Gift Ideas

  1. RAMSAY, Allan.

    The Gentle Shepherd, a Scotch Pastoral … attempted in English by Margaret Turner.

    London, Printed for the Author, by T. Bensley; and sold by G. Nicol … and by Mrs. Turner … 1790.

    First edition of this parallel-text translation of Ramsay’s Scots verse drama, a subscriber’s copy from the library of Mary, Lady Vincent, née Chiswell, wife of Sir Francis Vincent (1747–1793), resident consul at Venice.

    £600

  2. 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

  3. [POEMS ON DRINKING.]

    Raccolta di brindisi per tutte le occasioni; apostrofi al vino; inni in lode di Bacco, canzoni da tavola;...

    Milan, Emilio Croci, 1875.

    First edition of this compact font of inspiration for all partygoers, containing odes to Bacchus, endless praise of the merits of wine, drinking songs, and toasts for every occasion, including a party of printers.

    £200

  4. LOCKE, John. 

    [An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding].  Extrait d’un Livre Anglois qui n’est pas encore publié, intitulé...

    Amsterdam, Wolfgang, Waesbergi, Boom, & Van Someren, 1688. 

    A substantial and extremely influential extract, published two years before the appearance of the book, of Locke’s Essay concerning human understanding: a publication of major consequence in the history of philosophy.  This issue of the Bibliothèque universelle et historique also...

    £2850

  5. GISSING, George.

    The Unclassed, A Novel … in three Volumes.

    London, Chapman and Hall, 1884.

    First edition of Gissing’s second novel – and Bernard Shaw’s favourite of his novels – in the single-volume remaindered issue in red cloth.

    £950

  6. HORACE; James TATE, editor

    Horatius restitutus: or the books of Horace arranged in chronological order according...

    Cambridge, J. Smith for J. & J.J. Deighton, 1832. 

    First edition of this attempt to arrange the books of Horace in chronological order by the classical scholar and master of Richmond School, James Tate (1771–1843), this copy presented by him to Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), classicist, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, Regius Professor of Greek,...

    £150

  7. [SURTEES, Robert Smith,] and John LEECH (illustrator).

    Handley Cross series.

    London, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., 1899-1900.

    Limited ‘Master of Foxhounds’ edition, finely printed at the Whitefriars Press. Having published the first editions of several of Surtees’s sporting novels, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co. gathered and reprinted the six most successful as the ‘Handley Cross series’ as luxury sets. Publisher’s...

    £1200

  8. KOH, John.

    Dogs in Early Photography.

    London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2024.

    Throughout history, dogs have been a subject in art; dogs were featured in cave drawings, coins, funerary sculptures or medieval marginalia. Before smartphones allowed dog owners to capture and share every moment of their dogs’ lives, fine art documented this relationship and promoted the dog from...

    £50

  9. JUVENAL, Decimus Junius, and Aulus Persius FLACCUS.

    Satyrae.

    London, J. Brindley, 1744.

    First Brindley edition, edited by the Irish classical scholar Usher Gahagan (d. 1749). John Brindley began to publish his series of well-printed duodecimo classics in 1744, for which Gahagan edited eleven works before his arrest and conviction for high treason, having become embroiled with a...

    £650

  10. [RENNEVILLE, Sophie de (?).]

    Contes a Aglaé, ou la jeune moraliste.

    Paris, Caillou, c.1820.

    Very uncommon edition, possibly the first, of this collection of educational contes moraux, sometimes attributed to the prolific children’s author and journalist Sophie de Renneville (1772–1822).

    £325

  11. YARRELL, William.

    A History of British Fishes … illustrated by nearly 400 Woodcuts.

    London, Samuel Bentley for John van Voorst, 1836.

    First collected editions, with an autograph letter on the Hebridal smelt from the species’ discoverer. Published serially from 1835 to 1836, Yarrell’s History of British Fishes was reprinted within a year, and followed soon after by Thomas Bell’s British Reptiles in 1839 and...

    £750

  12. HORACE.

    Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.

    Paris, Didot, 1855.

    The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.

    £750

  13. EPICTETUS.

    Το του Επικτητου εγχειριδιον. Ex editione Joannis Upton accurate expressum.

    Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.

    The first miniature Foulis edition of Epictetus in Greek, and the first Foulis Epictetus in Greek only. A 1765 reissue was, according to ESTC, reset.

    £650

  14. 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

  15. ARISTOTLE.

    Αριστοτελους περι ποιητικης: Aristotelis de poetica liber ex versione Theodori Goulstoni. Lectionis...

    Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1780.

    Large-paper issue of the first Winstanley edition, handsomely bound. The first work published by the Oxford historian and classicist Thomas Winstanley (1749–1823), subsequently Camden Professor of History and Laudian Professor of Arabic, this edition of Aristotle’s De poetica was based...

    £675

  16. POPE, Alexander.

    Letters of Mr Alexander Pope, and several of his Friends.

    London: Printed by J. Wright for J. Knapton … L. Gilliver … J. Brindley … and R. Dodsley … 1737.

    First folio edition, large paper issue, preceded by a subscribers’ edition in quarto, of the first ‘official’ version of Pope’s letters.

    £1500

  17. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. 

    In Memoriam. 

    London, Edward Moxon … 1850.

    First edition, first issue, with the misprints on page 2 (‘the sullen tree’ for ‘thee sullen tree’) and page 198 (‘baseness’ for ‘bareness’). 

    £950

  18. [DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel, and Konrad Engelbert OELSNER.]

    Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Joël Barlow, Ministre...

    [Paris,] Smith [for the authors], 1813.

    First edition, one of 500 copies, of this eulogy to the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow – a friend of Jefferson, Madison, Blake, and Paine – an association copy gifted by his widow, Ruth Barlow (née Baldwin) to the physicist and inventor Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with her manuscript...

    £500

  19. BROUGHAM, Henry, first Baron Brougham and Vaux.

    Albert Lunel. A Novel ... In three Volumes ... London, Charles H.

    Clarke ... [1872].

    First edition, Sadleir’s ‘really scarce’ fourth state, of a touching memorial to the author’s daughter, with the undated Charles H. Clarke cancel titles.

    £450

  20. THOMAS, Dylan.

    Under Milk Wood. A Play for Voices …

    London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1954.

    First edition, first impression, our copy from the library of BBC radio producer D.G. Bridson, with a loosely inserted stereotype letter from the poet John Berryman about the last days and the death of Dylan Thomas.

    £1500