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First edition in book form, rare, of no less than seven novellas by Genlis, which had appeared serially in the Mercure, headed by a tale of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork (1566-1643) the Elizabethan adventurer-colonist in Ireland. Contents: 1. Le Comte de Corke (preceded by a Notice historique); Trait de la vie de Henri IV; La jeune Pénitente; 2. Les Amans sans amour; Zumelinde; Le Tulipier, conte oriental; Les Savinies, ou, Les deux jumelles Worldcat: Toronto only outside continental Europe. Several editions followed quickly, including at least one of the same year. COPAC/JISC adds a copy at Swansea.

A pictorial aid to the sacrament of Confession, made for the use of a young girl or woman. It opens with an image of her kneeling before the priest: ‘Reverendo domino, seu pater muta et surda, ad te venio ut confitear peccata mea...’ There follows a series of representations of typical sins, with short captions in Latin, representing the potential sins to be confessed, including: distraction during the Eucharist, working on the Sabbath, missing confession, confession without repentance, disrespect to parents, anger, pride/vanity, hatred towards neighbours (for the term of an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year, emblematically depicted), arguing at games, gossiping, theft, lying, gluttony (’usque ad vomitum’), and two degrees of impure thought (general, and towards another outside marriage). Each emblem is a neat summation of the sin, using a variety of visual devices: distraction shown as curling lines rising from the head and terminating in frivolous curls; speech as an oscillating line, and the sins of the heart as a single red heart. At the end are three acts of contrition.

These emblems are typical of the pictorial culture of devotion found in contemporary Dutch catholic images and manuscripts, though we have never encountered a similar collection. The book is also typical of contemporary practical aids to confession, sometimes printed, designed to be taken into the confessional. This example is unusual for being specifically female.

The little book, evidently well-used, has been later reused as a notebook for household accounts, in Dutch, with dates up to around 1820.

Given away with the Illustrated London News on January 11th 1845. Apparently printed from 12 adjacent woodblocks. Examples were also issued folded, or mounted on linen, and not all were coloured. For an example not laid to linen, this one is in a good state of repair. The long Panoramic view is from an aerial elevation looking North across the river: Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Westminster (the latter before the addition of Big Ben, of course) stand a the western end, while Greenwich Hospital marks its easterly extent. Between those two points, the river curves eastwards, teeming with contemporary ships and rivercraft and the streets of the northern riverbank presented in admirable detail, together with all the major landmarks of the city, as denoted by the key. Included are: Nelson’s Column, erected three years before; the short-lived Hungerford Suspension Bridge (1845-1862, when it was removed and the chain used on the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon) and the Marble Arch used as the gateway to Buckingham Palace (it was re-erected in Hyde Park only in 1851).

The commonplace 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.

Probabaly compiled in the aftermath of the Seven Years War, this anonymous pocket treatise on the art of war comprises six chapters: [1] Maximes générales; [2] Des Camps de Rassemblement; [3]. La Guerre de Campagne, comprend l’objet, le plan général, le plan particulier, la conduite, re résultat et la fin des operations; [4] Campagnes de deffensive; [5] Campagnes d’hiver; [6] des Capitulations. Written from the point of view of a prospective military commander or general, it introduces the principles and objectives of campaign warfare of the sort that dominated European history in the eighteenth century. It makes occasional references to historical persons (Turenne and the Duc de Broglie) as well as to more recent events, such as the winter campaigns of 1757-9).

Provenance: Early ownership inscription: Antonio Lopez; Marquis d'Astorga, sale 1870 (described as from the library of the Dukes of Sessa); Bookplate of Ricardo Heredia, comte de Benahavis, sold as lot 551, Paul, Huard & Guillemin, Drouot (Paris), May, 1891.

First edition. An account of the author’s ‘pilgrimage’ to the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, where French monarch Charles X had taken refuge (for the second time) following his deposition by the July Revolution in 1830. The object of his pilgrimage was not so much Charles himself, but his young nephew Henri, son of the Duke and Duchess de Berri, named regent of French in exile. A detailed report of this extraordinary young man is given, together with the striking lithograph portrait. The ‘Récit’ of the meeting is followed by various reflections on the author’s return journey through London, and then by a ‘rêve’ in which he dreams of a return to Paris and restoration of the monarchy under the young Henri.

First edition of this very scarce physiognomical guide to matchmaking in love and marriage. The majority of the plates are paired, and come together in a rather pleasing fashion when the book is closed. Although anonymous, the second edition (1817) bore the attribution ‘Mme. de G******’, attributed to Madame de Genlis in the Bn catalogue. It is very much in the style of contemporary separately-published popular publications of Lavater (some of which are advertised on the final page as the Collection Physiognomique).

First edition of this graphic propaganda piece encouraging the projected invasion of Britain by Napoleon’s Revolutionary government. By pushing the definition of invasion and by including a long series of medieval coastal raids on Southern England, General Girardin can list 45 ‘invasions’ from 1066 to the present, with 41 being successful.

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.

First edition. A homage to Rousseau in the form of a series of imaginary visits to his monument on the Isle des Peupliers in the gardens of Ermenonville which had been constructed by the philosopher’s patron, the Marquis de Girardin. Lepetit’s adverts on 6 pages at the end are of interest and include several translations from gothic novels in English (Anne Radcliffe, Eléonor de Rosalba, ou le Confessionnal des Pénitens Noirs; Miss Bennett, Rosa, ou la Fille Mendiante and Sophie Lee, Le Soutterrain, ou Matilde). Worldcat: Cambridge, Dumbarton Oaks, Illinois and Princeton only outside continental Europe.

First edition in French of An authentic Account of Forgeries and Frauds of various kinds, committed by Charles Price, otherwise Patch or (alternatively) Memoirs of a Social Monster (1786), a sensational work which had run to six English editions within a year. Price, a highly successful forger of banknotes and a confidence trickster, notorious for engraving his own very plausible banknotes printed on paper of his own manufacture complete with watermarks, became something of a celebrity in eighteenth century London. He took his own life in Bridewell in 1786 and was the subject of numerous popular memoirs and ballads. Rochedieu, p. 368. Worldcat: Cambridge, Leeds, University of London, V & A, Cornell, UCLA and Yale outside continental Europe. Rochedieu, p. 368.

First published anonymously in May 1744, Moore’s Fables for the Female Sex had at least seventeen other editions in the eighteenth century, four of which were American; it was translated into French in 1764 and German in 1772. Three of the fables are by Henry Brooke. Hayman’s illustrations incorporate numerous elements from Francis Barlow’s sequence of the previous century; his original drawings of 1744 are preserved in the Rothschild collections at Waddesdon. Foxon, M428.

The Supernatural Philosopher is a reissue of The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (1720) with the addition of ‘Verses to Mr. Campbell. On the History of his Life and Adventures’ and ‘A remarkable passage of an apparition. 1665’.
The author evidently lodged for a while in the same London house as the Scots-born soothsayer Duncan Campbell (d. 1730), who was a well-known figure in the city. Deaf and mute, he was probably educated at Glasgow using the finger system devised by John Wallis in the seventeenth century. The History of the Life was persistently attributed until relatively recently to Defoe even though it was reissued here under Bond’s name.

The ‘Genii of Caricature’ haul in a net full of subjects (portraits, bon mots, manners, oddities, jokes etc) to Tegg’s Apollo Library, which advertises ‘The Largest Assortment of Caricatures in the World’, while the proprietor takes a pot shot at folly flying overhead. The caption is from Pope: ‘Eye Natures walks, shoot Folly as it flies, and catch the manners living as they rise’ (Essay on Man). The Apollo Library was at 111 Cheapside, at the corner of Honey Lane opposite St Mary-Le-Bow church. A famous caricature print, the tailpiece from The Caricature Magazine, vol. 3, published by Thomas Tegg, London, 1808–09, and the separate plate reissued several times to c. 1821.

First separate edition, presentation copy, reprinted from the Annali degli Medicina, January/Febraury 1833. The second cholera pandemic of the 1830s hit France harder than most other European countries. Spreading from the Far East via Russia, it appeared in Western Europe in 1831. In Paris it is estimated that 20,000 died (from a population of 650,000) with about 100,000 deaths across France. Caffarelli, a Piedmontese corresponding member of the Paris Société des Sciences Physiques, Chimiques et Arts industriels here considers the symptoms and progress of the disease, its treatment (both internal an external) according to contemporary methods. National Library of Medicine only in Worldcat. No copies located in French or British libraries.

First edition of this defence of Rousseau by a Genevan republican patriot, who includes numerous long extracts from Rousseau’s letters, which appear to have been otherwise unpublished. ESTC: Göttingen, Polish Academy of Sciences Library, Wisconsin and Western Michigan University only (there is also a copy at Cambridge). Conlon 548.

First edition of an influential pamphlet by a well-known French ceramicist, considering contemporary pottery from a hygenic point of view, and recommending his own newly-developed ‘hygiocerames’. Surveying the existing methods of production and glazing, he identifies numerous health risks in underfired pottery and in glazes using metal oxides. Wedgwood’s Etrurian pottery and his hugely-successful white Queen’s Ware come in for particular censure, though its popularity is conceded. The pamphlet was part of major enquiry into ceramic production in France initiated by the Sèvres factories.

First edition, an account of advanced English pottery techniques, mainly derived from those of Wedgwood. Instructions for decoration include both bas relief and transfer printing techniques, both relatively new methods in France. The plates depict English potter’s wheels and a kiln. Edme Jean Baptiste Bouillon-Lagrange contributed chemical data.

An unpublished French translation of Wheaton’s influential History of the Northmen (1831) by Emma Chuppin de Germigny (1809?-1852). History of the Northmen is notable as the first book in English to claim that America had been discovered by the Norse before the voyage of Columbus.

The translator Emma Chuppin de Germigny was the daughter of a noble emigré settled in Normandy after the Revolution. A long biographical entry in the Mémoires of the Caen Académie recounts her life: her family’s reduced circumstances necessitated her work as a schoolmistress in Caen, during which time she produced a series of scholarly works (including the Wheaton translation). She published a history of music in Normandy from the ninth century to her own day (1836) and an account of the Bayeux Tapestry (1846). Her translation of Wheaton’s work was not published, though the form of this manuscript, and Emma’s circumstances, strongly suggests it was intended to be. It is almost certainly in her autograph, with occasional corrections. In the event, a French edition by Paul Guillot, with numerous additional apparatus, appeared at Paris in 1844.

Wheaton, a native of Providence, Rhode Island and an alumnus of Brown University was prominent as a lawyer, diplomat and antiquarian. His research into Scandinavian history began with his appointment to Denmark as chargé d’affaires in 1827.

Original engraved copper plate for a frontispiece to the Confessions, showing Rousseau himself as an allegory of the ‘natural man’ and the naked female figure of truth, engraved for volume 12 of the monumental 18 volume large quarto Didot edition of the collected works (1793-1800). An excellent example of an eighteenth-century large format copper plate. Cohen-de Ricci 912; Ray, 95.