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First edition, inscribed to poet and novelist André Theuriet. One of 500 copies on tinted paper (total edition 537).

A guide to the rules of etiquette at the court of Napoleon, with protocol for courtiers at the Palais impérial, the Garde impériale and the ‘Grands officiers de la Couronne’, and rules for conducting ceremonies in the Chapel. This is also a guide to appropriate formal behaviour in the Napoleonic court and was published just two years after Napoleon formally crowned himself Emperor of France. Extremely precise descriptions of all court proceedings are provided, detailing the etiquette of processions, balls and concerts, pages’ service, etiquette of bureaucratic functions... and the preparation of the Emperor’s breakfast. Although the Bibliotheque nationale catalogue records an edition of of 1805, this 1806 edition is considered the first complete codification. It was revised and reissued several times.

First edition, a pocket description of the British Isles, historical and geographical, but with reflections on British character and customs. ‘La Nation Angloise aime beaucoup les Spectacles surtout la Tragédie... Les Anglois n’ont la vivacité des François, ni la lenteure des peuples septrentrionaux... Les Femmes d’Angleterre sont maîtresses de leurs volontés & même de leurs caprices...’ It also appeared in the same year with a La Haye imprint.

A Tours-printed miniature Imitatio Christi.

A collection of children’s stories evidently written by a father (perhaps Herr Schmutzer, whose stamp appears in each) for two young daughters. Each volume is a separate story telling of the girls’ adventures around the world. The text is in German throughout and every page bears a large illustration. A terrifying insight into one early-twentieth century father’s idea of a family entertainment.

Das buch von den beiden Babys. [n.d. c. 1902]. Small 4to (206 × 165 mm), pp. [22], alternating text and drawings. A tale of parental neglect: a family outing on a steam train goes terribly wrong.

‘...Laurentia und Emerentia Stutzlmeier’. 1902. Folio (330 × 210 mm), ff. [30] (the last blank) of which 28 each bear text and a large drawing. Card wrappers, loose in cloth backed boards. The tale of two young sisters lost in the forest during a family picnic. Rescued from a wolf by a kindly hermit they embark on a series of miraculous adventures with a cartload of magic pears and a menagerie of animals. Reunited with their parents they return to the woods to find the hermit dying; they bury him and he is borne aloft by angels.

‘Die gar wundersame geschichte von den beiden Babys in der Techanei’. 1904. Folio (325 × 210 mm), ff. [56], of which 54 each bear text and a large drawing. Crudely sewn in cloth-backed boards, uniform with the above. The father takes his daughters out on an excursion, but an encounter with a witch separates the girls from him. Kidnapped in the witch’s house, they elude her protective snake, toad and cat and escape in a paper boat. Reunited with their father they embark on a series of terrifying adventures under his protection: he slaughters all assailants with a pistol, sword and bare hands, leaving a trail of bloodshed. A return to a derelict house scattered with the skeletons of pets and family members begins a new chapter, before the trio return home in a magical amphibious horse-drawn cart.

‘Die Geschichte von die beiden Babys und die Reise um die Erde’. 1910. Folio (340 × 205 mm), ff. [42], of which 41 each have text and a large drawing. Cloth backed boards. In this final volume Herr Schmutzer oversteps the mark. Taking his young daughters on a round-the-world trip in a self-propelled car (Gibraltar, Africa, Egypt, Persia, China, Siberia, The North Pole) he indulges in the worst kind of xenophobic violence against most of the inhabitants of the known world, all in the interests of the protection of his daughters.

First published in 1641, as Herōologia Anglorum, or, An help to English history. Wing, H1719

A good example of one of Phillipps’s anastatically-printed facsimiles of manuscripts, with copies of the original transferred to zinc plates for lithography. In this case the text is a copy of his own transcripts from the records of Herald’s seventeenth-century Visitations and their disqualifications of arms born by gentlemen without authority. Sir Thomas Phillipps as a printer and patron of lithographic printing has been extensively studied and discussed by Michael Twyman in Early Lithographed Books (1990) — he printed many himself at Middle Hill, and supervised the production of others by printers such as Appel, who had exhibited new methods of anastatic printing at the Great Exhibition in 1851. Holzenberg, The Middle Hill Press, 88. Worldcat lists copies at the Grolier Club only outside Europe.

An eighteenth-century work on feudal barons and the history of land ownership in England. It was written by Madox, a legal antiquity and historian whose first appearance was in the publication Formulare Anglicanum in 1701. He produced a learned dissertation on ancient charters, which was praised by Bishop William Nicolson as having provided an ‘unspeakable service to our students in law and antiquities.’ (English Historical Library, 1776).

Baronia Anglica was first printed in 1736 and our issue is ‘a reissue of the sheets of the 1736 edition printed by William Bowyer (T97064), without the index to his ‘History of the Exchequer’ (which occupied the final 54 sheets...) with a cancel title page; Bowyer also printed the new titles; his records show 500 + 50 [large-paper?] + ‘500 more to give away’. The large-paper copies may show variation in placement of press figures, or in their presence or absence; the details are unclear’ (ESTC).

Extensive antiquarian transcripts from manuscript armorials and visitation documents (mainly sixteenth- and seventeenth-century) in the British Museum. Including Harleian MSS 1174, 1397, 1561, 4756, 7565, 1045, 1301 and Sloane MSS 4972-3. Evidently once part of a larger sequence, the volumes are marked VIII and IX respectively.

Memorial for His Grace John Duke of Roxburgh and his Curators, Defenders; against John Hay of Lawfield, William Hay of Charterfield and William Sandihills, all Heretors of Eastbarns, Pursuers. [Edinburgh: August 2, 1757], pp. 15, [1]. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Earl of Home. [Edinburgh: 31 January, 1764], pp. 28. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Sessions, the Petition of Captain Shaw Grosett, and Miss Lilias Grosett... [Edinburgh: February 3, 1768], pp. 16. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Hamilton of Blantyre-farm, and Miss Lilias Grosett. [Edinburgh: February 17, 1768], pp. 8. Not in ESTC.

Information for Alexander Drummond Esq; late his Majesty’s Consul at Aleppo in Syrai, now residing in Canongate, in the Competition of the Creditors of Mrs. Marion Drummond. [Edinburgh: January 22, 1768], pp. 8. ESTC: Bodley only.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Janet Rattray, Widow of John Scott, late Tacksman of Rashyhill, and of Andrew, James, Joseph, George, and Hary Scotts, their children. [Edinburgh: February 18, 1768], pp. 13, [1]. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Roberts in Nether-Wardroppertown, and Katharine Straton his Spouse, eldest Daughter of the deceased Robert Straton of Wardroppertown. [February 20, 1768], pp. 12. Not in ESTC.

Seven eighteenth-century pleadings in Edinburgh courts relating to inheritance, most involving female inheritances. All are very rare.

A very good set of art deco liner menu cards. S.S. Belgenland was the flagship of the Red Star Line and an icon of modernist luxury liner-style: Belfast-bulit and originally commissioned in 1917 as a British troop ship, it was refitted as an ocean cruiser. At 204 metres long, weighing 27,000 tonnes and carrying 2,700 it specialised in long distance and world cruises. Its most famous passenger was perhaps Albert Einstein, who travelled from New York to Antwerp in 1933, arriving in Europe to find Hitler had been made chancellor.

First edition. Edward Jacob ‘antiquary and naturalist, was born in Canterbury, the eldest son of Edward Jacob (d. 1756), surgeon and alderman, who served as mayor of Canterbury in 1727–8, and Jane, daughter of Strangford Violl, vicar of Upminster. About 1735 he moved to Feversham [sic] where he lived at 78 Preston Street and practised as a surgeon, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. Among his patients was Lord Sondes of Lees Court, Sheldwich. The Jacobs were a long-established east Kent family and several members had served as mayors and magistrates in Sandwich and Dover. Actively interested in local affairs, Jacob was four times mayor of Faversham—in 1749, 1754, 1765, and 1775...

Jacob interested himself in the history of Faversham soon after he had moved there, ‘having an early propensity to the study of antiquities’. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 5 June 1755, and in 1774 published The History of the Town and Port of Faversham, dedicated to Lord Sondes’ (Oxford DNB).

This is one of the standard copies with 15 plates, some having an 4 additional plates. With a good local provenance (Philip Neame, Faversham-born recipient of the Victoria Cross for service on the Western Front and of an Olympic gold medal in 1924, apparently the only recipient of both).� Bibliotheca Cantiana 198-9.

Probable first edition in French of Sheridan’s best novel, dedicated to Richardson (1761). Two French translations appeared in 1762, Robinet’s, and another by the Abbé Prévost entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vertu. Rochedieu lists only Robinet’s which is probably the first. Rochedieu p. 299.

Sole edition of a substantial political satire on the calamity of the Revolution, a roman-a-clef with Pitt and the Austrian General Mack as major protagonists, masquerading as a novel translated from the English and ‘Naplotain’ (presumably ‘Napoleonic’ rather than Neapolitan). Rare. No copies located outside France. Gay II, 429.

First edition in French of Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson (1750), a very popular ‘ramble’ narrative capitalising on the contemporary appetite for books of genuine voyages. Joe Thompson traverses the globe, and portions of the novel are set in America, where the author had travelled between 1742 and 1744. Of Kimber, the old DNB provides this comment: ‘Novelist and compiler, born in 1719, was son of Isaac Kimber... He gained a scanty subsistence by compiling for booksellers, and died, worn out with such drudgery, in 1769.’ Rochedieu, 177.

First edition in French of the pseudonymous Siege of London (1885) (another condensed French edition of 40 pages only also appeared in the same year). An excellent example of the many British speculative novels spawned by the fear of invasion, from the 1871 Siege of Dorking to Erskine Childers’s Riddle of the Sands (1903). In Posteritas’ account, the invasion is set against the background of a collapsed Gladstone Liberal government and crisis in the Middle East. The French invade via Portsmouth and later Dover and Scotland, with the aid of the perfidious Irish, and the novel culminates with the bombardment of Westminster and the Battle of Hyde Park. JISC locates the Bodley copy only in the UK.

A scarce little language tutor, first published some time before 1847, this edition with the account of a journey to London presented as dialogues and other useful examples. Millhouse was a tutor at Milan and produced a popular English-Italian dictionary.

One of several early French editions of James’ Letters of Charlotte (1786) a novel giving Werther’s Charlotte a voice of her own. The first French edition appeared the previous year, and another (besides ours) appeared also in 1787. All are rare: Rochedieu lists neither the 1786 French edition or ours. cf. Rochedieu, 168 (1787, ‘Londres’ Paris: Royez, 18mo).

First edition in French, rare. Cumberland’s Fielding-inspired novel was first published in 1795, though is lesser known than his first novel Arundel (1789). It is probably better, though, than its successor John de Lancaster (1809), ‘best left undescribed’ (Oxford DNB). Rochedieu (p. 74) lists an edition 1799 only. Copac lists the BL copy only.

A beguiling anonymous illustrated manuscript with painted miniatures on vellum. The text is a poem by French poet of Greek and Franco-Levantine origin, Chénier (1762-94) who perished under the guillotine during the Terror. Praised as a precursor of the Romantics, his work was rediscovered and published during the nineteeth century. His exotic subjects, coupled with his tragic end made him a favourite among devotees of the decadent. ‘La jeune Tarentine’ is a narrative poem that telling the story of the death of a young girl a few hours before her wedding. Her body is collected by Nereids, the Greek sea nymphs.