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A collection of finely-executed plates illustrating the vogue for neo-Classical dress, with figures and groups placed within appropriate drawing-room and dinner-table settings. Moses was a sought-after engraver who worked for James Barrie, William Opie and Benjamin West, among others. His lightly-draped figures rendered with a sparse line have clear echoes of Flaxman. The collection was also issued under the imprint of at least two other London publishers (M’Lean and Miller).

First edition of a bestselling epistolary novel. It purports to be a collection of letters by the famous courtesan, Anne ‘Ninon’ de Lenclos (1620-1705, friend of Boileau, La Fontaine, Racine and Molière) to Madame de Sevigné. Voltaire (and others) wrongly assumed the author to be Crébillon fils. It was frequently reprinted and translated into several European languages (including the English translation by Elizabeth Griffith, who assumed them to be genuine). Cioranescu 22167; Gay II, 828.

First edition, privately printed. The limitation notice reads ‘This Edition is issued to Subscribers only and limited to two hundred and fifty copies, numbered and signed by the Author. The price will be doubled after first of March, 1931’. This copy is, however, unsigned and unnumbered. The work forms issue no. 5 of The Lugano Series.

‘From 1920 until 1937 Douglas was settled in Florence... As his fame grew, he became much visited by inter-war writers, and forged close friendships with D. H. Lawrence and Bryher. During these years he lived with the publisher Giuseppe (Pino) Orioli, who helped him publish several limited editions, most of which were later commercially published in London... In 1937 Douglas was forced to flee Florence after the police made enquiries concerning his friendship with a ten-year-old local girl’ (Katherine Mullin in Oxford DNB).

An attractive vernacular mass and prayer book, characteristic of German Catholic devotion of this period, with decorative calligraphic headings and vignettes. The title translates loosely as Little Catholic Prayer Book in which the best morning, evening, mass confession [and] communion prayers as well as the best litanies have been put together with other different prayers, written by me....’

Compiled in the town of Popovo in the wine-growing region of North Eastern Bulgaria, this souvenir album was compiled by a federation of three local temperance societies and given to one ‘Monsieur Dr. P. Legrain’. Most of the photographic postcards depict society outings, with large groups of men, women and children usually in outdoor settings in all seasons (including what appear to be very harsh winters). Several of the photographs were taken at harvest time, with copious bunches of grapes in evidence. The context of the presentation is not immediately obvious, though may be apparent in the three long inscriptions in Bulgarian accompanied by the purple inkstamps of each of the societies.

An attractive juvenile broadside, illustrating players of 16 different instruments, including guitar, flute harp, keyboard, trumpet, hurdy-gurdy and percussion.

First edition. A rare little collection for animal-lovers, with over 60 anecdotes illustrating the characteristics of dogs (mainly) and cats, with titles such as ‘The faithful poodle’, ‘Siberian sledge-dogs’, ‘The surgeon and the dog’, ‘Strange punishment by a poodle’, ‘Remarkable rescue by a dog’, ‘The hunting dog’, ‘The life and times of a pomeranian’. For cat lovers, there are stories such as ‘The amusing education of a cat’ (from Campe’s Kinderbibliothek) and ‘The prisoner and the cat’. Worldcat locates copies at College of William & Mary (VA) and Staatsbibliothek only.

First edition of this contemporary report of the sensational arrest, interrogation and trial of ‘trois Anglais’ (actually an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman) accused of abetting the escape of the Comte de Lavalette on the eve of his execution by the restored Bourbon regime. Lavalette had been one of Napoleon’s inner circle, but had refused exile on the restoration of the monarchy and was sentenced to death. ‘On 10 January 1816 Wilson was instrumental, in conjunction with Michael Bruce and Captain John Hely-Hutchinson (later third earl of Donoughmore), in the escape from Paris of Count Lavallette, who, condemned to death, had escaped from prison by putting on his wife’s clothes. Wilson passed the barriers in a cabriolet with Lavallette disguised as a British officer and conveyed him safely to Mons. He sent a narrative of the adventure to Earl Grey (reprinted in the Gentlemans Magazine in 1816), which was intercepted. He was arrested in Paris on 13 January. The three Englishmen were tried in Paris on 2 April and sentenced on the 24th to three months’ imprisonment’ (R. H. Vetch in Oxford DNB).

First edition of these edited extracts from the Florentine chronicler Villani, with lives of Boccaccio, Bardi, Giotto, Paulus Geometrus (the mathematician and tutor to Boccaccio) and Cavalcanti, among others. There are several accounts of Italian medical practitioners, including Taddeo, Torrigiano and Dino and Tommaso del Garbo. The Villani family were the leading contemporary chroniclers of fourteenth-century Florence and Filippo was responsible for extending the chronicles of his father and uncle, adding famous portraits of his contemporaries. Towards the end of his life he was appointed public reader of the Divine Comedy and he died in 1404. His chronicle remained in manuscript before being published by the Brescian historian Mazzuchelli in 1747 in this version which was several times reprinted.

James Speirs was a prolific evangelical speaker and publisher, whose printed output suggests he was an important figure in the Victorian Sunday School movement. Sown in the spring-time collects 12 addresses aimed at a juvenile audience by Speirs and others (R.L. Tafel, Alfred J. Johnson, Samuel Teed and Charles A. Faraday) several on a theme of natural metaphor: “About Hares and Tortoises”; “The Horse and its correspondence”, “The Serpent and its correspondence” and “Trees”. COPAC and Worldcat lists editions of 1876, 1877 and 1879. Worldcat lists 2 copies of this edition (Graduate Theological Union Library and Urbana College) but COPAC lists none in the UK

An apparently unrecorded issue of this anonymous anti-freemasonry sermon, probably a piracy of the incendiary pamphlet printed in the same year as Masonry the Way to Hell. The Sermon provoked a response from John Thompson, freemason, entitled Remarks on a sermon lately published; entitled, Masonry the way to hell. Being a defence of that antient and honourable order, against the Jesuitical sophistry and false calumny of the author.
The sermon takes as its text Revelation XVII, 5 ‘And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth’ and gives a detailed consideration of the supposed ceremonies of the masons. Four other editions/issues dated 1768 under the slightly different titles with different paginations, but all four are recorded by ESTC in single copies only.
Not found in ESTC or Worldcat.

A delightful edition in ‘petit format’ by Valade, who pioneered the format before it was made ubiquitous by his successor Cazin. The Londres and Liège imprints, of course, are false (Le petit format, Paris, 1878). The Contes moraux had first appeared individually in the Mercure, with a collected edition of 1761. The plates in our Valade edition are well-executed reductions of the Gravelot plates found in the first illustrated edition of 1763. Gay I, 709-10.

First edition, engraved throughout and printed for the author, an invaluable guide to the stratigraphy of Georgian society, which includes a section on the ‘Precedency of Women’. Joseph Edmondson was an artist of humble origins who had begun his career as a coach-painter, and became coach-painter to Queen Charlotte in 1763. ‘On 21 January 1764, thanks to the support of the new deputy earl marshal, Lord Suffolk, Edmondson was created Mowbray herald of arms extraordinary, although he continued his successful coach-painting business until his death.’ (Oxford DNB). Precedency gives tables of precedency of British men and women and provides a list of ‘collar days’ on which those entitled may wear their official “collars” indicating precedency. The book was reprinted in a second edition c. 1785.

First edition, author’s presentation copy inscribed, in the year of Jacob’s death to William LeGrand (probably his brother-in-law). Jacob’s is the best of all the early Faversham histories. Born in Canterbury, Jacob settled in Faversham (living at 78 Preston Street) and practised as a surgeon. He was four times mayor of Faversham. Bibliotheca Cantiana 198-9.

First edition. A rare novel for young readers, in the form of a fairy tale set in India, with a full complement of the requisite genies and magical occurrences; a preface by the ‘translator’ explains the origins of the text and tells of its discovery in Delhi in an Arabic manuscript from the library of the Grand Mogul. Saurin (1706-1781) was a dramatist and poet with a particular interest in contemporary English writing; he published translations and imitations of Pope, Thomson, Lillo, etc. He was very friendly with Helvétius, who secured him a pension which enabled him to abandon law and dedicate himself to writing.

The novel appeared in English as Mirza and Fatima in the same year. Cioranescu 59517; Gay III, 240; Dufrenoy, L’Orient Romanesque en France 1704-1789, 181.

First edition, rare. A French-language guide to the culture and rules of bull-fighting, published in the Basque city of San Sebastián (long before it was immortalised as the centre of bull fighting by Hemingway). The book is undated, but Worldcat lists other works printed by Aréas in the period 1885-1896. At least four editions followed, all undated.

First published in 1761 and also published in English in 1762. “Politique et social. Réflexions sur l’intolérance, qui est parfois nécessaire (mais dommages causés par l’émigration des protestants); les impôts, qui sont moins lourds que mal répartis; la néfaste célibat des prêtres; la nécessité des lois somptuaires, bien que ‘le luxe qui perd un petit état en enrichit un grand’; le duel, qui peut mener à la destruction de l’espèce humaine; l’exemption d’impôts des pères de famille qui favoriserait la population...” (INED).

First edition of this play, copy on large and thick paper. Marescalchi was born in Bologna, then in the Papal States, on 26 February 1754, into a noble family, he became a hereditary member of the Senate of that town. He later supported Napoleon in Italy and prospered under his patronage.

Second edition (first 1724) of Hoffmann’s “Complete Instruction for a safe, sensible and medically respected practice of medicine”: a very extensive baroque medical compendium.

Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), a German physician, practised and taught medicine, chemistry and physics in Halle from 1693. He studied and wrote on such varied topics as paediatrics, mineral waters and meteorology and introduced many new drugs into medical practice (such as a compound spirit of ether branded “Anodyne” and “Hoffmanns-Tropfen” still today known as a household remedy). Hoffmann was among the first to describe several diseases, including appendicitis and German measles, and to recognize the regulatory role of the nervous system.

The work contains examinations of common ailments such as fever, infections, haemorrhaging, cramps, spasms and convulsions, consideration of the cerebral and nervous system, lymph and glands, female complaints and childhood illnesses. It also includes numerous medicinal recipes and cures. Not in Wellcome (the catalogue lists the first edition only); the NLM online catalogue lists the first edition of 1724 and another of 1743 only.

Smith’s popular historical romance set at Glastonbury in the time of Henry VIII and the Reformation. This edition was printed for Galignani’s popular foreign language bookshop in Paris in the year following the first English edition. It was also published in French in 1827. Though printed in Paris, this copy seems to have soon found a German home: the handsome contemporary binding uses German marbled paper and beneath the pastedowns are visible sheets of printer’s waste bearing bold black-letter text. COPAC gives BL only for this edition.