CHESTERFIELD, Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of.

Letters written … to his Son, Philip Stanhope, Esq; late Envoy Extraordinary...

London: Printed for Dodsley … 1777.

Eighth edition, a very pretty set.

£250

CHURCHILL, Winston S.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I: The Birth of Britain [– Volume II: The New World;...

London, Cassel & Company Ltd, [1956; – 1956; – 1957; – 1958].

First editions, with dust-jackets, of Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, his last major historical work.

£200

CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

The River War: An Historical Account...

[London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

£2500

CLARENDON, Edward Hyde, Earl of. 

The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, begun in the Year 1641.  With...

Oxford, Printed at the Theater, 1702[–4]. 

First edition of Clarendon’s monumental History of the Civil War, with a presentation inscription by his son Henry Hyde, the second Earl (1638–1709). 

£3250

COBDEN-SANDERSON, Annie; Marianne TIDCOMBE, editor.

The Prison Diary of Annie Cobden-Sanderson, with a Facsimile of the Original.

[Marlborough,] Libanus Press, 2017.

The imprisonment of Annie Cobden-Sanderson, daughter of the famous Victorian statesman Richard Cobden, prompted a wave of letters of protest to the newspapers, giving the women’s suffrage campaign the major boost she had hoped for. The ten women with whom Cobden-Sanderson was arrested (and of whom...

£25

[COCHRAN, Charles B.]

OSTROWSKA, Wanda and Viola G. GARVIN. London’s Glory.

London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1945.

First edition, a poignant collection of paintings of war-torn London by the Polish artist-in-exile Wanda Ostrowska, accompanied by extracts from her own writings and narrative by Viola Garvin.

£75

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor.

Biographia Literaria; or biographical Sketches of my literary Life and Opinions … Vol I[-II].

London: Rest Fenner … 1817.

First edition. Coleridge’s estimates of contemporary German poets and philosophers are justly celebrated, and the long autobiographical passages and critical analyses of Wordsworth and of Lyrical Ballads are of primary interest. ‘Though maddeningly unsystematic in structure, the book is a touchstone...

£450

COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].

The Statesman’s Manual; or the Bible the best guide to political Skill and Foresight: a Lay Sermon,...

London: Printed for Gale and Fenner … J. M. Richardson … and Hatchard … 1816.

First edition of the first of Coleridge’s ‘Lay Sermons’, written in Highgate at the house of James Gillman, to whom Coleridge had come as an in-patient for his opium addiction.

£200

CORRADO III TRINCI, Lord of Foligno.

Letter in his name in Italian to Cipriano, ‘lieutenant of the territory of Trevi’,...

Foligno, 9 February, no year but c. 1430s.

The family of the Trinci ruled over Foligno, first as independent princes and then as vicars of the church from 1305 to 1439. The sender of the present letter is probably the third Corrado, last of the dynasty, ‘detested for his cruelty’ (Litta, Celebri famiglie Italiane vol. I fasc. 6,...

£600

CROMARTY, George Mackenzie, Earl of.

An historical Account of the Conspiracies by the Earls of Gowry, and Robert Logan of Restalrig,...

First edition, dedicated to Queen Anne, ‘and to all the Princes who share in her royal blood’. The Vindication of Robert III was first published in 1695.

£150

[CURLL, Edmund, editor.]

Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne, M.A. by several Hands.

London: Printed in the Year 1736.

First separate edition (based on John Bilstone’s hostile preface to Hearne’s Vindication of those who take the Oath of Allegiance, 1731, and first printed in this form as part of volume III of Curll’s edition of Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, 1735).

£450

[CURLL, Edmund, et al.]

An impartial History of the Life, Character, Amours, Travels, and Transactions of Mr. John Barber,...

London, Printed for E. Curll …, 1741.

First edition of this obituary pamphlet on the printer John Barber (c. 1675–1741), a friend and correspondent of Swift for many years, and a friend of Pope (there are bequests to both in his will).

£650

CURTIUS Rufus, Quintus. 

De rebus Alexandri Magni, cum commentario perpetuo & indice absolutissimo Samuelis Pitisci, quibus accedunt...

Utrecht, Franciscus Halma, 1685. 

First Halma edition of Curtius’s history of Alexander the Great, with a series of accomplished etched illustrations by Jan van den Aveelen. 

£375

CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.

De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...

Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.

Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.

£2000

[DA PORTO, Luigi.]

‘Lettere di Alvigi da Porto vicentino al Savorgnano, al Ghilini, e ad altri intorno ai successi della Guerra...

[Milan, c. 1800].

A manuscript of an influential and then-unpublished historical work by the author of the original Romeo and Juliet, copied from a sixteenth-century codex at the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.

£950

DAVID, [Pierre Drapeyron de].

A History of the Campaigns of General Pichegru, containing the Operations of the Armies of the North,...

London, for G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1796.

First edition in English, printed in the same year as the French original, of this account of General Pichegru’s campaigns during the early French Revolutionary Wars.

£185

[DE LA COSTE.]

Voyage philosophique d’Angleterre fait en 1783 et 1784.

A Londres. Et se trouve à Paris, chez Poinçoit … 1787.

First edition, second issue, with cancel title-pages redated 1787 (first 1786) – an interesting and detailed sociological discussion of England and in the English on the eve of the French Revolution, in the form of discursive letters. The author deals with London’s institutions and buildings, taverns...

£250

DENNIS, John.

The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain’d in some new Discoveries never made before, requisite for the Writing...

London, Printed for Geo. Strahan … and Bernard Lintott … 1704.

First edition. Published as a ‘preliminary’ to a proposed, but never completed, masterwork, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry comprises a Preface, Proposal and ‘Specimen’, the latter being an essay substantially on Milton, ‘one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d...

£1250

DILWORTH, W. H.

The History of the Conquest of Mexico, by the celebrated Hernan Cortes. Containing a faithful and entertaining...

London: Printed for William Anderson … 1759.

First edition, very scarce, of a history of the conquistadores for young readers, loosely derived from Antonio Solís de Ribadeneyra’s Historia de la Conquista de México.

£1850

DIO CASSIUS.

Dione historico delle guerre et fatti de Romani. Tradotto di Greco in lingua vulgare per M. Nicolo Leoniceno. Con...

Venice, Niccolò Zoppino, March 1533.

First edition of Dio Cassius’s Roman History in any language, translated into Italian from the original Greek by Niccolò Leoniceno and preceding the Greek editio princeps, printed by Robert Estienne in 1548, by some fifteen years.

£2500