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A spectacular renaissance illustrated book, the first edition with the detailed and dramatic double-page etched plates by Jost Amman. First published at Lyon in 1529 with single-page woodcuts (reprinted with the same woodcuts in 1546) there were also Venice editions of 1569, 1571 and 1576 with quarter-page woodcuts.

A vast encyclopaedic work, the Catalogus gloriae mundi sought to set out the hierarchy of creation —animate and inanimate, from the heavens themselves to the governments, laws and sciences of humanity. Its particular value was in setting out orders of precedency and protocol in law and ceremony, which probably accounts for its interest to publisher Sigmund Feyerabend, who enlisted Amman to create large emblematic plates for this edition, derived from the earlier woodcut illustrations. They are:

1. A genealogy with insignia of royal houses (including European houses and those of Persia, Egypt, Israel etc); 2. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; 3. a mandala depicting the ranks of the hierarchy of the heavens; 4. a sitting of the papal court; 5. an imperial council; 6. a regal council; 7. a judicial court; 8. the nobility; 9. the military ranks; 10. The liberal arts and sciences (14 female personifications); 11. the mechanical arts (7 female personifications); 12. a geocentric cosmography. Andresen, A. Jost Amman, 32-43; The New Hollstein: German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts 1400-1700, 1998, VI.144. A very scarce book. Worldcat lists non-European copies at Folger, Getty and Huntington libraries only.

First edition. A juvenile Cook in French, describing his voyages to the Pacific, including New Zealand, Batavia (Jakarta), Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands. the plates being: Mort de Capitaine Cook (frontispiece); Indien courant un Muck; Habitans de l’Ile Mallicalo and Débarquement du Capitaine Cook dans la baie de Karakakooka. The appendix contains an interesting ethnographic essay ‘Des deux variétés de l’espèce humaine recnnues dans l’Océanie’, two others on the geography of Oceania and on previous voyages to the region followed by biographies of participants in Cook’s voyages (Cook, Banks, Solander, the Forsters, Clark and Bligh). Worldcat and Library Hub locate no UK or North American copies (though there is one at the University of Hawaii)

A privately-published fairy tale by a young girl, of which we can find no copy in any public collection, nor any obvious trace of the work or its author elsewhere. The book is printed on a handsome glazed paper and incorporates three illustrations, presumably the work of the author. It was almost certainly her who also decorated the smooth calf binding with a whimsical design depicting an owl in a tree by moonlight. The printed dedication is to ‘ma chère petite Cousine Renée’, with this copy of what was presumably a very small edition inscribed to the author’s mother.

A delightful miniature library in its original publisher’s box, comprising: 1. Berquine, Variétés; 2. Démoustier, Mythologie; 3. Florian, Mélanges; 4. La Fontaine, Fables; 5. Millevoye; 6. Poésies, Voltaire. The set was issued in various forms, sometime with wrappers of green and pink and sometimes in a variant box. Bondy, p. 75; Gumuchian, 4062; Welsh, Miniature books, 1250

An interesting collection of 54 rare hand coloured plates by Augsburg publishers Johann Michael Motz and Albrecht Schmidt, very much in the style of the recreational and educational prints of the slightly earlier Augsburg engraver-publisher Martin Engelbrecht. Like Engelbrecht’s these prints were intended for popular consumption and were often cut up for albums or other decoupage projects. All are very rare, notably the fine 4-plate suite of the continents here and a part of the biblical sequence by Schmidt. The album was evidently put together c. 1800 from two or more constituent parts, perhaps already quite well used to judge by the variation in condition across the collection and by the various patterns of previous stab holes. An early owner/user has added some amusing pencil drawings to the rear endpapers.

Comprising:

1. Les Amans Surpris (after Boucher, c, 1750), Motz.
2. Les Plaisirs au jardin & La musique, 2 plates, Motz.
3. Europa, Asia, Africa, America, 4 plates, lower lines of verses and imprint cropped, but Motz after I. Waxmuth.
4. Der Frühling, Der Sommer, Der Herbst, Der Winter, 4 plates, Motz.
5. Das Feuer, Das Wasser, Die Lufft, Die Erde, 4 plates, Motz.
6. Der Morgen, Der Mittag, Der Abend, Die Nacht, 4 plates, Motz after Stockhman[n].
7. [Hunting], 2 untitled prints, Motz after Stockhman[n].
8. [Old Testament. Genesis] 14 plates, numbered 5-12, 37, 40, 45-48 each with gold borders, Albrecht Schmidt. [of 56?]
9. [Old Testament, Genesis, the story of Joseph]. 13 plates, numbered 1-5, 7-14. Motz.
10. [The Prodigal Son]. 6 plates, numbered 1-2, 5-8, Motz after C. Vogt (stubs of plates 3 & 4, evidently cut out).

First edition of this important legal memoir, the official record of the trial of Anne Grandjean (later Jean-Baptiste). Anne Grandjean was born at Grenoble in 1732, and baptised and raised as a girl until she discovered her attraction to other girls at the age of 14. Confessing this to her father, he was convinced of her feelings, and had her re-baptised as Jean-Baptiste, insisting she live as a young man. At the age of 32, while living as a married man at Lyon, a childhood friend informed Jean-Baptiste’s wife that she had married a ‘hermaphrodite’. Subjected to judicial enquiry, Grandjean was declared to be female and banished in perpetuity with the requirement that he live as a woman and have no further congress with the female sex for the rest of his life.
The official memoir of the case is thus a remarkable source of detail concerning contemporary orthodox notions of sex and gender. The case and the verdict reward a very close reading and yield several immediate observations. Firstly, the term ‘hermaphrodite’ is used to denote same-sex attraction rather than in a physiological sense, secondly, the decision to change gender was made under the advice of a Catholic confessor who counselled that to remain a woman attracted to women would inexorably lead to a crime in the eyes of the church and, thirdly, a major objection to the transition was that Jean-Baptiste had unlawfully adopted the legal status of a male citoyen. Gay III, 107.

A book auction bill, advertising the second part of the auction sale of what was evidently an immense private library belonging to the unidentified (by us) M. V***, de Chartres. Buyers premium is advertised at 5% and the catalogue was issued by auctioneer Charpentier and book expert Auguste Aubry. No copy of the catalogue (of either part) is recorded in the Bibliothèque nationale catalogue.

Two blood-sucking landlords expelling a bewildered tenant. In the hand of one of the ‘vampires’ a note reads ‘eviction’ [congé], ‘end of lease’ [fin de bail] and ‘increase’ [augmentation] and all the notes scattered on the ground make reference to the real estate business. The caption reads ‘We promise, no reduction’. Paris (like London) was in the throes of a vampire craze in the 1820s, following the publication of Polidori’s The Vampyre in 1819, Charles Nodier’s melodrama Le Vampire was performed in Paris in June 1820, and spawned a host of spinoffs in popular culture and the press.

A rare large-format toy theatre print with figures for cutting out and mounting from a performance at Astley’s Amphitheatre, which was then managed by Andrew Ducrow, the father of circus equestrianism. The plate is unsigned other than by the publisher William West and is unattributed in the British Museum print catalogue, but it is of high quality. The BM copy was acquired with the nineteenth-century collection of toy theatre prints assembled by Ralph Thomas, who had made a tentative attribution to William Blake in Notes and Queries in 1898 (June 4th, p. 455). The British Museum did not adopt the attribution, though there is certainly something of Blake’s style in the print. William West was the pioneer of the Regency toy theatre print, commissioning work from both Cruickshank brothers, Flaxman, Dighton and Brooke.

First edition of Artus’s satire on Henri III of France (assassinated in 1589) who was reputedly fond of cross-dressing and whose court was widely criticised for decadence and immorality.
Les Hermaphrodites describes a realm populated by men who dress as women, not strictly (or biologically) hermaphrodite, but preoccupied by dress, hairstyle, makeup, extravagant gesture and speech. Also concerned with the laws and customs of the hermaphrodite kingdom, the satire operates by seeking to present Henri’s court as both dissolute and against nature. In so doing it reflects in great detail contemporary attitudes (both positive and negative) to gender-blurring of any sort, whether social or sexual. At one point, for example, Artus writes ironically that cross-dressing was perfectly permissible: ‘Chacun pourra s’abiller à sa fantasie, pourveu que ce soit bravement, superbement, & sans aucune distinction ny consideration de sa qualité ou faculté’, thus combining his disapproval with a suggestion of the negation of natural order or rank.
The engraved title depicts a figure of ambiguous gender (presumably Henri himself) in male breeches, but full-hipped, with a suggestion of female breasts and a floral coiffe, with the legend ‘A tous accords’. Below it is the text:
‘Je ne suis masle ny femelle
Et sy je suis bien en ceruelle
Le quell des deux je doibs choisir
Mais qu’importe à qui on ressamble
Il vault mieux les avoir ensemble
On en reçoit double Plaisir.’
Henri’s sexuality was the subject of numerous contemporary satires. His taste for cross-dressing was well-known and his sexual orientation a matter of speculation, since he enjoyed close relationships with his male mignons (providing plenty of ammunition for moralistic detractors) but also well-publicised affairs with a succession of mistresses.
The second part of the book is Discours de Jacophile a Limne. Les Hermaphrodites was republished in 1724 with the title Description de l’isle des Hermaphrodites. The first edition is notably rare.
The arms of the contemporary binding are of the Clausse de Marchaumont family, probaby those of courtier Henri (d. 1613), the eldest son of Henry II’s secreatary of state Cosme Clausse, who served as Henry III’s ambassador to the Swiss states.

A curious florilegium, with extensive lithographed devotional text, presumably after the handwriting of author (’Jean, prêtre’) and a series of handcoloured lithographs. The latter include 31 of flowers (marigold, violet, primula, iris, cornflower, honeysuckle etc) which are paired with a description and devotional meditation on the opposite page. The others depict a hermit, a memento mori, a decorative contents list and (at the end) women in a religious procession with a banner. At least one them is signed ‘Jean’. The prefatory text is from Chateaubriand’s Le Martyrs: ‘En achevant ces mots, Zacharie s’arrêta, me montra le ciel où nous devions nous retrouver un jour, et, sans me laisser le temps de me jeter à ses pieds, il me quitta après m’avoir donné sa dernière leçon. C’est ainsi que Jésus-Christ dont il imite l’exemple, se plaisoit à instruire ses disciples, en se promenant au bord du lac de Génésareth, et faisoit parler l'herbe des champs et le lis de la vallée’.

Although marked ‘Deposé’ on the first leaf, we have been unable to find any other copies or record of its publication. It was presumably printed in very small numbers.

First (and presumably only) edition of a rare and delightful large format illustrated children’s book depicting boys and girls enjoying country life, including gardening and open air reading. The text is quadrilingual: German, French, Italian and Czech. This exceptionally well preserved copy bears a contemporary prize label, recording it as a prize to one Anna Kalser at the Pilsner Kreishhaupt-Schule (Bohemia). Very rare: no copy found in Worldcat. KVK records a single copy (Austrian National Library) of a variant issue (also undated) in 8vo format (paginated pp. 33, not 15 as in our oblong 4to, with the plates folded uncoloured).

A contemporary manuscript copy of thirteen early letters from Voltaire’s famous correspondence with Prussian Crown Prince Frederick (later ‘the Great’): a copy derived from a text circulated in manuscript by Voltaire himself, probably given to the Rault de Ramsault family, with whom he was acquainted. While the letters here are not in Voltaire’s hand, despite the wording of the title-page (‘donné par Mr. de Voltaire...’) they were presumably copied by the family from an authorial version now lost or unidentified. They date originally from June 1736 to June 1739, so covering the beginning of Voltaire’s and Frederick’s exchange — opening with Frederick’s first letter of 8 June 1736; Voltaire’s response of 1 September and followed by 10 further letters to 8 June 1739. After this, from page 59, there are copies of two further Voltaire texts: De l’Usage de la vie (written in 1736 in defence of his widely-criticised philosophical poem Le Mondain), and Ode sur l’ingratitude (also 1736) and the following texts by Frederick: Considérations du prince royal de Prusse sur le trône, aujourd’huÿ juin 1740 (a response to Voltaire’s enquiries about Russia, and not published in print until 1791) and ‘...Une Lettre du roy de Prusse à Mr le Marechal Comte de Saxe du 21 aoust 1749, au retour d’une visitte que luÿ fit ce ma[rech]al...’
The title-page bears the statement, ‘Ce manuscrit fut donné par Mr de Voltaire à Mde de Ramsault ma mère chez qui il fit un long séjour. 1740’ and is signed ‘Ramsault de Tortonval’. Charles Antoine de Rault de Ramsault (1687 - 1774, French military engineer army officer and director of fortifications at Lille) had corresponded with Voltaire shortly before 1740 and had evidently taken one of his relations into his service. Voltaire had a copy of the Henriade sent to the Ramsaults in January 1738 (Letters, 20 January 1738) and also gave a personally annotated copy of the 1740 Amsterdam edition of his Oeuvres to Mme de Ramsault, which bore a similar inscription to the one found in our manuscript: ‘Cette édition fut donnée à ma mère par M. de « Voltaire qui l’a enrichie de ses notes. Ramsault de Tortenval. »’ (Voy. Catalogue de livres rares, etc. dont la vente aura lieu le lundi 6 décembre 1880. Paris: Labitte, 1880, n° 65, p. 20, cited by Bengesco 2122).

The letters are as follows:

1. Lettre du P[rin]ce royal de Prusse à Mr de V à Berlin le 8 Juin [recorded elsewhere as 8 August] 1736. (Mr, quoi que je n’aie pas la satisfaction de vous connaître personnellement...);

2. Reponse de M. de Voltaire à S. A. R. Mgr. Le Pr. R. de Prusse. [undated, c. 1 September 1736]. (Il faudrait être insensible, pour n’être pas infiniment touché de la lettre dont votre a. r. a daigné m’honorer...);

3. 2e. Lettre de P. R. de Prusse à M. de Voltaire du 9. 9re. 1736. (Monsieur, c’est une épreuve bien difficile, pour un écolier en philosophie, que de recevoir des louanges d’un homme de votre mérite...);

4. Reponse de Mr. de Voltaire au prince roÿal de Prusse [c. December 1736]. (’Monseigneur, j’ai versé des larmes de joÿe en lisant la lettre du 9 septembre...’);

5. 3eme. Lettre du P. R. de Prusse à Mr. de Voltaire à Remusberg du 7. 9re... [7 November 1736]. (’Je suis infiniment sensible à l’honneur que vous me faites de placer mon nom à la tête du bel ouvrage...);

6. 4eme. Lettre du meme prince [3 December 1736]. (’Monsieur j’ai été agréablement surpris en recevant aujourd'hui votre lettre avec les pièces, dont vous avez bien voulu l’accompagner...);

7. Reponse de Mr. de Voltaire d’Amsterdam [?March 1737]. (’Mgr. je ne scai pas on commences, je suis engoué de plaisir de surprise et de reconnoissance...’);

8. Reponse de Mr. de Voltaire à Cireÿ le 1er janvier 1739. (’Jeune héros, esprit sublime,
Quels vœux pour vous pui-je former?...’);

9. De S. A. R. de Remusberg 22. 9vre 1738. [22 November 1738]. (’Mon cher ami, il faut avouer que vous êtes un débiteur admirable...’);

10. Lettre de M. de V. à Cireÿ le 15 fev. 1739. (’J’ai reçu les étrennes...’);

11. Lettre de M. de V. à S. A. R. à Cireÿ le 25 avril 1739. (’J’ai l’honneur d’envoyer à votre A. R. la lie de mon vin...’);

12. D. S. A. R. de Berlin le 8 Juin [elswhere given as 8 January] 1739. (’Mon cher ami, je m’étais bien flatté que l’Epître sur l’humanité pourrais mériter votre approbation...’).

Sole edition of this rare suite of ten hand-coloured lithographs commemorating a ball inspired by Ivanhoe, held in Brussels on 5 February 1823 by the Prince and Princess of Orange in honour of the British community in that city. The ball was an early expression of ‘Scottomania’, and of the revival of interest in medieval pageantry, that occupied European high society following the publication of Ivanhoe in 1819. There were thirty-two guests at the ball, all attending in elaborate costume and dancing a special quadrille which became the talk of the town and remained ‘the principal topic of conversation at Brussels’ several months later (according to the The Repository of Arts, May 1823). The additional printed programme (not necessarily issued with the plates) tells us that Lord Danlo was Ivanhoe, while the Black Knight was played by Mr de Janti, and Mrs Berkley taking the role of Rowena. Further down the list is Mrs Fielden (sic), as Alicia, wife of the Joseph Ffeilden who owned this copy – she can be seen on the left in Plate VII. Jowers, Theatrical Costume 3126. COPAC shows copies at NLS, Edinburgh, and V&A. Worldcat adds Paris-INHA only.

The earliest portrait of Leopold Bloom. Mariette Lydis contributed one illustration to the first issue of “900”, placed with the fragment of Ulysses in the French translation by Auguste Morel. The image, captioned ‘Illustration’ is dated 1925 at the foot. No earlier illustration of Bloom is known (nor indeed any earlier illustration of Ulysses) and the standard idea of him is drawn partly from Joyce’s own inept sketch of him made in Paris in 1926. The image is clearly identifiable as a Leopold Bloom-like figure, yet is perhaps not a direct illustration (what are we to make of the Ostende tourist poster in the background, for example?) but no-one appears to have noted or commented on this remarkable image by an important female artist of the 1920s. While Slocum & Cahoon record the appearance of the text, the image is passed over in silence.

Joyce was nominally a joint editor of the radical literary review “900”, with Massimo Bontempelli. Mariette Lydis was Bontempelli’s lover at this period (her letters to him are preserved at the Getty Institute) and probably also know Joyce. She sketched his portrait the following year in Paris.

The Ulysses excerpt translated by Morel is episode 4, ‘Calypso’, introducing Leopold Bloom with his morning visit to the butcher’s shop for a kidney for Molly’s breakfast. James Joyce is listed among the journal’s editors on the half-title verso (along with Bontempelli, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Jerog Kaiser and Pierre Mac Orlan). Among the adverts at the end of the volume is a full-page for the forthcoming German edition of Ulysses by Rheinverlag of Zurich (the book appeared in the autumn of 1927). Another advert is for the journal Critica Fascista (a ’Fortnightly Fascist Review’). Slocum & Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce (953), D25 (p. 113).

First edition of this very scarce collection of plates by a remarkable female engraver. Issued separately in 1814 and later as a suite to an 1827 edition of the illustrations of Flaxman. The 1814 issue was accompanied by a title page, but this set from the library of an early admirer of her work, Prosper de Barante, has been bound without a title.

Very little is known of this remarkable female engraver working in the austere neo-classical style of Flaxman, very much in tune with the aesthetics of the the Empire style in France. Giacomelli was also an accomplished singer. According to Fonds Français après 1800 (IX, p. 74) Giacomelli ‘a gravé au trait sous l’influence de David et avec l’amitié de Denon’. A lithograph portrait of her by Denon survives. The Journal des arts, des sciences, et de littérature reviewed her collection of plates for Milton’s Paradise Lost in 1813:

‘...les amateurs conviendront sans peine que la collection des douze figures de Mme Giacomelli est une des productions les plus agréables que la gravure nous ait offertes depuis long-temps. Nous vivons dans un siècle où les femmes ont conquis, dans la littérature, le rang le plus distingué: il suffit de jeter les yeux sur cet ouvrage, pour s’apercevoir que le domaine des arts ne leur est pas non plus étranger. Déjà le dessin et la gravure ont mérité à Mme Giacomelli d’honorable suffrages; son talent comme cantatrice avait avantageusement brillé dans plusieurs concerts...’ (vol. 15, p. 62).

First edition (despite the mention fictive ‘deuxième édition’ on the title-page). A pioneering gay narrative and one of the first novels written about Oscar Wilde after his conviction. Messes noires is the story of Lord Lyllian, a tragic character born in Scotland with a striking overt resemblance to Wilde, addicted to adolescent boys and to opium. It was written on the Island of Capri where Fersen had fled following his arrest in France (for indecent assault and exciting minors to debauchery in the course of a series of soirées dubbed Messes noires). Fersen had formerly associated with a coterie of Paris decadents including Jean Lorrain, Robert de Montesquiou and Karl-Joris Huysmans, but his 1903 arrest caused a scandal in the press, who were quick to dub him ‘un nouvel Oscar Wilde’, and he was ostracised by almost all his former literary friends. The cover and title-page of the novel bear the Wildean epigram ‘L’amour a pour moi deux ennemis: / les préjugés et ma concierge’.

A good prize binding, from George Green’s School, Docklands, East London, founded in 1828 by George Green, a shipbuilder and shipwright.

Second edition (The first edition had appeared the previous year, with the same plates, as three consecutive volumes in Bentley’s Miscellany). ‘Praised for its vivid writing, especially its depiction of a storm on the Thames and its account of Jack Sheppard's escape from Newgate prison, the novel became so popular that by the end of 1839 nine different theatrical versions of it had appeared on the London stage. One of these versions introduced the hit song of the season (’Nix my Dolly, Pals’), based on a ‘flash song’ of criminal slang that Ainsworth had written for Rookwood. But Jack Sheppard also provoked criticism. John Forster attacked it in The Examiner for glorifying criminals, William Makepeace Thackeray did the same in his novel Catherine, and there were even suggestions that the notorious murder committed by Courvoisier in 1840 had been inspired by a reading of Ainsworth's novel’ (ODNB).

Sixteenth edition (the first was November 1924). Avery presentable copy.