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First edition in French of The Scarlet Letter (1850), a signal rarity. Forgues (b. 1813) was a close friend of Stendhal and had been a critic at the Revue des Deux Mondes, specialising in works in English. Not only did he introduce The Scarlet Letter to French readers, but he also reviewed Moby Dick in 1853 and produced translations of Jane Eyre and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (both under the pseudonym of ‘Old Nick’). Though the text of La Lettre Rouge is considerably abridged from Hawthorne’s original, the Revue britannique in 1853 claimed that ‘Plus d’un passage nous a paru supérieur à l’original... Il y a dans la Lettre Rouge une petite fille appellée Perle, qui est un ravissante créature, un ange comme ceux de Charles Dickens. Malgré son nom diabolique, Old Nick a prêté encore de nouveaux charmes à cette perle céleste’. Brown, A Bibliography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1968 [1905], p. 98. C. E. Frazer Clark’s bibliography of Hawthorne does not include translations. WorldCat lists US copies at Harvard, Peabody Essex, Johns Hopkins and Virginia.

First edition, rare, printed in small numbers (perhaps 100 copies) for private circulation, with the first trade edition following in the same year (printed by Advocat). It followed the succès de scandale of Claire Duras’ previous novel Ourika (1823, now prized as the first European novel with a heroine of African origin). ‘Despite not receiving as much scholarly attention as Ourika or finding fame as part of a literary scandal like Olivier ou le Secret, Édouard has been considered Duras’s finest work (Sainte-Beuve, 71). Written in 1821 and first published in 1825, Édouard uses the lens of class to address similar themes of social exclusion and identity conflict to Duras’s two other finished novellas. Set in the 1770s, the plot focuses on the son of a celebrated lawyer from Lyon, and is generally read as an attack on class boundaries...’ French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century, 1800-1900 (Literary Encyclopaedia).

It was quickly translated into both German and English. WorldCat lists US copies of the first edition at Cornell, Harvard and Yale only.

A rare ‘physionotrace’ portrait of Hannah Breck (1772-1846, later Mrs James Lloyd). The original charcoal and white chalk drawing from which it was engraved is preserved at the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. Hannah Breck was daughter of statesman Samuel Breck (1747-1809), and sister to Samuel Breck (1771-1862), a congressman from Pennsylvania. She married James Lloyd (1769-1831), a senator from Massachusetts, and is referred to as Anna or Hannah in various sources. Dexter, The St. Memin Collection of Portraits (New York, 1862), 24; Miles, Saint-Mémin and the Neoclassical Profile Portrait in America (Washington, 1994), 83.

FIRST EDITION, a rare historical novel by an extraordinary woman, conventionally remembered as a mistress of Napoleon. Born Pauline Bellisle in 1778, the daughter of a clockmaker, and later apprenticed as a milliner, she married French cavalry officer Jean-Noëlle Fourès. When he was posted to Egypt, Pauline travelled with him, evading detection during the voyage dressed in men’s clothing. Napoleon was captivated by her, apparently considering divorcing Joséphine in consequence, and sent her husband away on a spurious mission back to France, then invited Pauline to share his quarters in Egypt. She thereafter took the role of an unofficial consort and divorced her husband, only to be left behind in Egypt when Napoleon returned to France. She narrowly escaped death during the Cairo revolt of 1798 before returning to France herself the following year. Granted a house and pension by Napoleon she remarried, only to divorce once more after a renewed liaison with Napoleon (now emperor). She went into exile in Brazil with a third husband after Napoleon’s fall, returning to France in 1837 and finding success as a painter and musician and gathering an important art collection. She was the author of two novels, Wentworth (1813) and Aloïze (1814), both now very rare. WorldCat locates copies outside France at BL and Yale only. In France, there are copies at Strasbourg and the Bibliothèque nationale.

First edition in French of Wuthering Heights (1847) which also includes the first significant critical study of Brontë in French as its preface by the translator. Wyzewa was the first writer to formally introduce Emily Brontë into France — the only prior attempt, thirty-four years earlier, had been a brief allusion to her as the sister of Charlotte Brontë in an article by Emile Montégut for the Revue des deux mondes. Wyzewa gives both an account of the critical reception of Wuthering Heights in England and a biographical sketch. The title Wuthering Heights was not attached to the novel in French before the succeeding edition of 1925, entitled Les Hauts de Hurlevent.

Téodor de Wyzewa, born Teodor Wyżewski in Poland (1862–1917) emigrated to France in 1869. A critic of both literature and music, he was one of the pioneers of symbolism and made his name with brilliant analyses of poems by Mallarmé. Exceptionally rare. Worldcat lists the British Library copy as the only copy outside France. No US copies located. Bénédicte Coste, ‘Un amant: la première traduction française de Wuthering Heights par Téodor de Wyzewa’, Études anglaises 2002/1 (55), pp. 3 à 13.

First edition in Russian of Beccaria’s Dei Delittie e delle Pene (1764) translated from the French version of Morellot. In his fundamental Enlightenment legal treatise Beccaria opposed the death penalty and ‘maintained that the gravity of the crime should be measured by its injury to society and that the penalty should be related to this’ (Printing and the Mind of Man). It was enthusiastically read (in French) by Catherine the Great while codifying her own celebrated legal manifesto, Nakaz, in which almost a third of the text came directly from Beccaria, alongside major borrowings from Montesquieu’s L’Ésprit des lois. Given Catherine’s intellectual omnipotence it is perhaps unsurprising that no Russian edition of Dei Delittie e delle Pene itself appeared during her reign, even though its spirit imbued her widely disseminated Nakaz — required reading for anyone involved in Russian law and government. Thus Beccaria’s principles came to serve as ideals for future legislators in Russia and were fully incorporated into Russian criminal law by the end of the nineteenth century. The title of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Prestupléniye i nakazániye, 1866) is only the most prominent emblem of Beccaria’s influence in Russia.

‘The first [Russian] translation of Beccaria came out in 1803. It was done by the poet D. Yazykov from the French translation by Morellet, edited by Roederer in 1797... the translation is one of the best in Russian. It manages to convey not only the ideas of the treatise but also the spirit, the language of Beccaria and his contemporaries. It is dedicated to Alexander I...’ (Cizova).

Dmitry Ivanovich Yazykov (1773-1845), writer, translator, academician and director of the Ministry of Public Education later published a translation of Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois in 1809–14. Cf. Printing and the Mind of Man 209. Rare: Worldcat lists only the NYPL and Yale copies in anglophone countries. T. Cizova, ‘Beccaria in Russia.’ Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 40, No. 95 (Jun. 1962), pp. 384-408.

Sole edition of this rare little handbook of ladies’ fashion and deportment. Advertised as a translation from the English, there is no obvious British analogue, though it is an interesting indication of the esteem in which British fashion was held in France at this period. The four plates are especially charming depictions of Austen-era styles. The format is very much that of contemporary almanacs with similar titles, but Le Miroir des Graces appeared only once. WorldCat lists no UK or US copies (copies at BnF, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and Kunstbibliothek Berlin only).

First edition of a rare little treatise (’The Unknown Deception’) against the deceptions and immorality of lotteries, then a major part of civic life in Italy. It traces the origins of lotteries in sixteenth century Genoa, from whence it spread to other cities, before explaining the extreme difficulty of winning. After a series of detailed diagrams and tables, there are chapters on the spurious and superstitious tactics employed by hopeful players and on the immorality of the game. WorldCat lists the Illinois copy only.

A satirical song collection, in the form of an almanac, lampooning the new Revolutionary institutions. The frontispiece (here in rare colour-printed state) is probably the first book illustration to depict a yo-yo, a toy which became a craze in France in the 1790s under the name of the émigrette, reflecting its popularity among the French nobility at precisely the time they were forced to flee their country. A 1789 painting of the future King Louis XVII now in the Louvre shows him with a yo-yo, while in a revival of the Mariage de Figaro of 1792 Beaumarchais brings his hero on stage playing with his émigrette.

Several issues are known from 1792. An issue with identical pagination and the same plate but with the imprint ‘chez les libraires royalistes’ is usually cited as the first. In this issue Maradan has put his own name on the title. cf. Martin & Walter, 22975; cf. Cohen-de Ricci, p. 677 (’Frontispice non signé, attribué par Mehl à Debaucourt. Ce frontispice existe en couleurs (avant la lettre) en bistre et à la sanguine’).

A well-presented Victorian monogram album containing over 1600 cut monograms. Many here are private monograms and include a large number of women’s christian names, while there are pages devoted to regiments, naval ships, clubs, associations and Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The presentation is typical, but especially neat and varied, with the cut monograms arranged on decorative pen and watercolour grounds. These are often geometric (circles and other interlocking figures are frequent) but include a gothic window, patriotic flags, mossy borders, anchors and a heraldic garter. Monogram collecting was hugely popular in the mid-nineteenth century and collections like this usually included genuine examples cut from stationery, together with others specially produced by stationery companies capitalising on the fashion. These latter monograms, evidently sold in sets can be quite elaborate, often featuring gold inks and sometimes with amusing and whimsical subjects.

Number 184 of 350 copies, signed by the artist. ‘Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale never married, and from 1903 to 1943 she lived with her sister, Kate, who was also unmarried, at 23 Elsham Road, Shepherd's Bush. She travelled often to the continent and was clearly influenced by the fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century art which she saw on visits to Italy. There were further exhibitions of her works at Leighton House in 1904, with a catalogue containing appreciative remarks by George Frederic Watts, and at Dowdeswell’s in 1905 and 1909. She continued her illustrative work, which from about 1905 consisted of both line drawings and watercolours made for reproduction as half-tone colour plates. In 1911 two editions of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (de luxe and popular) were published with illustrations from her watercolours while the originals were on show in another of her one-woman exhibitions, this time at the Leicester Galleries. From that year she taught in the art school in Kensington founded by Byam Shaw’ (Oxford DNB).

At the time of publication these were ‘the smallest books in the world’. An edition was first published at Mainz in 1952 to raise money for the reconstruction of the Gutenberg museum, while the firm of Waldmann & Pfitzner in Munique continued to print these novelty volumes into the 1960s. Bromer and Edison, p.117.

Second (revised) edition (the first of 1822). Loudon’s was one of the most widely read gardening encyclopaedias of the Victorian era and ran to at east six editions, covering plant culture, botany, garden design, and an international survey and history of gardening.

First published in 1873 and reprinted several times.

One of Diane de Bournazel’s magical optical ‘peepshows’ with a window opening onto a mysterious three-dimensional scene within. It features some of the distinctive features of the artist’s much-admired artist’s books, but makes use of the peepshow form to bring added depth and perspective to her enchanted world. The paper peepshow was popularised by publishers such as Martin Engelbrecht in Munich from the middle of the eighteenth century, evidently inspired by baroque stage sets, but reached the peak of their elaboration in the Victorian era. They were either sold as toys or souvenirs or, in expanded form, were popular fairground attractions. Each of Diane de Bournazel’s peepshows is a unique creation.

An interesting group of receipts for labouring and building work carried up in Cumbria, including Kirkoswald, Dolphenby, Skeugh and other named places. Several are for significant amounts received from Sir Philip Musgrave to Thoams Westmorand who oversaw a variety of works: wall building, making a pump, tiling, flagstones, boarding and cutting spiles. Most are from the eighteenth century.

First editions of two very rare Swedenborgian sermons preached in the New Jerusalem Temple in Cripplegate. Separately issued, they were the first two in a series of 12 published in the same year listed on the advert leaf with details of subscription. On completion, all twelve could also be bought bound up with a general title as Twelve Sermons (also 1796). They are rare both alone and collectively — ESTC lists copies of these first 2 sermons at BL only and copies of the collected Twelve Sermons at: BL, Glasgow, Rylands, Academy of the New Church and Louisiana State University. The printer, Robert Hindmarsh was one of the founders of the Swedenborgian movement and the Church of the New Jerusalem in England. The publication dates of both titles is given as 1796=40, reflecting the Swedenborgian belief that the Last Judgement had occurred in 1757, with 1796 representing the 40th year of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ through divine revelation.

‘Sibly... (1757–1840), Swedenborgian minister and banker, was born at Bristol on 20 August 1757. He was the brother of Ebenezer Sibly (1751–c. 1799), a notable publisher of esoteric lore, and was himself an autodidact and nonconformist, self-taught in the classical and biblical languages, part of the self-taught artisan culture. He specialized in alchemy and astrology, and became for a period a bookseller in Goswell Street, London, specializing in books on the occult, some of which his brother was then publishing. He himself translated two astrological works by Palcidus de Titis... He also served as a shorthand writer... (ODNB).

They are here bound together with three other East London non-conformist sermons:

Joseph Priestley, The present State of Europe compared with antient Prophecies; a Sermon, preached at the Gravel Pit Meeting in Hackney, February 28, 1794, being the day appointed for a general fast. By Joseph Priestley, LL.D. F. R. S. &c. with a preface, containing the reasons for the author’s leaving England. London: for J. Johnson, pp. xx, 44, [8] (advert/catalogue for Priestley’s books). First edition.

William Cooper. The Promised Seed. A Sermon, preached to God’s ancient Israel the Jews, at Sion-Chapel, Whitechapel, on Sunday afternoon, August 28, 1796. By William Cooper.... London: Printed for the author; and sold by T. Chapman and J. Matthews, [1796], pp. 38. One of several editions of 1796 and probably the first.

William Cooper. Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. A Sermon, preached at Sion-Chapel, on Sunday Afternoon, September 18, 1796, to the Jews. By William Cooper. Being his second Address to that People. London: Printed and sold by T. Chapman, 1796, pp. 32. One of several editions of 1796 and probably the first.

First edition. An unnumbered artist’s proof copy from Edition A (which consisted of 250 numbered copies, plus 50 artist’s proof copies). The total edition was of 550 bound copies and 120 loose sets of the plates only. Edition A was issued with an additional loose signed print ‘Cavafy II’, sometimes framed by owners and not present in this copy. The very rare publisher’s prospectus and an uncompleted order form are inserted at the rear. The plates are not edition stamped on the rear.
‘Cavafy wrote two kinds of poem — love and historical. The fourteen selected for this book are, with the exception of Caesarian, poems of homosexual love: short, unrhymed, deeply felt but totally unsentimental. They appear in a new, hitherto unpublished translation by Nikos Stangos and Stephen Spender... For several years Hockney has admired the work of Cavafy’ (from the Prospectus). The book was included by Neil McGregor in the BBC/British Museum’s History of the World in 100 Objects as an emblem of the struggle for human rights and sexual freedom ― homosexual acts in private were decriminalised in Britain only in 1967, the year Hockney’s startling collection appeared (McGregor, pp. 635-9).

First edition of this copiously illustrated treatise on chiromancy, physiognomy and astrology, which includes three fine woodcuts by Hans Baldung, former apprentice to Albrecht Dürer. They are: the large title portrait of the author, the final full-page decorative arms and one physiognomical diagram of a man and a woman (p. 5 in the second part) — all three show clear echoes of Dürer’s style. The book was printed for the author, who was an adviser to Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, the dedicatee (it was to Cardinal Albert that Martin Luther had addressed his 95 Theses in 1517).
Indagine (1467-1537) was a Carthusian prior and humanist theologian who saw no conflict between orthodox faith and the occult sciences. The book was widely read across Europe and frequently reprinted, with a small format octavo edition from Frankfurt in the same year, a vernacular German edition appearing the following year, and an English translation in 1558 (with at least 12 more editions in English before 1700). It was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559.
Though we have been unable to identify the early owner of this copy, whose monogram appears on each cover, the early inscription is from Rainold, Marquis of Canhilac (Languedoc). Adams I 88; VD16 R 3108; Mende, Hans Baldung Grien, 458-460. Worldcat: Cambridge, Leeds, Folger (portrait mostly lacking), Duke, Princeton (2 copies, one lacking a leaf), Philadelphia College of Physicians, UCLA outside continental Europe.