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  1. MORI, Ascanio de’.

    Giuoco piacevole.

    Mantua, Giacomo Ruffinello, 1575.

    First edition of an uncommon Renaissance collection of tales in prose and verse, set in the Lombard city of Brescia during the Carnival of the ‘prosperous and peaceful’ year 1566, employing the narrative frame canonised by Boccaccio in the Decameron, though with pointedly opposed features.

    £950

  2. [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

  3. PAGANORI, Vincenzo, photographer, and Riccardo MAGNELLI, attributed taxidermist.

    [Cover title:] Saggio della collezione...

    [c. 1880s?]

    An unusual and very rare photographic portfolio of taxidermy, featuring twelve displays – including flamingos, a brown bear, seabirds, and ibex – and one scene of work under preparation, showing the taxidermist and his young apprentice.

    £2500

  4. RAM RAZ. 

    Essay on the Architecture of the Hindús … with forty-eight Plates. 

    London, John William Parker for the Royal Asiatic Society, 1834. 

    First edition, scarce on the market, of this pioneering and handsomely illustrated essay on Indian architecture by the linguist and lawyer Ram Raz (c. 1790–c. 1833). 

    £975

  5. ROTHERY, Charles William.

    Notes on a yacht voyage to Hardanger Fjord, and the adjacent estuaries. By a yachting dabbler. With numerous...

    London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman; Keswick, James Ivison, [1855].

    First edition, second issue (with the mounted lithographs coloured) of this handsomely illustrated account of Rothery’s yachting cruise to the fjords of Norway, ‘charming and sublime scenery, which the sketches are intended, though slightly, to pourtray’ (Preface).

    £250

  6. THOMPSON, George.

    Travels and adventures in Southern Africa ... Comprising a view of the present state of the Cape Colony. With...

    London, Henry Colburn, 1827.

    Second edition of Thompson’s account of his travels in South Africa following the first single-volume quarto edition of the same year.

    £600

  7. [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

  8. [WOMEN-PEARLS.]

    De Vrouwen-Peirle, ofte dryvoudige historie van Helena de Verduldige, Griseldis de Zagtmoedige, en Florentina de...

    Ghent, J. Begyn, [1780–1810].

    An attractive copy of the ‘Women-pearls’, a Flemish chapbook portraying three remarkable women – Helena the Patient, Griselda the Meek, and Florentina the Faithful – and their marvellous stories derived from medieval romances, featuring seduction, amputation, and narrowly-avoided incest.

    £550

  9. [DE LA GUTHÈRE.]

    Du bon usage des eaux de Baignieres.

    Agen, Antoine Bru … 1680.

    Second edition, revised, a guide to the waters at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in South-West France by a local physician, dedicated to the young Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc de Maine (1670–1736), son of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan.

    £600

  10. MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.

    Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...

    London, T. Jefferys, 1764.

    Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...

    £6500

  11. HUMBLOT, F.

    Journal de voyage ...

    France, June-September 1866.

    A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.

    £3500

  12. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Mrs Dukes’ Million.

    Toronto, The Coach House Press, 1977.

    First edition, Lewis’s first novel, written in 1908-10 but never before published.

    £75

  13. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    A Soldier of Humour and selected Writings. Edited with an introduction by Raymond Rosenthal.

    New York & Toronto, A Signet Classic, 1966.

    First edition, inscribed by the editor: ‘Geoffrey I thought you would be interested in this new anthology’.

    £75

  14. MEYERS, Jeffrey, editor.

    Wyndham Lewis, A Revaluation. New essays.

    London, The Athlone Press, [1980].

    First edition, printing on pp. 238-251 Bridson’s essay ‘The Human Age in Retrospect’, his last published work.

    £50

  15. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    ‘A note on Michael Ayrton’ in Spectrum Volume 1, Number 2. Spring-Summer, 1957.

    Santa Barbara, University of California, 1957.

    Printing the forthcoming foreword to Golden Sections, along with Ayrton’s ‘The Act of Drawing’, and a ‘Homage to Wyndham Lewis’ by Eliot, Bridson and Ayrton.

    £50

  16. MACNEICE, Louis.

    Christopher Columbus, a radio play …

    [London,] Faber & Faber, [1944].

    First edition of MacNiece’s early radio play, first broadcast on 12 October 1942 to mark the 450th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of America, with the role of Columbus played by Laurence Olivier.

    £300

  17. BURROUGHS, William.

    The Naked Lunch.

    Paris, Olympia Press, [1960].

    First edition, second printing – the first had a decorative border on the title-page, was priced 1500 francs on the rear cover, and was issued with a dust-jacket (not the earliest copies). After the franc was devalued on 1 January 1960, copies were over-stamped with a new price; and shortly after there...

    £200

  18. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Burns Today and Tomorrow …

    Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1959].

    First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson, With best wishes from Hugh MacDiarmid’.

    £150

  19. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Stony Limits and Scots Unbound and other Poems ...

    Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1956].

    First edition thus, including some poems that were excluded from the original edition of Stony Limits (1932) over libel fears, and the title-poem only of Scots Unbound (1934), correcting the printers’ errors from the first edition. Bridson had reviewed the first edition of Stony Limits...

    £100