Recent Acquisitions
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[USTONSON, Onesimus.]
The Anglers Assistant being an Epitomy of ye whole Art of Angling wherein is shewn at one View ye Harbours,...
Ustonson [c. 1815?]
A fine and very rare broadside angling guide, the text probably written by Onesimus Ustonson (b. 1736), fishing tackle manufacturer and inventor of the multiplying reel, who had supplied equipment to Joseph Banks for Cook’s second voyage in 1772.
£1000
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[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.]
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale...
Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.
An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to the female players of tavolazzo – a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting – at the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri; the rules of the sport would be formally laid out in 1780.
£375
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GRUBBE, Margaret Julia Maria.
Archive of drawings, watercolours, and photographs.
England and Scotland, c. 1900 – 1960s.
A charming archive of the Suffolk artist Margaret Grubbe (1911–97), granddaughter of the painter John Seymour Lucas, comprising dozens of family photographs and over 150 of her drawings and watercolours, tracing her development as an artist from her childhood into middle age.
£1500
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BACON, Francis.
Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley...
London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.
First edition, second issue of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance in Latin of a biographical sketch of the philosopher by William Rawley (c. 1588–1667), Bacon’s literary...
£1250
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PARKES, Fanny.
Wanderings of a pilgrim, in search of the picturesque, during four-and-twenty years in the east; with revelations...
London, Pelham Richardson, 1850.
First edition, with many handsome tinted and coloured illustrations, of the lively journals of Fanny Parkes (1794–1875) documenting her time in India from 1822 to 1845, with an interval in England and Cape Town.
£3750
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[ASSIGNAT DE CINQUANTE BAISERS.]
Mémoire pour le Sieur Jean-Baptiste Cousot, imprimeur, demeurant à Chaumont, opposant; contre...
Chaumont, Cousot, c. 1822.
First edition of this apparently unrecorded pamphlet concerning a secret society of ‘gallant’ teenagers in Chaumont, Haut-Marne in eastern France, called ‘l’Ordre de l’amitié’. The youngest member, also one of the most influential, being only fourteen years old, and the majority still...
£250
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PEETERS, Jacob.
L’Atlas en abregé, ou nouvelle Description du monde, tirée du meilleurs auteurs de ce siècle …
Antwerp, chez l’auteur, 1692.
First edition of a charming atlas, the best-known production of Jacob Peeters (1637–1695), a Flemish engraver and publisher from an artistic family – his brothers Jan and Bonaventura were both artists. The map of the Americas shows California as an island; the allegorical engraved title features...
£2500
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[NEW YORK.]
Notarial instrument attesting to the residence of two French immigrants in New York.
New York, 27 July 1797.
An interesting document recording the immigration of two members of the French minor nobility into America during the French Revolution and Directory. The New York public notary Charles Bridgen here attests to the arrival of François Pierre Henri d’Héliand (b. 1768) and his wife Laurence Joséphine...
£850
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SAINT AULAIRE, Achille.
Voyage autour du monde par St. Aulaire.
[Clichy, Maurice Loignon for] Paris, Arnauld de Vresse, [c. 1864].
A hand-coloured copy of this scarce and charming juvenile guide to twenty-four countries across the globe. The plates are adapted from those first published in Paris by Aubert circa 1845 under the title Récréations instructives: voyage pittoresque à travers le monde (Gumuchian 5037).
£1500
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SOWERBY, J[ohn] G[eorge], and Thomas CRANE, illustrators. [Eliza KEARY.]
At Home.
London and Belfast, Marcus Ward & Co., [1881].
Original maquette for this charming Victorian children’s book, illustrated by the stained-glass designer John George Sowerby and decorated by Thomas Crane, elder brother of the illustrator Walter Crane. The verse, unacknowledged, is by Eliza Keary (1827–1918). At Home and its sequels Abroad...
£500
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[WINCHESTER COLLEGE.]
Printed and manuscript election roll.
[Winchester,] ‘1 November 1782’.
A remarkable eighteenth-century part-printed election roll from Winchester College, with admissions, the names of scholars, prize-winners, and pupils elected to New College Oxford.
£1250
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[WALL, Thomas].
A Second Christian Warning-Piece; wherein is shewed the first and chief Cause of Englands present Misery … Humbly...
London, 1681-2.
First edition, very rare, of a vehement anti-Catholic tract published in the context of the Exclusion Crisis; bound with the principal astrological work of John Holwell (a slightly imperfect copy).
£1750
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CARD, Henry.
Literary Recreations …
London, Printed by W. Wilson … for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme … 1809.
First edition of a scarce collection of miscellaneous essays on such topics as ‘the Condition and Character of Women in different Countries and Ages’ (pp. 51–118), the ‘Rapid Growth of Methodism’ (pp. 131–187), and ‘Bastards’ (pp. 199–227).
£650
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BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).
Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the...
London, Henry Colburn, 1829.
First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.
£3750
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[WILSON, James].
Twenty-five Propositions, humbly presented and respectfully dedicated, and presented, to the Inhabitants of Saint...
[Basseterre,] Printed at the Gazette Office, 1849.
Very rare. In his Propositions, Wilson bemoans ‘the lamentable aspect of this community, generally, in respect of morals and religion’, the populace divided into the ‘openly lawless and profane’ majority, the outwardly respectable (but with no thought to their everlasting fate),...
£1850
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MEURSIUS, Johannes.
Ioannis Meursi Regnum Atticum, sive de regibus Atheniensium, eorumque rebus gestis, libri III.
Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1633.
First edition, a study of ancient Attic mythology and history by the Dutch classicist Meursius (Jan van Meurs, 1579–1639).
£300
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[CONFRATERNITY OF THE SACRED HEART.]
Devotion au Sacré Coeur de Jesus, pour les confrères de l’un et de l’autre sexe, reçus...
Toulouse, Jean-Henri Guillemette, 1757.
Very rare pocket-sized devotional manual for both male and female members of the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established at the fourteenth-century Convent of Saint-Pantaléon of the Canonesses Regular of Saint Augustine in Toulouse.
£950
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[ALMANACK.]
...
Liège and Paris, Stahl, [1841].
Rare issue of the long-running and highly entertaining Almanach de Liège, illustrated with numerous crudely printed woodcuts.
£225
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[SHIDYĀQ, Ahmad Fāris, attributed author.]
Kitāb al-muhāwarah al-unsīyah fī al-lughatayn al-Inklīzīyah wa-al-ʿArabīyah...
[Malta, 1840].
First edition, an English grammar and vocabulary designed for Arabic students, attributed to the Lebanese-born Shidyāq, who lived between Cairo and Malta in the 1820s–40s, and is best known for his well-regarded Arabic translation of the Bible (1857), and for his less well-regarded opinion...
£950
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[OXFORD.]
Carmina quadragesimalia ab Aedis Christi Oxon. alumnis composita et ab ejusdem Aedis baccalaureis determinantibus...
Oxford, ‘E Theatro Sheldoniano,’ 1723 [– 1748].
First edition of these humorous verses in Latin, composed by bachelors at Christ Church Oxford as part of scholastic Lenten disputations on natural philosophy.
£500