history

First edition of this very rare collection devoted to the street life of Paris, as observed by an imagined flâneur, some thirty years before Baudelaire defined the characteristics of the archetypal literary and aesthetic wanderer. The plates depict various familiar and unfamiliar aspects of Paris life — the title plate depicts the widow Lagarde, a dog and cat groomer, while other plates show browsers at a book stall in the Rue de Grès, walkers in the Luxembourg gardens, female basket carriers at la Halle, various vendors and hawker and fashionable women in the Boulevard de l’Opera. Complete sets are exceptionally rare (the British Museum catalogue lists only four of the series, for example).

Forest was a prolific caricaturist, working alongside both Grandville and Daumier for satirical journals such as La Silhouette and La Caricature. WorldCat lists only the Morgan copy (Michael Sadleir; from the library of Gordon N. Ray). Inventaire du fonds français après 1800, v. VIII, p. 101

First edition in French of Middleton’s A Dissertation Concerning the Origin of Printing in England (1734–5), which argued vigorously that Caxton had introduced the printing press to England, against the popular notion at the time that William Caxton had been preceded by a printer at Oxford. Added is a short introduction (in French) concerning Middleton. The ‘Londres’ imprint is false, and the book was almost certainly printed in Paris. The typographical headpiece is a delight. Rochedieu, 213.

An attractive pocket edition of Ségur’s study of the historical condition of women in ancient and modern society (first published in 1802) with a fourth volume containing Ida Saint-Elme’s continuation (first added to Les Femmes in the edition of 1822 with the title De la Condition des femmes sous l’Empire et sous la Restauration). It contains chapters on the Empress Josephine, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Madames de la Lafayette, de Sévigné, du Chatelet, de Graffigny, Riccoboni, de Genli, and de Duras. This complete edition of 1828 is rare.

First edition of these sermons by a French Huguenot emigré pastor in Dublin. The first two sermons are on the subject of religious toleration: ‘Contre l’Intolerance’ and ‘Les justes bornes de la Tolerance’. The Toleration Act had been enacted in Ireland in 1719, granting Dissenters freedom of worship and allowed them to run schools. Caillard argues that not only was intolerance immoral, but irrational and imprudent. ‘It is imprudent since enforcing a set of beliefs undermines society: it leads groups to take a defensive stance against other groups, destroying public order. It is irrational since, while coercion can lead people to accept a belief outwardly, it cannot alter their inner convictions. It is immoral because coercion’s inability to change inner beliefs means it can only breed lies and hypocrisy, and because individuals have the right to self-determination. However this toleration was not to be extended to Catholics. The sermon was preached on 5th November, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. In a later sermon, Caillard established the limits of toleration. While still endorsing the individual right to self-determination, Caillard argues there is a limitation on religious freedom: that such freedom not be harmful to religion in general or society as a whole.’ (Toleration in 18th century Ireland, Irish Philosophy.com)

The book includes a subscriber’s list of men and women, both of Irish and French extraction. Among them is the name of moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson, then resident in Dublin. It is not difficult to trace a connection between Caillard’s arguments for tolerance based on circumstances and Hutcheson’s theories of moral rights, including the right to free conscience — which were later to have a profound influence on both the French and American constitutions. Outside Europe we find copies at Illinois, Charleston and Penn only.

First edition of this rare manual for Giacometti’s evolution of the game of chess Il Giuoco della guerra which uses a board game format to teach the principles of military strategy, tactics, and fortification. It belongs to a genre of military games that developed in Europe during the eighteenth century — precursors to the Prussian Kriegsspiel and of modern board-based wargames. The pieces had names such as ‘generals’, ‘cannons’, ‘mortars’ and fortresses’. The engraved plate, dedicated by Pietro Remondini to the Cavaliere Brancaleone shows the field of battle, with double chess boards, separated by a symbolic river, all within an elaborate classical border of panelled friezes. The engraved frontispiece shows two allegorical female figures representing strategic warfare and honour or victory), flanking a large shield bearing a crowned eagle and a plinth bearing the double-headed image of Janus is behind.
It was reprinted several times and translated into French. WorldCat: Cleveland Public Library, Bodley, Dutch National Library only.

First edition. An extensive survey of the Welsh musical tradition by a celebrated Welsh harpist and antiquary in London. ‘Edward Jones moved to London in 1774 or early 1775, under the patronage of the London Welsh circle. The harp was very fashionable in London at the time, and Jones quickly established himself in some of the most eminent circles as a popular performer and teacher of the instrument’ (ODNB). He became harpist to the prince of Wales (later George IV). Musical and poetical Relicks, a rather costly production with an extensive subscriber’s list, contains a major essay on bardic poetry with texts and songs in both Welsh and English. An engraved plate shows the principal instruments of Welsh music, including the harp and lyre, while the second part of the book mainly comprises engraved music for some 60 Welsh tunes, some Jones’s variations, all on two staves and thus suitable also the keyboard.

‘Jones’s most important work was in the preservation of traditional Welsh music. He collected and published over 200 traditional melodies, many of which he transcribed from having heard them sung and played at home in north Wales. His concern for the protection of Welsh cultural life is also evident in his strong belief in the eisteddfod as a safeguard of Welsh cultural traditions and the purity of the Welsh language. He invariably attended eisteddfodau on his regular summer visits to Wales, often acting as an adjudicator; and on several occasions he provided and presented prizes for competitions such as singing with the harp and the best collection of penillion’.

This copy is from the library of the Dukes of Portland, containing the bookplate of William Arthur, sixth duke of Portland (1857-1943), but with an earlier gilt supralibros denoting the presence of the book in the Portland collection at an earlier date. It is quite likely to have formed part of the celebrated subterranean library collections at Welbeck Abbey of the eccentric John Bentinck fifth duke of Portland. BUCEM, p. 559; RISM J 607.

First edition of Act granting Nelson his annuity for his victory at the Battle of the Nile.

First edition of the so-called Combination Act, which prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Though separately published with a general title for a complete sitting of Parliament, individual Acts of Parliament were paginated to be bound together in yearly volumes hence the pagination 654-672 here.

First edition of the Unlawful Societies Act, part of the measures enacted under William Pitt to suppress republican opposition. It proscribed certain named societies, specifically the Societies of United Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Britons, United Irishmen and the London Corresponding Society, all deemed seditious, together with other secret societies bound by oath. The only exemption to the latter group were the Freemasons, on account of lobbying by prominent members of parliament. The Act had a lasting effect on the book trade and the appearance of the printed book, because it placed strict controls on printers, requiring them to register their presses and to provide a detailed imprint (giving their names and addresses) on every item printed, in an attempt to limit the circulation of seditious pamphlets. This proved to be the longest lasting aspect of the Act, not relaxed until the Printer’s Imprint Act of 1961, which allowed smaller print jobs (such greetings cards or stationery items) to be printed without imprints. Despite the exemption of Freemasons from the terms of the act, it nonetheless required them to submit names of their members at meetings, thereby requiring a requirement for record keeping which has proved valuable to the study of the history of Freemasonry.

Though separately published with a general title for a complete sitting of Parliament, individual Acts of Parliament were paginated to be bound together in yearly volumes hence the pagination 618-634 here.

First edition of the last Witchcraft Act, repealing the former acts of Elizabeth I and James I (and Mary of Scotland) against witchcraft, and declaring magic, witchcraft and sorcery fraudulent. The last person to be legally executed for witchcraft was the Scottish woman Janet Horne in 1727, but legal sentiment had by then absorbed Enlightenment thinking and rational explanation of all forms of magic. Punishment by death was replaced in the 1735 act by imprisonment of up to one year only, on the basis that witchcraft could no longer be considered a crime, merely a nuisance.

In this volume, formerly belonging to the council of the City of Canterbury (Kent), it is interesting to find an old (perhaps early nineteenth-century) paper scrap marking the Witchcraft Act among the many other acts contained in the volume, together with a marginal pencil marking beside the shoulder note ‘Persons pretending to exercise Witchcraft, tell Fortunes, or by crafty Science to discover stolen Goods’.

Rare first edition of the memoirs of the great circus performer Jules Léotard, pioneer of the flying trapeze who inspired the 1867 song ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’. A second edition of his Mémoires appeared in the same year, with the same pagination, but giving ‘deuxième édition’ on the title — almost all library copies appear to be of this later edition. The superb comic lithograph by Durandeau shows Léotard trapezing over the city of Paris, while adoring female fans cry out to him from the rooftops (some flying heart-shaped kites). With Blondin, Léotard was one of the first great celebrities of the circus, when he visited London in 1861, Charles Dickens wrote: ‘I have been beguiled into seeing Léotard, and it is at once the most fearful and most graceful thing I have ever seen.’ (Letter to Macready, June 11, 1861).

First edition of a rare pamphlet issued in the wake of the decree issued by the police prefect Claude Mangin on April 14, 1830, prohibiting prostitutes ‘from appearing, at any time and under any pretext, in the passages, in public gardens and on the boulevards’ and ordering them to engage in prostitution only in licensed brothels. This measure lasted only three months, but was enough for its opponents to publish dozens of pamphlets. All these occasional pieces are extremely rare, including this one.

Purporting to be the work of a Matrone, jurisconsulte de ces dames this enquiry and petition is satirical in tone, and yet still gives voice to the women it represents, by outlining in detail how Mangin’s heavy-handed decree would effect them at various levels, pointing out the impossibility of enclosing the thousands of Parisian filles de joie in licenses houses. The frontispiece, which has been attributed to Henri Monnier, shows a discussion among the women debating the pour et contre of the measures, presided over by the matron. It is captioned ‘Comité central et de Sabbat des Donzelles de Paris’, likening it to a ‘sabbath’ of witches. WorldCat lists copies at the Bn, Cleveland Public Library and Bryn Mawr College only.

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some marginal creasing.

[with:] Supplément au Manifeste technique de la littérature futuriste. [Milan: A. Talveggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1912]. Browned, some marginal creasing, fore-edge quite chipped.

First editions in French (simultaneous with the Italian issues) of Marinetti’s Futurist manifestos for literature: ‘Sitting on the gas tank of an aeroplane, my stomach warmed by the pilot’s head, I sensed the ridiculous inanity of the old syntax inherited from Homer. A pressing need to liberate words, to drag them out of their prison in the Latin period!’

[MARINETTI, F. T.] Le Music-Hall. Manifeste futuriste publié par le “Daily-Mail,” 21 Novembre 1913. [Milan: A. Talveggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1913].

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some creasing, chipping and short tears at margins, but generally sound.

First edition of Marinetti’s manifesto on the music hall. Though dated 29 September 1913, publication postdated the abridged version published in English in the Daily Mail on November 21, 1913, where it was attributed to ‘the only intelligible Futurist’). Issued simultaneously in Italian in this pamphlet form. It lays out the Futurists’ enthusiasm for Music Hall as an anti-academic art form, not bound by tradition, with its speed and mechanical novelty, its use of cinematography to create effects unheard of in the theatre, and its genuine collaboration with the audience, among many other perceived advantages over conventional theatre. It ends with a typically Futurist typographical performance incorporating adverts for Manoli cigarettes. Marinetti had been lecturing in London in 1913 and his various pronouncements were eagerly covered by the press. It was not until the eve of war in 1914 that he put his manifesto into practice, giving presentations at London’s largest music hall, the Coliseum — events which were greeted with a degree of bemusement by a distracted British public.

--- La Danse futuriste. Danse de l’Aviateur - Danse du Shrapnell - Danse de la Mitrailleuse. [Milan: A. Tareggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1917].

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some creasing, chipping and short tears at margins, but generally sound.

First edition in French (and probably the first separate edition) the Italian text having previously appeared in the journal Italia futurista of 8 July 1917. Marinetti’s manifesto for dance applies the Futurist programme prioritising action, violence and speed to contemporary dance. He considers the innovations brought to European dance by Argentine tango (’spasme furieux’) and other South American forms, he is equivocal about the langorous style of Isadora Duncan but more enthusiastic about Loïe Fuller, before coming to the point: ‘La danse futuriste sera: Inharmonieuse - Disgracieuse - Asymétrique - Dynamique - Motlibriste’. He then gives detailed accounts of three such dances: Danse de l’Aviateur - Danse du Shrapnell - Danse de la Mitrailleuse. Carteret 418.

First edition of this rare offprint from the Gazette des tribunaux reporting the case and outcome surrounding the publication of Marie-Antoinette’s library catalogue, edited by Louis Lacour and printed as Livres du boudoir de la reine Marie Antoinette. Catalogue authentique et original for Jules Gay. Bibliographically and politically fascinating, the case was brought by the state against Lacour and Gay, alleging that the rights to the manuscript catalogue remained with the state, and that Lacour and Gay had sought to publish it for immoral reasons. It seems that it was this second contention that was the primary motive for bringing the case: with the Appendix here explaining that certain monarchical Legitimists had objected to Marie-Antoinette’s name being blackened further through the presentation of her private reading material - the books of the boudoir being widely considered trivial. There is also a discussion of the extent to which the manuscript catalogue really represented the queen’s reading matter, or simply an assemblage of fashionable books. The matter was decided in favour of Lacour and Gay, the former apparently arranging for this offprint - with manuscript dedications at the rear (obliterated in this copy). WorldCat: Bn. BL, Oxford (Law Library) and Michigan.

First edition of a detailed treatise on household management for young women, presented in epistolary form. It was to become very popular, running to several editions by the middle of the century, but the first edition is rare. Starting by establishing the principles of order and economy it proceeds to give advice on a suitable house, its furnishing (with chapters on the dining room, salon, bedrooms for both madame and monsieur, and kitchen). There is information on the linen provision and washing, and choice of fabrics, as well as on personal dress. Two of the longer chapters consider the appointment and operation of the wine cellar (over which the mistress of the house had control) and the kitchen, the latter with a selection of useful recipes and dishes.

Though separately-published, it is one of the volumes of the series Encyclopédie des Dames issued by Audot from 1821, which provided titles useful and interesting to women, all in portable format like this. This copy was apparently a subscriber’s copy, with the half-title bearing the printed statement ‘Exemplaire imprimé pour la Bibliothèque de Mademoiselle Emma de Kolly’, and it is therefore likely that the arms on the upper cover are also hers (though we have been unable to discover anything more about her). WorldCat finds only one copy of the first edition outside continental Europe (University of Michigan).

An extensive antiquarian and heraldic register, providing the abbreviated arms of hundreds of English monarchs, nobles and landowners from the medieval era (and in some cases before) to the reign of Charles I. To judge from the paper and handwriting it was probably compiled in the first thirty years of the eighteenth century by someone with access to a variety of earlier heraldic manuscripts for transcription. It is particularly interesting for including many retrospectively attributed arms to individuals living before the formal establishment of heraldry, such as the early conquerors of Britain and the kings and kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. Its two largest sections are the catalogue of arms from the reign of Edward the Confessor to that of Charles I on 69 folios (copied via a version by the seventeenth-century herald, Robert Glover from a book belonging to one Joseph Holland), and the transcript of the so-called ‘Parliamentary Roll’ made c. 1312-14 giving a complete catalogue of arms borne in the reign of Edward I. The so-called ‘Rouen Roll’ transcribed on f. 77 of circa 1410, was traditionally thought to be a catalogue of all those bearing arms present at the Siege of Rouen during the Hundred Years War. The complete contents of the register are:

1-1v. The fyve Conquests of this Land with the Names & Arms of the Conquerors (Brutus, Julius Caesar, Constantine of Armorica or Vortigern, Hengist, William Duke of Normandy, with their arms).
1v-3. The Saxons divided this Island into 7 Kingedomes (with the names of their kings and their arms).
3-72v. [Arms of the Peerage in order of their creation] A Catalogue of the Armes belonging to England with the causes of the alterac[i]on thereof from the Reigne of St. Edward the Confessor to this p[re]sent [1628, the reign of Charles I).
73-75v. blank
76-76v. Differences born by the Royal Family.
77-77v. [The Rouen Roll, c. 1410]. Les nosmes des nobles q[ui] fueront oue [?avec] le Roy Henrye le quint au Siege de Roan...
78-98. [The Parliamentary Roll, c. 1312-14] Le copie dun ancien liver daunes q[ue] Messier Somerset Heralt avoit du Joseph Holland in couleurs. Conteniant les nosmes & armes des nobles & chivaliers d’Angliterre au temps d’Edward le prim[er] & second Roies d’Angliterre.
98v-100v. blank
101-110r. [Roll of andowners of Suffolk, in the time of Edward I, listed by Hundred].

The volume was later (after 1939) in the collection of the heraldic scholar, Edward Mars Elmhirst (1915-1957), of Worsboroughdale (Yorks). He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Major in the Territorial Army and was well-known for his researches in heraldry (he was offered a position as herald-extraordinary at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953). He also wrote a book on Merchants’ marks, published posthumously by the Harleian Society in 1959.

A pocket guide for visitors to the three levels of the Eiffel Tower.

An ephemeral visitors’ guide — a rare survival. Though unlikely to be the first edition (the cover notes: ‘like all precdeding editions, this is of 50,000’) it is the earliest edition we have found in French, British or American library catalogues. The cover also notes its publication in French, German and Italian. It provides essential information on travel, principal sights, libraries, churches, fountains, gardens, shops, hotels, banks and museum. Copies were sold by the firm of Henri Guérard (stereoscope manufacturers) under the Colonnade of the Louvre.

First edition: a rare work by the young Barrès (1862–1923), the same year Huit jours chez M. Renan, ‘imaginary conversations on an impertinently ironic note, won him both praise and blame, and before long he was in the first rank of authors’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature). Barrès’ look at the Left Bank, and the men and women found there, is peppered with little drawings, all anonymous.

A fascinating guide to the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter of the mid-eighteenth century. Shinpan Sancha daihyoban is a rare early survival of a book of the hyōban-ki genre —’reputation books’, which reviewed and ranked kabuki actors and courtesans, but which in this case is specifically devoted to brothels and the women who worked within them.

The title uses the term sancha as designation for a high-class of prostitute of courtesan (‘joro’) known as sancha-jōro, who followed in rank the taiyū-jōro and koshi-jōro, but was superior to the umecha-jōro class. All these ranks borrow their terminology from tea-making practices, Sancha referring to a powdered tea (similar to matcha) that could be prepared simply by mixing it with hot water—unlike earlier methods that required steeping tea leaves in a cloth and shaking the bag. The ease of preparing sancha came to symbolize the accessibility of sancha-jōro—a courtesan class that, while still prestigious, was less selective with clientele. This accessibility probably explains why the book focuses on the sancha-jōro offering readers a sense of possibility and approachability.

The book catalogues the names of sancha-jōro and the chaya (tea houses, or brothels) they were affiliated with. Importantly, it also highlights their individual skills. While these women are often associated primarily with sex work, they were trained entertainers. At the higher ranks, they were expected to demonstrate talents in music, singing, the tea ceremony, poetry, and other refined arts. This guide served not only to inform potential visitors but also to allow them to request specific courtesans based on their accomplishments.

Additionally, the book provides valuable insight into the publishing and distribution practices related to Yoshiwara’s pleasure quarters, which became historically significant as a cradle of modern publishing practices in Japan. Importantly, our book predates by several years the work of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, the famed publisher known for producing numerous popular guides to Yoshiwara. Although published by Maruya Shōbei in the Nihonbashi district, it was distributed by Honya Yashichi, a bookstore operating within Yoshiwara itself.

Though not quite the same as the lewd eighteenth century guides to Western prostitutes such as Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies in London (published 1760-794) the existence of Shinpan Sancha daihyoban provides an interesting point of reference in compariing sexual culture and publishing practise in No copies located in institutions outside Japan.