Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan

Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
  1. MILNER, Joseph.

    Practical Sermons, by the late Rev. Joseph Milner, M. A. Master of the Grammar School, and Vicar of the Holy Trinity...

    York: Printed by G. Peacock; and sold by Mathews … London; Deighton, Cambridge [and others in York, Hull, Leeds and Halifax]. 1800.

    First edition, rare, collecting 21 sermons with a biography of Milner (1745-1797), headmaster of Hull Grammar School and church historian. Milner was largely responsible for a revival in fortune of the Grammar School, where he took charge in 1767. As a clergyman he leaned towards a moderate Calvinism...

    £175

  2. [MINIATURE BOOKS.]

    ‘Hebdomadaire, ou bibliotheque secrete’.

    France, c. 1800.

    A charming miniature diary in seven volumes, hidden within a compartment of a book-form box.

    £2750

  3. MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano. 

    Illustrium poetarum flores. 

    Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563. 

    A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère,...

    £1950

  4. [MISSAL.]

    Missal, in Latin, with readings for the first Sunday in Advent.

    Southern Netherlands or northern France (Arras?), c. 1425.

    A remnant of what must have been an exceptionally grand missal, with illumination of considerable finesse. We have been unable to trace any other leaves from the same manuscript.

    £3250

  5. [MISSIONARIES.]

    Shopping list of Christian texts, signed ‘Joseph Ly’. [with:] Receipt issued by a financial office (Shou Shan...

    [China, c. 1850.]

    A shopping list of Chinese Christian texts ordered by the Catholic vicar general of Canton. The works include two sets of the Shengjing zhijie 聖經直解, a translation of Gospel readings from the Mass by Manuel Dias the Younger (1574–1659); thirty sets of the Rike cuoyao 日課撮要,...

    £1500

  6. MORI, Ascanio de’.

    Giuoco piacevole.

    Mantua, Giacomo Ruffinello, 1575.

    First edition of an uncommon Renaissance collection of tales in prose and verse, set in the Lombard city of Brescia during the Carnival of the ‘prosperous and peaceful’ year 1566, employing the narrative frame canonised by Boccaccio in the Decameron, though with pointedly opposed features.

    £950

  7. [MORRISON, John Robert.]

    List of Buddhist texts purchased in 1839.

    [China, 1839.]

    A handwritten list of some 130 Buddhist texts in Chinese likely bought by John Robert Morrison (1814–1843), Sinologist, interpreter, and colonial official who played a major part in the British acquisition of Hong Kong.

    £3500

  8. MOUSSON, Pierre.

    Tragoediae seu diversarum gentium et imperiorum magni principes. Dati in theatrum collegii regii Henrici magni ...

    La Flèche, George Griveau, 1621.

    First edition, provincially-printed, of four Neo-Latin tragedies by the French Jesuit professor and playwright Pierre Mousson (c. 1560–1637) inspired by four great figures from the classical world.

    £725

  9. MÜNSTER, Sebastian.

    [Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...

    [Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.

    First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...

    £7000

  10. MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).

    Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...

    Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.

    ‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...

    £35

  11. [NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].

    Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.

    Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.

    First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.

    £750

  12. NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

    Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

    Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

    Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

    £3750

  13. NELSON, John.

    An Extract of John Nelson’s Journal, being an Account of God’s Dealing with his Soul from his Youth to the forty-second...

    Bristol, E. Farley & Co., 1767.

    Rare first edition, printed in Bristol, of the autobiography of the preacher and pioneer of Methodism in Yorkshire John Nelson (1707–1774).

    £600

  14. NEPOS, Cornelius. 

    De vita excellentium imperatorum.  Interpretatione et notis illustravit Nicolaus Courtin … in usum serenissimi...

    Paris, Frères Barbou, 1726. 

    An attractive later Delphin edition (first 1675) of Cornelius Nepos’s LivesThe only surviving work by the first-century BC biographer Cornelius Nepos, the Vitae excellentium imperatorum once formed part of a broader De viris illustribus.  The Lives include Themistocles,...

    £275

  15. NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.

    Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.

    Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.

    First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

    £850

  16. NEWTON, Isaac.

    Opuscula Mathematica, philosophica et philologica. Collegit partimque Latine vertit ac recensuit Joh. Castillioneus...

    Lausanne and Geneva, Bousquet & soc., 1744.

    First edition of Newton’s collected works, a major tool in the dissemination of Newton’s science and a major publication in the history of science.  The edition, edited and introduced by the Pisa alumnus Giovanni Salvemini da Castiglione, contains twenty-six works (which, while having appeared...

    £3500

  17. NICOLAUS of Damascus, and Niels KRAG (editor). 

    Ex Nicolai Damasceni universali historia seu de moribus gentium...

    [Geneva or Heidelberg,] Pierre de Saint-André, 1593. 

    First edition of Krag’s translation of Nicolaus of Damascus’s observations on the customs of the peoples of the ancient world.  The observations on forty ancient peoples (among them the Iberians, Celts, Phrygians, Assyrians, and Ethiopians) are extracted from the Universal History...

    £300

  18. NIXON, Howard M. 

    Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

    London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

    First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

    £875

  19. ORIBASIUS. 

    Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533. 

    First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre. 

    £1750

  20. OVID.

    In hoc volumine h[a]ec co[n]tinentur. P. Ovidii Nasonis vita. Heroidum epistol[a]e. Amorum libri III. De arte amandi lib....

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Bernardino Stagnino, 19 October 1530.]

    Very rare pocket-sized edition of selected works by Ovid published at Venice by Bernardino Stagnino (1483–1538).

    £1250