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First published in 1819, Le Poupée bien élevée proved popular among children on both sides of the English Channel, with numerous editions in both French and English (the latter as The Well Bred Doll). Jeanne Sophie Mallès de Beaulieu (176-1825) was the author of numerous moral and entertaining stories for children including Le Robinson de douze ans (1820).

A curious copy of this popular edition, removed from its original boards or wrappers at an early date and placed in a board chemise with ties and manuscript labels, perhaps for a personal or circulating library.

Sole edition of a rare illustrated poetical collection by a so-far unidentified woman of the English community at the Breton town of Dinan. The subscribers list contains 52 names, mainly English and mainly women. The romantic plates are very accomplished but unsigned, save by the printer Mainoë at Nantes. They are captioned with excerpts from the verses. No UK copies located by JISC/COPAC.

First edition, one of 150 unnumbered copies on Arnold’s hand-made paper (of which 140 were for sale). All the woodblocks and vellum copies were burnt in the Ballantyne Press fire of December 1899. This copy is from the library of Uranian poet and publisher Francis Edwin Murray. Watry B28; Ransom, Vale Press, 28; Tomkinson, Vale Press, 28

First edition of this typographical innovation by a radical editor, in which the text, including the titles and all the verses, is presented at ninety degrees to the usual disposition. The 12-syllable lines being too long for a traditional small format book, the format allows the verses to be read with the book held with the gutter running left to right (rather than top to bottom). Many of the quatrains are by Maréchal himself and he adds a short section of verses by French women at the end: Louise Labé, Catherine Des Roches, Jeanne D’Albret, Marie de Gournay, Henriette de Coligny de La Suze, Madéleine de Scudéry and Antoinette-Thérèse Deshoulières.

This is a rare work by the utopian anarchist Maréchal (1750–1803), ‘one of the most audacious sophists of the 18th century’ (Biographie universelle). It was published in the same year as his notorious Livre échappé au déluge, the indecent parody of the prophets which lost him his position as sub-librarian at the Collège Mazarin. He thereafter lived by his pen and became known as one of the early utopian socialists and an enthusiastic supporter of Babeuf’s anarchist program. Conlon, Prélude au siècle des lumières en France, 84:578, not in Brunet or Quérard. Worldcat lists copies at UC Berkeley, University of Minnesota and Wayne State only outside continental Europe.

First edition of the first British act of legislation to deal specifically with the provision of education in England and Wales. It instituted schooling for children between the ages of five and twelve, established local education authorities with defined powers and authorized public money to improve existing schools. Most importantly, it demonstrated a commitment to compulsory provision on a national scale. Introduced by Liberal politician William Forster (and sometimes referred to as ‘Forster’s Act’) it also marks an important milestone in the history of literacy and literature, and has been seen as a primary stimulant of the growth in reading and of popular fiction for a mass market.

First edition of this rare little treatise of cat lore by an author who describes herself as a portière and which is dedicated to the ‘Dames, veuves et demoiselles françaises et étrangères’. It is full of practical advice on behaviour, diet and health and is proceeded by a literary and historial éloge and ended by a drama for a cast of cats: ‘Les Chats, tragédie lyrique’. One chapter gives detailed instructions for feline taxidermy. Worldcat lists the Penn library copy as the only location outside continental Europe.

A very rare Rouen edition in English of Avantures de Télémaque, apparently a direct piracy of the London seventh edition by Rivington, Johnson, Newbery et al, with the same pagination and complete with the ’Discourse of epic Poetry’ by Andrew Ramsay. While the pagination is identical this is almost certainly French typography, with characteristic fleurons. Jean-Jacques Besongne is an interesting figure, from a long-established family of Rouen printers, but who was to go bankrupt later in 1784 and move to Paris where he published several polemics on the freedom of the press. A letter survives from him to Benjamin Franklin (9 March 1780) asking his assistance in liquidating his entire stock to form a French library in America. It is not known if Franklin responded. There are two issues of this edition, one giving Besogne’s name only in the imprint (ESTC T153158, copies at BL and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek only) and this one (ESTC N54940, copy at University of Florida only).

This copy contains the twentieth-century bookplate of the wartime Swedish consul in Majorca, Carl Fryberg and an additional inscription from his wife Signe to the acting British consul Ivan Lake dated 1943. At some point (it is impossible to say when) a corner of page 281 has been turned down marking the text ‘Alas! cried Telemachus, lo! the evils which war draws after it! How blind a fury possesses wretched mortals! They have but a few days to live on the earth, and those are days of sorrow; why then will they quicken the pace of death which is already so near? Why will they add so many shocking evils to the bitterness with which the Gods have crowed their span of life! Men are all brothers, and yet they tear each other in pieces...’

First edition of this parallel text edition, which is the third edition in English, after Hoby’s translation of 1561 and Samber’s of 1724. For a translator of such a substantial text, very little attention has been paid to the identity of ‘A.P. Castiglione’ and not much is known about him. He appears to have been a political refugee and a language tutor, to judge by the wording of his dedication to the King: ‘Your Majesty’s happy Realm, which has long been an Asylum to the distressed in every Nation, will now become so much their Countrey, that the Peace they enjoy in it, can alone incline them to think it not so. When your gracious Intention to establish Professors of the Modern Languages was made public I embrac’d with Pleasure the first Opportunity for expressing my Gratitude towards a generous People, among whom, as at first I was brought by Conscience, I am likely ever to remain by Inclination.’

He evidently enjoyed the patronage of Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, who is thanked in ‘To the Reader’ and who appears among the subscribers (taking 12 copies). The fine engraved portrait of Castiglione in his edition is by George Vertue after the portrait in the Louvre by Raphael. The work concludes with a fine woodcut tailpiece with a medallion portrait., perhaps cut especially for this edition.

A Greek edition of the magical oracles of Zoroaster, which includes commentaries of Pletho and Psellus in Latin, together with a separate collection of metrical oracles, both edited by Johannes Opsopaeus (1556-1596, physician and philologist, professor of medicine at Heidelberg, whose principal literary activity related mainly to the Sibylline Oracles and Hippocrates). The two volumes, though separately bound together here, were also issued as the second and third parts of a three-volume collection, the first being of the Sybylline oracles. Both titles bear the fine woodcut Lutetian ship device of the so-called ‘Compagnie de la Grand-Navire’, which in 1599 comprised the printers Abel l’Angelier, Barthélmy Macé, Ambroise Drouart, Michel II and Laurent and Jean Sonnius (Répertoire d’imprimeurs 1265). Their individual devices can be seen on the ship’s pennants. Adams lists each volume both separately and as part of the three volume collection. Brunet V, 370. Caillet 8135. Ebert 21171. Adams O 208-209.

A French edition, translated from the German original by Francois Jean Philibert Aubert de Vitry. A series of dialogues addressed to young children (a boy and a girl) aged four and five, emphasising all the essential virtues of parenthood. The attractive aquatint plates were probably issued with the original edition and include several delightful family scenes. The first French edition appeared in 1825 and the date of 1837 for this reprint is taken from the Princeton Cotsen catalogue. cf. Barbier, II 1010; Querard VIII 508-10.

Basil Spence and John Hutton worked together as architect and mural painter for the Society of Mural Painters’ RIBA exhibition in 1953. The scheme that they picked to work on was one for the interior of an office building. David Rock designed an interior with a mezzanine and interesting views throughout. On one side of the room was to be a mural with nine full height muses by John Hutton. Hutton, however, never came up with the other six in time for the exhibition, so Rock simply made them up in Hutton’s style. Many years later a book was written about John Hutton where the author mistook the six muses that Rock had created for Hutton’s own work, arguing that the six muses sketch had been mislaid over time! At the opening of the exhibition, however, there was a lot of embarrassment as Hutton had motioned Rock into a group and introduced him to his model Marigold, whom Rock had only met in her dressing gown when he collected Hutton’s sketches. After a few seconds of confusion Rock said “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on!” Exhibited: John Hutton New Zealand Tour, National Art Gallery, Wellington, et al, 1972, cat no. 2.

A good copy of this classic, if gruesome, children’s title. Struwwelpeter (’Shock-headed Peter’) was first published in 1845 as Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder – with its name changed to the familiar Struwwelpeter in the edition of 1858. It was thereafter reprinted in hundreds of editions worldwide before 1900. The 1876 edition added a special jubilee leaf which was reprinted in later editions, as here. Though undated, this 248th edition was printed c. 1895.

The Victorian gift book was a major phenomenon in nineteenth-century publishing culture. Huge numbers were produced, usually copiously illustrated and bound in decorative cloth, often destined for the Christmas and New Year gift market. This is an excellent and representative collection, formed over many years, exhibiting a wide range of decorative styles ―usually with elaborate stamping in gilt, blind and black, onlays and inlays of contrasting cloth printed in a variety of techniques and gauffered edges. There are several examples of copies of the same edition in variant cloth colours. The work of Edmund King examining the Victorian decorated trade bindings 1830-1880 in the British Library (many from the unsurpassed collection of Robin de Beaumont) has highlighted their huge variety and identified a large number of artists and designers involved. King concentrated on attributable bindings and others with similar or striking designs and he identified key figures such as Henry Noel Humphreys, John Leighton and William Harry Rogers as major contributors. The present collection contains many examples noted by King, but also, rather more than half the total ‘not in King’, usually with unsigned bindings, but often as striking as King’s examples, which only serve to emphasise the variety of the material and the potential number of unnamed designers engaged in book production of the period.
Peter Rose (d. 2020) and Albert Gallichan (d. 2001) were pioneer Victorianists, beginning their collections of decorative arts in the 1950s and 60s when most antiques of this period were overlooked by serious collectors. They were founder members of the British Decorative Arts Society and inspired a generation of collectors. They bought pictures, ceramics, furniture over several decades and filled their large Brighton house in exuberant style. (it was featured in the September 2021 issue of The World of Interiors) exuberant style. Books were a backdrop in almost every room, with a large reference collection and another collection devoted to Victorian gift books, from which we have chosen the 100 best.
References are to Edmund M.B. King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003). Condition is generally good or better, with specific flaws noted. As usual, the covers and sides are in brighter condition than the exposed spines, which exhibit typical fading, darkening and sometimes chipping. Additional photographs can be supplied on request (pictures here are only roughly to scale). The collection occupies roughly ten linear feet (circa 3 metres). View the complete illustrated list at: https://www.justincroft.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/RG100.pdf

First edition of this translation and with the striking large engraved plates by Lady Diana Beauclerk. The artist was the eldest daughter of Charles Spencer, third duke of Marlborough. ‘Lady Di, as she was familiarly known, grew up at Langley Park, Buckinghamshire... There she enjoyed a happy upbringing, her taste for drawing developing early under the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ (Oxford DNB). Her second marriage to Topham Beauclerk brought her into the orbit of Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Charles Fox, Edmund Burke, and others. Her work — often in the gothic taste — was admired by Horace Walpole who commissioned seven large panels in black wash illustrating his tragedy, The Mysterious Mother, which he hung in a special hexagonal closet at Strawberry Hill (six of them are now at the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT). She also produced designs for Josiah Wedgwood.

First authorised edition in French, the translation by Alfred Gérardin. It contains a bilingual address by Dickens giving his approbation to the translation as part of a Works series projected by Hachette, concluding: ‘This is the only edition of my writings that has my sanction. I humbly and respectfully, but with full confidence, recommend it to my French readers. Charles Dickens. Tavistock-House, London, January 17th, 1857’. It is the translation in which Oliver Twist was read by French readers into the twentieth century, though the identity of Alfred Gérardin remains obscure.

Earlier unauthorised editions had appeared in 1841 (Olivier Twist, ou l’Orphelin du depot de medicité, published by Barba) and in 1850 (Les Voleurs de Londres by Bedollière). The present Gérardin translation was issued a volume of Hachette’s of Bibliothèque des meilleurs romans étrangers in 1860 (and Monod is incorrect to state that it was first issued in 1864). cf. Sylvère Monods, ‘Les premiers traducteurs français de Dickens’, Romantisme, 1999, 29, 106, pp. 120-1. BL only in Jisc/Copac. WorldCat lists US copies at Morgan (Gordon Ray’s copy), San Diego, Chapel Hill, New Jersey State. �

A charming miniature juvenile library, complete with its original glass fronted case.
Cotsen A-50 (wanting the glass front); Bondy, p. 77; Welsh, 2012, 2788, 5569, 6481, 3312 and 5558. In the US, Worldcat lists the Wightman copy at the Morgan Library, the Cotsen copy at Princeton, the Adomeit copy at Indiana together with copies at University of Colorado and Oak Spring.

First edition of this delightful collection of floral poetry illustrated with unusual colour printed plates, each of two or three tints probably applied to the plate simultaneously. They are described by the online catalogue of the Bibliothèque nationale as lithographs, but they appear to be a kind of stipple engraving. A couple are marked as being after drawings by Poitreau, one of the most prominent botanical artists of the era (alongside Redouté). The work is dedicated to the young salon host, collector and bibliophile, the duchesse de Berry (1798-1870).
The plates comprise: Le lis, la rose, la violette, la fleur d’oranger, la scabieuse, le bleuet, l’immortelle, la perce-neige, le soleil, les marguerites, le laurier rose, l’hortensia, le souci, l’astérie, le pavot et le narcisse and le lilas.

First edition, rare, of an epistolary novel by a Frenchman in London, who was variously described as a diplomat, an adventurer and a spy. Treyssac de Vergy had come to England at the time when a circle of French diplomats, including the Comte de Guerchy and the Chevalier D’Eon were making themselves notorious by involving the English courts in their interpersonal disagreements. Vergy was widely accused of being hired by de Guerchy to make an attempt on the Chevalier D’Eon’s life. He wrote several sentimental novels in English, including The Lovers and The Scotchman both noted in the preliminaries of the first volume here. Dedicated to Lady Harriet Stanhope, the novel was reprinted in Dublin in the same year and again in London on 1785 as part of The Novelist’s Magazine. ESTC: British Library, Bodley and Paxton House (Scottish Borders) only, Worldcat adds no more.

A popular guide to writing love letters, intended for the use of young men and women. Presented in pairs, there are numerous letter samples, usually from the the man to the woman, with her response. There is a useful synoptic table of the several types of love, together with a description of several invisible inks or ‘encres sympathiques’. Cf. Gay, III, 821 (editions of 1825 and 1842, attributed to Cuisin). The Bibliothèque nationale catalogue lists editions of 1825 and 1837 (but not our edition). All editions appear very rare.