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First edition of this defence of Rousseau by a Genevan republican patriot, who includes numerous long extracts from Rousseau’s letters, which appear to have been otherwise unpublished. ESTC: Göttingen, Polish Academy of Sciences Library, Wisconsin and Western Michigan University only (there is also a copy at Cambridge). Conlon 548.

First edition of an influential pamphlet by a well-known French ceramicist, considering contemporary pottery from a hygenic point of view, and recommending his own newly-developed ‘hygiocerames’. Surveying the existing methods of production and glazing, he identifies numerous health risks in underfired pottery and in glazes using metal oxides. Wedgwood’s Etrurian pottery and his hugely-successful white Queen’s Ware come in for particular censure, though its popularity is conceded. The pamphlet was part of major enquiry into ceramic production in France initiated by the Sèvres factories.

First edition of this rare Italian contribution to the aerostatic excitements of 1784. Bruno proposes an elegant and elaborate gondola with oars in an attempt to solve the problem of steering a dirigible balloon. The work also includes a proposal for a personal flotation device (for navigating water). Worldcat: LC, US Airforce Academy, Hagley Museum and Harvard in US. There is a copy in the BL.

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An unpublished French translation of Wheaton’s influential History of the Northmen (1831) by Emma Chuppin de Germigny (1809?-1852).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

The translator 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.

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.

Original engraved copper plate for a frontispiece to the Confessions, showing Rousseau himself as an allegory of the ‘natural man’ and the naked female figure of truth, engraved for volume 12 of the monumental 18 volume large quarto Didot edition of the collected works (1793-1800). An excellent example of an eighteenth-century large format copper plate. Cohen-de Ricci 912; Ray, 95.

A movie-enthusiast’s notebooks - filled with striking coloured portraits of male characters in films popular in the Netherlands, including Dutch-language versions of The Thirteenth Chair (1929 film); Madame Sans-gêne (1925 film); Maria Stuart (1927); The Trial of Mary Dugan (1931); Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, Shaw’s How He Lied to Her Husband; Jonson’s Volpone; Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Lear and Macbeth. The anonymous albums are numbered in pencil, suggesting they were part of a larger group.

Second edition; we have been unable to locate a copy of the first. Europa rediviva is a sweeping view of Europe as a triumphant ‘brotherhood in war–one family, in peace!’ (p. 19). Eton-educated Henry Gally Knight (1786–1846) published a number of poems in the 1810s to generally positive reviews, but did not garner acclaim in earnest until his Architectural Tour in Normandy (1836), which established his reputation as an well-regarded, if amateur, antiquarian (Oxford DNB). He proceeded to publish several architectural studies and served as an MP for a short period of time. Not in Jackson. COPAC lists 1 copy only (BL), to which WorldCat adds 2 (UCLA, Wake Forest).

First edition of this anonymous verse romance—a Scott-inspired medievalist episode set in the fourteenth-century moated castle in East Sussex. ‘An inoffensive grunter of the octo-syllabic sty’ (Monthly Review). Jackson, p. 430.

First edition, posthumously published, this copy with a fitting provenance, from the library of the Chateau de Cirey. Helvétius had been encouraged in his philosophy by Voltaire, who sent him a copy of his work on Newton and invited him to stay at the Chateau de Cirey. The inscription, though abbreviated is almost certainly that of Diane-Adelaide de Simiane, herself an important literary figure. Her early life was colourful and she came to Cirey in 1795 after a period of incarceration during the Terror. Prior to that she had been married to Charles-François de Simiane, who had served with Lafayette in America and who died in France in 1787. The death was publicly explained as a hunting accident, but the circumstances were mysteriousl and suggest suicide; Charles-François was almost certainly homosexual and his wife Diane-Adélaïde had pursued a long affair with Lafayette in the 1780s. After her husband’s death madame de Simiane never remarried. She amassed a fine library at Cirey.

The introductory biography is by Saint-Lambert. Since the outcry over his De l’Ésprit (1758), Helvétius’ works were all condemned and issued in clandestine editions, usually outside France. Even after his death Le Bonheur was printed in Germany, with a false Londres imprint. The work is listed in Darnton’s, Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France 1769-89, 64. Several editions followed this one, including two others of the same year and the same imprint, but with the title printed in black and/or a different pagination. The first edition is rare. Smith, Bibliography of the writing of Helvétius, B.1; Higgs, Bibliography of Economics, 1751-1775, 5624; Tchemerzine VI, 190a (title pages illustrated).

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 Vitrues published by Hinton, shortly after 1800. The British museum catalogue includes a further print representing ‘Innocence’ (but not reverse glass treated).

A rare little almanac, with preliminary charts bearing three woodcut maps (one of the world, one of Europe, the other of France), small celestial charts, tables of longitude and latitude, and an emblematic woodcut frontispiece depicting Urania presiding over the heavens. The text is typical of contemporary almanacs— calendrical and political tables followed by popular songs and verses. Cadeau des muses was published at Falaise (Calvados, Normandy) between 1799 and 1855. All issues are institutionally rare, with Worldcat listing just a small handful of individual issues.

An evocative album of over 160 amateur photographs, with half depicting sailing trips in small craft in the Thames Estuary - most in Kent with some in Essex. Arranged in groups as follows: Medway River Tour (1903), 9 photos; East Grinsted Walking Tour (n.d.), 17 photos; [Medway Sailing], Cutter “Phyllis” (1906), 6 photos; Cutter “Marie” (1907), 10 photos; Paris &c (1908), 16 photos; North Wales Tour (n.d.), 18 photos; [Medway and Swale sailing], Yawl “Little Mary” (1908), 21 photos; Belgian Tour (1908), 5 photos; [Medway sailing] (n.d.), 8 photos; [Thames Estuary sailing], Cruise “Little Mary” (1909), 20 photos; Cruise in “Ilex” (1910), 3 photos; [Thames Estuary Sailing], Summer Cruise, Yawl, “Little Mary” (1910), 17 photos; plus 17 miscellaneous photos (Kent, Essex and Singapore) at end.

The neat captions identify moorings and landings at Gravesend, Hole Haven, Upnor, Queenborough, Harty, Brightlingsea, Canvey and Burnham and the boats depicted are typical Thames and Medway yawls, cutters and barges with an interesting range of rigs, traditional and modern. The tours were apparently taken by a group of young friends (often depicted), and the captions identify C.C.Couves, J.P. Comben, R.D. Clarke, C. Molz, L.G. Rayner and W.H. Edmunds, variously as subjects and photographers.

First edition, rare, of this first hand account of a Caribbean shipwreck. Sailing from Le Havre in 1817, the barque La Jeune Sophie, but was wrecked off the coast of Trinidad following a fire in its cargo of vitriol. Some of the crew set out in a lifeboat aiming to reach Rio de Janeiro for assistance, while the captain and remaining crew of 18 were left on a deserted part of the island of Trinidad. The pamphlet recounts their exploration of the island, before they were picked up by the Salem ship, Marie-Eliza bound for Sumatra, leaving a message in a bottle in case the Rio party returned. They were dropped at the Cape of Good Hope, and took ship for France. The safe return of the Rio party is also recounted, following their finding of the Captain’s message among the ruins of their encampment. Worldcat locates a single copy (Stanford).

First edition, a powerful evangelical sermon on the text: ‘He that winneth souls is wise’ (Proverbs XI, v. 30). Slave trader and evangelical clergyman of Olney Hymns (’Amazing Grace’) fame, Newton had become rector of the City church of St Mary Woolnoth in 1780, where his sermons attracted enormous congregations. 1788 was also the year in which he published Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade and in which his best-known portrait, by John Russell, was painted.

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, Belrin only. No US copies.

The life work of a Belgian natural history enthusiast, a massive and extraordinary collection of gathered knowledge, illustrated throughout with thousands of the author’s distinctive naive watercolours. The manuscript, in four volumes (one elephant folio, three folios), consists of complex visual arrangements of data which often extends over huge folded charts, each leaf filled to its maximum extent in neat manuscript in coloured inks. Though undated, it includes materials gathered in the period c. 1920-1943 and perhaps before, and in an inserted note, the otherwise unknown compiler describes the work of ‘most of my life’. It would appear to be the work of an amateur rather than an academic specialist, hence its striking originality as a work of popular science.

The large folio volume is really a huge collection of charts devoted to human anatomy, animal and plant biology, the fossil record and evolution (or transformisme). Botany makes up the largest proportion, but there are sections on insects, reptiles, birds, flying lizards, marsupials and mammals. Dumoulin also had an interest in Africa and there are sections on the Sahara and on the Belgian Congo. The focus is worldwide and is drawn from reference works rather than original research, but the arrangements are highly idiosyncratic. Several evolutionary charts are attempted, mentioning Linnaeus, Darwin, Lamarck and Jussieu.

The Dictionnaire botanique is a large 3 volume compilation mainly devoted to botanical classification, from the smallest mosses and seaweeds, to exotic flowering plants and forest trees. Like the larger folio volume, these volumes are illustrated throughout, with accompanying text in coloured inks and often containing emblematic figures of human figures appropriate to the origins of the plant: including Africans and Americans. They have apparently been bound from a large number of separate files (whose stiff paper cover with labels are preserved) each devoted to a different botanical family. The third volume contains additional materials at the end, including a study on Pasteur and germs, another on insects and another on bird classification. Like the preceding parts, these are also copiously illustrated in colour.

We have discovered almost nothing of Dumoulin himself, though various details place him in the French-speaking Walloon region of Belgium around Liège. He includes a couple of leaves devoted to Belgium, one with an interesting historical schema (including a memento of various gas attacks in the Great War). A couple of inserted letters are to Belgian academic scientists and one expresses Dumoulin’s hope that his work would end up at a University. The cover of largest volume bears various mottos, perhaps a personal credo: ‘La vie sans science est presque l’image de la morte, C. Volpi’, ‘Chercher. Comprendre. Vouloir. Pouvoir. Oser. Sentir. Méditer’, ‘Naître, mourir et renaître sans cesse, telle est la loi, telle est lavie. V. Hugo’ and ‘Travailler pour être estimé. Etre estimé pour être aimé. Etre aimé pour être heureux’. The wooden stand suggests an intention for display. Whether this was an elaborate teaching aid, or simply an almost-incredible recreation, is an open question.

Some twenty years’ accounts kept on behalf of a Burgundian landlord, of 5 métayer tenant farmers, who farmed on his land, with his resources, in exchange for a share (notionally a half) of the profit. These were principally livestock farmers raising cattle and sheep, so the accounts provide interesting first-hand details of the economics of the French meat and wool industries of the period. All the farmers are named on the title-page, but Isac Lebeuf’s farm was run after his death by his widow, Marie, so the account for 1736 is in her name. Prices are given for animals bought as stock and then sold to butchers or sheared and the fleeces sold. The accounts give a very clear and intelligible picture of the initial capital of each farm, of introduced stock, of running costs and of the shares of yearly profits.

An illustrated chansonnier, highly decorated, and including songs such as: Souvenir de ‘70, Les Femmes soldats, Le Baiser, l’Anglaise, Le Testament du Libre-Penseur, Marche du Bataillon d’Afrique, L’Africaine, Départ pour Madagascar, La Pucelle de Bellville, Les Prisonniers morts pour la liberté.

These notebooks are a fascinating example of a popular method of collecting popular French cabaret songs, all neatly copied up with headings and illustrations (usually suitably suggestive) copied from contemporary song sheets (an example of one of these loose sheets is loosely inserted). We have seen several similar examples, in which the illustrations are apparently traced using carbon paper from printed (or other manuscripts) exemplars. Their context is usually military or naval and they represent a significant form of popular or naive art.

The decorative title, with elaborate borders describes Arbez Carme as ‘employé au Magasin des Vivres de Réserve du 23me Reg[im]ent d’Inf[anter]ie a Bourg, Ain’. Military records record his birth in 1876 in Jura, his occupation as a perruquier (wigmaker) and his recruitment in 1896.