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Sole edition of a substantial political satire on the calamity of the Revolution, a roman-a-clef with Pitt and the Austrian General Mack as major protagonists, masquerading as a novel translated from the English and ‘Naplotain’ (presumably ‘Napoleonic’ rather than Neapolitan). Rare. No copies located outside France. Gay II, 429.

First edition in French of Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson (1750), a very popular ‘ramble’ narrative capitalising on the contemporary appetite for books of genuine voyages. Joe Thompson traverses the globe, and portions of the novel are set in America, where the author had travelled between 1742 and 1744. Of Kimber, the old DNB provides this comment: ‘Novelist and compiler, born in 1719, was son of Isaac Kimber... He gained a scanty subsistence by compiling for booksellers, and died, worn out with such drudgery, in 1769.’ Rochedieu, 177.

First edition in French of the pseudonymous Siege of London (1885) (another condensed French edition of 40 pages only also appeared in the same year). An excellent example of the many British speculative novels spawned by the fear of invasion, from the 1871 Siege of Dorking to Erskine Childers’s Riddle of the Sands (1903). In Posteritas’ account, the invasion is set against the background of a collapsed Gladstone Liberal government and crisis in the Middle East. The French invade via Portsmouth and later Dover and Scotland, with the aid of the perfidious Irish, and the novel culminates with the bombardment of Westminster and the Battle of Hyde Park. JISC locates the Bodley copy only in the UK.

A scarce little language tutor, first published some time before 1847, this edition with the account of a journey to London presented as dialogues and other useful examples. Millhouse was a tutor at Milan and produced a popular English-Italian dictionary.

One of several early French editions of James’ Letters of Charlotte (1786) a novel giving Werther’s Charlotte a voice of her own. The first French edition appeared the previous year, and another (besides ours) appeared also in 1787. All are rare: Rochedieu lists neither the 1786 French edition or ours. cf. Rochedieu, 168 (1787, ‘Londres’ Paris: Royez, 18mo).

First edition in French, rare. Cumberland’s Fielding-inspired novel was first published in 1795, though is lesser known than his first novel Arundel (1789). It is probably better, though, than its successor John de Lancaster (1809), ‘best left undescribed’ (Oxford DNB). Rochedieu (p. 74) lists an edition 1799 only. Copac lists the BL copy only.

A beguiling anonymous illustrated manuscript with painted miniatures on vellum. The text is a poem by French poet of Greek and Franco-Levantine origin, Chénier (1762-94) who perished under the guillotine during the Terror. Praised as a precursor of the Romantics, his work was rediscovered and published during the nineteeth century. His exotic subjects, coupled with his tragic end made him a favourite among devotees of the decadent. ‘La jeune Tarentine’ is a narrative poem that telling the story of the death of a young girl a few hours before her wedding. Her body is collected by Nereids, the Greek sea nymphs.

First edition. An elegant new year gift book, comprising an illustrated survey of the popular French rose varieties, notes on culture and cultivation and a collection of rose poetry, completed with a calendar for the year 1819. The finely engraved plates are after Pancrace Bessa, a pupil and collaborator of Henri Redouté, painting tutor to the duchesse de Berry, and from 1823, replacing Redouté as official painter at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle. The book was reissued several times with added calendars for successive years. The varieties illustrated include: Grand cuisse de nymphe, Rose de Portland, Damas simple, Manteau d’Evêque and Rose Bichonne. Nissen 1266; Pritzel 6445.

A satirical anthropomorphic lithograph, issued in the aftermath of the Paris siege, unfavourably comparing Napoleon III with his uncle Napoleon, who had been the subject of a similar satire at the beginning of the century. The original Napoleon print had depicted the victims of his successful ambitions in Europe and the territories he had conquered — in contrast, this one shows his nephew, dubbed ‘Invasion III’, formed from the corpses of those who died for his failed ambitions. He wears a cloak made from a map of his principal defeats (Strasbourg, Sedan, Boulogne, Mexico) and a sash bearing the names Cayenne, Lambessa and La Rocamarie (the first two being French penal colonies the last being the site of a miner’s revolt immortalised in Zola’s Germinal). His hat is the Napoleonic eagle with a beak full of lard.

First edition in French of Dunallan; or, Know what you judge (1825); the last published (but first written) work of this once much-read Presbyterian Scottish novelist (1782-1825). ‘Grace Kennedy's novels (at least eight) were all published anonymously and rapidly in the early 1820s, and met with considerable success, being reissued late into the nineteenth century...’ (Oxford DNB). Worldcat: NLS, Queen’s Public Library (NY) and Penn only outside continental Europe.

Four rare perfume labels, colour printed ‘à la poupée’ with floral designs: Extrait de Rose et de Pois de senteur, Extrait de Jonquille, Extrait d’Oranges de Portugal, Extrait suave. The largest (Extrait de Rose includes a space below for a text or legend, uninked or cancelled in this example, but with traces of the engraved text visible. A charming and rare example of this colour printing technique in which each impression contains all the colours at once, with inks carefully applied to the plate with a cushion-headed tool (the ‘poupée’ or doll). The technique is immediately recognisable from the gentle gradations between the various colours of the resulting imprint.

An interesting example of French provincial lithography used for the cover of this patriotic song composed by a Toulouse lawyer at the accession of Charles X.

Not found in any of the usual online or printed sources, a delightful juvenile almanac, containing ten moral verses each with a vignette, engraved throughout. Though the publisher Maillard de Bresson produced several other almanacs, and this one is quite typical of the genre, it seems to have eluded bibliographers, including Grand-Carteret. The Journal historique et littéraire (January 1756) gives a useful account of the publisher’s business: ‘M. Maillard de Bressan continue a vendre des caractéres, des desseins & vignettes, des armes à jour, des papiers peints, des sentences, des devises, & forme avec succès la suite de ses fables morales, & instructives pour la jeunesse de l’un et l’autre sexe. It fait des envois auc Communautés Religieuses & à toutes personnes chargées de l’éducation des enfants, ou à des Marchands qui s’adressant à lui. Il demeure actuellement au Collége de Cambray, pres de la rue Saint Jacques, à Paris’.

First edition of one of the most influential works of French garden theory. Morel was the father of landscape gardening in France, best known for the Théorie des Jardins and for his work with the marquis de Giradin in the celebrated garden at Ermenonville, and later at Malmaison. Morel never travelled to England, but was clearly influenced by theories of landscape being developed there. The title here bears a quote from Milton: ‘In narrow room nature’s Whole Wealth, yea more / A heav’n on earth...’ (Paradise Lost IV).

First edition, Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer issue (of which it forms part of the second series). A fictional account of the voyage to Sydney, the convict regime, the Australian interior and the gold mines. Merruau’s list of sources includes the ‘Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales’ as well as Rowcroft’s Tales of the Colonies and Haygarth’s Bush Life in Australia. Ferguson, 12528 (first issue without adverts or, presumably, the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer series title.

First edition of a seminal treatise on air. ‘The book is a survey of existing information concerning various kinds of airs and the experiments and discoveries of Lavoisier, Priestley, Scheele and others. The author presents his ideas concerning the nature of gases (pure air, oxygen is the basis of all), phlogiston, heat, combustion, acidity (oxygen not the necessary constituent), etc.’ (Cole). ‘...all combustibles (including perhaps diamond) contain inflammable air, which he identified with phlogiston and thought it is contained in metals... He called oxygen ‘pure air’ and nitrogen (phlogisticated air) ‘impure air’. Pure air consists of vesicles inflated by the principle of heat. Nitrous air (nitrous oxide) is a compound of nitric acid and inflammable air or phlogiston. Fixed air, which he called ‘acid air’, can be converted into phlogisticated air or into pure air.’ (Partington). Cole, Chemical Literature 742; Partington, III, pp. 494-95; Wellcome III, 438a.

Sole edition of this bibliographical catalogue of 210 printed works issued at the time of the Estates General of 1614-15, comprising official documents, memoirs, counsels, petitions, harangues, discussions of the death of Henry IV, arrêts du Parlement, pasquinades and satires. Each entry includes a line or two of commentary. An advisory body representing the three estates in France, the Estates General had met periodically from the middle ages to 1614, which proved to be its last assembly for over 150 years. As France headed towards revolution, the Estates General was summoned as a desperate measure in May 1789 on the model of the 1615 assembly—doubtless the occasion of this rare little bibliography. Conlon, 89, 1275. Though Conlon provides an NUC reference, OCLC lists no US copies. COPAC lists the BL copy only.

First edition of the author’s first two plays. De Belloy began his career as an actor with a company of comédiens touring Northern Europe and found favour at the court of the Empress Elizabeth at St Petersburg. It was there in 1757 that he wrote his first play, then entitled Le Triomphe de l’amitié, which was performed in Paris as Titus on his return in 1761. It was not a success, but de Belloy followed it with Zelmire in 1762 to much greater acclaim. The tale of a princess of the Isle of Lesbos, it was drawn from Metastasio (as was Titus) and was later the source of Rossini’s Zelmira (1822). De Belloy’s major success, Le Siège de Calais followed in 1765.

A very scarce account in French of the demise of Charles I, probably printed in Paris despite the ‘Londres’ imprint. Three issues of 1650 are known, the other two being octavo with 155 pages plus prelims. ESTC assigns Wing number H2091 to all three without further comment. The work was reprinted at Paris in 1792, an interesting anticipation of France’s own regicide in January 1793. Wing H2091; Thomason E.1353[1].

Sole edition, printed for the author. In verse with English translation in prose, on facing pages. Composed in the aftermath of the Duke’s fatal stabbing on the steps of the Paris Opera by an anti-monarchist Bonapartist, Louis Pierre Louvel. Noel de Quersonnières (1728-1845) formerly commissaire-général of the French armies was reputed to have died at the age of 116, though his dates suggest he only reached 106.

There appear to be two issues: for the English and French market respectively. The first contains a ‘Discours preliminaire’ explaining the translation, with a printed section title to the verso of the title. The second (ours) does not have the section title printed on the title verso and the leaves of the ‘Discours’ are cancelled (hence the apparent mispagination of the prelims in this issue). WorldCat BL, BN and Newberry Library only. The BL copy is of the first issue.