century, expressing, as it does, in consummate form, the conjunction of piety and learning which was the ideal of the best type of humanist" (Cambridge History of English and American Literature).Buchanan, though a Scotsman, travelled widely on the continent. The two plays, Jephthe and Baptistes, which also appear in our edition were composed at Bordeaux during a spell of teaching at the newly founded Collège de Guyenne (where Montaigne was among Buchanan's pupils). The Paraphrasis was begun at Coimbra (Portugal) where Buchanan had been teaching at the time of the Inquisition. He had gone to teach there in 1547, only to find the university soon overrun with Jesuits who observed his every movement and confined him to a nearby monastery to reform his humanist tendency towards satire (and the eating of meat in Lent). The Paraphrasis was the product of his penance: an unmistakeable triumph of humanist piety and scholarship. The work was dedicated to Mary Queen of Scots (and the dedication is repeated in our Elizabethan edition) who appointed Buchanan tutor to her son, the future James VI. It was first printed by the Estiennes in 1566, but was also printed in England in 1580 and 1583. view more...

£875.00

US$1701.61*

order now

add to basket

BUCHANAN, George. ~ Psalmorum Dauidis paraphrasis poetica, nu[n]c primùm edita, authore Georgio Buchanano... Eiusdem Buchanani tragoedia quæ inscribitur Iephthes...

[Geneva:] apud Henricum Stephanum, & eius fratrem Robertum Stephanum, 1566.

The first edition to include Buchanan's play Jephthes, printed very shortly after the first edition of 1565/6. "The work which more than any other has secured to [Buchanan] his eminent place among modern Latin poets. Buchanan's translation of the Psalms may fairly be considered one of the representative books of the sixteenth century, expressing, as it does, in consummate form, the conjunction of piety and learning which was the ideal of the best type of humanist" (Cambridge History of English and American Literature).Buchanan, though a Scotsman, travelled widely on the continent. The play Jephthes (first printed 1554) which also appears in our edition was composed at Bordeaux during a spell of teaching at the newly founded Collège de Guyenne (where Montaigne was among Buchanan's pupils). The Paraphrasis was begun at Coimbra (Portugal) where Buchanan had been teaching at the time of the Inquisition. He had gone to teach there in 1547, only to find the university soon overrun with Jesuits who observed his every movement and confined him to a nearby monastery to reform his humanist tendency towards satire (and the eating of meat in Lent). The Paraphrasis was the product of his penance: an unmistakeable triumph of humanist piety and scholarship. The work was dedicated to Mary Queen of Scots who appointed Buchanan tutor to her son, the future James VI. view more...

£700.00

US$1361.29*

order now

add to basket

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

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

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

£475.00

US$923.73*

order now

add to basket

CARROLL, Lewis. ~ Alice's adventures in Wonderland.

London: Macmillan and Co., 1866.

First editions of arguably the best-loved children's books in the English language. The issue points (and the inscription, dated Christmas 1865) of the first work indicate that this is the correct first issue, containing the misprint of '3' to page '30' and with the light blue endpapers instead of the more common dark green endpapers of the later issues. Though bearing the publication date of 1866 Alice's adventures in Wonderland was issued in time for Christmas the previous year, as nicely illustrated in this copy, given as a gift with an inscription dated 1865. view more...

price on enquiry

order now

add to basket

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

Lisbon: Francisco Luiz Ameno, 1781.

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

£1400.00

US$2722.57*

order now

add to basket

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

London: Henry G. Bohn, 1846.

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

£120.00

US$233.36*

order now

add to basket

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

London: printed for A. Bettesworth, E. Curll, J. Battley, J. Clarke, and T. Payne, 1724.

First edition of this translation by Robert Samber of the classic Renaissance manual of etiquette and deportment. "Many of [Samber's] works, such as The Courtier, translated from the original by Castiglione, demonstrate that he was a very competent translator—having French, Latin, and Italian—and that he was highly interested in the problems posed by editing and translating. In the preface to The Courtier he shows an intimate knowledge of the English publishing history of Castiglione, and discusses past and present English versions" (J. & F. Blom in ODNB). Samber incorrectly states that the first English edition (that of Thomas Hoby) was printed in 1588, since it had first appeared as early as 1561. He also dismisses that version thus: "It is certain the Sir Thomas did not understand his Author, or at least his Language is such, that I do not understand Him..." view more...

£700.00

US$1361.29*

order now

add to basket

CASTILHON, Jean-Louis. ~ Zingha, reine d'Angola. Histoire Africaine, en deux parties...

Bouillon & Paris: Lacombe, 1769.

First edition in book form, Paris issue, of this rare but influential historical novel on the life of Nzingha, the seventeenth-century queen of Angola. It is the first European novel based entirely in black Africa, as opposed to those works (notably Aphra Behn's Oroonoko of 1688) which took the uprooted African as their subject. Zingha had considerable resonance in Enlightenment France where debate over slavery, natural right and ethnography had recently been thrown open by Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire. Historically, Nzingha (1581-1663) had wrestled with Portuguese colonists, showing pragmatism and cunning in negotiating the fate of her kingdom and its inhabitants (who formed the basis of the Portuguese slave trade). She is portrayed by Castilhon as both sublime and cruel. The novel appealed to the lumières, who applauded Zingha's struggle for freedom against tyranny and who read it in the context of other utopian novels, but it also later appealed to de Sade who appears to have seized on Zingha as an archetype - an omnipotent woman capable of murdering her lovers, eating her oponents and executing her errant warriors.Castilhon (b. 1720) had trained as a lawyer before participating in the foundation of the Journal encyclopédique under the patronage of Pierre Rousseau. The first version of Zingha appeared episodically in the Journal in the winter of 1768-9, before being printed at the press of the Journal at Bouillon (in present-day Belgium) in April 1769. Our copy is of the Paris issue of the same year, with cancel title page. It was reprinted with considerable modification in 1770, 1774 and 1775. view more...

£1100.00

US$2139.17*

order now

add to basket

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

Paris: Imprimerie des Sciences et des Arts, 1807-1808.

An attractive illustrated French edition. Though entitled "Oeuvres choisies", this edition comprises Don Quixote only and is complete as issued. The translator is described on the title-page as "Ancien Ingénieur des Ponts et Chausées de France, et ancien premier Professeur de l'Academie Royale et Militaire Espagnole." view more...

£900.00

US$1750.23*

order now

add to basket

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de. ~ The life and exploits of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha. Translated from the original Spanish... by Charles Jarvis, Esq; the whole carefully revised and corrected, with a new translation of the poetical parts by another hand. The second edition.

London: for J. and R. Tonson, S. Draper and R. Dodsley, 1749.

Jarvis's edition, which "is generally acknowledged as being close in spirit to the original" (Oxford DNB) was first published in 1742 and was frequently reprinted. It includes a reimpression of The life of Michael de Cervantes Saavedra. Written by Don Gregorio Mayáns & Siscár (1738) and A supplement to the translator's preface, more commonly known as A dissertation on the origin of books of chivalry, by William Warburton. view more...

£850.00

US$1652.99*

order now

add to basket

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

Edinburgh: Apollo Press, by the Martins, 1782 [-1783].

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

£600.00

US$1166.82*

order now

add to basket

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...

£4400.00

US$8556.66*

order now

add to basket

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

n.p. [?Rouen], 1715.

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

£600.00

US$1166.82*

order now

add to basket

[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$583.41*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres," 1768.

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

£400.00

US$777.88*

order now

add to basket

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

"A Gaznah, de l'imprimerie Très-Pieux, Très-Clément & Très-Auguste Sultan des Indes. L'an de l'Hegire MCXX. Avec privilege du Susdit." [1742].

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

£800.00

US$1555.76*

order now

add to basket

(CURIOSA). [THOREL de CAMPIGNEULLES, Charles Claude Florent de.] ~ Cléon, rhéteur Cyrénéen, ou apologie d'une partie de l'histoire naturelle. Traduit de l'Italien.

Amsterdam: 1750.

First edition of this licentious roman philosophique. The manuscript key, probably added in the nineteenth-century and written in mirror image, explains that most of the names of the characters are actually filthy anagrams: Cléon (le con), Cassone (connasse), Rubego (bougre) and so on. The work was reprinted in 1757.This copy is from the library of the English connoisseur Lord Northwick, friend of Gibbon, Nelson, Richard Payne Knight, Canova and Sir William Hamilton. He was hailed as a "collector of very high intelligence and discrimination" (Oxford DNB). view more...

£375.00

US$729.26*

order now

add to basket

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

Paris and Brussels: B. Le Franq, 1784.

This imitation of Rousseau's Héloïse appeared in 1784 and was immediately popular. Several editions are dated 1784: one with a Paris imprint, another (illustrated) with a "Londres" imprint and our edition probably printed in the Low Countries. Copies are usually to be found with a frontispiece or plates, but this attractive copy is bound without. view more...

£125.00

US$243.09*

order now

add to basket

[DICKENS, Charles, editor.] ~ Household Words. A weekly journal. Vol I [-XIX].

London, 1850-1859.

First editions, complete, including the extra Christmas numbers. The 4 first volumes of All The Year Round (1859-61) in a uniform binding is also offered with this set. Further details and photographs sent on request. view more...

£600.00

US$1166.82*

order now

add to basket

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

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

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

£1200.00

US$2333.64*

order now

add to basket

(DICTIONARY, English-Dutch). SEWEL, William. ~ A large dictionary, English and Dutch, in two parts: Wherein each language is set in its proper form; the various significations of the words being exactly noted, and abundance of choice phrases and proverbs intermixt. To which is added a grammar, for both languages... The fifth edition corrected and enlarged [title also in Dutch].

Amsterdam: Jacob ter Beek, 1754.

Fifth edition (first published in Amsterdam in 1691) of one of the most important early English-Dutch dictionaries. Sewel, translator, lexicographer, and historian of Quakerism, visited England only once but he was in constant contact with the English speaking community in Amsterdam and corresponded widely with English associates (including fellow-Quaker William Penn). view more...

£650.00

US$1264.05*

order now

add to basket

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

Rouen: pour la Societé, 1666.

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

£200.00

US$388.94*

order now

add to basket

(DICTIONARY, German-English). ~ The new and complete dictionary of the German and English languages composed chiefly after the German dictionaries of Mr. Adelung and of Mr. Schwan. Every German Word being rendered into proper English and thoroughly enriched with phrases and terms of Arts and Sciences: A work, which will be useful and even indispensible, and therefore welcome to all such as have a mind to translate or read the works of either of the two languages, elaborated by John Ebers.

Leipzig: for Breitkopf and Haertel, 1796-1798.

First editions of a very extensive German-Dictionary with detailed definitions of a large range of technical, popular and slang words. Little is known of the career of Johann Ebers (1742-1818) save that he was a professor Professor at Halle. view more...

£800.00

US$1555.76*

order now

add to basket

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

"A Minutie" [?Paris], 1776.

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

£300.00

US$583.41*

order now

add to basket

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

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

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

£100.00

US$194.47*

order now

add to basket

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

Lyon: les Frères Perisse, 1790.

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

£175.00

US$340.32*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres" (but France), A. Millar, 1743.

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

£500.00

US$972.35*

order now

add to basket

FIELDING, Henry. ~ The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, And his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. Written in Imitation of The Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote... The Third Edition, illustrated with Cuts. In two volumes...

London: for A. Millar, 1743.

First illustrated edition of Fileding's picaresque comedy, his first novel and (in part) a parody of Richardson's Pamela. It had been first printed by Millar the previous year. It might be considered an early example of the road-novel and presents many obvious subjects for illustration: inhabited as it is by a cast of loose women, scoundrels, rogues and fools. view more...

£350.00

US$680.64*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres et se trouve à Paris" [probably printed in Paris]: chez Rollin fils, 1752.

A rare edition of the French translation of The history of Charlotte Summers; the first imitation of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and translated by Fielding's own French translator. The work is occasionally, though not securely, attributed to Sarah Fielding. L'orpheline angloise had first appeared the previous year also with a (false) Londres imprint. ESTC lists a total of 5 copies only for the two editions and no UK copies of our 1752 edition. view more...

£600.00

US$1166.82*

order now

add to basket

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

London: for J. Roberts, 1731.

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

£275.00

US$534.79*

order now

add to basket

GOWER, John. ~ De Confessione Amantis.

London: Thomas Berthelet, 1532.

Second edition of Gower's great Middle English poem, completed about 1390 and dedicated to Richard II. Gower is chiefly remembered as a friend of Geoffrey Chaucer and his Confessio Amantis is frequently cited as the origin of William Shakespeare's play Pericles (who's story is taken from book 8 of the Confessio) but he should be accepted in his own right as one of the great pioneers of English literature.The plan of the Confessio was doubtless borrowed from the Roman de la Rose, and consists of a dialogue first between the poet, in the character of a lover, and Venus, and afterwards between the poet, in the character of a penitent, and Genius, whom Venus assigns to him as a confessor. In the conversation between the penitent and the confessor the seven deadly sins are discussed and illustrated from Gower's encyclopaedic knowledge of Ovid, Josephus, Vincent de Beauvais, Statius, the Gesta Romanorum, the Bible, and other sources. In the eighth book, having described the duty of a king and prayed for England, the poet bids farewell to earthly love. The work is a profound meditation on human love and morality and in Gower's own words in the Prologue it was "a boke for Englondes sake".The work survives in numerous early manuscripts (attesting to its immediate popularity) and was first printed by Caxton in 1474. Thomas Berthelet's edition of 1532 is considered textually superior to Caxton. Pforzheimer notes that the "edition was printed from a manuscript, resembling MS. Bodley 294, but inferior in correctness, collated with Caxton's edition from which several passages lacking in the manuscript were supplied. In the prefatory note 'To the reader' Berthelet included the alternative form of the introductory lines Prologue 24-92, also from Caxton's edition, so that on the whole this edition is textually an improvement over the earlier one. It is also a good example of workmanlike printing much above the average English work of the period" (Pforzheimer). The third edition of 1554 is merely a paginary reprint of the present.The early ownership inscription of William Sotheby is dated 1532. This copy is handsomely bound in the style of Mackinley for the Earl of Stafford, among the richest men in England at the opening of the nineteenth-century. The Earl was himself a latter-day member of the Gower family (he claimed descent in the male line from Sir Alan Gower of Stittenham, supposedly sheriff of York at the time of the conquest). Several antiquaries had previously suggested that the poet's origins lay in the same place, so this would have been a fitting acquisition for the Earl. view more...

£15000.00

US$29170.44*

order now

add to basket

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

La Haye, et se trouve à Paris, 1755.

First edition of a very scarce amorous novel in the oriental mode. A follower of Crébillon fils, Guys is described by Dufrenoy, in no uncertain terms, as one of the "Crébillonnistes décadents" who developed the more undesirable elements of the orientalist genre. view more...

£475.00

US$923.73*

order now

add to basket

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

A la Haye: De l'Imprimerie de D. Monnier, 1754.

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

£400.00

US$777.88*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres" [but Paris], 1743.

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

£500.00

US$972.35*

order now

add to basket

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

Copenhagen and Leipzig: Jacob Preuss, 1741.

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

£2250.00

US$4375.57*

order now

add to basket

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

"Copenhague" [but Dresden]: Jaques Preuss, 1741.

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

£1150.00

US$2236.40*

order now

add to basket

HUXLEY, Aldous. ~ Eyeless in Gaza.

London: Chatto & Windus, 1936.

Signed, limited, first edition of Huxley's follow-up to Brave New World. Number 150 of 200 copies. view more...

£250.00

US$486.17*

order now

add to basket

[JOUVE, Joseph.] ~ Histoire de Zénobie, impératrice-reine de Palmyre. Par M Euvoi de Hauteville, B.D.C. &c [pseud].

Paris: frères Estienne, 1758.

First edition. The ancient city of Palmyra (in present-day Syria) as an ideal of splendour and stability had recently been revealed to western readers by the publication of Robert Wood's spectacular Ruins of Palmyra (1753). The Ruins had been published simultaneously in England and France to great acclaim and became a major source for an emerging classicism in art and architecture. According to the introduction to Histoire de Zénobie, the work was the inspiration for this lively histoire romancée of the life of Palmyra's famous warrior-queen. Zenobia ruled the city at the height of its power, extending her dominion across vast areas of the Middle East and leading a rebellion against her erstwhile Roman allies. The work reflects not only the contemporary vogue for all things oriental but also the enduring fascination for the figure of an all-powerful female leader of legendary virginity. view more...

£450.00

US$875.11*

order now

add to basket

KNIGHT, Richard Payne. ~ An analytical inquiry into the principles of taste.

London: C. Mercier for T. Payne, 1805.

First edition of an important work in the history of aesthetics, by one of the respected arbiters of eighteenth-century taste. It is also an important work in the philosophy of sensory perception, following Hume's formulation "Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind, which contemplates them, and each mind perceives a different beauty." There are excellent discussions of Burke, Hume and Reynolds, among others. A noted collector, Knight was a member of Society of Dilettanti and devoted a great deal of study to classical Greece. view more...

£500.00

US$972.35*

order now

add to basket

LA CHAPELLE, Jean de. ~ Les carosses d'Orleans. Comédie. Par le Sieur D.L.C.

Paris: Jean Ribou, 1681.

First edition of this comedy first acted at the Théâtre de Guénégaud, 9 August 1680. It was adapted as a farce for the English stage (Drury Lane) by George Farquhar as The stage-coach in 1709 and appeared in several English and Dutch editions. La Chapelle was born at Bourges in 1655 and was for some time in the service of the Princes of Conti. view more...

£300.00

US$583.41*

order now

add to basket

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

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

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

£800.00

US$1555.76*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres, et se trouve à Paris, chez Ch. J. Panckoucke" [probably Low Countries], 1767.

First edition in French of this epistolary novel first published anonymously in English by "a lady" in 1765, rare both in its English and French forms. The French translation was apparently issued with both a "Londres et Paris" and also an "Amsterdam et Paris" imprint. Barbier lists the latter only. A further 2 volumes appeared to complete the English set (1767) but were apparently never issued in translation. view more...

£450.00

US$875.11*

order now

add to basket

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

Paris: Jean Musier, 1722.

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

£250.00

US$486.17*

order now

add to basket

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

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

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

£300.00

US$583.41*

order now

add to basket

LEE, Harper. ~ To Kill a Mockingbird.

Philadelphia & New York: J. B. Lipincott, [1960].

First edition, in un-price-clipped first issue dust-jacket with no restoration. A truly superb copy of a work famously difficult to obtain in this condition. This was to be Lee's only great work and has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, becoming a revered chronicle of American life in the South and a key text in the American literary canon. view more...

£12000.00

US$23336.35*

order now

add to basket

LEWIS, C.S. ~ Rehabilitations and other essays.

London: Oxford University Press, 1939.

First edition. A collection of essays whose title characterized much of Lewis's work, as he attempted to bring the fading critical reputation of authors he revered back into balance. A nice copy, uncommon in this condition. view more...

£400.00

US$777.88*

order now

add to basket

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

London: W.H. Allen, 1948.

£10.00

US$19.45*

order now

add to basket

(LONDON). MORLEY, Henry. ~ The journal of a London playgoer from 1851 to 1866.

London: George Routledge & Sons, 1866.

First edition. view more...

£30.00

US$58.34*

order now

add to basket

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 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$1652.99*

order now

add to basket

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

Edinburgh: by Balfour and Smellie, 1775.

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

£1500.00

US$2917.04*

order now

add to basket

(MANUSCRIPT.) ~ Sigris histoire asiatique traduite d'un ancient manuscript trouvé dans la bibliothèque de Monsieur de *** par un Gentilhomme qui cherche à s'amuser à sa campagne.

N.p: "ex typographiâ Equitis Nigri," 1733.

A marvellous manuscript fairy-tale in the oriental mode, apparently unpublished. We can trace no eighteenth-century or earlier printed work with this title.Telling the tragic and heroic tale of prince Ariban of the Taurus mountains, Sigris is a wonderful pot-pourri of fairy-tale motifs and oriental colour, replete with wonderful beasts, beautiful fairy princesses, miraculous transformations, charms, spells, sages speaking in tongues, as well as bizarre characters: such as the enchanted may-bug who speaks only from a jewel-encrusted throne buried in the foliage of an artichoke or via written messages hidden in ostrich eggs. It tells of the unfortunate Ariban, born into a princely family, but shunned for his disabilities (he was born hunch-backed, squint-eyed and lame). Through his courage and good deeds he attracts the favour of the fairies and is cured, allowing him to become the prince he deserved to be and to marry a beautiful wife, Dulcine. Their lives are tragic and heroic in turns and are marked by a constant interplay between their world and the world of the fairies, with whom they communicate freely. They lose their first and only son (who is dropped from a balcony by a proud grandfather while exhibiting him to his subjects) and their early marriage is dogged by their inability to conceive another child. When Dulcine discovers that Ariban has access to the magic of the fairies, she begs him to put it to work in their service. Throughout, she is a central agent in the story, exhibiting strong feminine literary stereotypes - dominated by insatiable curiosity, jealousy and cupidity. The couple do produce another child, the beautiful princess Tagoua, who continues the family's adventures in the other world. Ariban is sorely tested throughout by familial, political and military trials, but the tale ends happily with marriages between the humans, fairies and half-fairies.The dominant mode here is the traditional fairy tale as developed in France by writers such as Madame D'Aulnoy, but grafted to it is an oriental setting, reflecting the current vogue in French popular literature. The statement of the title-page that this is a translation from the Arabic manuscript is, of course, entirely fictional and we have been unable to find any source for the tale, which must be largely original. A nineteenth-century commentator/owner has written on a preliminary "Manuscrit inèdit d'un roman merveilleux assez ingénieuse comme structure, mais dont les details attestent chez l'auteur peu d'expérience littéraire." This is perhaps a fair assessment and it is the very naivety of the enterprise which makes it most interesting to the modern reader. It represents a popular, essentially non-literary reception of the motifs of the fairy-tale. While these are pushed together in a rather breathless and artless fashion, they provide rich materials for the literary historian interested in the place of the fairy-tale and of the "Arabian" tale in French eighteenth-century literature. view more...

£1600.00

US$3111.51*

order now

add to basket

MERBITZ, Joannes Valentinus. ~ De Varietate Faciei Humanae, Discursus physicus appendicis loco accedunt carmina figurata Rabani Mauri.

Dresden: Widow and Heirs of Melchior Bergen for Martin Gabriel Hubner, 1676.

First edition. "Merbitz's book takes features of the human face and describes them by mathematical and alphabetical schemes, constructs cipher systems, and reproduces figured poems by the medieval encyclopedist Hrabanus Maurus (780-856)." Norman, Cyberspace. [Norman notes that Charles Babbage owned a copy, see Norman Cat 28 (1994) 431.] Hrabanus Maurus, the Benedictine archbishop of Mainz was a celebrated encyclopaedist, but his most remarkable legacy is his series of 28 figured poems De laudibus sanctae crucis, a collection of twenty-eight encrypted religious poems, composed before 814 AD. Using a 36 by 36 grid he composed sacred poems (each line in Latin contains precisely 36 letters) which incorporated simple spiritual images formed from contrasting coloured letters (red, in our versions) within the grid, each making brief, succinct verses in their own right. The intention was that the grid provided both texts and images for contemplation, prayer and visual memorization. Merbitz includes 8 of Maurus' "concrete prayers." view more...

£1200.00

US$2333.64*

order now

add to basket

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

"Londres" [but Paris], 1784.

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

£385.00

US$748.71*

order now

add to basket

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

La Haye: [s.n.] 1756.

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

£1100.00

US$2139.17*

order now

add to basket

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$194.47*

order now

add to basket

OGILBY, John. ~ The relation of His Majestie's entertainment passing through the city of London, to his coronation: with a description of the triumphal arches, and solemnity; by John Ogilby.

London: by Tho[mas] Roycroft for Rich [ard] Marriott, 1661.

Second edition. John Ogilby was a man of varied talents "dancing-master, courtier, and theatre owner between about 1620 and 1641; poet and translator from 1649; and, from about 1669, compiler of geographical works and atlases, culminating in his Britannia (1675)" (Oxford DNB). H

Justin Croft : Rare & Fine Antiquarian Books - Specialist in antiquarian books, especially in the field of literature

Literature