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First edition, privately printed, of this history of one of the pre-eminent London livery companies, founded in the fourteenth century, by members of the Guild of Pepperers, which dates from 1180. The Company was responsible for maintaining standards for the purity of spices and for the setting of certain weights and measures. Its members included London's pharmacists, who separated forming the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1617. Some Account containing biographies of eminent members and an antiquarian account of Grocer’s Hall in the City of London. The author was Master of the Company until the year this work was published and is an interesting figure:

‘John Benjamin Heath attended Harrow School (1798–1806) and for a time was fag to Lord Byron. He then entered his father's business, and in 1816 was appointed consul-general for the kingdom of Sardinia, a reflection of the firm's commercial ties with northern Italy. During the first half of the nineteenth century Heath & Co. became an established part of the City. This can be traced through the positions held by John Benjamin Heath, who was chairman of both the London Life Association and the Society of Merchants Trading to the Continent; most importantly, he was a director of the Bank of England for fifty years...’ (Oxford DNB).

A very scarce account in French of the demise of Charles I, probably printed in Paris despite the ‘Londres’ imprint. Three issues of 1650 are known, the other two being octavo with 155 pages plus prelims. ESTC assigns Wing number H2091 to all three without further comment. The work was reprinted at Paris in 1792, an interesting anticipation of France’s own regicide in January 1793. Wing H2091; Thomason E.1353[1].

Sole edition, printed for the author. In verse with English translation in prose, on facing pages. Composed in the aftermath of the Duke’s fatal stabbing on the steps of the Paris Opera by an anti-monarchist Bonapartist, Louis Pierre Louvel. Noel de Quersonnières (1728-1845) formerly commissaire-général of the French armies was reputed to have died at the age of 116, though his dates suggest he only reached 106.

There appear to be two issues: for the English and French market respectively. The first contains a ‘Discours preliminaire’ explaining the translation, with a printed section title to the verso of the title. The second (ours) does not have the section title printed on the title verso and the leaves of the ‘Discours’ are cancelled (hence the apparent mispagination of the prelims in this issue). WorldCat BL, BN and Newberry Library only. The BL copy is of the first issue.

This notorious caricature was issued as part of the segregation era ‘Darktown Comic’ series. A black woman wearing a tattered brown dress and worn shoes, with an apron decorated in the stars and stripes, and a tall bonnet with a wide brim and white frill, standing on a plinth in the manner of the Statue of Liberty though looking far from serene, but rather clamouring; she holds a flaming torch and a book labelled ‘New York Port Charges’; at her feet is a cockerel crowing; she has her back to the city, shown behind her across the water, with a distant bridge.

The partnership of Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824-1895) grew into one of the largest and most prolific printing companies of all time, at one point responsible for 95% of all lithographs in circulation in America. Beginning as a lithographer, Currier recognized the market for topical prints and news and became successful as an independent lithographer and later print publisher, before taking on his bookkeeper and accountant Ives as a partner. With hand-operated presses on one floor, artists, stone grinders and lithographers on the floor above and a team of others colouring the finished lithographs by hand on the floor above that, the firm extended well beyond its New York offices, selling retail and wholesale, from street-carts and through booksellers, nationally and internationally, including by mail-order. They flourished on their populist approach, promoting themselves as ‘The Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints’, and ‘the best, cheapest, and most popular firm in a democratic country’, providing ‘colored engravings for the people’ and issuing over 7000 prints in countless copies. According to Byran Le Beau, after initially depicting the horrors of slavery in the 1840s, the company began instead to focus on African Americans as the cause of divisive politics and civil war, until by the end of the century, they were portraying them as incapable of living in anything but a condition of servitude. If in this they were, as described by a prominent collector of Currier & Ives material, Harry T. Peters, ‘businessmen and craftsmen … but primarily mirrors of the national taste, weather vanes of popular opinion, reflectors of American attitudes’, they were in equal measure responsible for endorsing and establishing the distorted views they both targeted and marketed so well (cf. Bryan F. Le Beau, African Americans in Currier and Ives’s America: The Darktown Series, in Journal of American & Comparative Cultures).

A remarkable manuscript account of a French campaign in Bavaria and Bohemia during the first Silesian War, in the form of extracts from (unpublished) letters from an artillery major. It is subtitled: ‘Extrait des lettres ecrittes par Mr. Du Gravier surtout ce qui s’est passé depuis le depart des Trouppes de France pour la Bavière, jusqu’au retour de celles que Mr. Le M[arécha]l de Belisle a ramenée de Prague.’ The campaign was led by the Maréchals de Broglie and de Belle Isle and the detailed extracts cover the march to Prague, its storming by French troops in 26 November 1741, the subsequent siege at the hands of the Austrian army and the escape of some 14,000 French troops from the city in December 1742.

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.

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 of this extensive global dictionary of conflict, covering both ancient and modern history. Though the longest entries tend to be for battles involving France, there are good entries for many other conflicts. Notable are: Agincourt, Bannockburn, Barnet, Belle-Isle, Bosworth, Siege of Calais, Calcutta, Crécy, Culloden, Dunes, Dunkirk, Edinburgh, Gènes, Gibraltar, Harlem, Hastings, Inverness, Jerusalem (many), Lerida, Londonderry, Madras, Marlborough, Martinique, Messina (numerous), Minden, Naseby, Orleans, Paris, Poitiers, Pondicherry and Rome (many). The American continent is represented by entries for: Cartagena de Indias (1741), Choueugen [Oswego], (1756), Havana (1762), Louisbourg (1745 and 1758), Quebec (1759), Rio (1711), Tumbes (and the conquest of Peru). The first volume concludes with an alphabetical index of military leaders.

Sole edition, privately printed, of this collection of a group of letters between the famous beauty and literary patron and the Gordon family accountant. Despite Jane Gordon’s early success in society at Edinburgh and London (she was an important early patron of Burns), her estrangement from her husband 1805 brought financial distress. Forced to live in hotel rooms in London she was in constant dispute with her husband over money. These rather pitiful letters, berating her husband for his excesses and pleading for money, were published here for the first time, prefixed by an attractive photographic reproduction of the portrait of the Duchess by Reynolds. OCLC: no US copies.

Contemporary caricature portraits of the great American millionaires Carnegie, Pierpont-Morgan, Gordon-Bennett, Harjes, Frick and Depew. The drawing was probably intended for reduction and publication in an (unidentified) journal. Rouveyre (1879-1962) was immensely prolific as a caricaturist and maintained friendships and correspondence with important figures such as Apollinaire and Matisse (having met the latter as joint students of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau).

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