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A rare Tudor edition in English of this celebrated treatise on inventions and origins, which includes some of the earliest accounts in English of the invention of printing, theatre, mathematics, medicine, magic, religion, law, government (as well as wine, prostitution and warm baths). First published in Latin in 1499 (Venice) and augmented in 1521, De inventoribus rerum digested a huge mass of classical, biblical and contemporary learning and became a Renaissance bestseller. As many as 30 Latin editions alone appeared before the author’s death in 1555. The English translation, an abridgement by Thomas Langley, did not appear until 1546, by which time the Urbino-born Polydore had been resident in England for several decades. A diplomat, scholar, historian an humanist, Vergil counted Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Linacre and Baldessare Castiglione among his acquaintances and correspondents.

Printed three times in 1546, the first English editions are remarkably rare. Though ours is dated 25 January 1546 and is listed first by STC, it was perhaps preceded by the edition dated 16 April 1546, given that a new year began on Lady Day (25 March) in old style dating. The work is divided into eight books, from which Langley makes succinct abridgements, of which a selection of chapter headings gives a flavour:

I. 9. ‘The begynnyng of Tragedies, Comedies, Satyres, and newe Comedies; 11. ‘Who founde Musyke’; 12. ‘Who found Musicall instruments’; 14. ‘Astrologie’; 15. ‘Who founde Geometrie, Artihmetike’; 16. ‘Physike’; 17. ‘The inventours of herbes medicinable’; 18. ‘The beginnyng of Magike’; 19. ‘Two kyndes of divination’. II. 1. ‘The originall of lawes’; 2. ‘Who ordeyned the first gouvernaunces’; 6. ‘Who set furth books fyrst, or made a library, Printyng, paper, parchement, arte of memory’ (which includes the observation: ’Truely the com[m]odite of liberaries is right profitable & necessary, but in co[m]parison of the crafte of printyng it is nothyng, both because one ma[n] may printe more in one day, then many men in many years could wryte: And also it preserveth both Greke & Latine auctours fro the dau[n]ger of corruption. It was found in Germany at Mogunce [Mainz] by one J. Guthenbergus a knight, he found moreover the Inke by his devise that printers used...)’

Among other entries we find treatments of: war, Olympiades, plays, metals, coins, painting, ‘wyne, oyle, honye, chese, and strange trees broughte into Italy’, labyrinths, theatres, prostitution and brothels, and Christian and Moslem origins and customs.

Provenance: Sotheby’s, June 14th, 1965, lot 231 (Traylen, £55); Blackwell, Centenary Catalogue, 1979, item 27, £450; private collection. STC 24654. STC lists two other printings of 1546: 24655 (also Grafton, dated 16 April) and 24656 (another issue of the same, portions reset, with both title and colophon dated 16 April). In an article of 1888, John Ferguson suggested that these 16 April editions/issues preceded the 25 January edition (though this was not adopted by the editors of STC); John Ferguson, ‘Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil’s work, De Inventoribus Rerum’, 1888, pp. 17 et seq.

Sole edition, one of 50 copies on chine. An illustrated collection of epithets on love and the relationships between men and women, a witty reflection of the sexual politics of fin-de-siècle Paris. The conceit of the title, and the charming accompanying vignette, involves communication (or perhaps miscommunication) via headphones and a phonographic machine operated by Cupid. It is a nice example of the contemporary fascination with the potential of electronic communications, with echoes of the science-fiction fantasy La Fin des livres by Albert Robida published in the same year, in which a new world of literature was a network of wires and headphones and of the Theatrophone apparatus recently exhibited at the Paris exhibitions. Worldcat lists 3 copies only: Bibliothèque nationale, British Library and Yale.

A Napeoleonic-era manuscript course in classical and modern French history made for a woman or girl, Caroline Hémart. Probably prepared by a tutor, the texts are enthusiastically neo-classical in tone: the opening ‘Élements de chronologie’ serve as a grounding in ancient history (with definitions of terms such as ‘Olympiade’) of Europe and the near East, based on the text of Napoleonic scholar, Luc de Lancival. The manuscript concludes with 27 stanzas of a heroic poem, ‘Ode à Clio’ by M. Le Comte François de Neufchateau (published c. 1807), which is, again, a glorious version of history seen through still-rosy Napoleonic lenses.

A superb collection of over 300 spontaneous sketches made in situ in Paris of popular films and entertainments of the 1950s, including the classics Les Vacances de M. Hulot, Buñuel’s El, Le Ballon Rouge and other French films by Renoir and Meliès, Sophia Loren in Neapolitan Carousel, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball in Fancy Pants, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin in Artists and Models and Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop.

Ryutchi Souzouki (1904-1985) had been a well-regarded and well-connected Montparnasse figure, counting Ernst and Foujita among his friends in the twenties and thirties and frequently exhibiting alongside the surrealists. Born in Yokohama, he spent much of his life in Paris, though his Japanese citizenship prevented him from exhibiting during the war years and probably accounted for his increasing isolation in the post war period. A solitary figure, until his death in poverty, he continued to work, experimenting with automatic drawing and making sketches, such as these, from popular films and entertainments, such as the tableaux vivants of the Casino de Paris, the Folies bergères, conjuring performances and the opera, instantaneously capturing their spirit on scraps of hotel stationery, recycled scraps or cheap spiral-bound notebooks. They are witty, touching and always engaging responses to what he saw in the cinemas and theatres of Paris. Following his death, the contents of his studio, including the many albums he had carefully collated in his final years (like ours) were conserved by his concièrge and dispersed at auction in 1985.

First edition in French of The Castilian, an historical novel in English (Colburn, 1829), by a notable Spanish historical novelist, very much in the vein of Scott. Though most of his novels were in Spanish, Trueba y Cosío had been educated partly in England, and this attempt in English attracted favourable reviews. The translation is by Defauconpret, best known for his translations of Scott. Rare: Worldcat lists the Bn copy only.

A rare satirical elegy and epitaph for the celebrated electrical eel, who could no longer rise to the occasion. A reissue of the sheets of the first edition of 1777 with a cancel title, of this elaborate addition to the corpus of salacious 1770s pamphlets devoted to the subject of the electrical eel, a topic of serious scientific enquiry and popular merriment. This one continues the phallic joke and manages to draw in the hapless Chevalier D’Eon (whose sex was then popularly debated) alongside the lecherous Earl of Harrington.

‘If the Gymnotus Electricus, lately exhibited to the Public, be really dead, it is to be hoped that we shall have no more of these witty indecencies’ (Monthly Review, Nov. 1777). ESTC: Harvard and Princeton only worldwide of this issue. ESTC gives the pagination [4], 29, [1], but both the 2 copies reported have only pp [2] before title, as here, though it is perhaps likely the work was issued with a half-title or initial blank not present in surviving copies.

A lively collection of biographies of the unpopular Fermiers généraux – men responsible for collecting indirect taxation in ancien régime France. The Mémoirs pour servir l’histoire du Publicanisme moderne was never published in print but circulated widely in manuscript — its tone is familiar, ironic and sometimes scurrilous in its treatment of the careers of these powerful and wealthy men.

There are more than 100 entries including those for important cultural figures, Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière (one of the prime-movers in the great Lafontaine edition of 1762 called the ‘Fermiers généraux’ edition), Charles Le Normant de Tournehem (guardian of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, future marquise de Pompadour) and the collector Pierre Grimod du Fort. Each entry provides a brief account of the sources of their wealth, of their families and progeny, and of their administrative capabilities (or otherwise). Morality is neverfar from the surface, and there are frequent grumblings of sexual infidelities. The biography for Le Riche de La Poupelinière (the longest in the collection) includes the anecdote of his being surprised in bed with an actress from the Opera, mistress of the Prince de Carignan and of the secret passageway from a neighbouring house through the firelplace, through which his lovers came and went.

The text mostly in a single hand of 1750. Each entry includes spaces left for the arms of the subjected, never completed). A second hand, perhaps not much later, adds notes, some additional biographies and tables. The book apparently existed for some time stitched in the simple wrapper of its first and last leaves before being bound, probably a little later in the century. French libraries contain several manuscript examples of this popular text.

An interesting manuscript prospectus of a large and still-unpublished account of the French revolution. François-Jean Baudouin had been a printer and bookseller to the Assemblée nationale in the revolutionary period, later becoming a journalist and publisher. He evidently wrote a long first hand account of the politics surrounding the Revolution, which remained unpublished. It was apparently in the hands of one Tacheron, a doctor to the XI Légion at the opening of the nineteenth century, who wrote this manuscript prospectus of it, transcribing part of the introduction and giving a detailed précis or analyse of its 16 chapters. He notes that it would run to some eight or ten octavo volumes, probably suggesting he was intending to publish it. In the event it seems never to have been published and since the whereabouts of the manuscript is now unknown, this 43-page summary is witness to a major work of Revolutionary history.

‘François-Jean Baudouin, imprimeur-libraire, né à Paris en 1759, mort en 1838. Elu député suppléant du tiers aux Etats Généraux, il dut à cette circonstance d’être nommé imprimeur de l’Assemblée Nationale, privilège qu'il conserva jusqu’en 1809. Il fut aussi propriétaire du Logographe, journal dont il envoyait tous les jours le premier exemplaire à Louis XVI... Il publia en 1810, un Projet de règlement pour l’imprimerie et la Librairie...’.
Larousse II, 387.

First edition, a carnival chapbook with burlesque dialogues. The first woodcut, as a frontispiece, depicts a cartful of fools led by a horse and pierrot, the second shows a mountebank poking fun at his audience. The term ‘Poissarde’ (literally, a fishwife) refers, in general, to coarse and vulgar language and is frequently to be found in chapbooks of the period. Gay I, 608. Worldcat: Wisconsin only outside Europe.

A guide to the rules of etiquette at the court of Napoleon, with protocol for courtiers at the Palais impérial, the Garde impériale and the ‘Grands officiers de la Couronne’, and rules for conducting ceremonies in the Chapel. This is also a guide to appropriate formal behaviour in the Napoleonic court and was published just two years after Napoleon formally crowned himself Emperor of France. Extremely precise descriptions of all court proceedings are provided, detailing the etiquette of processions, balls and concerts, pages’ service, etiquette of bureaucratic functions... and the preparation of the Emperor’s breakfast. Although the Bibliotheque nationale catalogue records an edition of of 1805, this 1806 edition is considered the first complete codification. It was revised and reissued several times.

First edition, a pocket description of the British Isles, historical and geographical, but with reflections on British character and customs. ‘La Nation Angloise aime beaucoup les Spectacles surtout la Tragédie... Les Anglois n’ont la vivacité des François, ni la lenteure des peuples septrentrionaux... Les Femmes d’Angleterre sont maîtresses de leurs volontés & même de leurs caprices...’ It also appeared in the same year with a La Haye imprint.

First published in 1641, as Herōologia Anglorum, or, An help to English history. Wing, H1719

A good example of one of Phillipps’s anastatically-printed facsimiles of manuscripts, with copies of the original transferred to zinc plates for lithography. In this case the text is a copy of his own transcripts from the records of Herald’s seventeenth-century Visitations and their disqualifications of arms born by gentlemen without authority. Sir Thomas Phillipps as a printer and patron of lithographic printing has been extensively studied and discussed by Michael Twyman in Early Lithographed Books (1990) — he printed many himself at Middle Hill, and supervised the production of others by printers such as Appel, who had exhibited new methods of anastatic printing at the Great Exhibition in 1851. Holzenberg, The Middle Hill Press, 88. Worldcat lists copies at the Grolier Club only outside Europe.

An eighteenth-century work on feudal barons and the history of land ownership in England. It was written by Madox, a legal antiquity and historian whose first appearance was in the publication Formulare Anglicanum in 1701. He produced a learned dissertation on ancient charters, which was praised by Bishop William Nicolson as having provided an ‘unspeakable service to our students in law and antiquities.’ (English Historical Library, 1776).

Baronia Anglica was first printed in 1736 and our issue is ‘a reissue of the sheets of the 1736 edition printed by William Bowyer (T97064), without the index to his ‘History of the Exchequer’ (which occupied the final 54 sheets...) with a cancel title page; Bowyer also printed the new titles; his records show 500 + 50 [large-paper?] + ‘500 more to give away’. The large-paper copies may show variation in placement of press figures, or in their presence or absence; the details are unclear’ (ESTC).

Extensive antiquarian transcripts from manuscript armorials and visitation documents (mainly sixteenth- and seventeenth-century) in the British Museum. Including Harleian MSS 1174, 1397, 1561, 4756, 7565, 1045, 1301 and Sloane MSS 4972-3. Evidently once part of a larger sequence, the volumes are marked VIII and IX respectively.

Memorial for His Grace John Duke of Roxburgh and his Curators, Defenders; against John Hay of Lawfield, William Hay of Charterfield and William Sandihills, all Heretors of Eastbarns, Pursuers. [Edinburgh: August 2, 1757], pp. 15, [1]. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Earl of Home. [Edinburgh: 31 January, 1764], pp. 28. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Sessions, the Petition of Captain Shaw Grosett, and Miss Lilias Grosett... [Edinburgh: February 3, 1768], pp. 16. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Hamilton of Blantyre-farm, and Miss Lilias Grosett. [Edinburgh: February 17, 1768], pp. 8. Not in ESTC.

Information for Alexander Drummond Esq; late his Majesty’s Consul at Aleppo in Syrai, now residing in Canongate, in the Competition of the Creditors of Mrs. Marion Drummond. [Edinburgh: January 22, 1768], pp. 8. ESTC: Bodley only.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Janet Rattray, Widow of John Scott, late Tacksman of Rashyhill, and of Andrew, James, Joseph, George, and Hary Scotts, their children. [Edinburgh: February 18, 1768], pp. 13, [1]. Not in ESTC.

Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session, the Petition of Alexander Roberts in Nether-Wardroppertown, and Katharine Straton his Spouse, eldest Daughter of the deceased Robert Straton of Wardroppertown. [February 20, 1768], pp. 12. Not in ESTC.

Seven eighteenth-century pleadings in Edinburgh courts relating to inheritance, most involving female inheritances. All are very rare.

First edition. Edward Jacob ‘antiquary and naturalist, was born in Canterbury, the eldest son of Edward Jacob (d. 1756), surgeon and alderman, who served as mayor of Canterbury in 1727–8, and Jane, daughter of Strangford Violl, vicar of Upminster. About 1735 he moved to Feversham [sic] where he lived at 78 Preston Street and practised as a surgeon, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. Among his patients was Lord Sondes of Lees Court, Sheldwich. The Jacobs were a long-established east Kent family and several members had served as mayors and magistrates in Sandwich and Dover. Actively interested in local affairs, Jacob was four times mayor of Faversham—in 1749, 1754, 1765, and 1775...

Jacob interested himself in the history of Faversham soon after he had moved there, ‘having an early propensity to the study of antiquities’. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 5 June 1755, and in 1774 published The History of the Town and Port of Faversham, dedicated to Lord Sondes’ (Oxford DNB).

This is one of the standard copies with 15 plates, some having an 4 additional plates. With a good local provenance (Philip Neame, Faversham-born recipient of the Victoria Cross for service on the Western Front and of an Olympic gold medal in 1924, apparently the only recipient of both).� Bibliotheca Cantiana 198-9.

A very rare translation of the pseudonymous Siege of London (1885), probably the first edition in French (a condensed French edition also appeared in 1885). 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.

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.

First edition of this history of England (or more properly, Britain) from ancient times to the era of the American Revolution. The third volume, not always present is especially detailed as an account of the British colonial exploits on the American continent and elsewhere. David’s illustrations are characteristically dramatic. The text of the first two volumes (dated 1784) is by Pierre Le Tourneur and Guillaume Germaine Guyot, and of the latter (dated 1800) by Jean Baptiste Gabriel Marie Milcent. Cohen De Ricci 274 (vols. 1 and 2 only); Cioranescu 39980