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First edition in English of the Jesuit Crasset’s Histoire de l’Église du Japon (1689).

First edition of this translation of La Vida de Santa Teresa de Jesus by English Catholic convert, courtier and exile, Tobie Matthew. It is dedicated to the Queen of England, Henrietta Maria, who in 1642 was in the Hague attempting to raise money against the royal jewels for Charles’s cause in the recently erupted Civil War. A previous translation by Michael Walpole (1570-1625) appeared as The lyf of the mother Teresa of Iesus. (Antwerp, 1611). Wing T753; Clancy, English Catholic Books 1641-1700, 941.

First edition of a spectacular panorama made from drawings by a British serviceman on the long sea voyage home to England. It depicts members of the Bengal Native Infantry on the march with horses, camels and elephants and includes a Hindu priest, native officers, water-carriers, laundry-men, sepoys, a coffee party, a ‘cart in which Native Females ride and ‘Fakeers denouncing their flying Friends’. The Bengal Native Infantry, comprising mainly indigenous troops, originated with the East India Company's Bengal Army and was central to British power in India; it was only disbanded after the Indian Mutiny (1857). William Ludlow was one of their British officers, apparently with numerous postings over a relatively long period, notably in the suppression of ‘Thuggee’ violence against British interests in Bengal.

This is also a very early British example of ‘zincography’, perhaps one of the earliest substantial projects in this media. In 1834, the Frenchman Breugnot obtained a 15 year patent for a new lithographic process in which zinc plates replace the more traditional lithographic stones. The Literary Gazette of 1834 contains a brief notice of specimen by Day and Haghe of this new process, the publishers of Ludlow’s remarkable large scale prints the following year. Abbey, Life 530. Copies are also known as folding plates in a cloth binding, or as loose plates sometimes mounted in albums, the rolled version, especially with the original box, appear very rare. Of all versions Worldcat lists copies at Brown, University of Minnesota, Zurich, National Library of Australia. The BL and the Lewis Walpole Library have a copies, in 6 original plates (each with 3 scenes, the Walpole copy uncoloured).

The commonplace book of a young woman, begun at the age of 14 in the convent of the Visitation (Nancy) and finished 5 years later. In Félicité’s words on the title-page: ‘Commencé en 1812 à la Visitation; fini en 1817 dans le monde’. Genelaogical records tell us that she was born on 10 February 1798 at Nancy and died at the age of 25 on 21 January 1823, at the age of 24, having given birth to a daughter, Cécile, in that month. She had married Charles Froment in 1821.

Her commonplace book, fully completed, is perhaps typical of an orthodox Catholic education of the post-Revolutionary era, beginning with extracts from pious and devotional works giving advice on conduct, motherhood and family life and preparing young girls for life outside the convent. It opens with a ‘Testament spirituel de Mad. de M***’ (d. 1797) and includes ‘Maximes d’une jeune Personne qui entre dans le Monde’ which provides a series of morsels of advice on: prudence and discretion, truth and sincerity, politesse, impartiality, moderation and so on. Later portions of the book include literary extracts, including verses from the popular journals of the day, a long extract (in French) from Fielding’s Sir Charles Grandisson giving the Italian catholic, Clementine della Poretta’s letter to the protestant Grandisson, and selections from Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy’s, satires on Parisian life: L’Ermite de la Chaussée d’Antin, published from 1811 to 1814 in the weekly Gazette de France.

First edition of this rare French abridgement of the seventeenth-century Mystica ciudad de dios, a life of the Virgin Mary and the most important work by this Franciscan abbess and mystic. Spiritual adviser to king Philip IV of Spain, Abbess María was reputed to be able to bilocate herself, mystically appearing among missionaries to the Jumano Indians of New Spain. The ‘Lady in Blue’ or ‘Blue Nun’ was a major inspiration to Franciscan missionaries in America. OCLC lists no US copies.

First edition, preserved in its contemporary wrapper. A panegyric given on the Feast of Saint Louis, patron saint of France in the church, to members of the Académies royales in the church of the Oratoire. Worldcat: Newberry and Michigan only outside France.

A very scarce early temperance movement sermon. ‘The use of liquor is inconsistent with any thing like pure and high spiritual enjoyment, clear spiritual views, and true devotion...’. Published in New York in the National Preacher in 1831 and rapidly reprinted within just a few months in several editions in London, where the Temperance movement was in its infancy. The British and Foreign Temperance Society issued its first report in 1831 (an extract is reproduced on p. 16 here). Worldcat/LibraryHub locate only a handful of copies of all issues, American and British (the former being extracts from the National Preacher).

First edition of this sermon on the tercentenary of the Reformation preached in Chapman’s independent evangelical chapel in Greenwich. An engraved portrait of the author, dated 1824, has been added. Worldcat/Library Hub locate copies at BL, Newcastle, Regent's Park College Library and Staatsbibliothek, Belrin only. No US copies.

The life work of a Belgian natural history enthusiast, a massive and extraordinary collection of gathered knowledge, illustrated throughout with thousands of the author’s distinctive naive watercolours. The manuscript, in four volumes (one elephant folio, three folios), consists of complex visual arrangements of data which often extends over huge folded charts, each leaf filled to its maximum extent in neat manuscript in coloured inks. Though undated, it includes materials gathered in the period c. 1920-1943 and perhaps before, and in an inserted note, the otherwise unknown compiler describes the work of ‘most of my life’. It would appear to be the work of an amateur rather than an academic specialist, hence its striking originality as a work of popular science.

The large folio volume is really a huge collection of charts devoted to human anatomy, animal and plant biology, the fossil record and evolution (or transformisme). Botany makes up the largest proportion, but there are sections on insects, reptiles, birds, flying lizards, marsupials and mammals. Dumoulin also had an interest in Africa and there are sections on the Sahara and on the Belgian Congo. The focus is worldwide and is drawn from reference works rather than original research, but the arrangements are highly idiosyncratic. Several evolutionary charts are attempted, mentioning Linnaeus, Darwin, Lamarck and Jussieu.

The Dictionnaire botanique is a large 3 volume compilation mainly devoted to botanical classification, from the smallest mosses and seaweeds, to exotic flowering plants and forest trees. Like the larger folio volume, these volumes are illustrated throughout, with accompanying text in coloured inks and often containing emblematic figures of human figures appropriate to the origins of the plant: including Africans and Americans. They have apparently been bound from a large number of separate files (whose stiff paper cover with labels are preserved) each devoted to a different botanical family. The third volume contains additional materials at the end, including a study on Pasteur and germs, another on insects and another on bird classification. Like the preceding parts, these are also copiously illustrated in colour.

We have discovered almost nothing of Dumoulin himself, though various details place him in the French-speaking Walloon region of Belgium around Liège. He includes a couple of leaves devoted to Belgium, one with an interesting historical schema (including a memento of various gas attacks in the Great War). A couple of inserted letters are to Belgian academic scientists and one expresses Dumoulin’s hope that his work would end up at a University. The cover of largest volume bears various mottos, perhaps a personal credo: ‘La vie sans science est presque l’image de la morte, C. Volpi’, ‘Chercher. Comprendre. Vouloir. Pouvoir. Oser. Sentir. Méditer’, ‘Naître, mourir et renaître sans cesse, telle est la loi, telle est lavie. V. Hugo’ and ‘Travailler pour être estimé. Etre estimé pour être aimé. Etre aimé pour être heureux’. The wooden stand suggests an intention for display. Whether this was an elaborate teaching aid, or simply an almost-incredible recreation, is an open question.

A series of calligraphic models or exercises of impressive size and quality. The writer, who signs his (or just possibly, her) name, minutely, at the foot of the first leaf, has chosen two edifying texts to transcribe. The first three sheets contain passages (including one on the immorality of duelling) from Varietés serieuses et amusantes of 1765, while the other eight, rather unusually contain letters from a father to a daughter (Émilie), being extracts from Abbé Gerard’s epistolary novel Le Comte de Valmont, ou les égarements de la raison of 1774. It would be unusual if this denoted a female scribe, but the choice of these extracts is tantalsing.

Each leaf is ruled in leadpoint and bears a large calligraphic cartouche, some have an additional penwork initial roundel and most exhibit a variety of scripts of exceptional neatness and regularity.

Becker, Practice of Letters, Hofer collection.

An unusual and rather beautiful variant of the lithographed prayerbook illuminated by hand. Such books, printed with broad blank margins could be purchased with a range of more-or-less unique embellishments in manuscript by talented anonymous ecclesiastical artists, usually women. This example is unusual for the range of its decorative motifs, including flowers, insects, stained glass windows, a sailing boat, elephants, a frog and peacocks. It combines consciously medieval imagery (notably a lady with a unicorn) with a delightful fin-de-siècle lightness, with elements of japonisme and art nouveau.

The final full page images include a nativity scene with named bells on the opposing page: Jacques, Marie and Magdelain, perhaps a personalisation for its particular owner, again, almost certainly a woman.

First edition, rare. John Wesley had delivered a sermon at the laying of the foundation stone of the Methodist mother church in City Road in April 1777. In this critical pamphlet the ‘gentle Strictures’ promised by evangelical preacher Hill on the title-page turn out to be vitriolic criticisms of Wesley laid out in 37 chapters, attacking his self-centred address. Chapter 31 takes issue with Wesley’s perfidy in his perceived encouragement of the American revolution in Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs, in which he had stated the the British government’s attitude towards the Americans’ could no longer be defended. ESTC: UK: Birmingham, BL, Congregational Library, Rylands (3 copies), US: SMU and Wesley Theological Seminary.

A set of blank ornamental borders designed for use by the convent girls of the monastery of the order of the Visitation at Ornans in Eastern France. Probably destined for use as models for notecards and letters, as suggested by the contemporary tracings. A wonderful example of contemporary decorative arts in a convent environment these watercolours are elegantly ornate, incorporating foliage, flowers, vines, swags and birds. The convent at Ornans had been founded in the early seventeenth century and, after the Revolution, refounded as a religious school in 1839 for girls. The Ordre de la Visitation de Sainte-Marie, or ‘Visitandines’ had existed also from the early seventeenth century, founded as an active order for the visitation of the sick.

Probably the first edition in French—one of several issues of the same year with the same pagination but differing title ornaments. First published in 1740 as The Chronicle of the Kings of England under the pseudonym of Nathan Ben Saddi, Dodsley here displayed his egalitarian leanings with this rewriting of English history in the style of the King James Version of the Old Testament Pentateuch. The imprint is false and it is unlikely that the French editions were actually printed in London. In this issue the engraved vignette on the title-page is a frame with a pedestal upon which are a spear, a shield, laurel wreaths and an owl, there are several variants, as enumerated in the ESTC. Rochedieu, p. 88 (noting issues with both Londres and Amsterdam imprints).

A superb illuminated manuscript decorated in a wide variety of styles, chronologically arranged, including Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Greco-Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arab, Byzantine, Carolingian, German, Celtic and European styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. The manuscript is unsigned, but is typical of the very best French revivalist artists of the period, who were often (but not always) women trained in ultra-orthodox Catholic religious houses. Leading binders such as Léon Gruel in Paris could call upon a wide range of talented calligraphers and artists for commissions such as this commemorative marriage book for Irma Lafontaine and Émile Brangeon (both born 1899 and married at Lourdes in 1929).

Sole edition. ‘And Enoch walked with God. Gen. V. 24.’ Apparently by an anonymous follower of the evangelical Church of England preacher, William Romaine — a spiritual meditation occasioned by a daily walk — a trope clearly derived from Romaine’s spiritual classic The Walk of Faith (1771), a work recommended in a postscript here: ‘Reader, if the perusal of this letter has been profitable unto you, and you desire to be further instructed how to live by Faith, and walk humbly and happily with your God, ---- I would recommend to you a Treatise of the Life of Faith, and one of the Walk of Faith; both by the Rev. Romaine Rector of St. Ann Blackfriars...’

First edition in English, very rare, of this celebrated treatise on inventions and origins, including accounts of the invention of printing, theatre, mathematics, medicine, magic, religion, law, government (as well as prostitution and warm baths). First published in Latin in 1499 (Venice) and augmented in 1521, it digested a huge mass of classical, biblical and contemporary learning and became a Renaissance bestseller. As many as 30 Latin editions alone appeared before the author’s death in 1555. The English translation, an abridgement by Thomas Langley, did not appear until 1546, by which time the Urbino-born Polydore had been resident in England for several decades. A diplomat, scholar and historian, Vergil counted Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Linacre and Baldessare Castiglione among his acquaintances and correspondents.

Issued no less than three times in 1546, this English edition is remarkably rare. We can find only this copy at auction in the last 50 years. The work is divided into eight books, from which Langley makes succinct abridgements, of which a selection of chapter headings gives a flavour:

I. 9. ‘The begynnyng of Tragedies, Comedies, Satyres, and newe Comedies; 11. ‘Who founde Musyke’; 12. ‘Who found Musicall instruments’; 14. ‘Astrologie’; 15. ‘Who fonde Geometrie, Artihmetike’; 16. ‘Physike’; 17. ‘The inventours of herbes medicinable’; 18. ‘The beginnyng of Magike’; 19. ‘Two kyndes of divination’.

II. 1. ‘The originall of lawes’; 2. ‘Who ordeyned the first gouvernaunces’; 6. ‘Who set furth books fyrst, or made a library, Printyng, paper, parchement, arte of memory’ (which includes the observation: ’Truely the com[m]odite of liberaries is right profitable & necessary, but in co[m]parison of the crafte of printyng it is nothyng, both because one ma[n] may printe more in one day, then many men in many years could wryte: And also it preserveth both Greke & Latine auctours fro the dau[n]ger of corruption. It was found in Germany at Mogunce [Mainz] by one J. Guthenbergus a knight, he found moreover the Inke by his devise that printers used...)’

Among other entries we find treatments of: war, Olympiades, plays, metals, coins, painting, ‘wyne, oyle, honye, chese, and strange trees broughte into Italy’, labyrinths, theatres, prostitution and brothels, and Christian and Moslem origins and customs.

Provenance: Sotheby’s, June 14th, 1965, lot 231 (Traylen, £55); Blackwell, Centenary Catalogue, 1979, item 27, £450; private collection. STC 24654. STC lists two other printings of the same year: 24655 (another edition, reset, with colophon dated 16 April) and 24656 (another issue, portions reset, with both title and colophon dated 16 April). In an article of 1888, John Ferguson suggested that these 16 April editions/issues preceded the 25 January edition, having old style dates in their imprints, but this sequence was not adopted by the editors of STC; John Ferguson, ‘Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil’s work, De Inventoribus Rerum’, 1888, pp. 17 et seq.

Prayers and hymns for vespers on the feast of Saint Aquilinus (19 October), made for the curates of his chapel at Évreux. Aquilin was born at Bayeux c. 620 and served in the army of Frankish king Clovis II. He married but vowed to devote his life to God and the service of the poor. The couple settled at Évreux before he was named bishop, wherupon he built a cell by the cathedral and lived as a hermit. He died circa 695 and the oratory where he was buried was named after him, it remained the site of his veneration until its destruction under applied bombardment in 1943/4.

The manuscript was made by one Louis Fromont for his uncle Mathurin in 1656. The later inscriptions indicate it was bequeated by the curate Le Goulx around 1679.

An unusual New Years’ gift from an unnamed compiler ‘for my dearly beloved Isabella Sophia Ochando de la Vanda. January one, 1830’; a manuscript compilation of verse and pious texts by hymnodist Edmeston, Shepherd, Southey (’The Victory’), Millman, Bowring, Burden, Emmerson, and Carlyle’s ‘Hymn before public worship translated from the Arabic’. Most of the texts are in English but a couple, by the Mechitarian cleric Nerses Clajense, are in Spanish and French respectively.

The two fine watercolours show HMS Victory in battle and....