Paris, François Huby, 1614.

Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy, of the first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed...

£30000

C. Lehuby, ‘Librairie de l’enfance et de la jeunesse’, [1851].

A charming and very rare ABC intended to teach children European geography, from A for Allemagne to Z for Zara in Dalmatia, published just a few years after the upheavals of the revolutions of 1848.

£3750

Shanghai, Nanking Road, 1937.

Excellently preserved copy of this rare album of photographs documenting the bombing of Shanghai at the opening of the Second Sino-Japanese war, a haunting and moving visual record of what is considered by many to be the first battle of World War II.

£3750

London, ‘printed for William Miller … by Howlett and Brimmer … 1803’, [c. 1823].

A later reprint of a handsome costume book devoted to the Russian empire, first printed by Samuel Gosnell for William Miller in 1803, illustrated with seventy-three coloured stipple engravings.

£950

A detailed plan accurately illustrating the movements of the British and French armies at the battle of Alexandria. In it, Sir Ralph Abercrombie was fatally wounded but the action was considered a British victory as the French were forced out of Egypt soon after. This plan is signed ‘J. W. Hamilton’.

£650

Boston, Carter & Hendee, 1830.

First American edition, the second and scarcest overall. ‘The dominant sporting artist of the early nineteenth century’ (ODNB), Henry Thomas Alken (1785–1851) ‘showed an early liking for depicting animals, especially dogs and horses’, and ‘demonstrated his expertise in the book The...

£1600

London, C. & C. Whittingham for Thomas Tegg, Glasgow, for R. Griffin & Co., and Dublin, for J. Cumming, 1825.

First and only edition of an uncommon riding manual. A riding master teaching near Bryanstone Square, John Allen ‘flatters himself that, at a time when riding has become so fashionable an exercise, his work will more than any preceding one ensure the security, ease, and grace of the rider, both...

£350

Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del Plata], 1850.

Rare second edition, after the first of 1833, of this analysis of the Chaco and Rio Bermejo regions of Paraguay, divided into three sections. The first covers the geography, population and natural history of the area, the second relates the conquest of Paraguay and Peru, containing extracts from various...

£100

Liège, Imprimerie H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1924.

An offprint, with its own title-page and pagination, of this important study. This is a presentation copy, inscribed in ink ‘To Robert Byron. A. A.’ at the head of the front wrapper. Andreades was the first professor of public finance at the University of Athens and the author of a monumental work...

£45

Toronto, AE Publications, 2023.

An extraordinary survey of four centuries of machine books, tracing the evolution of printing techniques and draughtsmanship alongside the development of the machines themselves. In this catalogue of eighty-six works from his collection of books on civil engineering, Mark Andrews situates a series...

£85

London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1939. 

A proof copy, complete with typed errata attached, of this collection of ninety-five papers relating to the negotiations between the Soviet and British governments between March and December 1939. 

£750

Paris, Galeries du Louvres, 1777

Two first edition works in one volume by the great French geographer and royal cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, consisting of d’Anville’s general guide to geography and his remarks on the construction of his famous maps of China.

£500

London, A. Spottiswoode for John Murray, 1837.

First edition of a series of articles first published in the Quarterly Review, illustrated by Henry Alken. A sporting writer who ‘may even be said to have created the role of gentleman hunting correspondent’ (ODNB), Charles James Apperley (1778–1843) published widely on hunting and...

£350

London, Vizetelly Brothers & Co. for John Murray, 1843.

Second edition, in the publisher’s gilt cloth, illustrated by Henry Alken. A sporting writer who ‘may even be said to have created the role of gentleman hunting correspondent’ (ODNB), Charles James Apperley (1778–1843) published widely on hunting and horsemanship, from 1822 under the pseudonym...

£125

London, Richard Phillips, [1810–11]. 

First edition(?), very rare.  The maps include world maps in globe and on Mercator’s projection (in which Australia features as New Holland), Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, West Indies, ‘Hindoostan’, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire,...

£475

[Circa 1930s.]

An attractive example of the commercially available albums produced by the Ato Photographic Association in the 1920s–30s. The present album is devoted to the area formerly known as Zhili or Chihli, encompassing Beijing and Tianjin. Small groups of images are devoted to the Hai forts and to...

£2500

[1930s.]

Includes panoramas of Fuzhou apparently taken at different dates (the captions state a population of variously 600,000 and 700,000), and scenes of Kunming, the capital of Yunan province. There is an interesting short series on railway engineering in Yunnan province, and images of zinc mining, and poppy...

£2500

5 August, 1749.

After a dissolute youth and a period in the army, Alexander Barclay (1711–1771) had been made Comptroller of Customs at Philadelphia in 1749, a position almost certainly engineered by his father David Barclay (1682–1769) – it required a significant sum (£500) advanced in security. David Barclay,...

£850

London, C. Lowndes for H.D. Symonds, [c. 1800-1802, A1 watermarked ‘1800’].

First and only combined edition, second issue. George Barrington was a ‘genteel young Irishman known for his sartorial elegance, his command of the etiquette of romantic sensibility, and for his prowess at picking pockets’ (Garvey p. 2). The fascinating contrast between Barrington’s charming...

£875

[Florence,] Stamperia Bonducciana, 1780. 

First edition of this utopia by the Tuscan Dominican Pier Vincenzo Barsanti. 

£675