history

Criteria:
  • Keywords = history
  • Étudiants et Lorettes. Almanach du Quartier Latin (5e année). by (PUBLISHER’S ADVERT). (PUBLISHER’S ADVERT). ~ Étudiants et Lorettes. Almanach du Quartier Latin (5e année). Paris: E. de Soye et compagnie, [1850 or 51].
    A rare publisher’s advert for a short-lived satirical almanac devoted to the comic lowlife of the Parisian Latin Quarter, with its famously hedonistic students and… (more)

    A rare publisher’s advert for a short-lived satirical almanac devoted to the comic lowlife of the Parisian Latin Quarter, with its famously hedonistic students and lorettes courtesans or sex workers). The lorette emerged both in reality and in the popular imagination during the July Monarchy (1830-48), named after the Right Bank church of Notre Dame de Lorette where they were thought to reside and the almanac promises a range of playful gender inverting fun based on the ‘Vésuviennes’ (popular heroines of the 1848 revolution who donned uniform and took to the barricades) including the confessions of a Vésuvienne and their ‘Charte-Constitution’.
    During the February Revolution of 1848, French women briefly hoped for political rights and an improvement in their social situation. Such hopes were short-lived and popular reaction was expressed in satires like this. The complex image of the Vésuvienne woman warrior, both pleasantly seductive and scandalously rebellious. She appeared in all the major newspapers, while real women in the streets claimed this title by parading under a Vesuvian banner. Their morality was often called into question and it is no surprise to see lorettes and Vésuviennes share a billing here. In Belhomme’s lithograph, three lorettes step out of basket (one thumbing her nose); a reflection of a popular contemporary song ‘Le Panier aux lorettes’.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £1,500.00
  • Arrêt suprême des dieux de l’Olympe en faveur de Mme. la Duchesse de Berry et de son fils. L’Ombre du Prince de Bourbon Condé (Louis-Henri-Joseph), à son filleul le duc d’Aumale d’Orléans (Henri Eugène-Philippe-Louis). Révélations, etc. by LE NORMAND, Marie-Anne Adélaïde. LE NORMAND, Marie-Anne Adélaïde. ~ Arrêt suprême des dieux de l’Olympe en faveur de Mme. la Duchesse de Berry et de son fils. L’Ombre du Prince de Bourbon Condé (Louis-Henri-Joseph), à son filleul le duc d’Aumale d’Orléans (Henri Eugène-Philippe-Louis). Révélations, etc. Paris: [Dondey-Dupré for] Mlle Le Normand, 28 February, 1833.
    First edition of the last book by a prolific French clairvoyant — in the form of a decree from the gods of Mount Olympus, this… (more)

    First edition of the last book by a prolific French clairvoyant — in the form of a decree from the gods of Mount Olympus, this is a spirited plea in favour of the Duchesse de Berry then imprisoned for leading a rebellion against Charles X after the July Revolution. Like Le Normand’s other works it is couched in terms of dreams, predictions and angelic interventions. It bears her signature on the back of the half-title as a measure against piracy and the frontispiece shows her taking the Duchesse’s hand in prison, as an angel swoops down to crown her.

    Marie-Anne Le Normand (1772–1843) was a celebrated (or notorious) clairvoyant, publisher, booskeller and self-publicist Famed throughout Europe for her exclusive clientele, she popularised cartomancy and spawned an enormous wave of imitators. At the height of her career she claimed to have advised the likes of Robespierre, Talleyrand, Metternich, the Empress Josephine and Emperor Alexander himself; others argued that the whole thing was a sham, and she was frequently arrested, spending several weeks in prison.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £400.00
  • A Letter from a Citizen of London, to a Member of Parliament, proposing a method for the employment of the vagrant poor in the manufacture of sail cloth. by (VAGRANCY). ‘CITIZEN OF LONDON’ (VAGRANCY). ‘CITIZEN OF LONDON’ ~ A Letter from a Citizen of London, to a Member of Parliament, proposing a method for the employment of the vagrant poor in the manufacture of sail cloth. [London, n.d. 1731?].
    A rare broadside offering a proposal to put the poor (’Beggars, or idle stroling persons’) to work in the making of sail-cloth in a workhouse… (more)

    A rare broadside offering a proposal to put the poor (’Beggars, or idle stroling persons’) to work in the making of sail-cloth in a workhouse ‘to be built, in some convenient Place near the River Thames, within five Miles of London, to be managed by Governors, Gratis, in the Nature of St. Thomas’s’ Hospital.’ Its anonymous author notes ‘That... many Thousands of Men, Women, and Children are daily stroling about these great Cities of London and Westminster, without Employment, and having found, by Begging and Pilfering, an easier Way of Maintenance, than by Working, do initiate and train up their Children therein, as if it was a lawful Trade: Insomuch that they are become insolent, and often disturb People in the Streets and Houses by Day, and render them unsafe by Nights...’

    The item appears in Wing ( L1366A) which suggests 1697 as an unlikely date of publication. It is more likely to date from c. 1731 when an ‘Act for Further Encouraging the Manufacture of British Sail Cloth’ was passed in Parliament — the broadside’s author notes the the Commons have recently considered methods of encouraging the manufacture of sail-cloth. Goldsmiths’-Kress no. 06901.1.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £350.00
  • The Constitutions of the Free-masons. Containing the History, Charges, Regulations, &c. of that most ancient and right worshipful Fraternity. For the Use of the Lodges. by [ANDERSON, James]. [ANDERSON, James]. ~ The Constitutions of the Free-masons. Containing the History, Charges, Regulations, &c. of that most ancient and right worshipful Fraternity. For the Use of the Lodges. London: William Hunter, for John Senex at the Globe, and John Hooke at the Flower-de-Luce over-against St. Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet-Street. In the year of masonry ---- 5723, Anno Domini 1723.
    First edition of the first standard code of the order of Freemasons in England. It was to become the basis of Masonic constitutions on both… (more)

    First edition of the first standard code of the order of Freemasons in England. It was to become the basis of Masonic constitutions on both sides of the Atlantic, being the edition from which Franklin printed the Philadelphia constitutions the following year.

    Anderson, born at Aberdeen, and educated as a Minister of the Church of Scotland moved to London in 1707, where he continued preaching and is reputed to have lost money in an unwise investment in the South Sea Company. ‘He was commissioned to write a history of freemasonry on behalf of the grand lodge of England, which had been founded in London in 1717. A freemason himself, Anderson was grand warden of the lodge when he published the work as The constitutions of the free-masons; containing the history, charges, regulations, &c. of that fraternity (1723). A second edition followed in 1738 that provided a fuller account of the speculative origins and early history of English masonry. Intended primarily as an ‘apologia’ that would give “a relatively new institution an honourable descent”... Anderson’s Constitutions was long accepted as the standard code of the craft and was translated into German in 1741’ (Oxford DNB).

    The printing of the Constitutions was an enterprise which drew together several prominent British Freemasons. Anderson was assisted by Newtonian natural scientist John Theophilus Desaguliers, member of the Royal Society, named in the approbation here as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge. Publisher John Senex also reveals himself as a mason, while the fine frontispiece is by John Pine. It was this image which elevated Pine to the status of principal engraver to the Grand Lodge and he subsequently executed many works on their behalf. The final section contains masonic songs (with music) including ‘The Enter’d Prentices Song’ in six verses. Vibert, The Rare Books of Freemasonry, II, (1).

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £20,000.00
  • [Omnium gentium mores, in French]. Recueil de diverses histoires touchant les situations de toutes regio[n]s et pays contenuz es trois parties du monde, avec les particulieres mœurs, loix, & ceremonies de toutes nations & peuples y habitans. Novelleme[n]t traduict de Latin en Francoys. by [BOEMUS, Johannes]. [BOEMUS, Johannes]. ~ [Omnium gentium mores, in French]. Recueil de diverses histoires touchant les situations de toutes regio[n]s et pays contenuz es trois parties du monde, avec les particulieres mœurs, loix, & ceremonies de toutes nations & peuples y habitans. Novelleme[n]t traduict de Latin en Francoys. Paris: Jean Ruelle, 1545.
    First published in Latin in 1520, this is considered the first ethnographic compendium of the Early Modern period in Europe, a collection of the manners… (more)

    First published in Latin in 1520, this is considered the first ethnographic compendium of the Early Modern period in Europe, a collection of the manners and customs of all mankind, as it was then known to most Europeans. It considers Africa, Asia and Europe. It first appeared in French in 1540. Its first appearance in English was as William Waterman’s The Fardle of Facions in 1555 and it was printed in forty-seven editions between 1535 and 1620. British Library and Bibliothèque nationale only in WorldCat. Atkinson, La Littérature géographique fraņçaise de la Renaissance: répertoire bibliographique (Paris, 1927), n° 73.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £2,000.00
  • [ALBUM. by (?PARKER, Mary, Lady Leighton, compiler). (?PARKER, Mary, Lady Leighton, compiler). ~ [ALBUM. England, c. 1830s with some earlier inclusions].
    A large and full album containing accomplished watercolours and a selection of contemporary prints.
    The original drawings and watercolours here (together with the more significant… (more)

    A large and full album containing accomplished watercolours and a selection of contemporary prints.
    The original drawings and watercolours here (together with the more significant prints) display a distinctly romantic sensibility, with mountain and lakeland scenes (and more than a hint of the cult of the sublime) and other rural subjects of cottages and cottagers. Some of the views are obviously of Britain, while others are continental (specifically alpine). The majority are unsigned, though a number are by the same very accomplished amateur hand, with others by less schooled, perhaps juvenile hands. The whole assemblage is typical of the culture of early Victorian album- and scrapbook keeping, where a female compiler (often a mother) brought together contributions from family, friends and visitors, sometimes recording their travels, but including also subjects painted at home or copied or adapted from other sources. In the latter category are found a fine series of flower paintings, together with drawings in pencil and crayon of animals, a female reader, a cottager with a bundle of firewood, and so on. The principal artist, who contributes the largest and best watercolour views may well be identifiable as Mary Leighton, née Parker (1799-1864), a northern British artist whose work is represented in a sequence of albums closely comparable to ours at the Yale Center for British Art (MSS 16). Not only is the range of materials of our album similar in each case (including watercolour contributions from Leighton’s brother, John Parker) but the style of the best watercolours is close to those by Leighton (examples of here work are digitised by the YCBA, notably the watercolour of Lake Maggiore catalogued as B2009.9.68 in the Printed and Drawings collection, together with others in the V&A collection in London). A recent northern provenance for the album further supports that likelihood.
    The contents include:
    Six fine watercolours of rural scenes (one mountainous, another captioned ‘Cottage. From nature’), several other sepia watercolour views, probably by the same hand. All unsigned.
    Pencil drawing, Warwick Castle, signed ?C.W.W. May 29th, 1821.
    Twelve watercolours of flowers and fruit (including sweet peas, auricula, a rose, geranium, fuchsia and two mixed bouquets). Unsigned.
    Silhouette portrait (perhaps a self portrait) of the prolific society silhouettist Auguste Édouart (1789-1861), signed, 1831, mounted on an elaborate lithograph background, plus one other silhouette without background, possibly also his work.
    Two watercolour miniatures (85 × 115 mm) by John Parker (1798-1860) of mountain views in North Wales: Trevaen (Tryfan) and Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), signed, dated 1824 and with manuscript descriptions on versos.
    A circular miniature (diameter 85 mm) in sepia wash of a woodland grotto scene, mounted on a bifolium with manuscript caption in German dated 1818 signed Rösel, the miniature attributable to Johann Gottlob Samuel Rösel (1768-1843).
    Four large alpine engravings/lithographs (Montblanc, Hospice de Grimsel, Hospice du St Bernard, Chamounix), elaborately hand-coloured.
    Numerous usually smaller pencil or crayon drawings, including rural or cottage scenes, animals (a pig and a donkey), marine scenes, children at play, a girl reading etc. In several hands of different competence.
    Larger prints include: ‘The Late King’ (Hullmandel, after 1830); ‘Oaklands near Newnham, Gloucestershire’ (Haghe, ?c. 1830s); ‘Rev. Richard Raikes’ [founder of the Sunday School movement] (Hullmandel, n.d.); ‘The Thames Tunnel’ [Harding/Dixie, hand-coloured lithograph, c. 1835]; ‘L’Ingrat’ (Hullmandel, after 1832); ‘Kossynier : Sensenträger’ (Warsaw, c. 1830); ‘Ilfracombe, from Lantern Hill’ (Day & Haghe, c. 1830). There also several smaller lithographs including series of seaside views in Devon (Ilfracombe) and East Kent (Ramsgate and evirons, some locally printed.
    Four small continental devotional prints, two with moveable flaps, one metallic.
    (From the YCBA catalogue record): Mary Leighton, née Parker, 1799-1864 was the third child of Thomas Netherton Parker (1771-1848) and his wife, Sarah. Her parents must have encouraged their children's creative pursuits, as Mary and her elder brother John both became accomplished amateur artists. Their family was close friends of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Barker (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1832), two upper-class Irish women who fled their families and established a home together in North Wales, at Plas Newydd, only fifteen miles from the Parker family estate, Sweeney Hall. Correspondence between Sarah Parker and Sarah Ponsonby, currently in the Denbighshire Record Office archives, reveals that Mary occasionally sent the ladies her drawings, many of which record the grounds of Plas Newydd and the surrounding countryside. The subjects of Mary's drawings also include prominent Grand Tour sites, satirical treatments of contemporary fashions, and thoughtful portraits of friends and family. Notably, the only portrait from life of the Ladies of Llangollen is by Mary's hand. Mary remained an active amateur artist following her 1832 marriage to Baldwin Leighton, 7th Baronet (1805-1871), of Loton Hall. Together they had six children, who Mary actively encouraged in drawing and painting. 

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £2,500.00
  • Le Livre de Marco Polo gentilhomme venitien 1271-1295. by LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. ~ Le Livre de Marco Polo gentilhomme venitien 1271-1295. [Paris: Taneur and Darantière for] Les Cent Une, 1932.
    Copy number 5 of 111 copies only printed for Les Cent Une, Société de femmes bibliophiles, with two original pencil drawings and a suite of… (more)

    Copy number 5 of 111 copies only printed for Les Cent Une, Société de femmes bibliophiles, with two original pencil drawings and a suite of proof plates. All copies were printed on paper watermarked ‘Les Cent Une’ and this is a tirage de tête copy printed for member, Celeste Pigasse. The text is after the 1556 French edition by André Jaulme (complete with authentic contractions) while the superb visual interpretations by Mariette Lydis include two of her characteristic decorated maps (both are signed). This is one of the early publications for the women’s book collecting club founded in Paris by the Princesse Schakhowskoy in 1926 as a direct riposte to ‘Les Cent’ — a bibliophile circle which then included no women among its members. Les Cent Une issued editions limited to the 101 members only and a handful of collaborators, usually no more than once a year, and the club is still in existence. Celeste Pigasse (née Crouzat) was a founder member and served as the club’s general secretary in its formative years (her husband founded the publishing house Librairie des Champs-Élysées ‘LCE’ whose Le Masque imprint published popular crime and detective fiction, including the French editions of Agatha Christie). Carteret IV, 322.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £6,500.00
  • Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations... deuxième édition, revue et considérablement corrigée. by SMITH, Adam. Jean-Antoine ROUCHER, translator. SMITH, Adam. Jean-Antoine ROUCHER, translator. ~ Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations... deuxième édition, revue et considérablement corrigée. Paris: Buisson... An 3e [ 1795].
    Smith’s Wealth of Nations had first appeared in French in 1778-9 in an anonymous translation, followed a second by Jean-Louis Blavet in 1781. Roucher’s translation… (more)

    Smith’s Wealth of Nations had first appeared in French in 1778-9 in an anonymous translation, followed a second by Jean-Louis Blavet in 1781. Roucher’s translation first appeared in four volumes in 1790-1. Jean-Antoine Roucher (1745–94) was a poet from Montpellier, friend and admirer of J.-J. Rousseau. He welcomed the Revolution, but was arrested in the Terror and went to the guillotine. Rochedieu 304; Goldsmiths 14106; Kress B, 1986. K. E. Carpenter, The Dissemination of The Wealth of Nations in French and in France, New York, 2002, pp. 85-87.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £800.00
  • La découverte de l’Amérique par Christophe Colomb. Découverte de l’île de Guanahani (San. Salvador). Planche Nº. 3. by (JIGSAW). (JIGSAW). ~ La découverte de l’Amérique par Christophe Colomb. Découverte de l’île de Guanahani (San. Salvador). Planche Nº. 3. Épinal: Ch[arles Pinot], [c. 1872].
    A popular Épinal print by the first established in 1860 as Pinot & Sagaire, later (1872) just ‘Pinot’. Founded by François Charles Pinot (1817-1874), who… (more)

    A popular Épinal print by the first established in 1860 as Pinot & Sagaire, later (1872) just ‘Pinot’. Founded by François Charles Pinot (1817-1874), who had joined the Pellerin firm in 1847 and left in 1860 to found the rival firm, the Imagerie Pinot & Sagaire, or Nouvelle Imagerie d’Epinal.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £200.00
  • Ourika... troisième édition. by [DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de]. [DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de]. ~ Ourika... troisième édition. Paris: [J. Tastu for] Ladvocat, 1824.
    First edition to contain the engraved frontispiece and title. Marked ‘troisième édition’ on the title-page, this edition, is actually the fourth — following the edition… (more)

    First edition to contain the engraved frontispiece and title. Marked ‘troisième édition’ on the title-page, this edition, is actually the fourth — following the edition printed privately (in just 25-40 copies) in 1823 and the first two trade editions of 1824. The illustrated edition is considerably rarer (at least in commerce) than the preceding two trade editions (and the true first virtually unobtainable). The plate shows Ourika at the moment of realisation of her isolation and her fate in white European society. Ourika, based on fact, and influenced by Rousseau and Chateaubriand, is the complex story of a black African child, bought (some said rescued) from the slave trade and raised in aristocratic circles in Revolutionary France. It is the first fully developed attempt to portray a black heroine in Europe and the first French novel with a black female narrator. It proved controversial from the start and remains so. On the one hand it has been interpreted as a compassionate account of both racial and female alienation (Duras certainly projects her own experience onto that of her heroine) while on the other it has been described as a sustained act of appropriation and even as an apology for slavery. Whatever is the case, it caused a sensation with the first trade edition of 1824 becoming a bestseller and later editions very widely read in France and further afield (with early translations into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Danish).

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £450.00
  • The New Royal Battledore. by (BATTLEDORE). (BATTLEDORE). ~ The New Royal Battledore. Kettering: Joseph Toller, [c. 1840].
    A Battledore was made to be given to children as a primer in the alphabet and basic words and pronunciation — a cheaper and more… (more)

    A Battledore was made to be given to children as a primer in the alphabet and basic words and pronunciation — a cheaper and more ephemeral version of the hornbook. They rarely survive in god condition, as here. Several versions of Toller’s Kettering ‘New Royal Battledore’ are known, with different illustrations. These are of a young girl spinning beside a cottage, a marine guardian angel with cupid on a raft, Old Mother Hubbard and her cat and a zebra. The wallet style sheet is stiffened with a sandwiched sheet of printer’s waste, in this case partially visible and advertising books published by Tilt in various bindings, and works including Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby. Tuer 409.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £200.00
  • Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales. By the most eminent British Artists. With a Description of each Seat. by HARRISON, publisher. HARRISON, publisher. ~ Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales. By the most eminent British Artists. With a Description of each Seat. London: Harrison & Co. No 18, Paternoster Row, [1786-1788].
    First edition of this serially issued country house book with fine engraved plates by Birrell, Walker, Ellis, Fittler, Heath, among others, after E.F. Burney, Corbould,… (more)

    First edition of this serially issued country house book with fine engraved plates by Birrell, Walker, Ellis, Fittler, Heath, among others, after E.F. Burney, Corbould, Dayes, Robert Nixon and others. The engraved title includes a fine vignette of Harrison’s book and print shop in Paternoster Row. It was issued monthly, with four plates per issue at 3 shillings, and printed on ‘real Superfine French Colombier Paper’ (advert in London Gazette, 10-14 October, 1786).
    The houses illustrated and described range from the most opulent (including Blenheim palace) to more humble gentry houses. Included are Garrick’s Hampton House, Piozzi’s Thrale Place, William Pitt’s Holwood House, Lady Diana Beauclerk’s Twickenham Meadows, Charles Dashwood’s West Wycombe Park and Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill. The engravings are valuable records of both architectural, landscape and garden details and were widely imitated, not least on contemporary ceramics, while the descriptions contain useful details of architects, garden designs, landscape features such as rivers and lakes, and fine art collections — they are not always entirely complimentary. Upcott p. xxxiv. For Harrison’s bookshop see Raven, ‘Location, Size and Succession: The Book shops of Paternoster Row before 1800’ in The London Book Trade, eds. Myers, Robin; Harris, Michael & Mandelbrote, Giles (London, 2003), pp 89-126.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £750.00
  • Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes... by ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. ~ Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes... Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey, 1755.
    First edition, first issue with all the first issue points called for by Dufour: the erroneous spelling of the author as ‘Jaques’, the accent to… (more)

    First edition, first issue with all the first issue points called for by Dufour: the erroneous spelling of the author as ‘Jaques’, the accent to ‘conformé’ added in manuscript the publisher on p. 11, the three cancels (pp. LXVII-LXVIII, 111-112, and 139-140) and the final leaf with instructions to the binder for placing the cancels.

    The Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, also commonly known as the ‘Second Discourse’ examined social inequality and its origins and was Rousseau’s entry in a competition by the Academy of Dijon. Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man’s natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice in fact do nothing but perpetuate them. Rousseau’s political and social arguments in the Discourse were a hugely influential denunciation of the social conditions of his time and one of the most revolutionary documents of the eighteenth-century.

    The inscription ‘F.H. Bothe’ is possibly that of Friedrich Heinrich Bothe (1771-1855), German poet, translator and classical philologist. Tchemerzine, X, 32; Dufour-Plan 55-56.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £1,500.00
  • Insignia Archiepiscoporum Cantuariensium cum Etimologia Cognominum, Scutorumque descriptione - latine at anglice exposita - a Conquestu ad praesens tempus, fidelitur deducta. Orig[ina]le extat in Biblioth[eca] Lambethiana 1805. by (ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY). (ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY). ~ Insignia Archiepiscoporum Cantuariensium cum Etimologia Cognominum, Scutorumque descriptione - latine at anglice exposita - a Conquestu ad praesens tempus, fidelitur deducta. Orig[ina]le extat in Biblioth[eca] Lambethiana 1805. [England, 1806 or soon after].
    An antiquary’s heraldic manuscript of the arms of the archbishops of Canterbury from Lanfranc (d. 1089) to Charles Manner-Sutton (installed 1805) copied from a manuscript… (more)

    An antiquary’s heraldic manuscript of the arms of the archbishops of Canterbury from Lanfranc (d. 1089) to Charles Manner-Sutton (installed 1805) copied from a manuscript made for John Whitgift (archbishop 1583-1604) still in the library of Lambeth Palace (MS 555). Much of the heraldry relating to the archbishops of Canterbury is displayed in the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth in London, near to Lambeth Palace the London seat of the archbishops. The manuscript records the arms, together with some etymological explanations of names, and opens with the arms of the See of Canterbury. Included are the arms of Thomas Becket, Stephen Langton, Simon Sudbury, Thomas Cranmer, Reginald Pole, Matthew Parker, John Whitgift, Richard Bancroft and William Laud. It was in the collections of Sir Charles George Young (1795–1869), officer of arms who served in the heraldic office of Garter King of Arms, the senior member of the College of Arms in England, from 1842 until his death in 1869.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £850.00
  • The Last Records of a Cotswold Community: being the Weston Subedge Field Account Book for the final twenty-six years of the famous Cotswold Games, hitherto unpublished, and now edited with a Study on the old time Sports of Campden and the Village Community of Weston. by ASHBEE, C. R. ASHBEE, C. R. ~ The Last Records of a Cotswold Community: being the Weston Subedge Field Account Book for the final twenty-six years of the famous Cotswold Games, hitherto unpublished, and now edited with a Study on the old time Sports of Campden and the Village Community of Weston. [Chipping Campden] Essex House Press, 1904.
    Inscribed by the editor to an early Labour party activist, Walter Coates of Berkshire. One of 75 copies on Essex House paper (there were also… (more)

    Inscribed by the editor to an early Labour party activist, Walter Coates of Berkshire. One of 75 copies on Essex House paper (there were also 150 copies on ordinary paper) this copy unnumbered. Printed in Endeavour type, illustrations by Edmund H. New. Preface by Sidney Webb. The Cotswold Olimpick Games originated in 1612 in Chipping Campden, England, and continues today. Originally, the Games included competitions such as running, jumping, dancing, and equestrian events, along with traditional contests such as sword, quarterstaff, and sledgehammer throwing. It was of interest to both Webb and Ashbee as evidence of the early communal activities of pre-industrial societies, and worthy of encouraging and reviving as part of the incipient labour movement. Tomkinson 50.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £800.00
  • Oeuvres mélées... [Critique-Essais - Notes de voyages - Pensées; Philosophie - Critique - Mémoires - Notes biographiques et bibliographiques] by CROZET, Laurent de. CROZET, Laurent de. ~ Oeuvres mélées... [Critique-Essais - Notes de voyages - Pensées; Philosophie - Critique - Mémoires - Notes biographiques et bibliographiques] [Marseille, 1883].
    A superbly executed manuscript miscellany of short works by the eccentric antiquary and bibliophile Laurent de Crozet (1809-1872). The volume was edited posthumously by his… (more)

    A superbly executed manuscript miscellany of short works by the eccentric antiquary and bibliophile Laurent de Crozet (1809-1872). The volume was edited posthumously by his son Amédée de Crozet (1847-1896) and is in the hand of a master scribe, Alphonse Pelletier of Marseille. The choice of contrasting quires of coloured papers aptly reflects some of the author’s curious bibliophilic practices. A prolific author of pamphlets and articles, it was said that he preferred to have each work printed in small editions by different printers, sometimes even ordering different gatherings from different printers. His aim was to make collecting his works as challenging as possible, so that only he and one other ever achieved a complete collection. Notably modest, de Crozet also published anonymously and adopted pseudonyms (such as the ‘Chevalier Apicius à Vindemiis’), a characteristic alluded to in the the author’s portrait (’Auctoris vera effigies’ which mentions a limitation of 50 copies) depicting a man sitting on an immense barrel, his pockets stuffed with pipes and bottles and his head in a book, so that his face is entirely obscured). De Crozet was a major collector of earlier French books (Perrier, Bibliophiles et les collectionneurs provencaux, 1897).

    The contents comprise: Volume I: Du Coeur de l’homme selon la Philosophie ancienne; Reflexions; Notes de voyage (Hôtels, Registres des Etrangers; Enseignes; Voyageurs en Suisse, L’Amateur); Sur Cicéron; Lucrèce Borgia; Les Fiancés par Manzoni; Messe en Fa de Chérubin; Cicéron et Lord Byron; De la Décentralisation littéraire; Pensées; Histoire de l’Angleterre par Hume; Considérations sure les premiers siècle de notre histoire; Sur la foi. Volume II: De la Recherche des plaisirs’ De la Connaissance de Dieu; De l’Esclavage en Turquie; Memoires d’un Président de Conférences; Réponse de Mr. Casimir Bousquet; Notes sur Haitze’ Rapport; Notes bibliographiqes.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £2,500.00
  • Extraits de Tacite, et Remarques sur plusieurs passages du texte. by FONTANES, Louis Jean-Pierre, marquis de (owner). ANQUETIL, N. S. FONTANES, Louis Jean-Pierre, marquis de (owner). ANQUETIL, N. S. ~ Extraits de Tacite, et Remarques sur plusieurs passages du texte. Paris: Charles Barrois; Testu et C[ompagni]e, 1810.
    First edition. The verso of the front free endpaper has an early manuscript note: ‘Taken out of the Empress Josephine’s Library at Malmaison, when the… (more)

    First edition. The verso of the front free endpaper has an early manuscript note: ‘Taken out of the Empress Josephine’s Library at Malmaison, when the Allied armies entered Paris in 1815’. The half-title bears another early inscription in pencil: ‘Dear Edward, you will find me at No. 2 Rue Trudon near Rue Camartin, if you arrive early come and see me, if I am not on duty, I shall call here about three o’clock. Yours Wyndham’.

    Whether the book was ever in the library at Malmaison is debateable: the arms are of Louis Jean-Pierre, marquis de Fontanes (1757-1821) as a comte senateur de l’empire. Man of letters Fontanes had fled France at the Revolution (as a supporter of a reformed monarchy) and was associated with Chateaubriand. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Napoleon, who commissioned him to write an éloge on George Washington in 1800. He became professeur de belles-lettres at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, and a member of the Institut de France. Thereafter he gathered honours and became a major part of the Imperial educational reforms. He was named comte de l’Empire in 1808. After Napoleon’s fall he resumed his Royalist stance and was names Louis XVIII’s ministre de l’instruction publique. He is buried in Père Lachaise.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £950.00
  • De studio militari, libri quatuor. Iohan. de Bado Aureo, Tractatus de armis. Henrici Spelmanni Aspilogia. Edoardus Bissæus. E codicibus mss. primus publici juris fecit, notisque illustravit. by UPTON, Nicholas. UPTON, Nicholas. ~ De studio militari, libri quatuor. Iohan. de Bado Aureo, Tractatus de armis. Henrici Spelmanni Aspilogia. Edoardus Bissæus. E codicibus mss. primus publici juris fecit, notisque illustravit. London: Roger Norton, for John MartinJames Allestrye & Jacobi Allestrye sub signo Campanæ in Coemiterio D. Pauli, 1654.
    First edition. Nicolas Upton’s De Studio militari was first written in 1447 and circulated in manuscript. ‘It is a treatise, in four parts, on heraldry… (more)

    First edition. Nicolas Upton’s De Studio militari was first written in 1447 and circulated in manuscript. ‘It is a treatise, in four parts, on heraldry and the arts of war, drawing heavily on a tradition of heraldic and legal writing, but also reflecting contemporary concerns. The first book elaborates a view of nobility and knighthood that recognizes the importance of virtue, but which also attaches importance (as Bartolo da Sassoferrato had done) to princely authority in the granting of arms. Upton voices the topos of the decline of chivalry, as well as contemporary aristocratic concern that too many low-born men were acquiring arms in wartime. The second book discusses various types and laws of war (using Giovanni da Legnano's Tractatus de bello), a theme carried over into the fourth book with treatment of Henry V's campaign statutes. For the third book, on the colours of heraldry, Upton relies, though not slavishly, on the treatise of Johannes de Bado Aureo (possibly Bishop John Trevor of St Asaph's). The fourth draws also on French treatises and especially on encyclopaedias (such as Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum) for the meaning of heraldic signs (animals, birds, fish, flowers, and ordinaries); but the extended list, in 195 sections, also reflects a growing demand for (and disputes over) coats of arms’ (Oxford DNB).

    It is followed in this first printed edition by jurist Henry Spelman’s Aspilogia, a Latin treatise on coats of armour, which, although probably written before 1595 had not previously appeared in print. It opens with a fine portrait of Spelman by Faithorne.

    Magistri Johannis de Bado Aureo Tractatus de armis (Wing J744) and Henrici Spelmanni equitis Auati aspilogia (Wing S4919) each have separate dated title page, with imprint ‘typis R. Norton’, pagination and register.
    In Nicholaum Uptonum Notæ (caption title) has separate pagination but the register is continuous from Auati aspilogia. The illustrations are signed by W. Hollar and Ro. Vaughan. The two double page engraved plates by Lombart are on paper with clear and visible foolscap watermarks. Wing (CD-Rom, 1996), U124
    Wing (CD-Rom, 1996), J744
    Wing (CD-Rom, 1996), S4919

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £950.00
  • The Ullage Cask Gauger, comprised in a Series of Tables, calculated with the utmost Accuracy and Perspicuity. Whereby the Ullage Contents of any Cask, from five to one hundred and sixty Gallons (inclusive) is at one View exactly and expeditiously known: and likewise the Ullage Contents of all other Casks, however large. As also the Foot or Sediment in Oil Casks, are alike correctly ascertained. Compiled after the most approved Method made use of by the Excise. By James Boydell, late Wine Merchant. by BOYDELL, James. BOYDELL, James. ~ The Ullage Cask Gauger, comprised in a Series of Tables, calculated with the utmost Accuracy and Perspicuity. Whereby the Ullage Contents of any Cask, from five to one hundred and sixty Gallons (inclusive) is at one View exactly and expeditiously known: and likewise the Ullage Contents of all other Casks, however large. As also the Foot or Sediment in Oil Casks, are alike correctly ascertained. Compiled after the most approved Method made use of by the Excise. By James Boydell, late Wine Merchant. London: Printed by R. and H. Causton, Finch-Lane, for the Author, and sold by him at No. 2, Cooper’s-Row, Crutched-Friars, and by all Booksellers in Town and Country, 1784.
    First edition. Boydell’s tables allowed dealers in beer, wine and spirits to accurately assess the true contents of part-used casks through measurement of ullage (the… (more)

    First edition. Boydell’s tables allowed dealers in beer, wine and spirits to accurately assess the true contents of part-used casks through measurement of ullage (the empty portion of any barrel) — an essential calculation in tax and excise assessments. Several new editions were advertised in the nineteenth-century but all editions are rare.
    The author was probably the same Boydell who described himself as ‘ships-husband’ on the title of his The Merchant Freighter’s and Captains of Ships Assistant - Being Tables Calculated with the Greatest Accuracy (‘London: printed for the author... and to be had at Lloyd's, the New York, the New England, the Jamaica, and the Pensylvania coffee-houses; and of any bookseller in Great Britain, 1764). ESTC: Leeds, NLS, Glasgow, St Andrews, U Kentucky, UVA, Saint Olaf (MN) and State Library of Tasmania.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £1,200.00
  • Henry Walter Livingston. by [SAINT-MÉMIN, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de. [SAINT-MÉMIN, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de. ~ Henry Walter Livingston. 1804 or 5].
    A rare physionotrace portrait of Henry Walter Livingston (June 12, 1768 – December 22, 1810) a United States Representative from the state of New York.… (more)

    A rare physionotrace portrait of Henry Walter Livingston (June 12, 1768 – December 22, 1810) a United States Representative from the state of New York. He graduated from Yale College in 1786 where he studied law and was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in New York City. He was private secretary to Gouverneur Morris, American Minister Plenipotentiary to Paris, France, 1792-1794; judge of the court of common pleas of Columbia County, N.Y.; member of the State assembly in 1802 and again in 1810; elected as a Federalist to the Eighth and Ninth Congresses (March 4, 1803-March 3, 1807). He died at his home in Livingston, New York on December 22, 1810 and is interred with his wife in a vault there.

    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). The process was introduced to America by Charles Saint-Mémin.

    The miniaturist Saint-Mémin (1770-1852) had emigrated from France in 1793 to Switzerland, where he practised 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.

    (see full details)
    View basket More details Price: £1,200.00