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.
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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 Elder; [Jean de LAET, editor].
Historiae naturalis libri XXXVII.
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham I] Elzevir, 1635.
An attractive set of the first and only Elzevir edition of Pliny the Elder, ‘rightly considered one of their masterpieces’ (Willems, trans.).
£650
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PLINY the Elder.
Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.
First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.
£1400
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PLINY the Younger.
Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.
A handsome quarto Pliny from the Foulis press, published in the same year as the three-volume duodecimo.
£600
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PLINY the Younger.
Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.
A handsome Foulis Press pocket Pliny. The first two volumes comprise the ten books of Pliny’s Epistulae (particularly important for their description of the eruption of Vesuvius), the third his Panegyric to Trajan: ‘clearly it was intended that sections Z to the end should comprise...
£850
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PLINY the Younger.
Panegyricus Trajano Augusto dictus.
Paris, [Charles Crapelet for] Antoine-Augustin Renouard, [An IV] 1796.
An attractive edition of Pliny’s only surviving oration, a panegyric to Trajan, published by the book collector, bibliographer, and businessman-turned-printer Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765–1853).
£275
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PLUTARCH.
...
Venice, Nicolao di Aristotile detto Zoppino, March 1525.
An attractive illustrated edition of twenty-seven of Plutarch’s lives, extensively annotated by a Papal tax-collector, in a striking contemporary binding.
£2750
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PLUTARCH.
Τα εθικα. Moralia, id est opera, exceptis vitis, reliqua [edited by Daniel Wyttenbach].
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1795–1800; 1810; 1830.
Gaisford’s own copy of the Oxford Plutarch containing letters between him and the editor, Daniel Wyttenbach. Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855) was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford in 1812, and later became Dean of Christ Church in 1831. He had an active role at the University Press,...
£2500
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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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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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[POPE, Alexander.]
The Dunciad. An heroic Poem. In three Books. The second Edition.
‘Dublin, Printed; London, Re-printed for A. Dodd. 1728.’
Second edition, rare, and of considerable interest, largely a reimpression of the first edition but with gathering B, most of C, and D4v reset.
£4500
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PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.
Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...
Cambridge, University Press, 1928.
First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.
£400
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QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius, and Pierre GALLAND (ed.).
M. Fabii Quintiliani … de oratoria institutione livre XII....
Paris, Thomas Richard, 1554 [– 1550-1561].
A mixed edition of Pierre Galland’s Quintilian, a hugely successful project from its first appearance in 1538. This copy joins the Institutio oratoria with the (now believed to be spurious, if contemporary) Declamationes, and conforms with the copy held at the Arsenal.
£700
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QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius, and Jacques-Louis d’ESTREBAY (editor).
Compendium libri secundi, tertii, et quinti institutionum...
Paris, Thomas Richard, 1558.
Very rare third edition of this compendium of Quintilian’s oratory by Jacques-Louis d’Estrebay (or Estrebee, 1481–1550?), humanist, translator, professor of Rhetoric at Rheims and subsequently at the College of Sante-Barbe in Paris, and a proof-reader for the Estiennes. The title-page indicates...
£350
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QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius.
Institutiones oratoriae, ac Declamationes, cuiuscuius sint, summa accuratione nuper recognitae, cum...
[Paris,] Badius Ascensius for Ascensius and Roigny, August [– September] 1533.
Rare reprint of Badius’s successful 1528 Quintilian, with the commentary of Peter Schade, German humanist author of an important work on rhetoric.
£1250
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RANK, Otto.
Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden. Versuch einer psychologischen Mythendeutung.
Leipzig and Vienna, Franz Deuticke, 1909.
First edition of this psychoanalytical investigation of mythological heroism and the role of birth legends in the stories of heroes, by the German psychoanalyst Otto Rank (1884–1939), published as part of the series Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde under the editorship of Freud....
£100
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SALLUST.
C. Sallustius Crispus cum veterum Historicorum fragmentis.
Leiden, ex officina Elzeviriana, 1634.
The first small format Elzevir printing of Sallust with a contemporary ink sketch of a Peeping Tom at the rear of the volume. The volume contains the two major works of Sallust, the Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline, along with the surviving fragments of his annalistic history of his...
£950
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SALLUST.
Caii Sallustii Crispi quae extant.
London, James Tonson and John Watts, 1713.
First Maittaire edition. The French-born classical scholar Michel Maittaire (1668–1741) studied at Westminster, and then under Robert South at Christ Church, Oxford. He is best known for his Annales Typographici and the series of duodecimo classics that he published with Tonson and Watts...
£300
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SALLUST.
C. Crispi Sallustii opera omnia quae exstant, ex recognitione Iani Gruteri. Accedunt castigg. annotat. notae, ac scholia...
Frankfurt, Zacharias Palthenius for Jonas Rosa, 1607.
The works of Sallust edited by the philologist and librarian Jan Gruter (1560–1627), with profuse annotations at the beginning attributed to the Dutch professor Willem Coetier (1647–1723) of Franeker.
£1500