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First edition, an account of advanced English pottery techniques, mainly derived from those of Wedgwood. Instructions for decoration include both bas relief and transfer printing techniques, both relatively new methods in France. The plates depict English potter’s wheels and a kiln. Edme Jean Baptiste Bouillon-Lagrange contributed chemical data.

An unpublished French translation of Wheaton’s influential History of the Northmen (1831) by Emma Chuppin de Germigny (1809?-1852).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. 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.

The translator of this version, 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.

Wisdom as a woman. The print is a good example of the relatively short-lived fashion for the ‘back painted’ or reverse glass coloured mezzotint. The print is moistened and laid face down on a varnished sheet of glass and allowed to dry; once the paper is firmly fused with the varnish and glass, most of it is scraped away from the verso leaving a minutely thin layer of printed paper within the varnish. This is then varnished again on the verso to give a rich and distinctive translucency. Colours, usually in oil, are then added, again to verso. Over time the varnishes invariably darken, resulting in the rather subdued but still translucent hues found here.

‘Wisdom’ was probably part of a sequence of the Virtues published by Hinton, shortly after 1800. The British museum catalogue lists only this print and another representing ‘Innocence’ (but neither example is reverse glass treated).

A very scarce early temperance movement sermon. ‘The use of liquor is inconsistent with any thing like pure and high spiritual enjoyment, clear spiritual views, and true devotion...’. Published in New York in the National Preacher in 1831 and rapidly reprinted within just a few months in several editions in London, where the Temperance movement was in its infancy. The British and Foreign Temperance Society issued its first report in 1831 (an extract is reproduced on p. 16 here). Worldcat/LibraryHub locate only a handful of copies of all issues, American and British (the former being extracts from the National Preacher).

First edition of this sermon on the tercentenary of the Reformation preached in Chapman’s independent evangelical chapel in Greenwich. An engraved portrait of the author, dated 1824, has been added. Worldcat/Library Hub locate copies at BL, Newcastle, Regent's Park College Library and Staatsbibliothek, Berlin only. No US copies.

A interesting and unique copy of this monumental pictorial record of European coins and medals struck in the Napoleonic era, including many commemorative medals of battles and truces. A printed book, with a London imprint, with portions (including title) in manuscript copy, and plates dissected, partly copied in manuscript and re-arranged. It is difficult to interpret the unusual hybrid form here, but it would appear to be a contemporary collector or curator’s production allowing the illustrations to be consulted alongside their descriptions in the text. The plates in the printed edition presented the coins and medals in a different order to the text, with corresponding numbers linking the illustrations, but turning from text to plate may have been a tiresome business. The fact that the titles, preliminary text and indexes are given as manuscript copies is less easy to explain, though at least one of the manuscripts indexes is more comprehensive than that of the printed edition. Many of the illustrations are marked with a small flower shaped inkstamp, perhaps also a collector’s demarcation.

Millin de Grandmaison (1759-1818) had been curator of the Cabinet des médailles et antiques of the former French royal library but died before this survey could be published. The manuscript was passed to the British-born James Millingen, formerly of the French mint, later an antiquary and dealer, who collated it and published it in London in both French and English versions. The imprints are faithfully copied in manuscript in our version, but it is likely a French rather than a British production.

Sole edition, a very rare illustrated record of British ships, commercial and naval, by ‘A Lady’, probably an amateur lithographer and the ‘T.I. Walker’ whose name appears on some of the plates (which were all printed by C. Hullmandel). Worldcat: State Library NSW and Canadian War Museum only. No copies located in British libraries. Walker not mentioned by Twyman in Early Lithographed Books.

Delille’s French translation of Georgiana Cavendish’s best-known poem, The Passage of the Mountain St Gothard (1799) appeared twice in 1802: here, and in a separate edition with plates (also published by Prosper in London). It is unclear which appeared first. The poem was written during Georgiana’s exile, and the translation is preceded with reciprocal poems of dedication between author and translator.

Agnes Maria Bennett’s Minerva Press novel, The Beggar Girl (1797) first appeared in Mme. Brayer-St.-Léon’s translation earlier in 1798, in 7 volumes. This pretty set in 10 volumes, each with a frontispiece illustration, though separately bound (and numbered on the spines 1-10) was issued as vols 5-14 of the Oeuvres complètes

‘The Beggar Girl and her Benefactors was published in seven volumes in 1797; it was supposedly based on existing characters at Tooting and was dedicated to the duchess of York, near whom Anna Bennett then lived. The Beggar Girl was very popular, and had some distinguished admirers’ (Oxford DNB).. cf. Rochedieu p. 21 (for the 7 volume edition of the same year).

First edition, rare. John Wesley had delivered a sermon at the laying of the foundation stone of the Methodist mother church in City Road in April 1777. In this critical pamphlet the ‘gentle Strictures’ promised by evangelical preacher Hill on the title-page turn out to be vitriolic criticisms of Wesley laid out in 37 chapters, attacking his self-centred address. Chapter 31 takes issue with Wesley’s perfidy in his perceived encouragement of the American revolution in Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs, in which he had stated the the British government’s attitude towards the Americans’ could no longer be defended. ESTC: UK: Birmingham, BL, Congregational Library, Rylands (3 copies), US: SMU and Wesley Theological Seminary.

Probably the first edition in French—one of several issues of the same year with the same pagination but differing title ornaments. First published in 1740 as The Chronicle of the Kings of England under the pseudonym of Nathan Ben Saddi, Dodsley here displayed his egalitarian leanings with this rewriting of English history in the style of the King James Version of the Old Testament Pentateuch. The imprint is false and it is unlikely that the French editions were actually printed in London. In this issue the engraved vignette on the title-page is a frame with a pedestal upon which are a spear, a shield, laurel wreaths and an owl, there are several variants, as enumerated in the ESTC. Rochedieu, p. 88 (noting issues with both Londres and Amsterdam imprints).

Sole edition. ‘And Enoch walked with God. Gen. V. 24.’ Apparently by an anonymous follower of the evangelical Church of England preacher, William Romaine — a spiritual meditation occasioned by a daily walk — a trope clearly derived from Romaine’s spiritual classic The Walk of Faith (1771), a work recommended in a postscript here: ‘Reader, if the perusal of this letter has been profitable unto you, and you desire to be further instructed how to live by Faith, and walk humbly and happily with your God, ---- I would recommend to you a Treatise of the Life of Faith, and one of the Walk of Faith; both by the Rev. Romaine Rector of St. Ann Blackfriars...’

A rare Tudor edition in English of this celebrated treatise on inventions and origins, which includes some of the earliest accounts in English of the invention of printing, theatre, mathematics, medicine, magic, religion, law, government (as well as wine, prostitution and warm baths). First published in Latin in 1499 (Venice) and augmented in 1521, De inventoribus rerum digested a huge mass of classical, biblical and contemporary learning and became a Renaissance bestseller. As many as 30 Latin editions alone appeared before the author’s death in 1555. The English translation, an abridgement by Thomas Langley, did not appear until 1546, by which time the Urbino-born Polydore had been resident in England for several decades. A diplomat, scholar, historian an humanist, Vergil counted Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Linacre and Baldessare Castiglione among his acquaintances and correspondents.

Printed three times in 1546, the first English editions are remarkably rare. Though ours is dated 25 January 1546 and is listed first by STC, it was perhaps preceded by the edition dated 16 April 1546, given that a new year began on Lady Day (25 March) in old style dating. The work is divided into eight books, from which Langley makes succinct abridgements, of which a selection of chapter headings gives a flavour:

I. 9. ‘The begynnyng of Tragedies, Comedies, Satyres, and newe Comedies; 11. ‘Who founde Musyke’; 12. ‘Who found Musicall instruments’; 14. ‘Astrologie’; 15. ‘Who founde Geometrie, Artihmetike’; 16. ‘Physike’; 17. ‘The inventours of herbes medicinable’; 18. ‘The beginnyng of Magike’; 19. ‘Two kyndes of divination’. II. 1. ‘The originall of lawes’; 2. ‘Who ordeyned the first gouvernaunces’; 6. ‘Who set furth books fyrst, or made a library, Printyng, paper, parchement, arte of memory’ (which includes the observation: ’Truely the com[m]odite of liberaries is right profitable & necessary, but in co[m]parison of the crafte of printyng it is nothyng, both because one ma[n] may printe more in one day, then many men in many years could wryte: And also it preserveth both Greke & Latine auctours fro the dau[n]ger of corruption. It was found in Germany at Mogunce [Mainz] by one J. Guthenbergus a knight, he found moreover the Inke by his devise that printers used...)’

Among other entries we find treatments of: war, Olympiades, plays, metals, coins, painting, ‘wyne, oyle, honye, chese, and strange trees broughte into Italy’, labyrinths, theatres, prostitution and brothels, and Christian and Moslem origins and customs.

Provenance: Sotheby’s, June 14th, 1965, lot 231 (Traylen, £55); Blackwell, Centenary Catalogue, 1979, item 27, £450; private collection. STC 24654. STC lists two other printings of 1546: 24655 (also Grafton, dated 16 April) and 24656 (another issue of the same, portions reset, with both title and colophon dated 16 April). In an article of 1888, John Ferguson suggested that these 16 April editions/issues preceded the 25 January edition (though this was not adopted by the editors of STC); John Ferguson, ‘Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil’s work, De Inventoribus Rerum’, 1888, pp. 17 et seq.

First edition of this defence of Wilde by his loyal friend, composer and pianist, Dalhousie Young. ‘Published after Oscar Wilde's trial, during which Wilde's works were used as evidence of his ‘immorality'’ Apologia pro Oscar Wilde sets out to defend Wilde and his writing. Dalhousie Young argues that a work of fiction is not automatically a work of autobiography; fiction does reveal an author's inner secrets or true character. Powerfully, Young furthermore publicly questions whether it is right that sexual acts between two consenting adults of the same sex should be outlawed (see p. 38), or looked upon as a ‘sin’’ (British Library).

This is the second of two issues of the first edition, distinguished by its darker wrapper. Millard, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde, p. 574, no. 679.

First edition in French of the Italianate gothic novel Angelo Guicciardini, or, The Bandit of the Alps: a Romance (London, Colburn 1809). Rare. Sophia Francis’ other novels include: Constance de Lindensdorf, Vivonia and The Nun of Misericordia. They were all popular circulating and subscription library titles. No British copies in Jisc/Library Hub (formerly COPAC), Worldcat: University of Virginia only in US. cf. The Novel in English: a bibliographical Addition to Andrew Block’s The English Novel, 263, a.

First edition in French of The Castilian, an historical novel in English (Colburn, 1829), by a notable Spanish historical novelist, very much in the vein of Scott. Though most of his novels were in Spanish, Trueba y Cosío had been educated partly in England, and this attempt in English attracted favourable reviews. The translation is by Defauconpret, best known for his translations of Scott. Rare: Worldcat lists the Bn copy only.

A rare satirical elegy and epitaph for the celebrated electrical eel, who could no longer rise to the occasion. A reissue of the sheets of the first edition of 1777 with a cancel title, of this elaborate addition to the corpus of salacious 1770s pamphlets devoted to the subject of the electrical eel, a topic of serious scientific enquiry and popular merriment. This one continues the phallic joke and manages to draw in the hapless Chevalier D’Eon (whose sex was then popularly debated) alongside the lecherous Earl of Harrington.

‘If the Gymnotus Electricus, lately exhibited to the Public, be really dead, it is to be hoped that we shall have no more of these witty indecencies’ (Monthly Review, Nov. 1777). ESTC: Harvard and Princeton only worldwide of this issue. ESTC gives the pagination [4], 29, [1], but both the 2 copies reported have only pp [2] before title, as here, though it is perhaps likely the work was issued with a half-title or initial blank not present in surviving copies.

An unusual New Years’ gift from an unnamed compiler ‘for my dearly beloved Isabella Sophia Ochando de la Vanda. January one, 1830’; a manuscript compilation of patriotic verse and pious texts by hymnodist Edmeston, Shepherd, Southey (’The Victory’), Millman, Bowring, Burden, Emmerson, and Carlyle’s ‘Hymn before public worship translated from the Arabic’. Most of the texts are in English but a couple, by the Mechitarian cleric Nerses Clajense, are in Spanish and French respectively.

The two fine watercolours show HMS Victory in battle and a fallen arab horseman.

First edition, all published. Delandine’s short-lived and scarce literary magazine includes numerous translated excerpts from British authors and other articles of British interest, notably Chesterfield (his portraits of Marlborough and Bolingbroke), Thomas Parnell (’Health, an Eclogue’), a letter from actor James Quin, Thomas Hunter’s Observations on Tacitus, Thomas Chatterton, Johnson (two excerpts from The Rambler, plus a note on his Dictionary), Dick Whittington and his cat, an article on the origin of British newspapers, and Butler’s ‘A Huffing Courtier’.

An interesting selection of watercolours, drawings and lithographs by a Victorian woman. Some are typical, if very accomplished, holiday or genre scenes, but there is an interesting scattering of domestic scenes: a women sewing, another at a substantial treadle sewing machine, making mincemeat, crocheting, picking peas, and drawing in an album. Of special interest are 5 original and probably unique lithographs, evidently the work of the same artist, nicely demonstrating the contemporary enthusiasm for amateur lithography among women. Some are trials for letterheads, giving the address: ‘The Rookery, George Lane, Parish of Woodford’ [Essex]. Among the travel watercolours are some really lovely seaside scenes and a finely observed interior of a railway sleeping compartment on the Geneva-Paris line.