Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison 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.
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PINDAR.
Ολγμπια Νεμεα Πγθια Ισθμια … Olympia, Nemea, Pythia, Isthmia. Una cum Latina omnium versione carmine...
Oxford, E Teatro Sheldoniano, 1698 … London, apud. Sam. Smith & Benj. Walford.
First edition thus, the variant with the title-page dated 1698 rather than 1697. The Greek text was edited by Richard West and Robert Welsted, and the chronology of the Olympiads provided by the Bishop of Lichfield.
£5250
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PLAUTUS.
M. Accius Plautus ex fide, atque auctoritate complurium librorum manuscriptorum opera Dionys. Lambini Monstroliensis...
Paris, Jean Le Blanc for Jean Macé, 1577 [– October 1576].
Reissue of the 1576 first edition of the plays of Plautus edited by the great French classical scholar Denis Lambin (1520–1572) and completed after his death by the Parisian professor of Greek, Jacques Hélie (d. 1590).
£650
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PLINY the Elder.
Historia mundi, multo quam antehac unquam prodiit emaculatius [...] annotationibus eruditorum hominum...
Basel, Johann Froben, March 1525.
First Froben edition of Pliny’s encyclopaedia, with a prologue by Erasmus and Hermolaus Barbarus’s commentary, given to Erasmus’s correspondent Bartholomaeus Latomus by his student and future patron, Johann Ludwig von Hagen.
£4800
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PLINY the Younger.
Epistolarum libri X & panegyricus.
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1640.
First Elzevir edition, handsomely bound for the Irish politician Thomas Wogan Browne.
£450
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PLUTARCH.
The Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned Philosopher and Historiographer,...
Imprinted at London by Richard Field for Bonham Norton, 1595.
Second edition of North’s celebrated translation of Plutarch, first published in 1579, which has long been recognized as a major source for Shakespeare, providing not only the historical framework for Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, but ‘long...
£4500
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POCOCKE, Richard.
A Description of the East, and some other Countries. London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and...
[Nourse, and J. Rivington’ (I)], 1743–1745.
First edition, demy folio issue. A successful churchman Pococke (1704-1765) is now best remembered as a traveller and mountaineer. His earliest journeys were undertaken between 1733 and 1736 through continental Europe. His ‘next and most ambitious journey, from 1737 to 1740, was to the Near...
£8000
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[PONTIFICAL.]
Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII. primum, nunc denuo Urbani Papae Octavi auctoritate recognitum.
Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1663.
An attractive Plantin-Moretus Pontifical, splendidly preserved in a richly baroque binding.
£4500
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POPE, [Alexander].
The second Epistle of the second Book of Horace, imitated by Mr. Pope.
London, R. Dodsley, 1737.
First edition, the issue (presumably early) with the footnote on p. 12 misnumbered ‘16’ for 15.
£275
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POPE, [Alexander].
The sixth Epistle of the first Book of Horace imitated.
London, L. Gilliver, 1737.
First edition. Foxon P965; Rothschild 1638; Griffith 476.
£250
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PORTA, Giambattista della.
De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...
Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.
The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.
£2500
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[PRAYER-BOOK.]
The new and complete Family Prayer-Book, or Church of England Man’s Divine Library: being an universal Illustration,...
London: Printed for Alex. Hogg … [1784-5.]
First edition thus, rare, published in 36 weekly parts, each originally accompanied with an illustration, and now correctly bound according to the complicated ‘Directions to the Binder’ at the end. Wright’s exhaustive compilation, with notes and commentary on each page, assembled calendars,...
£950
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[PRAYERBOOK.]
‘Gebetbuch’.
[Germany, early nineteenth century.]
An attractive early nineteenth-century Catholic prayerbook in German, containing prayers for both daily use and for use during Mass.
£185
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[PRAYERS.]
‘Orationes diversae pro temporum opportunitate dicendae’.
[Likely Lucca, late eighteenth century.]
A delightful manuscript prayerbook for use in communal worship, most likely for a rural community, with prayers for help in times of plagues and of animal diseases, prayers seeking protection from storms and alleviation of droughts, for times of earthquakes, for the sick, and against pagans. ...
£475
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[PRAYERS.]
Récueil de plusieurs prieres.
Vienna, ‘chez Georg Müllner libraire et relieur des livres’, [c. 1810].
Very rare and charming early nineteenth-century prayer book in an attractive binding by the Viennese ‘libraire et relieur’ Georg Müllner.
£450
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PRESENT FOR THE YOUNG (A).
London: Printed for The Religious Tract Society … and sold at their Depository … also by J. Nisbet...
[c. 1827]
First edition. A finely illustrated anthology of religious verse, contemplations, and prayers for children. Pieces include poems on the seasons and stories about a Welsh Shepherd, and ‘The Hill and the Valley’, all with heavily metaphorical content.
£175
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[PSALMS.]
The whole Booke of Psalmes, collected into English Meter by Tho. Strenhold, Jo. Hopkins, W. Whittingham, and others...
London, Printed by T. C[otes] for the Company of Stationers, 1637.
A very attractive pocket psalm-book with tunes, ruled in red throughout and in a handsome binding. Such diminutive psalm books began to appear at the end of the sixteenth-century, printed for the Company of Stationers, who had the monopoly. The printer here was Thomas Cotes, most famous as...
£2750
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[PSALMS.]
Psalterium Davidis carmine redditum per Eobanum Hessum. Annotationes Viti Theodori Noribergensis, quae vice commentarii...
Paris, [(colophon:) Guillaume Morel for] Jacques Dupuys ‘sub insigni Samaritanae’, [August] 1550.
Seemingly unrecorded issue of the Psalms of David in Latin as edited by the Lutheran theologian Eoban of Hesse (1488–1540) with commentary by Luther’s housemate, associate, and sometime secretary Veit Dietrich (1506–1549).
£1250
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[PSALMS.]
Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.
Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.
New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.
£950
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PURSEY, Thomas.
The last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.
[Edinburgh, T. Pursey, 1900.]
A photographic tour-de-force, assembling many hundreds of individual photographic portraits neatly incorporated into a painted scenario, and then reproduced as a photogravure, depicting all the attendees of the last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, held in May 1900. Evidently a...
£2000
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[QUARITCH.]
Guillaume Postel (1510–1581).
Quaritch, 2006.
A catalogue of a collection of the works of the Renaissance scholar and Arabist, Guillaume Postel. ‘Not only does it include editions of quite exceptional rarity, to be found in few libraries on either side of the Atlantic, but it illustrates every moment of Postel’s extraordinary career and...
£60