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An illustrated chansonnier, highly decorated, and including songs such as: Souvenir de ‘70, Les Femmes soldats, Le Baiser, l’Anglaise, Le Testament du Libre-Penseur, Marche du Bataillon d’Afrique, L’Africaine, Départ pour Madagascar, La Pucelle de Bellville, Les Prisonniers morts pour la liberté.

These notebooks are a fascinating example of a popular method of collecting popular French cabaret songs, all neatly copied up with headings and illustrations (usually suitably suggestive) copied from contemporary song sheets (an example of one of these loose sheets is loosely inserted). We have seen several similar examples, in which the illustrations are apparently traced using carbon paper from printed (or other manuscripts) exemplars. Their context is usually military or naval and they represent a significant form of popular or naive art.

The decorative title, with elaborate borders describes Arbez Carme as ‘employé au Magasin des Vivres de Réserve du 23me Reg[im]ent d’Inf[anter]ie a Bourg, Ain’. Military records record his birth in 1876 in Jura, his occupation as a perruquier (wigmaker) and his recruitment in 1896.

A interesting and unique copy of this monumental pictorial record of European coins and medals struck in the Napoleonic era, including many commemorative medals of battles and truces. A printed book, with a London imprint, with portions (including title) in manuscript copy, and plates dissected, partly copied in manuscript and re-arranged. It is difficult to interpret the unusual hybrid form here, but it would appear to be a contemporary collector or curator’s production allowing the illustrations to be consulted alongside their descriptions in the text. The plates in the printed edition presented the coins and medals in a different order to the text, with corresponding numbers linking the illustrations, but turning from text to plate may have been a tiresome business. The fact that the titles, preliminary text and indexes are given as manuscript copies is less easy to explain, though at least one of the manuscripts indexes is more comprehensive than that of the printed edition. Many of the illustrations are marked with a small flower shaped inkstamp, perhaps also a collector’s demarcation.

Millin de Grandmaison (1759-1818) had been curator of the Cabinet des médailles et antiques of the former French royal library but died before this survey could be published. The manuscript was passed to the British-born James Millingen, formerly of the French mint, later an antiquary and dealer, who collated it and published it in London in both French and English versions. The imprints are faithfully copied in manuscript in our version, but it is likely a French rather than a British production.

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.

First edition. Jacques Dupont, a member of the French Convention, had delivered a violently anticlerical speech in December 1792, the text of which had been circulated in an English pamphlet. The title verso reads: ‘The Profits of this Publication are to be given to the French Emigrant Clergy...’

First edition. An elegant anonymous satire on fashionable dress for women, directed especially against the painful pursuit of an artificial figure: ‘Come here, you two girls, that look full in my face, / And you that so often are turning your back [the Graces], / Put on these cork rumps, and then tighten your stays / ‘Till your hips, and your ribs, and the strings themselves crack. / Can ye speak? can ye breathe? - Not a word - Then ‘twill do. / You have often dress’d me, and for once I’ll dress you.’ Jackson, p. 59.

In a handsome Georgian binding. Among the more recent ‘Remarkable Events’: ‘George III. went to St. Paul’s to return thanks for his recovery from his alarming illness, April 23 1789.’ Goldsmith miniature almanacks for the years 1681-1840 are listed in Welsh 3090-3094. ESTC: BL and University of Kansas of this issue.

First edition. Jointly authored with Robida, who also provided the illustrations, Contes pour les Bibliophiles contains Uzanne’s prescient essay ‘La Fin des livres’. This remarkable text has been eagerly discussed by commentators on the interface between traditional and electronic book. Like many contempories Uzanne and Robida had been enthralled by inventions such as Edison’s phonograph and Ader’s ‘théatrophone’ and they predicted fundamental shifts in the consumption of literature in their wake. ‘La Fin des livres’ describes (and illustrates) wonderful devices for the consumption of audiobooks in the home and in public places, suggesting that they would become as straightforward as turning on a tap. The library of the future would in turn become a roomful of recorded cylinders, and publishers would be required to register the voices of their authors by way of copyright.

What would such a democratization of the word do to the printed book? Uzanne’s response was to look at current production of books and insist that books would not die provided they remained objects of beauty and desire worthy of the attention of bibliophiles. The wonderful cover illustrations and typography are by George Auriol, member of the Chat Noir circle and friend of Erik Satie.

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 and only edition, issued the year after the Easter Rising, showing hundreds of Dublin businesses seeking exports all over the world. Among the many listings and advertisements for brewers, distillers, foundries, printers, publishers, linen manufacturers, shipyards, engineers and so on, are found two one-third page adverts for the Yeats sisters’ Cuala Industries and the Dun Emer Guild. The two firms had been founded under the Dun Emer name by Elizabeth and Lily Yeats in 1902 producing Arts and Crafts printing, embroidery, rugs and tapestry, before dividing in 1904. The Cuala advert shows the Yeats’s Churchtown bungalow and reads: ‘Embroidery—Lily Yeats. Hand Press—Elizabeth C. Yeats. Editor of the Press—W.B. Yeats.’ The Dun Emer advert shows a woman working at a loom and offers ‘Hand-woven Carpets & Tapestries, Embroideries, Enamels, Bookbinding’.

There are also historical and topographical accounts of the city. This was the first appearance of the Dublin Year Book and it was apparently not reprinted. Scarce. Worldcat lists US copies at NYPL, Illinois, Kansas, Chapel Hill and South Carolina. We also find copies at the University of Cork, UCD, LSE and BL.

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.

First edition.

– Je m’appelle Frank T… et je suis un alcoolique.
– Je m’appelle Elizabeth F… et je suis une alcoolique.

The work which was instrumental in establishing Alcoholics Anonymous in France. A note following the title reads: ‘Les personnes quie seraient intéressées par les “Alcooliques anonymes” peuvent s’addresser aux ALCOOLIQUES ANONYMES, groupe des Paris, 65, quai d’Orsay’ [the Amercian Church in Paris, still a meeting point for the organisation].

A complete course teaching stenography, or the art of writing ‘aussi vite que la parole’, finely written with numerous thumbnail drawings. Divided into four parts (introduction, pronunciation, punctuation and an atlas) with an errata, a table of contents and two sheets of stenographic examples or exercises.

In the atlas dedicated to the description of the stenographic signs in 13 charts, the last 13 gather 51 finelyy drawn vignettes giving the figurative equivalent of the stenographic signs and their pronunciation: the links of a chain for an open ‘a’ (as in anneaux), a radiating halo for an ‘o’ (as in oréole), a drunkard for the ‘i’ (ivrogne), a gallows for the ‘p’ (potence), a cat for the ‘ch’ (chat), and so on, including a funnel, lyre, clock, umbrella, falls, arrow and gondola, the morphology of the signs given an ideogrammatic cue as a mnemonic. The whole represents a complete teaching system aimed at the aspiring stenographer,

First edition of the first French book on the diabolo or devil sticks, and thus probably the first European book on the subject. The diabolo craze swept Paris in 1812, all the illustrations here are of young men and women at play with this juggling toy. Besides the first two chansons, on a diabolo theme the texts here are typical of other contemporary almanacs, and the last 14 pages contain an almanac for 1813. Derived from an ancient Chinese toy it was the French who first embraced it as a fashionable activity in the early nineteenth century.

A very rare publisher’s advert for children’s books, issued on behalf of Amable Rigaud (a pseudonym of children’s author and publisher Charles de Ribelle), publisher at 50 rue Sainte Anne, Paris. Rigaud was prolific from around 1859 to 1880 and this fine lithograph appears to date from the early part of this period. It lists 15 different title all published around 1859-61 including Histoire des siècles. Des Découvertes et inventions, Livre des jeunes personnes vertueuses, Le grand Alphabet pittoresque de la jeunesse, Le Monde et se merveilles and Histoire des animaux célèbres. Born in 1810 Ribelle had also founded a juvenile magazine Journal des enfants.

Sole edition, one of 50 copies on chine. An illustrated collection of epithets on love and the relationships between men and women, a witty reflection of the sexual politics of fin-de-siècle Paris. The conceit of the title, and the charming accompanying vignette, involves communication (or perhaps miscommunication) via headphones and a phonographic machine operated by Cupid. It is a nice example of the contemporary fascination with the potential of electronic communications, with echoes of the science-fiction fantasy La Fin des livres by Albert Robida published in the same year, in which a new world of literature was a network of wires and headphones and of the Theatrophone apparatus recently exhibited at the Paris exhibitions. Worldcat lists 3 copies only: Bibliothèque nationale, British Library and Yale.

A calligraphic certificate by Julia Beck, being the copy of a letter of 8 June 1914 sent by a leader of the women’s movement in France, Isabelle Bogelot to Canadian feminist, Lady Aberdeen endorsing the new book by Indiana feminist, May Wright-Sewell, entitled Genesis of the International Council of Women (1914). It was written on behalf of the Conseil National des femmes françaises.

Calligrapher Julia Beck was born in Stockholm in 1853 and moved to Paris in 1883. She became one of the first female artists from her country to make a living through art alone. She is best-known for her landscape paintings in the Impressionist style, which were highly regarded in France and abroad, but she supported herself partly through commercial calligraphy, at which she excelled. She was a committed advocate for women artists.

Sole edition: tales and snippets based on the argot, gossip and jokes of the Porcherons quartier of Paris, at the foot of the slope to Montmartre. It includes the woeful tale of a young clerk and a prostitute and a Catéchisme poissard. It purports to be the work of a washerwoman, ‘Mame Fanchon’. The term ‘Poissarde’ (literally, a fishwife) refers, in general, to coarse and vulgar language and is frequently to be found in chapbooks of the period. Worlcat: Flanders Heritage Library (Antwerp) only.

A Napeoleonic-era manuscript course in classical and modern French history made for a woman or girl, Caroline Hémart. Probably prepared by a tutor, the texts are enthusiastically neo-classical in tone: the opening ‘Élements de chronologie’ serve as a grounding in ancient history (with definitions of terms such as ‘Olympiade’) of Europe and the near East, based on the text of Napoleonic scholar, Luc de Lancival. The manuscript concludes with 27 stanzas of a heroic poem, ‘Ode à Clio’ by M. Le Comte François de Neufchateau (published c. 1807), which is, again, a glorious version of history seen through still-rosy Napoleonic lenses.

A superb collection of over 300 spontaneous sketches made in situ in Paris of popular films and entertainments of the 1950s, including the classics Les Vacances de M. Hulot, Buñuel’s El, Le Ballon Rouge and other French films by Renoir and Meliès, Sophia Loren in Neapolitan Carousel, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball in Fancy Pants, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin in Artists and Models and Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop.

Ryutchi Souzouki (1904-1985) had been a well-regarded and well-connected Montparnasse figure, counting Ernst and Foujita among his friends in the twenties and thirties and frequently exhibiting alongside the surrealists. Born in Yokohama, he spent much of his life in Paris, though his Japanese citizenship prevented him from exhibiting during the war years and probably accounted for his increasing isolation in the post war period. A solitary figure, until his death in poverty, he continued to work, experimenting with automatic drawing and making sketches, such as these, from popular films and entertainments, such as the tableaux vivants of the Casino de Paris, the Folies bergères, conjuring performances and the opera, instantaneously capturing their spirit on scraps of hotel stationery, recycled scraps or cheap spiral-bound notebooks. They are witty, touching and always engaging responses to what he saw in the cinemas and theatres of Paris. Following his death, the contents of his studio, including the many albums he had carefully collated in his final years (like ours) were conserved by his concièrge and dispersed at auction in 1985.

1949-53, 1953-6, 1953-4, 1956-7, 1962

First edition. A delightful collection by a prolific gastronomic author, devoted to the matter of women at table, a counterpoise to the masculinity of French gastronomy: ‘Une table sans femmes est une table sans fleurs’. This is one of 20 copies on Van Gelder, after 10 on japon (total edition 400).