NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.

Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.

Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.

First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

£850

[VACCINATION.]

Agli abitanti del dipartimento dell’Ombrone proclama del Comitato Centrale di Vaccina sedente in Siena. Abitanti...

Siena, Onorato Porri, 1808.

A seemingly unrecorded broadside promoting smallpox vaccination, issued in the short-lived Italian department of Ombrone under the First French Empire by the Central Vaccination Committee in Siena.

£650

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

CIRIA Y ESCALANTE, José de.

[Poemas.]

Madrid, Artes de la illustración, 1924.

Scarce first edition, no. 172 of 200 copies, a collection of thirteen poems by Ciria y Escalante, who died from typhus at the age of twenty-one, brought posthumously to press by the author’s friends, among them Lorca and Buñuel.

£1500

[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

DRYDEN, John.

Eleonora: a Panegyrical Poem: dedicated to the Memory of the late Countess of Abingdon …

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1692.

First edition of Dryden’s eulogy for Eleanora, late Countess of Abingdon, commissioned by her husband, the first Earl of Abingdon.

£275

[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

[GRADUAL.]

Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.

Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.

A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi...

£20000

[GREY, Jane, Lady.]

‘The last days of Lady Jane Grey’.

[c. 1870?].

A manuscript extract, unfinished or incomplete, on the trial of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England from 10 to 19 July 1553.

£175

MANCINI, Celso. 

Il padrino Christiano … per formare i cavallieri di Christo nel duello della morte.  Diviso in tre parti … 

Ferrara, Vittorio Baldini, 1592. 

Rare first edition of a meditational work on this world and the next by Celso Mancini (1542–1612), canon regular of the Lateran, philosopher, and bishop of Alessano. 

£950

MESHCHERSKY, Elim Petrovich, Prince.

Les roses noires …

Paris, Amyot, 1845.

Scarce first edition of this anthology of French verse by Meshchersky, posthumously brought to press by his mother and friends, publishing – for the first time – Victor Hugo’s letter of condolence to the prince's mother.

£400

PASSI, Marco Celio.

Memorie sulla vita di Donna Giuseppina Passi nata Marchesa Lomellini di Genova.

Bergamo, Stamperia Mazzoleni, 1832.

Scarce first edition of a touching memorial to Giuseppina Passi (1809–1831), born Marchioness Lomellini of Genoa, who died at the age of twenty-one following complications in childbirth.

£300

THICKNESSE, Philip.

A Year’s Journey through the Paix Bâs and Austrian Netherlands … Vol.

I [all published]. London: Printed in the Year 1784.

First edition, rare, and possibly suppressed, of a typically idiosyncratic account of a ‘quarrel-ridden tour’ of the Netherlands and Belgium by ‘the most irascible individual within the arena of late eighteenth-century print culture’ (ODNB), with a graphic depiction of the 1762...

£1850

[WALSH, William.]

A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1695.

First edition of Walsh’s elegy on the death of Queen Mary II, the very rare first issue without the author’s name on the title-page. The second issue replaces a thick rule on the title-page with Walsh’s name, and adds two thick rules to the final page – this latter setting is also used...

£350

ITALY – PIEVE DI SAN MINIATO DI RUBBIANA.

Petition to Pope Clement VII, in Latin, on paper, 30 lines in a small Italian notarial...

The petition explains that the parish of San Miniato in the Valle Rubbiana, in the diocese of Fiesole and in the lay patronage of the Buondelmonti family of Florence, is vacant following the death of the organist Mariotto di Michele Giovanni. The patrons, or the majority of them, or their duly appointed...

£250

[TORGA, Miguel, pseud.] ROCHA, Adolpho Correia da.

Abismo. Poemas.

[Coimbra, “Atlantida”, 1932.]

First (and only) edition of one of the very rare early collections of poetry of Miguel Torga, published under his own name while he was still a medical student in Coimbra.

£3500

AESOP, et al. [George STEWART, editor].

Selectiores Aesopi Phrygis fabulae, et Luciani Samosatensis dialogi. Isocratis...

Edinburgh, Tho. Ruddiman for George Stewart, 1723.

First edition thus, scarce, a Scottish school textbook comprising selections in Greek and Latin from Aesop’s Fables, Lucian’s Dialogues, the orations of Isocrates, and the Tablet of Cebes.

£375

ARISTOPHANES.

The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …

Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].

First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we...

£500

ARISTOPHANES, and Henry Francis CARY, translator.

The Birds … with Notes.

London, Printed for Taylor and Hessey … 1824.

First edition of the first metrical translation of Aristophanes’ The Birds into English by Henry Francis Cary (1722–1844) – perhaps best known for his blank verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

£350

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