english

First edition in French of Middleton’s A Dissertation Concerning the Origin of Printing in England (1734–5), which argued vigorously that Caxton had introduced the printing press to England, against the popular notion at the time that William Caxton had been preceded by a printer at Oxford. Added is a short introduction (in French) concerning Middleton. The ‘Londres’ imprint is false, and the book was almost certainly printed in Paris. The typographical headpiece is a delight. Rochedieu, 213.

An intriguing homemade book created by an aspiring young writer, copying extracts from a popular juvenile title, Marmaduke Multiply, published in 1817 and designed to teach multiplication with engaging illustrations. In this version, a Francis (or possibly Frances) Taylor has copied extracts from the book using different hands, without much thought to order. Some are captioned ‘with my left hand’, another ‘half with my right hand’ as though he or she were deciding which was the best hand, or simply trying writing and drawing with an unfamiliar hand. Given the general insistence on right hand writing in the period it is an unusual survival, albeit rudimentary, an evidence of active learning activities in the acquisition of early literacy.

First edition. An extensive survey of the Welsh musical tradition by a celebrated Welsh harpist and antiquary in London. ‘Edward Jones moved to London in 1774 or early 1775, under the patronage of the London Welsh circle. The harp was very fashionable in London at the time, and Jones quickly established himself in some of the most eminent circles as a popular performer and teacher of the instrument’ (ODNB). He became harpist to the prince of Wales (later George IV). Musical and poetical Relicks, a rather costly production with an extensive subscriber’s list, contains a major essay on bardic poetry with texts and songs in both Welsh and English. An engraved plate shows the principal instruments of Welsh music, including the harp and lyre, while the second part of the book mainly comprises engraved music for some 60 Welsh tunes, some Jones’s variations, all on two staves and thus suitable also the keyboard.

‘Jones’s most important work was in the preservation of traditional Welsh music. He collected and published over 200 traditional melodies, many of which he transcribed from having heard them sung and played at home in north Wales. His concern for the protection of Welsh cultural life is also evident in his strong belief in the eisteddfod as a safeguard of Welsh cultural traditions and the purity of the Welsh language. He invariably attended eisteddfodau on his regular summer visits to Wales, often acting as an adjudicator; and on several occasions he provided and presented prizes for competitions such as singing with the harp and the best collection of penillion’.

This copy is from the library of the Dukes of Portland, containing the bookplate of William Arthur, sixth duke of Portland (1857-1943), but with an earlier gilt supralibros denoting the presence of the book in the Portland collection at an earlier date. It is quite likely to have formed part of the celebrated subterranean library collections at Welbeck Abbey of the eccentric John Bentinck fifth duke of Portland. BUCEM, p. 559; RISM J 607.

First edition of Act granting Nelson his annuity for his victory at the Battle of the Nile.

First edition of the so-called Combination Act, which prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Though separately published with a general title for a complete sitting of Parliament, individual Acts of Parliament were paginated to be bound together in yearly volumes hence the pagination 654-672 here.

First edition of the Unlawful Societies Act, part of the measures enacted under William Pitt to suppress republican opposition. It proscribed certain named societies, specifically the Societies of United Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Britons, United Irishmen and the London Corresponding Society, all deemed seditious, together with other secret societies bound by oath. The only exemption to the latter group were the Freemasons, on account of lobbying by prominent members of parliament. The Act had a lasting effect on the book trade and the appearance of the printed book, because it placed strict controls on printers, requiring them to register their presses and to provide a detailed imprint (giving their names and addresses) on every item printed, in an attempt to limit the circulation of seditious pamphlets. This proved to be the longest lasting aspect of the Act, not relaxed until the Printer’s Imprint Act of 1961, which allowed smaller print jobs (such greetings cards or stationery items) to be printed without imprints. Despite the exemption of Freemasons from the terms of the act, it nonetheless required them to submit names of their members at meetings, thereby requiring a requirement for record keeping which has proved valuable to the study of the history of Freemasonry.

Though separately published with a general title for a complete sitting of Parliament, individual Acts of Parliament were paginated to be bound together in yearly volumes hence the pagination 618-634 here.

First edition of the last Witchcraft Act, repealing the former acts of Elizabeth I and James I (and Mary of Scotland) against witchcraft, and declaring magic, witchcraft and sorcery fraudulent. The last person to be legally executed for witchcraft was the Scottish woman Janet Horne in 1727, but legal sentiment had by then absorbed Enlightenment thinking and rational explanation of all forms of magic. Punishment by death was replaced in the 1735 act by imprisonment of up to one year only, on the basis that witchcraft could no longer be considered a crime, merely a nuisance.

In this volume, formerly belonging to the council of the City of Canterbury (Kent), it is interesting to find an old (perhaps early nineteenth-century) paper scrap marking the Witchcraft Act among the many other acts contained in the volume, together with a marginal pencil marking beside the shoulder note ‘Persons pretending to exercise Witchcraft, tell Fortunes, or by crafty Science to discover stolen Goods’.

First edition. A near pristine file copy of this French language example of an early rag book from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible — the Dean logo shows two dogs pulling at a rag book, and the inserted advert leaf states that children can carry the book in their mouths without danger ( ‘Les couleurs employées dans ces livres sont fortement fixés. Les enfants peuvent les porter à la bouche sans aucun danger. Ces livres peuvent être lavé’). Qu’est cela? is a simple vocabulary book, naming fifty familiar objects including toys (dolls, a cup-and-ball, a paintbox, a toy train, a jack-in-the box, a kite and a rocking horse) as well as a rifle, a sword, a drum and an automobile. No library copies found in WorldCat or JISC LibraryHub.

A file copy from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible — the Dean logo shows two dogs pulling at a rag book. It illustrates twenty-four animals, including the dog on the cover, as well as butterflies, a giraffe, a camel, a parrot, a kangaroo, three monkeys and a turkey, all captioned in French. The pinked edges were designed to minimise fraying, and in this case the copy is unused. No library copies found in WorldCat or JISC LibraryHub.

An extensive antiquarian and heraldic register, providing the abbreviated arms of hundreds of English monarchs, nobles and landowners from the medieval era (and in some cases before) to the reign of Charles I. To judge from the paper and handwriting it was probably compiled in the first thirty years of the eighteenth century by someone with access to a variety of earlier heraldic manuscripts for transcription. It is particularly interesting for including many retrospectively attributed arms to individuals living before the formal establishment of heraldry, such as the early conquerors of Britain and the kings and kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. Its two largest sections are the catalogue of arms from the reign of Edward the Confessor to that of Charles I on 69 folios (copied via a version by the seventeenth-century herald, Robert Glover from a book belonging to one Joseph Holland), and the transcript of the so-called ‘Parliamentary Roll’ made c. 1312-14 giving a complete catalogue of arms borne in the reign of Edward I. The so-called ‘Rouen Roll’ transcribed on f. 77 of circa 1410, was traditionally thought to be a catalogue of all those bearing arms present at the Siege of Rouen during the Hundred Years War. The complete contents of the register are:

1-1v. The fyve Conquests of this Land with the Names & Arms of the Conquerors (Brutus, Julius Caesar, Constantine of Armorica or Vortigern, Hengist, William Duke of Normandy, with their arms).
1v-3. The Saxons divided this Island into 7 Kingedomes (with the names of their kings and their arms).
3-72v. [Arms of the Peerage in order of their creation] A Catalogue of the Armes belonging to England with the causes of the alterac[i]on thereof from the Reigne of St. Edward the Confessor to this p[re]sent [1628, the reign of Charles I).
73-75v. blank
76-76v. Differences born by the Royal Family.
77-77v. [The Rouen Roll, c. 1410]. Les nosmes des nobles q[ui] fueront oue [?avec] le Roy Henrye le quint au Siege de Roan...
78-98. [The Parliamentary Roll, c. 1312-14] Le copie dun ancien liver daunes q[ue] Messier Somerset Heralt avoit du Joseph Holland in couleurs. Conteniant les nosmes & armes des nobles & chivaliers d’Angliterre au temps d’Edward le prim[er] & second Roies d’Angliterre.
98v-100v. blank
101-110r. [Roll of andowners of Suffolk, in the time of Edward I, listed by Hundred].

The volume was later (after 1939) in the collection of the heraldic scholar, Edward Mars Elmhirst (1915-1957), of Worsboroughdale (Yorks). He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Major in the Territorial Army and was well-known for his researches in heraldry (he was offered a position as herald-extraordinary at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953). He also wrote a book on Merchants’ marks, published posthumously by the Harleian Society in 1959.

First edition of the Art Journal’s retrospective catalogue of the 1867 Exposition, including notice of the prize winners. It is a kaleidoscope of Second Empire decorative and applied arts from all over Europe and beyond. It comprises: a general Introduction by C. Boutell; Glass - Domestic and Decorative by G. Wallis; Lace and Embroidery by Mrs. B. Palliser; Adaptations From the Antique by C. Boutell; Art Materials and Products in Clay, Stone, Marbles, Etc. by D.T. Ansted; Furniture. by J.B. Atkinson; Textile Fabrics by Mrs. B. Palliser; Goldsmith's Work, Silver, and Jewellery by H. Friswell; Porcelain and Pottery by J. Dafforne and Bronzes and Bronze Imitations by G. Wallis.

A sketchbook made by British architect, George Truefitt (1824-1902), first at Antibes and then in Paris, recording architectural details as well as general views and other sights of interest. There are some delightful details of Closebrooks, the Antibes villa he had designed for banker and businessman William Brooks Close, together with several metalwork details.

Truefitt travelled to the 1889 Exposition at the invitation of Brooks and his wife. In this album he made a brief journal of his visit, and preserved 25 excellent sketches. The first is an amusing sketch of ladies lying head-to-head on a shipboard saloon bench, while the others are mainly architectural views including of the Eiffel Tower seen from his hotel room at Maurice’s; architectural details of the chateau at Fontainebleau; some from the Hôtel de Cluny and metalwork details from the Trocadéro as well as a few other small sketches of people. There is an especially good view of the crowded exhibition around the dome of the Trocadéro sketched from his lunch table at Spiers and Pond’s restaurant. The journal and drawings are pasted into a sketchbook which also includes a sketch journal of his earlier visit to Antibes in 1886.

Truefitt was prolific in his contribution to Victorian British architecture, best known for his work at Tufnell Park in London, for numerous country churches and for his remodelling of the Brooks estate at Glen Tanar in Scotland.

The first 140 pages here provide a very full manuscript account of an Englishman’s residence in Paris, mainly during the year 1826, with the last 50 pages recording his return to England, some travels there, and a return to France. In the course of just over a year, Hubbard visited all the major sights of Paris and its region, including Notre Dame and other churches, the Louvre, Versailles and other palaces, as well as observing public monuments, museums, squares, gardens and bridges. He took a special interest in the theatre, attending several plays (including Rochefort’s Jocko at the Théâtre Porte-Saint-Martin) of which he generally approves. Public life was illuminated in 1826 by the anniversary of the accession of Charles X the previous year, and Hubbard records public rejoicing and other celebrations of the French monarchy, such as the laying of the foundation stone for a new monument to Louis XVI. Like many an Englishmen he cannot resist comparisons between France and England, calling Versailles ‘the French Windsor’, Les Invalides, the equivalent of Chelsea Hospital and the newly-erected Passage Colbert ‘like our Burlington Arcade but infinitely more tastefully fitted up & decorated more extravagantly with us’. He provides an excellent account of the amusements of the Palais Royale, colourfully listing several of its famous cafés and describing roulette tables, noting the crowds of young working girls and the regulations which governed their profession. He seems especially struck by all this, waxing lyrical and concluding: ‘To close this long and uninteresting account of this sink of vice perhaps infamy, the flaunting depravity that walks forth at night and seeks shelter from the blessed light of day, yet this place is to Paris what Paris is to every other metropolis in the world a combination of Pleasure & Vice of delight & depravity. In the little Word of the Palais Royale every thing to improve or debase the mind to excite the admiration of the ingenuity of Man, on the one hand while on the other is weakness and folly, all these opposite positions so strangely assembled and perplexing contrast [del] may be compared to a kaleidoscope in which all the various colours & hues of human life are displayed in a thousand ever changing and fanciful forms.’

The object of Hubbard’s Paris residence is never quite clear, but it appears to have been imposed upon him rather than a voluntary sojourn, and he seems ever grateful of the prospect of return to a beloved home in Sydenham (Kent). He does make clear that he was joined by at least three other young men, all equally unable to communicate in French, and that he mixed with English society in Paris, including several young ladies (’fair Ellen’ and ‘fair Helen’ included). His entries tend to be confined to the last days of each week, suggesting he was occupied for some of the weekdays, but he nonetheless seems to have had plenty of leisure time to explore. The English-printed engravings inserted into the text are mainly from Pugin and Heath’s Paris and its Environs Displayed in a Series of Picturesque Views (1830-1) also indicated that he was able to obtain them readily in Paris, or that he already had them on hand, to paste in has he ticked off Paris monuments from his bucket-list.

He returns to England after a year and travels in southern England before making a return to France, and the cities of Northern France, recounted in the last quarter of the manuscript, before a second return to England in 1830.

First edition in this form; a second edition followed in 1815. It was also issued uncoloured. ‘At least 14, and very probably all of the plates, are copies of images published around 1790 in an octavo suite, called Vues pittoresques des principaux édifices de Paris, “by Le Campion, Guyot, Roger, Guillot, Belley, Mlle Guyot, after Testard and Sergent” (see NUC). The last two are identifiable as the Parisian artists and engravers François Martin Testard (active 1790–1819) and Antoine François Sergent-Marceau (1751–1847), with “Segard” on the title-page probably being an error for “Sergent”’ (Library Hub Discover).
‘The City of Paris has always been an object of much interest to the Traveller. Recent events, which have filled every mind with astonishment, gratitude, and joy, have rendered the Metropolis of France, now enriched with the choicest spoils of conquest, and the noblest specimens of art, doubly interesting. From every neighbouring kingdom, and especially from the shores of Britain, thousands have eagerly flocked to that Capital, formerly the scene of the most horrible atrocities, now the depository of the most valuable treasures’ (Advertisement).
Abbey, Travel 104; Tooley, English Books with Coloured Plates 1790 to 1860, 448.

First edition, by the journalist and champion of political reform, William Carpenter (1794–1874). ‘The following little work pretends not to the character of a history; but it will be found to embody, in consecutive order, the leading events of the late glorious revolution in France, derived from the most authentic sources, and interspersed with such remarks and reflections as they naturally call forth’ (Preface).

An original lease granted by George II to Sir Matthew Decker of lands once part of the royal park of Richmond at Richmond Green, formerly known as the Bakehouse. Sir Charles Hedges (died 1714), Secretary of State to Queen Anne had built a fine house here, which was enlarged by Decker (1679-1749), a wealthy Dutch merchant, who settled in London in 1702, becoming and MP and director of the East India Company. He created a celebrated garden on this land, widely commented on by contemporaries and the site of the first successful cultivation of the pineapple in Britain.

This little pocket book has been densely filled with diary notes by a young girl or young woman, presumably one Flora Keene. She copies out several hymns at the opening, and then completes every day of her diary, with dense and minute notes, now very hard to read, mainly noting family comings and goings. The frontispiece by John Leech entitled ‘Volunteer Movement — Jones & Family go under Canvas’ is a satire on the British volunteer rifle corps, formed in 1859 as a response to public fears of a French invasion. There is also a series of delightful vignettes by Tenniel on Shakespearean quotations.

First edition of an early collection of poetry by Fletcher (1863–1935), perhaps better known for his detective fiction.  This copy inscribed by the English poet Olive Custance to the American writer and salonnière Natalie Clifford Barney —‘To Natalie … The Poet and Lover … from the “Little Princess”’— on the front flyleaf.   
‘An avid reader of Pre-Raphaelite and aesthetic literature’, in the 1890s, Custance (1874–1944) ‘developed somewhat flirtatious relationships with John Lane, Henry Harland, and Richard Le Gallienne—respectively the publisher, editor, and reader of The Yellow Book.  Custance was one of the most prolific women poets published in this notorious journal, with poems appearing in eight of its thirteen volumes …
‘Custance’s first poetry volume, Opals, was published in 1897 by The Bodley Head [the same year as Fletcher’s] …  The poems addressed to John Gray were also included in this volume, along with several other love poems directed at ambiguously gendered beloveds.  Such sexual ambiguity was reflected in Custance’s love life during this period.  In the winter of 1900 she received an admiring letter from Natalie Barney, the openly lesbian author and salon hostess.  Custance was invited by Barney to Paris, where she also befriended the symbolist poet Renée Vivien (Barney’s former lover).  Accounts of this ménage are contradictory.  Barney’s autobiography stated that Vivien was jealous of Custance; however, Vivien’s letters and her roman-à-clef A Woman Appeared to Me (1904)—in which Custance appeared as Dagmar—suggest that she and Custance enjoyed a brief love affair during the winter of 1901 
‘During this period, in June 1901, Custance wrote a letter of admiration to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945).  The poets began to correspond, using the personas of “Fairy Prince” for Douglas, and “Princess” and “Page” for Custance’ (Oxford DNB), which may account for the inscription here.
 

Second edition in English (after the first, Edinburgh and Perth edition of 1792) abridged and translated from Niebuhr’s Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Laendern (1774) and volume two from Niebuhr’s Beschreibung von Arabien (1772). It remains the only English translation and recounts Niebuhr’s travels in the Middle East, Egypt, Persia, India and Arabia — the first scientific expedition to this area, which was subsidised by the Danish king. The plates depict: An Arab on horseback; Dancing girls in Egypt; Procession at an Egyptian marriage; The way to Mount Sinai; Mount Sinai and the Convent of St. Catherine; Dress of the women in the back parts of Yemen and Scene in Arabia Petrea.

The translator, Robert Heron (1764-1807) was the son of a Kirkudbright weaver who raised enough money to study at Edinburgh University, supporting himself with teaching and work with local booksellers. Soon after translating Niebuhr ‘His imprudent habits overwhelmed him with debt, and he was thrown into prison by his creditors’ (Oxford DNB). Although he was freed and removed to London, he was once again imprisoned for debt, dying soon after. Howgego, to 1800, N24.

First edition, inscribed by the author’s father to Edmund Gosse of this posthumous novel by Toru Dutt (1856-1877), Indian poet, translator, and novelist. Dutt was born in Calcutta and received her early education there, both in Indian and European languages, under the encouragement of her mother and father (the latter a colonial administrator). ‘In 1869, when she was aged thirteen, and at a time when conservative Hindus believed that crossing the ‘black waters’ was blasphemous, the Dutt family travelled by sea to Europe. Toru and her elder sister Aru were the first Bengali girls to dare such a transgression’ (Chandani Lokugé in ODNB). Toru studied French in Nice and Paris, and English in London and Cambridge. On returning to India she continued her reading of French and British Romantics such as Hugo, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley as well as the Brontës and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She also began an intensive course of study in Sanskrit, while at the same time adapting her new knowledge to retell legends from the Mahabharata in English, using traditional English poetic forms. She died of consumption in 1877 at the age of just twenty-one, by which time she had written four books, of which only one, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876), was published in her lifetime.

The novel Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers, was set in Brittany, France, and was published only posthumously. ‘The manuscript, hand-copied by Govin Chunder, was sent to Clarisse Bader, who contributed a foreword, and with whose assistance it was published by Didier in Paris in 1879 and included in the Librarie Académique’. It was an ‘exciting hybrid between the nineteenth-century European gothic romance and the realist genres, and can be read as the creative experiment by a talented novice writer inspired by her reading of European literature’ (Lokugé).

For Western readers, as both a young woman and as an Indian writing in English, a great deal of the interest in Toru Dutt’s poetry was due to her familiarity with English and French literature. Edmund Gosse was an enthusiastic patron and wrote: ‘it would seem that the marvellous facilities of Toru’s mind still slumbered, when, in her thirteenth year, her father decided to take his daughters to Europe to learn English and French. To the end of her days Toru was a better French than English scholar. She loved France best, she knew its literature best, she wrote its language with more perfect elegance.’ (Ancient Ballads, xii). Worldcat lists copies at BL and University of Manitoba only outside continental Europe.