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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[PSALMS; Basil WOODD, editor.]
The Psalms of David, and other Portions of the Sacred Scriptures, selected from various Authors,...
London, Watts & Bridgewaters, Rivingtons, and Matthews, 1800.
A pocket-sized Psalm- and prayerbook with a hidden heraldic fore-edge painting for Horatio Walpole, later first Earl of Orford.
£2000
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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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RABANUS MAURUS et al.
Rabanus de sacramento Eucharistiae. Opus nunc primum recens editum, ex bibliotheca Cuthberti Tunstalli...
Cologne, Johann Quentel, 1551.
First edition of a work on the sacrament of the Eucharist by Rabanus Maurus, thoroughly annotated by a contemporary reader, followed by other works on the same subject and on the Trinity.
£950
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[RAMEAUX, François-Alexis.]
Edictum pro regis Hou-kuanensis adversus Europaeum Mou (idest adversus RR.DD. Rameaux).
[China], [1840–1] 道光卄年.
A letter sent by the Department of Justice to the Hubei provincial government to request an arrest warrant for the French missionary François-Alexis Rameaux (1802–1845). This is most likely a copy, being written on decorated paper as used in private exchanges, especially between lower and higher...
£3500
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[RAMEAUX, François-Alexis.]
Notice of the death of Rameaux issued by Bernard-Vincent Laribe.
[China, 1845.]
A circular notifying the Christian community of the death of François-Alexis Rameaux (1802–1845), Vicar Apostolic of Zhejiang and Jiangxi from 1838, issued by his friend and successor Bernard-Vincent Laribe (1802–1850), asking that prayers for his soul be practiced nightly for six months.
£2000
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RHOADS, James Evans.
Autograph letter signed (‘James E. Rhoads’) to Henry Horniman.
Philadelphia, 22 July 1869.
A letter from the first president of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. Rhoads (1828–1895) helped establish the college as a nondenominational, internationally respected school, and the first higher education institution to offer graduate degrees to women.
£100
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[RICHARDSON, Jonathan.]
The general Address (in two Parts) of the Outinian Lecturer to his Auditors…
London, Printed by W. Nicol, late Bulmer & Co., 1822.
Rare first edition of a revised version of the valedictory lecture given by the Outinian Society on 31 December 1818 to mark the centenary of the death of William Penn (1644–1717), founder of the Pennsylvania Colony, drawing on information supplied by the Society’s founder, Penn’s grandson.
£1600
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RICH, Jeremiah.
The Whole Book of Psalms in Meter. According to the Art of Short-Writing …
London, ‘Printed and are sold by Samuel Botley Teacher of the said Art … and nowhere els.’, [1660?].
First edition, the issue with Samuel Botley in the imprint – an extremely attractive miniature Psalter in shorthand by a ‘skilled and celebrated’ practitioner whose work was known to Pepys (though Pepys himself employed a rival system).
£4250
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ROMANA, Provost.
Nell’aprirsi della nuova chiesa dalla veneranda, antichissima Confraternita de’ Disciplinanti in Dogliani...
Mondovì, Pietro Francesco and Luiggi Rossi, [1756].
Unrecorded provincially printed broadside celebrating the opening of a new church of the Confraternity of the Disciplinants of Dogliani.
£275
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ROTH, Henry.
Call it Sleep.
London, Michael Joseph, 1963.
First UK edition of Roth’s precocious masterpiece, generally regarded as the finest novel of Jewish immigration to America before and after the turn of the century.
£250
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ROTHSCHILD, Boaz Raphael.
[Sefer oniyah b’lev yam … Chelek rishon]. ספר אני בלב ים ... חלק ראשון
Fürth, Chaim ben Zvi Hirsch, 1766.
First part of the first and only edition of this work on the Thirteen Principles of Faith and the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy by German rabbi Boaz Rothschild, our copy presented to the Rothschild family in England.
£450
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[ROUSSEL DE LA TOUR, Claude Pierre GOUJET, and Abbé MINARD, editors.]
Extraits des assertions dangereuses et pernicieuses...
Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1762.
First edition of this systematic selection of Jesuit writings intended to demonstrate the many dangerous ideas endorsed by the Order, arranged under headings including probabilism, simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, astrology, idolatry, perjury, homicide, and regicide.
£1500
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SABELLICO, Marco Antonio (or Marcantonio) Coccio; Petrus PONTANUS (or Du Pont, De Brugge).
Sanctissime elegie de...
Paris, Jean de Gourmont, [c. 1513].
One of only two recorded editions, both very rare, of this set of elegies addressed to the Virgin Mary, followed by verses ‘on St Peter’s sinking boat’, the former extensively annotated by a contemporary French student.
£1400
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[SARPI, Paolo (pseud.).] ‘Pietro Soave POLANO’.
Historia del Concilio Tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano. Seconda...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1629.
Second edition, the first to omit the extraneous additions of the 1619 edition introduced by Marco Antonio de Dominis, of the influential and groundbreaking history of the Council of Trent by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), described by Milton as ‘the great unmasker’.
£450
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[SAVONAROLA, Girolamo.] Ambrogio Caterino POLITI.
Discorso … contra la dottrina, et le profetie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
Venice, Giolito, 1548.
First edition of a condemnation of Savonarola’s theology, doctrine and prophecies by the former Savonarola acolyte Politi (1484–1553), ‘one of the most fiery Catholic polemicists of his times’ (Bongi, trans.), who four years earlier had published a confutation of Luther’s theology.
£1500
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[SAVOY-CARIGNAN, Maria Vittoria Francesca, Princess of.]
Recueil de prières et de pratiques très utils pour se conduire à Dieu...
[Paris, Imprimerie Royale], 1735.
First and only edition of this rare prayerbook, compiled by the notorious gambling house hostess and spy Maria Vittoria Francesca of Savoy-Carignan (1690–1766), elegantly printed in a very limited number at the royal press set up at the Louvre.
£2750
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SCHNEPF, Dietrich.
Oratio de vita et morte illustrissimae principis ac dominae, D. Dorotheae Ursulae, illustrissimi principis...
Tübingen, Alexander Hock, 1583.
Scarce work issued following the death of Dorothea Ursula von Baden-Durlach (1559–1583), comprising a Latin funeral oration by the Tübingen professor of theology Dietrich Schnepf (1525–1586) and verses in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by several scholars.
£550
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[SCOTT, Walter, Sir.]
Ivanhoe; A Romance. By “The Author of Waverley,” &c. … In three Volumes … Second Edition.
Edinburgh, [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Archibald Constable & Co., and London, Hurst, Robinson, & Co., 1820.
Stated second edition but in fact a third issue of the first, published on 15 January; the first issue, published on 20 December the previous year, is similarly dated 1820.
£375
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[SOCIETY OF JESUS.]
Les découvertes d’un bibliophile réduites a leur juste valeur. Avec quelques cas de conscience curieux.
Strasbourg, L.F. Le Roux, [1843].
First edition of this scathing response to Busch’s anti-Jesuit Les découvertes d’un bibliophile, central to the highly polemical ‘affaire du Bibliophile’ which divided Strasbourg in 1843.
£375
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SPATARI, Pellegrino.
Le orationi delle Messe di tutto l’anno, tradutte da Don Pellegrino Spathari canonico di Capodistria. Con...
Pesaro, Bartolomeo Cesano, 1555.
Rare first edition of this Italian translation of Latin prayers from the Missal by Spatari, a priest from Capodistria (modern-day Koper in Slovenia), dedicated to Vittoria Farnese, Duchess of Urbino (1519–1602).
£650