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

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

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

An eighteenth-century account book of the guild of hatmakers in the city of Antwerp, covering nearly 70 years. The Antwerp hatmakers were an important craft organization with a well-regulated structure. Their accounts were overseen by aldermen, each serving for several years, who recorded income (usually in the the form of entry fines for new members) and expenditure (usually payment for the guilds officials). One of the major expenditures was the payment of the ‘proefmeesters’ who exercised quality control by examining the products of prospective entrants before admitting them to membership.

The accounts provide a detailed record of the names of entrants to the guild and of guild officials. They also provide much incidental detail of the position of the craft within the regional economy, with frequent expenditures recording contact with the neighbouring towns of Brussels, Mechelen and Bruges.

A collection of finely-executed plates illustrating the vogue for neo-Classical dress, with figures and groups placed within appropriate drawing-room and dinner-table settings. Moses was a sought-after engraver who worked for James Barrie, William Opie and Benjamin West, among others. His lightly-draped figures rendered with a sparse line have clear echoes of Flaxman. The collection was also issued under the imprint of at least two other London publishers (M’Lean and Miller).

First edition of a bestselling epistolary novel. It purports to be a collection of letters by the famous courtesan, Anne ‘Ninon’ de Lenclos (1620-1705, friend of Boileau, La Fontaine, Racine and Molière) to Madame de Sevigné. Voltaire (and others) wrongly assumed the author to be Crébillon fils. It was frequently reprinted and translated into several European languages (including the English translation by Elizabeth Griffith, who assumed them to be genuine). Cioranescu 22167; Gay II, 828.

Compiled in the town of Popovo in the wine-growing region of North Eastern Bulgaria, this souvenir album was compiled by a federation of three local temperance societies and given to one ‘Monsieur Dr. P. Legrain’. Most of the photographic postcards depict society outings, with large groups of men, women and children usually in outdoor settings in all seasons (including what appear to be very harsh winters). Several of the photographs were taken at harvest time, with copious bunches of grapes in evidence. The context of the presentation is not immediately obvious, though may be apparent in the three long inscriptions in Bulgarian accompanied by the purple inkstamps of each of the societies.

An attractive juvenile broadside, illustrating players of 16 different instruments, including guitar, flute harp, keyboard, trumpet, hurdy-gurdy and percussion.

First edition of this contemporary report of the sensational arrest, interrogation and trial of ‘trois Anglais’ (actually an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman) accused of abetting the escape of the Comte de Lavalette on the eve of his execution by the restored Bourbon regime. Lavalette had been one of Napoleon’s inner circle, but had refused exile on the restoration of the monarchy and was sentenced to death. ‘On 10 January 1816 Wilson was instrumental, in conjunction with Michael Bruce and Captain John Hely-Hutchinson (later third earl of Donoughmore), in the escape from Paris of Count Lavallette, who, condemned to death, had escaped from prison by putting on his wife’s clothes. Wilson passed the barriers in a cabriolet with Lavallette disguised as a British officer and conveyed him safely to Mons. He sent a narrative of the adventure to Earl Grey (reprinted in the Gentlemans Magazine in 1816), which was intercepted. He was arrested in Paris on 13 January. The three Englishmen were tried in Paris on 2 April and sentenced on the 24th to three months’ imprisonment’ (R. H. Vetch in Oxford DNB).

First edition of these edited extracts from the Florentine chronicler Villani, with lives of Boccaccio, Bardi, Giotto, Paulus Geometrus (the mathematician and tutor to Boccaccio) and Cavalcanti, among others. There are several accounts of Italian medical practitioners, including Taddeo, Torrigiano and Dino and Tommaso del Garbo. The Villani family were the leading contemporary chroniclers of fourteenth-century Florence and Filippo was responsible for extending the chronicles of his father and uncle, adding famous portraits of his contemporaries. Towards the end of his life he was appointed public reader of the Divine Comedy and he died in 1404. His chronicle remained in manuscript before being published by the Brescian historian Mazzuchelli in 1747 in this version which was several times reprinted.

An apparently unrecorded issue of this anonymous anti-freemasonry sermon, probably a piracy of the incendiary pamphlet printed in the same year as Masonry the Way to Hell. The Sermon provoked a response from John Thompson, freemason, entitled Remarks on a sermon lately published; entitled, Masonry the way to hell. Being a defence of that antient and honourable order, against the Jesuitical sophistry and false calumny of the author.
The sermon takes as its text Revelation XVII, 5 ‘And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth’ and gives a detailed consideration of the supposed ceremonies of the masons. Four other editions/issues dated 1768 under the slightly different titles with different paginations, but all four are recorded by ESTC in single copies only.
Not found in ESTC or Worldcat.

First edition, engraved throughout and printed for the author, an invaluable guide to the stratigraphy of Georgian society, which includes a section on the ‘Precedency of Women’. Joseph Edmondson was an artist of humble origins who had begun his career as a coach-painter, and became coach-painter to Queen Charlotte in 1763. ‘On 21 January 1764, thanks to the support of the new deputy earl marshal, Lord Suffolk, Edmondson was created Mowbray herald of arms extraordinary, although he continued his successful coach-painting business until his death.’ (Oxford DNB). Precedency gives tables of precedency of British men and women and provides a list of ‘collar days’ on which those entitled may wear their official “collars” indicating precedency. The book was reprinted in a second edition c. 1785.

First edition, author’s presentation copy inscribed, in the year of Jacob’s death to William LeGrand (probably his brother-in-law). Jacob’s is the best of all the early Faversham histories. Born in Canterbury, Jacob settled in Faversham (living at 78 Preston Street) and practised as a surgeon. He was four times mayor of Faversham. Bibliotheca Cantiana 198-9.

First edition, rare. A French-language guide to the culture and rules of bull-fighting, published in the Basque city of San Sebastián (long before it was immortalised as the centre of bull fighting by Hemingway). The book is undated, but Worldcat lists other works printed by Aréas in the period 1885-1896. At least four editions followed, all undated.

First published in 1761 and also published in English in 1762. “Politique et social. Réflexions sur l’intolérance, qui est parfois nécessaire (mais dommages causés par l’émigration des protestants); les impôts, qui sont moins lourds que mal répartis; la néfaste célibat des prêtres; la nécessité des lois somptuaires, bien que ‘le luxe qui perd un petit état en enrichit un grand’; le duel, qui peut mener à la destruction de l’espèce humaine; l’exemption d’impôts des pères de famille qui favoriserait la population...” (INED).

Smith’s popular historical romance set at Glastonbury in the time of Henry VIII and the Reformation. This edition was printed for Galignani’s popular foreign language bookshop in Paris in the year following the first English edition. It was also published in French in 1827. Though printed in Paris, this copy seems to have soon found a German home: the handsome contemporary binding uses German marbled paper and beneath the pastedowns are visible sheets of printer’s waste bearing bold black-letter text. COPAC gives BL only for this edition.

A rare Revolutionary pamphlet, probably addressed to a Dutch audience, first published the year before, and in this second edition, provided with a new preface in light of the ‘happy events’ of the Revolution which ‘obligent le zèle et la bonne foi de l’auteur... de donner ici, comme dans un postscrit, ou supplément, les corrections et additions que la justice et le changement des circonstances rendent nécessaires’ (p. iii). The pagination in both editions, however, is identical.

The author analyses the effects of a revolution in France by looking at the changes it would make under three headings – ‘La Justice, l’utilité, la facilité’; gives a spirited criticism of the Ancien régime and joyously lauds the actions of his revolutionary comrades.

The ‘Londres’ imprint is probably false, even though the book may well have been sold by Richardson. The typography suggest and origin in the Netherlands (the recent origin of this copy). Both editions are rare. ESTC locates 4 copies of the first (Christ Church Oxford, John Rylands, Huntington, Colorado), but only one of the second (British Library). The CCFr lists a single copy of the first edition only (Bn) and none of the second.

A collection of 12 scarce treaties between Britain and her allies following the French declaration of war in 1793 and one further treaty negotiated with Bavaria in 1800. The backbone of the British war policy, these 1793 agreements were designed to create an allied coalition against the French, of which the axis would be Britain and the German powers, with further support from subsidiary powers in the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic. However, the speed and efficiency with which these agreements were signed belies the complex and conflicting aims of each nation and the subsequent rapid disintegration of the policy.

Britain's initial admiration for the evolving Revolution in France quickly changed to alarm with the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, followed by the French declarations of war on Britain and the Dutch Republic on February 1 and Spain on March 7. French war-mongering had already led to the annexation of Savoy, Belgium and the Rhineland in 1792 and French ambitions were spelt out by Danton in the National Convention: "The frontiers of France have been mapped by nature, and we shall reach them at the four corners of the horizon, on the banks of the Rhine, by the side of the ocean and at the Alps. It is there that we shall reach the limits of our Republic."

Notably, the first two agreements were conventions signed with Russia, one uniting the two countries as allies against the aggressions of France and securing Russia's cooperation in the naval war, the other being a trade agreement, which finally settled a longstanding commercial dispute between Britain and Russia. Signed on the same day in March 1793, a contemporary commentator wryly noted that it seemed the two powers were competing as to "who shall be most fond and shall kiss the first". However, despite the apparent goodwill on both sides, the conventions never led to full and binding treaties.

Similarly, the terms of the convention signed with Prussia unravelled almost as soon as the ink was dry and within two months Frederick William II was demanding significant additional terms. Lord Grenville, Britain's Foreign Secretary, took a dim view of such demands and having first shored up his own position by negotiating a separate agreement with Austria, he initially refused to comply with Prussian requests. However, under pressure from Pitt and Dundas, Grenville was forced to negotiate further with the Prussians, with the result that the Austrians were in turn estranged.

Like Russia, the Spanish had their own motives for joining the war and despite the successful signing of the convention of Aranjuez, which committed both parties to explore the prospects of an alliance, a further agreement was never reached. Alliances with Portugal, Sardinia and Sicily proved equally problematic in the following months. The four earliest agreements were also published as a collection in London by J. Debrett in 1793. The identical title pages of the first two Russian treaties make it impossible to identify which edition is held at each of the 5 libraries listed on ESTC. The final treaty, published by A. Strahan, is particularly scarce, with only one copy recorded on ESTC (Cambridge).

First German edition of Charnock’s biography of Nelson. First published in English in 1806, the work is notable for Charnock's use of Nelson's original letters and first-hand accounts of his life. The engraved plates appear to have been specifically prepared for this rare German edition, of which there appear to be no institutional copies in the UK or US. COPAC/OCLC list no copies in British Libraries (and none outside continental Europe).

First edition of Marin’s accomplished Middle Eastern history, a work which was widely-read and influential in the emerging orientalism in French culture. This was Marin’s first truly succesful work and provided him with a literary reputation strong enough for him to be appointed Royal censor. The title was also published in the same year in the Hague by N. van Daalen. The maps depict Jerusalem, the crusader city of Acre (taken by Saladin in 1187) and the region of Acre. Atabey 768.

First published 1903.

First edition of D’Urfey’s anonymously published satire on William Sherlock, lampooning his notorious abandonment of nonjuror principles and satirising the reputed influence of his much-reviled wife. A Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist, Sherlock had allied himself with the nonjurors in 1689 by conspicuously refusing to take the oath to the newly crowned William and Mary. Onlookers were stunned Sherlock subsequently performed a complete about-face and very publicly prayed for the King and Queen as de facto sovereigns in 1690, a move which inevitably provoked much scorn from all sides.

D’Urfey himself was a popular comic playwright whose career had flourished under the patronage of Charles II. Briefly left in the political wilderness during the more sober reign of James II, the coronation of William III in 1689 offered new opportunities which D’Urfey was quick to exploit. Having pledged himself to the whigs, he wrote birthday songs and odes for the king and queen and further curried favour by producing a series of anonymous poems in which he satirised those opposed to the new regime. Wing D2790B