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‘Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit / Death how certain Death how sur[e] / Sin the wound. And Christ the cure’. ‘Emma. Preest. Her work / Tuts Hill House / July. 20. 1847 Aged /12. Years. Old’.

Emma Preest is possibly the Emma born on the 8th June 1835 at Bream Eaves, Gloucestershire and baptised in the Wesleyan chapel at Monmouth — certainly that would accord with her given age (12) in 1847 when she made this sampler. The identity of Tuts Hill house is not straightforward, there having been two houses so named in the vicinity of Tidenham, Chepstow. We can find no pictorial evidence of either of them as a three-storey, four bay house as in Emma’s depiction, and no Preest family associated with either. But if one accepts the likelihood of Emma being Gloucestershire born, both houses would have been some ten miles from her birthplace, suggesting the possibility she entered service at one of them at the age of 12 (quite possible) and that this may have been an ‘apprentice’ piece. Young girls were taught this kind of sewing not so much as a primer in reading (still less writing) as in household needleork and linen labelling.

The verse is a variation of a popular gravestone epitaph: ‘Life is uncertain, death is sure, Sin the wound, and Christ the cure. If we have correctly identified Emma Preest, she married in 1854, had several children and emigrated with her family after 1870 and died in 1915 at Shawnee, Perry County, Ohio, USA, aged 80.

Number 2 of 15 copies.

Number 2 of 15 copies with the additional suite on chine.

Number 2 of 11 copies.

A treatise onclassical Latin epitaphs by an Italian Jesuit. Its chapters include a key to common abbreviations (HSE: Hic sepultus est, here is buried; STTL: Sit Tibi Terra Levis, May the earth rest lightly upon you; HFC: heres faciendum curavit, their heir had [the tombstone] made, etc) and there follow a series of accounts of epitaphs for particular contexts: parents, children, men, women, mothers, spouses and even animals. Another considers satirical epitaphs: ‘salsis et ridiculis’. Of Proficio we have been unable to discover anything more; Tractatus de Epitaphiis was apparently not published in print but another manuscript copy is held by the Biblioteca nazionale Braidense in Milan (dateable to before 1625).

Our copy is almost certainly the Baldassare Boncampagni copy (item 454 in his 1892 catalogue, and 409 in the 1862 edition), described as ‘legato in pergamena ornata di dorature e stemma d. C. de G’. That catalogue gives 55 leaves (rather than 66) an error found also in the old pencil manuscript foliation of the last leaf of the manuscript marked ‘55’ recte 66, but the dimensions given in the catalogue also correspond precisely. Prince Baldassarre Boncompagni-Ludovisi (10 May 1821 – 13 April 1894), was an Italian historian of mathematics and aristocrat. His library contained some 650 manuscripts and 20,000 printed works and was sold in Rome in 1898. Parts of the manuscript collection are now held by the Universitetsbibliotek (Stockholm), Trinity College Library (Dublin), Cornell, as well as the Vatican library, Columbia (NY) and the Biblioteca Comunale in Treviso. Catalogo di manoscritti ora posseduti da D. Baldassare Boncompagni, Rome 1892.

First edition in French of any part of Eden’s The State of the Poor. Or, an History of the Labouring Classes in England (1797) one of the classic works in the history of economics and the foundation of the discipline of sociology. This extensive but partial translation formed numbers 21 and 24 of the rare Recueil de Mémoires sur les étabissemens d’humanité, continuously paginated across the two volumes. The editors’ preface notes the timeliness of such a translation at a time of revolutionary upheaval when no system of social security for the poor existed in France. Issued anonymously the translation is attributed to A.-C. Duquesnoy by Rochedieu. It precedes the edition translated by La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt of 1800 and is very rare. Rochedieu, Bibliography of Translations of English Works 1700-1800, 95. Cf. Printing and the Mind of Man, 249 (the English edition). Besides the British library copy (incomplete, apparently the first volume only), Worldcat locates no other copies outside continental Europe.

First edition, one of 55 copies of a unique production, with the French text of the Song of Songs entirely in manuscript and 30 superb eroticised plates by Jean-François Favre. The entire edition was evidently produced over several years — the Neuchatel copy (which also contains a duplicated explanation not present in our copy) is dated 1954, where ours is 1956. Swiss artist Favre was born in 1940, studied in Paris and spent several years in Polynesia and Guyana. His figures certainly owe something to Gaugin. Worldcat locates a 2 copies (Neuchatel Bibliotheque publique and an unspecified location).

First edition, one of 500 copies, this one inscribed by Benvenuti to prominent French critic Robert de Sizeranne. A rare little treatise on the architectural ideas of painter, engraver and architect Benvenuti. He had been infuenced by Llewelyn Lloyd, Giovanni Fattori and Telemaco Signorini and pioneered a type of Divisionism as a painter. His architecture fused symbolism, art nouveau and an emergent geometric style approaching art deco. Worldcat lists the Stanford copy only in the US.

First edition. Ellen, one of Lorrain’s last substantial works tells the story of the final tragic months of a young English aristocrat, Ellen Horneby, sent to the Riviera with her mother to recuperate from a mysterious illness. A love triangle ensues, in which Ellen is cruelly misunderstood. She presents the manuscript of an allegorical tale she has written to one of her suitors (her cousin) who fails to understand it and dismisses her with a kiss on the forehead. Devastated, Ellen throws herself to her death from her balcony. It is one of Lorrain’s least outlandish and most stylish creations, surely worthy of revival.

Appended to the edition are three further short stories: Trains de Luxe, Monte-Carlo, Choses de Là-Bas et La Conquête de Paris

First edition of this diminutive near-miniature tribute to Queen Victoria ‘Dedicated to Children in all Places of Her Imperial Majesty’s Dominions’.

A collection of manuscript and watercolour drawings, being maquettes for an apparently unpublished game, including portion of a folding game mat on linen, a sheet of counters (uncut) on parchment, numerous drawings and sketches on paper and tracing paper(some coloured) as trials for the game positions, several sheets of manuscript instructions in French and Spanish. The game seems to have been a type of lotto, with the parchment counters corresponding to game squares which were to be placed in a spherical wooden ‘bank’ for shuffling before being drawn by the players.

Its origin in a French household at Saint Sébastien is indicated by the use of numerous scraps of waste paper from the French Consul’s office their. It was perhaps, therefore made by a member of his own family. The sketches are highly accomplished and carefully rendered often in several preliminary sketches before reduction in goauche to the size of the parchment game counters.

First edition of this wonderful compendium of juvenile songs in honour of the tradition English Twelfth Night iced plum cake, with each song sung by a different character, including King, Queen, Harlequin and Punch. The title vignette is typically immense, decorated with ribbons and swags and miniature figures of the characters, laid on a table ready to be cut. Though undated The Twelfth Cake was reviewed in the January Monthly Magazine of 1798, so was probably issued before Christmas, i.e. in 1797.

‘Although his earliest publications were of solo songs, Spofforth’s importance as a composer is based on the numerous glees (about seventy-five in number) that he published from 1796, many of which also appeared in anthologies.... Spofforth composed many songs and duets and left three books of nursery-rhyme settings, but no instrumental or sacred music.

Spofforth was chorus master at Covent Garden for a time, and wrote various songs and glees for productions there, but turned down an invitation to succeed William Shield as musical director in 1797. He also served as organist at Fitzroy Chapel and later at Eltham parish church, and was active as a teacher’ (Oxford DNB). Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, II, 661-2 (suggesting c. 1800 as the date of publication). Worldcat lists copies at BL (erroneously dated 1807), Cambridge (erroneously dated 1778-1787, which is unlikely), Yale, Alexander Turnbull Library (NZ), Toronto (the Osborne copy), Princeton

First edition in French of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) translated with an introduction by Émile de La Bédollierre. The four-and-a-half page Preface describes Dickens’s success in England and the undoubted success of Nickleby ‘un panorama de toutes les classes de la société anglaise, une critique fine et piquante de touts les ridicules, une vaste composition à la manière de Gil Blas, où mille personnages divers se meuvent et posent devant le lecteur’. It also explains, for a French audience, the character of schoolmaster Squeers as the representative of an entire class, not just himself.

The copy retains the adverts (16 pages at the end of volume 3) giving a valuable context, with other English works from Scott and Marryat. It is also interesting as a ‘cabinet de lecture’ copy, from a public reading room in the rue Pigal[le], Paris, run by a M. Laporte, according to the contemporary pencil additions to the printed labels pasted over the imprints in each volume. The library wrappers are probably pasted over at least some of the original yellow wrappers. Rare: Worldcat locates copies at the British Library and Vassar College only. There is also a copy in the Bibliothèque nationale.

First edition of a very scarce picture book. There is a portrait of the author and the finely-rendered miniature scenes include boys of the Lycée royale, a group of convent girls (’pension de demoiselles’), the Battle of Waterloo, English and Scots troops, various trades and crafts and several landscapes. Duplessi-Bertaux had died in 1818 and his miniatures owe something to Callot. This posthumous collection is preceded by a useful history of the art of etching in France. Worldcat lists the Getty copy only outside continental Europe.

First edition, deluxe leather issue, signed by Milne on the title-page. Signed copies of any deluxe issues of the Pooh books are most uncommon, particularly so in such neat and presentable condition as this. They are ironically much rarer than the signed limited editions. Provenance: from an English family collection, purchased before 1970.

First edition. A rare unacknowledged Defoe adaptation for a juvenile audience, with Sauvageot’s abridged and moralised text in French and a superb series of brightly-coloured lithographs probably by Gustave Ricard (1823-1873). Worldcat locates a handful of copies in France, one in Berlin, but none further afield.

Alphabet (upper and lower case), several decorative lines and two verses: ‘Is there ambition in my heart / search gracious God and see...’ [Isaac Watts] and ‘Teach me to live / that I may dread/ the grave as little / as my bed // Teach me to die ‘ that so I may / with joy behold /the judgement day’ [Thomas Ken, and later sued by Thomas Hardy in Jude the Obscure]. Needlework samplers remain one of the most widespread manifestations of the teaching and learning of basic literacy among girls and young women and, as here, reflect a strongly moralistic background.

A delightful woolwork sampler made by Emma Angelina Proctor at the the age of 11, with a single alphabet and numerous decorative animals, birds, flowers and ornaments. Needlework samplers remain one of the most widespread manifestations of the teaching and learning of basic literacy among girls and young women

Greenaway’s ‘Procession’ greetings card set consisted of just two cards, but with each produced with variant verses.

This set includes all four variants of each.

Card 1 (Blue border):
(a) ‘A garland fair for Christmas day...’
(b) ‘My Valentine in every rose discern...’
(c) ‘Well we love our roses sweet...’
(d) ‘Thro the Year that dawns...’

Card 2 (Pink border):
(a) ‘A garland fair for Christmas day...’
(b) ‘Let’s love and live together, dear...’
(c) ‘Well we love our roses sweet...’
(d) ‘Thro the Year that dawns...’ Schuster & Engen, Kate Greenaway, 284.

The three greetings cards comprising the larger version of Greenaway’s Party Girl set, each present here in several variants, listed below according to Schuster & Engen 282.

Card 1 Girl with Badminton set
a) recto ‘Christmas’ verso ‘I wish you all the joy that you can wish’.
b) recto ‘Christmas’ verso ‘May the day be as happy as you could wish’.
c) recto ‘New Year’ verso ‘Thy own wish, wish I thee in every place!’.
d) recto ‘Valentine’ verso ‘To bear my love to you to-day’.
e) recto ‘Greeting’ verso ‘Thy own wish, wish I thee in every place’.

Card 2 Girl in rust coat and beaver hat
b) recto ‘Christmas’ verso ‘Wishing you every happiness and blessing’.
d) recto ‘New Year’ verso ‘May the day be as happy as you could wish’.
d variant) recto ‘New Year’ verso ‘Wishing you every happiness and blessing’.
e) recto ‘Valentine’ verso ‘From one who loves you dearly’.
g) recto ‘Greeting’ verso ‘Thy own wish, wish I thee in every place’.
h) recto ‘Greeting’ verso ‘May the day be as happy as you could wish’.

Card 3 Girl in green dress
a) recto ‘Christmas’ verso ‘Thy own wish, wish I thee in every place’.
b) recto ‘Christmas’ verso ‘Wishing you every happiness and blessing’.
c variant) recto ‘New Year’ verso ‘I wish you all the joy that you can wish’.
d) recto ‘Valentine’ verso ‘I bring you some flowers from your Valentine’.
e) recto ‘Greeting’ verso ‘Wishing you every happiness and blessing’.
f) recto ‘Greeting’ verso ‘May the day be as happy as you could wish’. Schuster & Engen, Kate Greenaway, 282.