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One of Heath’s famous satires on the theme of The March of Intellect, which expressed contemporary anxieties over progress and social change in England brought about by science, education, industrialisation and commercialisation. This one shows a London street corner at the edge of open country and the sea, with numerous figures, including a street-sweeper, horse-drawn carriage, two men playing chess, musicians and singers and street-sellers, with wealthy figures being sent down a mechanical lift beside giant shop window to left; a steam carriage is seen in background with balloons and a rocket-powered flying ship in the air beside bridge crossing the English Channel between 'Dover' and 'Calais’.

First edition in French of China Painting (also 1883) by Florence Lewis, one of the most successful and prolific artists working for the Lambeth Doulton potteries, who produced many thousands of designs for the pottery’s immense output exported throughout the British Empire and beyond. She was notably the decorator of what was (in 1893) the world’s largest vase, commissioned by the Indian Prince Gaekwar of Baroda from Doulton, exhibited at the Worlds Fair in Chicago.

Lewis ‘worked at the Minton Art Pottery Studio in London before joining Doulton’s new Art Pottery in Lambeth around 1874. Miss Lewis became supervisor of Doulton’s Faience department in 1880, training the younger woman artists, and in 1883 she wrote a book about china painting for amateur and professional students. Her work was admired by Queen Victoria, who bought a tea service decorated with primroses in 1887’ (Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts). Rare: Worldcat lists the Cambridge University copy only of the French translation.

First edition of the official visitor’s guide to the Louvre salon of 1804, sold to visitors on arrival. The 1804 salon was the first in the renamed ‘Musée Napoléon’ and was filled with Napoleonic propaganda pieces. It notably included the first exhibition (number 495 in the guide) of Vanderlyn’s new painting of the murder of Jane McCrea in 1777 by a Native American warrior in the service of the British Army, made by the artist for Joel Barlow, who recounted the episode in his Vision of Columbus. The painting is now in the Wadsworth Athanaeum, Hartford, CT.

Among other works listed are: (213) Girodet’s painting of Paul and Virginie crossing the river [used in the famous 1806 Didot edition of Paul et Virginie; (225) Gros’s portrait of Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa and (298-300) Lejuene’s battle scenes of Lodi, Thabor and Aboukir.

‘Contemporary reports indicate that these volumes were eagerly perused before any glimse of the art was ventured, and that they were subsequently clutched and consulted throughout the visit’ (Jackall, ‘The Livrets of the Salon’ in Documenting the Salon, NGA, 2016, p. 26). Documenting the Salon, p. 113.

A series of anonymous watercolours, with numerous floral borders and vignettes, but also including 20 lovely compositions with books, journals, bundles of letters, music, a writing desk, a watercolour stand, inkwells and pocket books. The style is very much in the Empire taste, and the flower painting is exquisite. The volume appears to have been bound from loose sheets, many of which may have been destined as title pages for some uncompleted album project: a few have tiny marginal notes in ink giving a volume number and several are ruled in pencil for the addition of text.

Many bear the monogram ‘AD’ and some the name Délie, together with dedications ‘À toi’ or ‘À elle’, as though all were in some way dedications to a sweetheart or perhaps a child. There is a slightly morbid air to some, towards the end, which depict tombs, memorials and a deathbed scene. Among other subjects are a billiard room, a pet dog in a basket and two most inviting beds.

A modern manuscript note loosely inserted connects the album to Jules Lardin (1787-71), poet, musician and dilettante. Lardin is known to have created designs for tickets and publicity for concerts and to have made several albums, so this attribution is quite possible. The identity of ‘Délie’ is another question.

A very rare Swiss almanac, including four superb woodcuts and news reports from all over Europe. The Postillion was issued simultaneously in French and German issues: Der Kriegs- und Friedens-Postillion, but both are very rare, recorded in only a handful of copies each of any yearly issue. The woodcut on the first leaf depicts the postillion riding through an emblematic landscape, the three others are: a spectacular sea battle between a French and English ship; the deathbed of Elisabeth II or Russia (folding, c. 185 × 320 mm); and two murders (one from a tragic account from Ireland), each with accompanying descriptions in the text. The news reports have been gleaned from a wide variety of sources. Added them are the familiar elements of an amanac: calendars, astronomical, astrological and meteorological data, with typically charming woodcut vignettes.

First edition of a popular Royalist history of France, issued against the background of the first Restoration of the French monarchy — Louis XVIII (dubbed Louis ‘Le desiré’ by his followers) had taken the throne in May 1814. Several editions followed, but the first is notably rare. The frontispiece depicts Louis receiving the Order of the Garter from British Prince Regent as he prepared to return to France from his exile in England. The text includes supplementary accounts of literature and the arts.

A classic pre-Prohibition American cocktail book. Jacob ‘Jack’ Grohusko was the head bartender at Baracca’s restaurant in New York, having been born in England to a Russian Jewish family and brought to New York as an infant. Jack’s Manual has 17 pages on the different types of wine (particularly champagne, sauternes and burgundies) and liquor, and 61 pages of recipes for cocktails.

This 1910 edition was preceded by a very rare 1908 edition (NLM and LC only in Worldcat). Jack’s was the first cocktail book to include the Brooklyn, perhaps his own creation, and several others which would be immortalised in the much later Savoy Cocktail Book (1930).

Pilinski’s remarkable facsimile of the the ‘Columbus Letter’ (the Latin version printed at Basel in 1493, the first illustrated edition). This is the first issue of the facsimile, made by Pilinksi from the imperfect copy in the Royal Library, Munich (which wants the first and last leaves bearing 4 additional woodcuts). A second issue of 10 leaves added facsimiles of the woodcuts from the copy in the Lenox Library. It is considered that there were only 20 copies of each issue.

Polish born Pilinski (1810-87) was the pre-eminent facsimilist in France, later creating the series Monuments de la Xylographie Française du XV siècle (1882-3) (McKitterick, Old Books, New Technologies, p. 108). He pioneered combined techniques of photography and lithography to create facsimiles of unrivalled quality.

One of the strangest and most opulent Regency variants of the traditional Game of the Goose, with just 20 positions laid out across the luxuriant (and unarguably delicious) fruit basket. Aimed at a young audience, the game includes positions for: a penitentiary, the Royal Academy, an infirmary, a chemistry lesson, schools, a bazaar, Greenwich and Chelsea pensioners, a Female Benevolent Society, a Bible society, culminating with the female personification of ‘Glory inciting an Oxonian and a Cantab Student to Emulation, Learning, and the Arts’. The deliciousness of the fruit basket and the novelty and elegance of the board is strictly tempered by the moral and intellectual content of the Explanations, which run to several pages for each position. Rare: Worldcat lists copies at Morgan and Library Company of Philadelphia. There is also a copy in the V&A (with a variant of the rule book). Seville, The Cultural Legacy of the Royal Game of the Goose, 2019, pp. 170-2 and p. 119.

Probabaly compiled in the aftermath of the Seven Years War, this anonymous pocket treatise on the art of war comprises six chapters: [1] Maximes générales; [2] Des Camps de Rassemblement; [3]. La Guerre de Campagne, comprend l’objet, le plan général, le plan particulier, la conduite, re résultat et la fin des operations; [4] Campagnes de deffensive; [5] Campagnes d’hiver; [6] des Capitulations. Written from the point of view of a prospective military commander or general, it introduces the principles and objectives of campaign warfare of the sort that dominated European history in the eighteenth century. It makes occasional references to historical persons (Turenne and the Duc de Broglie) as well as to more recent events, such as the winter campaigns of 1757-9).

Provenance: Early ownership inscription: Antonio Lopez; Marquis d'Astorga, sale 1870 (described as from the library of the Dukes of Sessa); Bookplate of Ricardo Heredia, comte de Benahavis, sold as lot 551, Paul, Huard & Guillemin, Drouot (Paris), May, 1891.

First edition. An account of the author’s ‘pilgrimage’ to the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, where French monarch Charles X had taken refuge (for the second time) following his deposition by the July Revolution in 1830. The object of his pilgrimage was not so much Charles himself, but his young nephew Henri, son of the Duke and Duchess de Berri, named regent of French in exile. A detailed report of this extraordinary young man is given, together with the striking lithograph portrait. The ‘Récit’ of the meeting is followed by various reflections on the author’s return journey through London, and then by a ‘rêve’ in which he dreams of a return to Paris and restoration of the monarchy under the young Henri.

First edition of this very scarce physiognomical guide to matchmaking in love and marriage. The majority of the plates are paired, and come together in a rather pleasing fashion when the book is closed. Although anonymous, the second edition (1817) bore the attribution ‘Mme. de G******’, attributed to Madame de Genlis in the Bn catalogue. It is very much in the style of contemporary separately-published popular publications of Lavater (some of which are advertised on the final page as the Collection Physiognomique).

First edition. A very rare work, published for the author, La Serrie of the Vendée, who published a series of little books at the opening of the nineteenth century, in small editions for distribution among his friends, with illustrations engraved by himself. These are naive but accomplished and often very striking devotional compositions. They are almost all captioned, almost invariably with the letter ‘N’ in reverse. No copies located in Worldcat.

First edition of this very rare and notorious catalogue for the sale of the library of the comte de Fortsas in Mons, 1840. In that year, booksellers, librarians and collectors were surprised to receive copies of a sale catalogue for a remarkable library, containing just 52 books, each purporting to be a work or edition existing in a single copy only. The catalogue introduction explains that the comte collected only these otherwise unrecorded books and that if he subsequently found reference to any in bibliographies and catalogues he would deaccession them by selling, donation or even destruction. There are also helpful annotations to some lots from the comte’s own notes and some condition statements.

Converging on the small town of Binche on August 10th, hopeful bidders were surprised to find the notary’s office in which the sale was to be held did not actually exist and later, to learn that there was no library of unique books, and no comte de Fortsas. The hoax had been perpetrated by Renier Hubert Ghislain Chalon, an antiquarian who enjoyed playing elaborate pranks on intellectuals. This copy also contains the exceptionally rare ‘Avis’ sheet (officially stamped) bound at the end - the notice issued by Chalon stating that the sale was cancelled and that the books had been acquired en bloc by the public library of the town of Binche.

132 copies only of the catalogue were printed, and 73 copies of the Avis. It was reprinted very quickly, but the first edition is very rare and is recognised by the word ‘rue’ as the first word of the eighth line on the title (the earliest reprint has that word at the end of the line above): W. Klinefelter, The Fortsas Bibliohoax (1941)

First edition of this graphic propaganda piece encouraging the projected invasion of Britain by Napoleon’s Revolutionary government. By pushing the definition of invasion and by including a long series of medieval coastal raids on Southern England, General Girardin can list 45 ‘invasions’ from 1066 to the present, with 41 being successful.

First edition, preserved in its contemporary wrapper. A panegyric given on the Feast of Saint Louis, patron saint of France in the church, to members of the Académies royales in the church of the Oratoire. Worldcat: Newberry and Michigan only outside France.

First edition in French of An authentic Account of Forgeries and Frauds of various kinds, committed by Charles Price, otherwise Patch or (alternatively) Memoirs of a Social Monster (1786), a sensational work which had run to six English editions within a year. Price, a highly successful forger of banknotes and a confidence trickster, notorious for engraving his own very plausible banknotes printed on paper of his own manufacture complete with watermarks, became something of a celebrity in eighteenth century London. He took his own life in Bridewell prison in 1786 and was the subject of numerous popular memoirs and ballads. Rochedieu, p. 368. Worldcat: Cambridge, Leeds, University of London, V & A, Cornell, UCLA and Yale outside continental Europe. Rochedieu, p. 368.

The Supernatural Philosopher is a reissue of The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (1720) with the addition of ‘Verses to Mr. Campbell. On the History of his Life and Adventures’ and ‘A remarkable passage of an apparition. 1665’.
The author evidently lodged for a while in the same London house as the Scots-born soothsayer Duncan Campbell (d. 1730), who was a well-known figure in the city. Deaf and mute, he was probably educated at Glasgow using the finger system devised by John Wallis in the seventeenth century. The History of the Life was persistently attributed until relatively recently to Defoe even though it was reissued here under Bond’s name.

A unusual collection of examples of typography and printing techniques, which would be of use in the classroom as non-digital but portable samples of letterpress and intaglio printing, woodcut, engraving, etching, lithography, wood engraving and their various combinations. All have been cut from (hopefully) defective original sources and include full pages (including numerous title-pages) and cut examples of initials (woodcut, metalcut, wood engraved, etc) and ornaments (intaglio and letterpress). Some of the sheets bear pencil notes as to approximate date and city, most being French, with some English and German. A good proportion of the samples are early, with a concentration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but with significant sixteenth century examples, including decorative title-pages and initials.

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.