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  • A General Atlas, being a Collection of Maps of the World and Quarters the Principal Empires, Kingdoms &c. with their several Provinces, & other Subdivisions, correctly delineated. by (STARBUCK FAMILY). (STARBUCK FAMILY). ~ A General Atlas, being a Collection of Maps of the World and Quarters the Principal Empires, Kingdoms &c. with their several Provinces, & other Subdivisions, correctly delineated. London: ‘Published Feb 1st 1800 by Robert Wilkinson’ [but this issue 1807].
    A Starbuck family atlas, owned by one of the British branch of the family, with annotations recording the Pacific discoveries of the whaling captain Valentine… (more)

    A Starbuck family atlas, owned by one of the British branch of the family, with annotations recording the Pacific discoveries of the whaling captain Valentine Starbuck [b. 1791]. The initials of the pencil Starbuck signature are difficult to decipher, but are likely to be ‘E.F.’, probably Edward Folger Starbuck [1801-1855] son of Samuel and Lucretia [Folger] Starbuck, New England Quakers who in the 1790s had settled at Milford Haven (Pembrokeshire, Wales). The early annotations mark the family origins at Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard as well as Valentine Starbuck’s 1823 discovery of the Pacific Island which took his name [Starbuck made the discovery as captain of the British whaling ship L’Aigle while carrying King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and Queen Kamalu and their retinue to England. He settled in England thereafter and was living at the time this atlas was in use: he was probably a cousin of its owner]. The family were notable as a dynasty of Whalers, prosperous Quakers and Abolitionists, making this Atlas an evocative association.
    The annotations, in an early hand comprise:
    -Double hemisphere map: Starbuck Island marked on the map with the marginal note: ‘Starbuck Island Discovered by Captain Valentine Starbuck in the ship L’Aigle in latitude 5 deg. 58.1.2 min South and Longitude 155 deg 58 min West’
    -Mercator map: ‘Polynesia’ and ‘Australasia’ added in pale red ink.
    -Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland map: ‘Duna’ and ‘Vistula’ rivers named at their mouths at Danzig and Riga.
    -Russia in Europe: Odessa named in pencil, the coastlines of the Black and Caspian seas extended into the margins.
    -Africa: Liberia coast marked with a pencil cross and the marginal note ‘Now Liberia American Col[…] Ap 28 1822. Colonists 2000 Native allies 10,000 Total cost 130,000 Dollars. Cost of each emigrant $30 ― was [?given] on landing 30 […] free of expense Freedom offered to many thousands more gratuitously Great aim of the “American Colonization Soc” to abolish the slave trade and slaveholding’.
    -The United States of America: red line drawn between the US and Canada with the note in the upper margin ‘Lake of the Woods. The Red line in the North part of this map is to represent neatly the Boundary lines between the United States and the British Colonies’. Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard named in manuscript.
    -West Indies: Mexico City marked in the margin in red ink.
    Wilkinson’s Atlas was first published in 1794 and reissued with updated maps several times into the nineteenth century. The map of the United States in the present edition is of interest for its inclusion of the short-lived ‘Franklina’, located between Tennessee and North Carolina.

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  • Hannah BRECK. by [SAINT-MÉMIN, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de. [SAINT-MÉMIN, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de. ~ Hannah BRECK. Philadelphia, 1799].
    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… (more)

    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.�

    Before the advent of photography the physionotrace was ‘the first system invented to produce multiple copies of a portrait, invented in 1786 by Gilles-Louis Chrétien (1774–1811). In his apparatus a profile cast by a lamp onto a glass plate was traced by an operator using a pointer connected, by a system of levers like a pantograph, to an engraving tool moving over a copper plate. The aquatint and roulette finished engraved intaglio plate, usually circular and small (50 mm), with details of features and costume, could be inked and printed many times’ (Photoconservation.com, sub Printing Processes).

    Saint-Mémin (1770-1852) had emigrated from France in 1793 to Switzerland, where he practiced as an engraver. Crossing the Atlantic to Canada and then the United States, he established a portrait business in New York with his compatriot Thomas Bluget de Valdenuit (who initially produced the drawings for Saint-Mémin to engrave). When Valdenuit returned to Paris, Saint-Mémin adopted an itinerant practice all over the East Coast states, working variously at Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and Burlington. He too returned to France in 1814, having destroyed his drawing apparatus in a symbolic end to a prolific artistic enterprise which produced more than a thousand different portraits of significant figures in American society, including Washington, Revere and Jefferson. Dexter, The St. Memin Collection of Portraits (New York, 1862), 24; Miles, Saint-Mémin and the Neoclassical Profile Portrait in America (Washington, 1994), 83.

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  • Voyage pittoresque à travers le monde. by (JUVENILE). St. AULAIRE, [Achille]. (JUVENILE). St. AULAIRE, [Achille]. ~ Voyage pittoresque à travers le monde. Paris: [Lemercier for] Aubert & c[ompagn]ie, c. 1845.
    First edition of this juvenile guide to the manners, customs and costumes of peoples of the known world. The plates include: France, England, Russia, Spain,… (more)

    First edition of this juvenile guide to the manners, customs and costumes of peoples of the known world. The plates include: France, England, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Persia, the East Indies, China, Japan, Barbary (North Africa), Egypt, Canaries, Africa, United States, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Java, Australia and New Zealand.

    This is one of Aubert’s Récréations instructives series for young people. The ownership inscription is of Amédée Girod de l’Ain, lawyer and politician who became Minister of Public Education and Religious Affairs in 1832. Gumuchian, 5038.

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  • Histoire des hommes du Nord ou Danois et Normands. Depuis les temps les plus reculés, jusqu’a la conquête de l’Angleterre par Guillaume de Normandie... by WHEATON, Henry. Emma CHUPPIN [de GERMIGNY, translator]. WHEATON, Henry. Emma CHUPPIN [de GERMIGNY, translator]. ~ Histoire des hommes du Nord ou Danois et Normands. Depuis les temps les plus reculés, jusqu’a la conquête de l’Angleterre par Guillaume de Normandie... France, c. 1830s.
    An unpublished French translation of Wheaton’s influential History of the Northmen (1831) by Emma Chuppin de Germigny (1809?-1852). History of the Northmen is notable as… (more)

    An unpublished French translation of Wheaton’s influential History of the Northmen (1831) by Emma Chuppin de Germigny (1809?-1852). History of the Northmen is notable as the first book in English to claim that America had been discovered by the Norse before the voyage of Columbus.

    The translator Emma Chuppin de Germigny was the daughter of a noble emigré settled in Normandy after the Revolution. A long biographical entry in the Mémoires of the Caen Académie recounts her life: her family’s reduced circumstances necessitated her work as a schoolmistress in Caen, during which time she produced a series of scholarly works (including the Wheaton translation). She published a history of music in Normandy from the ninth century to her own day (1836) and an account of the Bayeux Tapestry (1846). Her translation of Wheaton’s work was not published, though the form of this manuscript, and Emma’s circumstances, strongly suggests it was intended to be. It is almost certainly in her autograph, with occasional corrections. In the event, a French edition by Paul Guillot, with numerous additional apparatus, appeared at Paris in 1844.

    Wheaton, a native of Providence, Rhode Island and an alumnus of Brown University was prominent as a lawyer, diplomat and antiquarian. His research into Scandinavian history began with his appointment to Denmark as chargé d’affaires in 1827.

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  • The Life and Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the Beggars. Being an impartial Account of his Life, from his leaving Tiverton School at the Age of fifteen and entering into a Society of Gipsies; wherein the Motives of his Conduct are related and explained: The great Number of Characters and Shapes he has appeared in through Great Britain, Ireland, and several other Places of Europe: with his Travels twice through great Part of America: Giving a particular Account of the Origin, Government, Laws, and Customs of the Gipsies, with the Method of electing their King. And a Dictionary of the Cant Language used by the Mendicants. by CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore. CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore. ~ The Life and Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the Beggars. Being an impartial Account of his Life, from his leaving Tiverton School at the Age of fifteen and entering into a Society of Gipsies; wherein the Motives of his Conduct are related and explained: The great Number of Characters and Shapes he has appeared in through Great Britain, Ireland, and several other Places of Europe: with his Travels twice through great Part of America: Giving a particular Account of the Origin, Government, Laws, and Customs of the Gipsies, with the Method of electing their King. And a Dictionary of the Cant Language used by the Mendicants. London: for J. Buckland, C. Bathurst and T. Davies, 1793.
    The celebrated life of a colourful swindler and impostor which was first published in 1745 and reprinted numerous times. This is one of two editions… (more)

    The celebrated life of a colourful swindler and impostor which was first published in 1745 and reprinted numerous times. This is one of two editions printed for Buckland, Bathurst and Davies in 1793. The final 5 pages contain a notable ‘cant’ dictionary explaining popular terms and phrases such as ‘tipping the velvet’, ‘beard splitter’, ‘hog grubber’, ‘nun gimmer’ and ‘woblety cropt’.

    Carew fell in with a band of romanies as a wayward young boy. ‘After a year and a half Carew returned home for a time, but soon after resumed a career of swindling and imposture, which saw him deceive people to whom he had previously been well known. Eventually he embarked for Newfoundland, but stayed only a short time. On his return to England he passed as the mate of a vessel, and eloped with the daughter of a respectable apothecary from Newcastle upon Tyne, whom he later married.

    Carew soon returned to the nomadic life, and when Clause Patch, a Gypsy king or chief, died Carew was elected his successor. He was convicted of being an idle vagrant, and sentenced to be transported to Maryland. On his arrival he attempted to escape, but was captured and made to wear a heavy iron collar; he escaped again, and encountered some Native Americans, who removed his shackles. On departure he travelled to Pennsylvania. He was then said to have swum the Delaware River, after which he adopted the guise of a Quaker, and made his way to Philadelphia, then to New York, and finally to Boston, where he embarked for England. He escaped impressment on board a man-of-war by pricking his hands and face, and rubbing in bay salt and gunpowder, so as to simulate smallpox’ (John Ashton, rev. Heather Shore in Oxford DNB).

    This biography is variously attributed to Carew himself, to Robert Goadby and also to his wife, Mrs. Goadby.

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  • A Political Fair. by WOODWARD, [George Murgatroyd]. WOODWARD, [George Murgatroyd]. ~ A Political Fair. London: Thomas Tegg, October 1st 1807.
    George Woodward, affectionately dubbed ‘Mustard George’ by his contemporaries, was one of the pioneers of English caricature. Like his drinking-partner Thomas Rowlandson, Woodward absorbed high… (more)

    George Woodward, affectionately dubbed ‘Mustard George’ by his contemporaries, was one of the pioneers of English caricature. Like his drinking-partner Thomas Rowlandson, Woodward absorbed high and low culture omnivorously and paid keen attention to contemporary politics.

    A Political Fair is ‘a fantastic survey of the international situation’ in 1807 and is considered one of Woodward’s finest images, the print catalogue of the British Museum devoting two full pages to its complex allegories. At the heart of the fair is a large booth (‘The Best-Booth in the Fair’) representing Great Britain holding aloft on its platform images of Britannia, John Bull, together with an Irishman, Scotsman and Welsh harpist gathered convivially around a punchbowl, while a waiter sweeps into the chamber below with a vast joint of roast beef on his platter. All this was typical of Woodward’s patriotism and was intended to portray the essential unity of the nation amidst the host of clamouring figures in the neighbouring booths representing the other nations. Napoleon, in tricorn and feathers, rebuffs a disgruntled Dutchman complaining about his King with the words ‘I never change Mynheer after the goods are taken out of the Shop’. High up on the right, the American booth displays a placard advertising ‘Much ado about Nothing with the Deserter’, a reference to the friction between Britain and the United States over recent defections from British to American ships and the ban on armed British ships in American ports. The Danish booth on the left advertises ‘The English Fleet and The Devil to Pay’ in reference to the hideous bombardment of Copenhagen by the British fleet in September that year.

    Musical and theatrical references abound, with many of the placards punning on the titles of plays and musical performances then showing in London: Much ado about Nothing, All’s well that ends well (Shakespeare), The Padlock (Bickerstaffe), The Deserter (Dibdin), The Double Dealer (on the Russian booth, by Congreve) and The English Fleet (Dibdin again). BM Satires, 10763

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  • [HARDY, Thomas.] ~ The patriot. Addressed to the people, on the present state of affairs in Britain and in France. With observations on Republican government, and discussions of the principles advanced in the writings of Thomas Paine. Edinburgh: for J. Dickson and G. Nichol in London, 1793.
    First edition of a rather reactionary consideration of Paine’s republicanism which includes notice of the earlier critique by John Quincy Adams. A second edition appeared… (more)

    First edition of a rather reactionary consideration of Paine’s republicanism which includes notice of the earlier critique by John Quincy Adams. A second edition appeared later in the same year. Hardy was a Scottish cleric, not to be confused with the radical Thomas Hardy, founder of the London Corresponding Society. Their positions cannot have been much farther apart. Sabin 59081.

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  • Recherches sur les vertus de l’eau de goudron, où l'on joint des Réfléctions Philosophiques sur diverses autres sujets... Avec deux Lettres de l'Auteur... by BERKELEY, George. BERKELEY, George. ~ Recherches sur les vertus de l’eau de goudron, où l'on joint des Réfléctions Philosophiques sur diverses autres sujets... Avec deux Lettres de l'Auteur... Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1745.
    First edition in French of Siris, a Chain of philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water (1744) and of Berkeley’s two letters on… (more)

    First edition in French of Siris, a Chain of philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water (1744) and of Berkeley’s two letters on the subject to Thomas Prior.

    ‘In 1744 appeared one of [Berkeley’s] most controversial works. Siris is a reconciliation of medicine with metaphysics, best known for its advocacy of the medicinal value of tar water, a native American preventative distilled from pine resins. Having conducted his own experiments Berkeley made specific claims for its beneficial effect in alleviating fevers, gout, scurvy, and dropsy. In trying to understand the cosmical principles that might explain this he conceived the possibility, which others took up with greater alacrity, that its properties might be those of a universal panacea, operating as condensed light. Siris had exceptional sales, primarily as a home medicine guide, for a few years and was translated into most western European languages, but its medical claims also provoked criticism’ (Oxford DNB).

    Siris is, however, more than just a medical work and the consideration of tar-water led Berkeley into a lengthy chain of reflections on the principles of the universe and of divine providence. Blake p. 43; Wellcome II, p. 149; Rochedieu p. 23.

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