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An idiosyncratic personal index of useful and curious facts, mainly geographical, in part forming an index to the Encyclopédie Méthodique (which had been issued in print without an index), a gazetteer to its Atlas, and an index to various other books, such as Valmont de Bomare’s Histoire Naturelle and Lacroix’s Géographie. A homespun affair, the volume is rather haphazardly arranged and presented in homemade boards covered in rather fine contemporary wallpaper. It includes references to regions, cities and landmarks in Europe, Asia, Africa and America (the latter including mentions of Cabot, Columbus and Penn) and several ingenious diagrams of the rivers of France.

First edition, bound in red morocco with Napoleonic emblems by Rosa, who together with Bizouard, Bozerian, Tessier, Simier, Lefebvre and Doll, supplied bindings for the Imperial household.

Written under the encouragement of the First Consul this is an important work in defining the purpose of modern diplomacy. Flassan was (like Napoleon) a product of the École militaire de Paris and served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before becoming professor of history at the military school at Saint Germain-en-Laye For Rosa: Ramsden, French Bookbinders, p. 178.

The manuscript comprises 95 vignettes of London signs, often dated, including street signs dating from as early as 1623 and inn and shop signs. The key provides their original location.

The fine bookplate by William P. Barrett is of Herbert John Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone, youngest son of the British Prime Minister.

First edition under this title. A very interesting global catalogue of marriage and courtship customs among Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religions. Not actually a translation from an English work as the title pretends, but a fairly direct copy of Louis de Gaya’s Cérémonies nuptiales de toutes les nations (1680), to which is added the polygamistic tale of M. Harry. Hurtaut was also responsible for the 1751 title L’Art de Péter (’The Art of Farting’). Gay I, 742.

1. NORDENDORF, C.C. de. Attack Step Quickstep. Danville (Va.): Mrs E. L. Nordendorf, [1865]. Not found in OCLC.

2. SCHILLING, Fred[erick]. Brothers hasten on to Battle. Brooklyn: D.S. Holmes, [1864]. OCLC: Lincoln Presidential Library only.

3. DOANE, Howard. Bury me in the Valley. Cincinnati: John Church, [n.d.]. OCLC: Ohio State University only [possibly another edition].

4. MCNAUGHTON, J.H. The faded Coat of Blue or the nameless Grave. Ballad. Buffalo, Penn & Remington, [1865]. Stain to lower margins. OCLC: UC Santa Barbara and Library Company of Philadelphia.

5. CLARK, James C. Fremont’s Battle Hymn. Quartett. Rochester: Joseph P. Shaw, [1863]. Not found in OCLC.

6. PARKHURST, Mrs. E. A. Funeral March, to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln, the Martyr President of the United States of America. New York: Horace Waters, 1865. Advert on final page cropped (with some loss) at foot. Issue without vignette portrait.

7. MACK, E. General McClellan’s Grand March. Philadelphia, Lee & Walker [1861]. Issue without coloured lithograph plate. OCLC: Michigan, Duke, Pennsylvania and Brown Universities.

8. WINNER, Septimus. Give us back our old Commander. Philadelphia, Winner & Co, [1862]. OCLC: LC and Morgan.

9. EASTBURN, The hearty Welcome Home. Philadelphia: Smith, 1865. OCLC: no copies of Smith imprint but 2 of Auner: AAS and NYHS and one of Johnson imprint: NYHS.

10. BECKEL, J. C. Monody on the death of Abraham Lincoln. Sixteenth President of the United States. Born Feb. 12th, 1808, died by the hand of an assassin April 15th, 1865. Philadelphia: Marsh, 1865. OCLC: this issue Lincoln Museum only plus one copy of a Cincinnati imprint of same year at Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

11. WHEELOCK, O. Richmond Falls, the War is O’er: Philadelphia: March, 1865. No hard copy found in OCLC.

12. CASONELLA. A Song of Peace. New York, W. A. Pond, 1865. OCLC: UPenn, Ocean State, Brigham Young, AAS.

A commemorative volume (‘Not for Publication’) issued to accompany the Nepalese Prime Minister’s visit to HMS Dreadnought on exercise in the English Channel. The superb photographs depict: the Dreadnought, a submarine (4 plates), a torpedo boat destroyer (2 plates). The Nepalese deputation witnessed a demonstration of firing and of the deflection of torpedoes with safety nets. Launched in 1906, Dreadnought was a revolutionary battleship which stimulated the Anglo-German arms race and gave its name to an entire class of heavily armoured craft. It was widely publicised as part of British naval propaganda and shown-off to numerous foreign visitors. The Nepalese Prime Minister was the Maharaja Sri Teen Chandra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana (1863–1929), one of three nephews who had ordered the assassination of their uncle Maharaja Ranodip Singh Kunwar in the Nepali coup of 1885. Worldcat lists the Texas A&M copy only, and there is another in the Imperial War Museum.

First edition of this codification of the laws governing the Cornish tin industry. The Convocation of Tinners exercised ancient rights of jurisdiction over much of Cornwall; customary rights exercised long before the codification of English law and which had been confirmed by royal charters since the time of Edward I. Stannary law was sanctioned by the crown in recognition of the special responsibilities of the Cornish tinners in providing a valuable raw material. It has been claimed that the right to hold Convocations has never been formally repealed by the English crown, a legal anomaly exploited by the Cornish nationalist movement. A previous codification had been printed in 1725. Goldsmiths’ 8776; Higgs 433; Kress 5279.

Two provincial handbills, from Bedford and Sleaford, advertising ascents by pioneering balloonist Richard Gypson, who toured Britain and the Europe with his balloon.

First edition, rare, of this collection of children’s songs. Ludovica Brentano, later baroness Desbordes (1787-1854), affectionately known as Lulu, was grand daughter of Sophie von La Roche (the first widely known German female novelist) and she became patron of the Grimm brothers; contributing two tales to their Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Worldcat: NYPL and Harvard in US, BL in UK.

First separate edition of the extract from the Mémoires de la Société royale et central d’agriculture. A report on the newly-invented English system of cambered road building pioneered by John Loudon McAdam. It includes a short description of new road-building and paving in London (Saint James, Regent Street and Guildhall). Rare: Worldcat lists the Michigan copy only outside France. No UK copies located by Jisc/Library Hub (formerly COPAC). Not in Kress or Goldmsiths’.

Second edition (first, 1651) of this history of England up to the death of Charles I. It was translated into English as Florus Anglicus: or An exact history of England, from the raign of William the Conqueror to the death of Charles the I. By Lambert Wood gent (1656).

First edition of the official report of Curzon’s administration of Indian home affairs during his period as Viceroy. Curzon’s office was contentious and was concluded following a bitter feud with Kitchener. His belief in traditional sovereignty was frequently at odds with emergent Indian nationalism but many of his achievements have been long lasting, especially in the field of law, education and cultural heritage. Nearly 100 pages of the Home Department report are devoted to his judicial reforms with a further hundred concern policing and penal policies. His work reforming the University system is recounted in detail and there are interesting accounts of the merger between the Calcutta City Library and the Imperial Library to form what became the Indian National Library. Medical, sanitary and plague issues also occupy a full part.

This is one of several official reports on aspects of Curzon’s administration, subtitled: Public Works; Department of Commerce and Industry; Department of Revenue and Agriculture and Railway Board. All are very scarce. COPAC and OCLC between them list copies of the Home Department report at Bodley and Syracuse only.

First edition of this extraordinary treatise on the status of eunuchs in society, according to civil and canon law. Largely based on classical sources, history and (most interestingly) anecdotal evidence from the Orient, Ancillon considers the reasons for the phenomenon (including slavery, household, employment or punishment for sexual misdemeanour). The major contention is that while civil law permits a eunuch to marry, canon law should forbid it (as it did) on the grounds that a marriage could not be consummated. Along the way Ancillon recounts numerous anecdotes of famous eunuchs, notably Abelard, castrated at the instigation of Heloise’s family.

The book was later translated into English by Robert Samber as part of Edmund Curll’s Eunuchism display’d (1718).

This copy of Traité des Eunuques is one of at least two issues of the same year with slightly different paginations and title ornaments. The ‘Epitre dedicatoire’ is signed: ‘C. d’Ollincan’ an anagram of the author’s real name. Gay III, 1239.

First edition, Charles Wesley’s verse epistle to his brother John, written during the crisis of the Methodism in the 1750s on the subject of the movement’s separation from the Church of England. For the the Methodist conference of 1755 John had prepared a paper entitled, Ought we to separate from the Church of England? in which he urged that, ‘whether or not it was lawful, separation was not expedient, believing that as a result Methodism would dwindle into an ineffective sect’ (Oxford DNB).

First edition. A humorous skit on English lawyers. ‘“The Pleader’s Guide” is the production of Mr. Anstey, a son of the celebrated author of the Bath Guide. From the merit of this volume, we might almost be tempted to believe that wit his hereditary. The same wit, the same humour, the same playful satire, that adorn the Bath Guide are to be found here. To render the jargon of the law at all bearable in verse, seems at first impossible, but Mr. Anstey has proved the fallacy of such an opinion. The man who can read the Pleader’s Guide without laughing, must be in possession of the most inflexible muscles, or a more than common share of stupidity’ (Poetical Register). Jackson, p. 211.

First edition of this collection of Whig satires on the inactivity of the Tory ministry. At least Jekyll and perhaps the whole work is by Richardson. The ‘Extracts’ purportedly come from an album from Mr. Steele’s house at Streatham, a noted Tory haunt where ‘each sabbath was spent in debate;... dispatches were dispatched without number, and without end, until Ministers had accomplished their own wise purposes... and, to use an appropriate line of the late Dr Johnson; “Had killed the yet unanimated young”’.

There were three further editions and a Dublin reprint in 1788-9, but the first edition is uncommon. Jackson, p. 139.

A reissue of the rare Logic, Ontology, and the Art of Poetry (London, Carnan & Newbery, 1776; Roscoe J67), with a cancel title-page and conjugate plate. With a 7-page Newbery catalogue at the end. ‘The imprint is false; probably printed at York for Wilson, Spence and Mawman’ (ESTC).

An intriguing reissue of the sheets of a collective volume of John Newbery’s Circle of the Sciences (for which he wrote the poetry analysis), first published more than twenty years earlier, in 1776. The works themselves originally appeared separately, in 1748 and 1746 respectively, and in the 1776 collected volume are described as ‘considerably enlarged, and greatly improved’. How the sheets then got from Newbery to ‘A. Millar’ (i.e. Wilson?) et al. is a mystery.

This issue is very rare. ESTC records only the British Library and Yale copies; WorldCat adds two more, at Wagner College and Wyoming. Alston VII, 274; not in Roscoe.

Second edition, originally published in 1749 in quarto. The print run for both editions was 750 copies (Maslen & Lancaster, Bowyer Ledgers 3792).

West’s Pindar is his most important literary achievement, and was widely admired; ‘the product of great labour and great abilities’ (Johnson). ‘While the translation itself is conventionally elegant, West’s notes mark a breakthrough in the reading of the odes in terms of their historical occasion, and the dissertation, praised by Gibbon, offers a rare eighteenth-century appreciation of the cultural and political significance of sport’ (Oxford DNB).

Sole edition. In the Monthly Review’s opinion: ‘A fruitless attempt to catch the Eel of Wit by the tail.’ With allusions to Wilkes, Garrick, and Catherine the Great, among others. Jackson, p. 56.

First edition: a rare poem on the behaviour and cultivation of bees, copiously and diversely annotated with references to bees in Classical literature; crocodile anatomy; Jesuit activity in South America, etc. Murphy was a close friend of Samuel Johnson, also to the Thrales, to whose sixth child, Susanna Arabella, he dedicates the present work. British Bee Books 157. ESTC locates 9 copies, of which only three in America (Library Company of Philadelphia, Minnesota, Yale).