Search results
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[BECKFORD, William.]
Vathek, conte arabe.
Paris, Chez Poinçot ... 1787.
First Paris edition of Beckford’s Gothic masterpiece in the original French, so considerably revised from the Lausanne edition (also 1787) as to amount to ‘almost a new version’ (Chapman & Hodgkin, p. 127). Beckford also took the opportunity to expand the notes from one to twenty-four pages.
£3250
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[GIRALDI, Giovanni Battista.]
Giuditio sopra la tragedia di Canace et Macareo con molte utili considerationi circa l’arte tragica,...
(Colophon:) Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi, 4 May 1550.
First edition of this criticism, in the form of a dialogue, of Speroni’s play Canace et Macareo, which sparked one of the most remarkable literary debates of the time. The text was previously attributed to Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, but the authorship of Giraldi is now generally accepted....
£650
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ROTH, Henry.
Call it Sleep.
London, Michael Joseph, 1963.
First UK edition of Roth’s precocious masterpiece, generally regarded as the finest novel of Jewish immigration to America before and after the turn of the century.
£250
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[JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.]
The Boke of Justices of Peas the Charge with all the Processe of the Cessions, Warrantes Supercedias &...
[Colophon: London, Richard Pynson], [1505–6?].
First edition(?), very rare, of the first printed guide for Justices of the Peace, issued with a short guide to land law.
£27500
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[CARTOUCHE.]
The Life and Actions of Lewis Dominique Cartouche: who was broke alive upon the Wheel at Paris, Nov. 28. 1721. N.S....
London, printed for J. Roberts … 1722.
First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, of this life of the French highwayman Louis Dominique Bourguignon, alias ‘Cartouche’, broken on the wheel in 1721.
£1750
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CHALKHILL, John.
Thealma and Clearchus. A pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq;...
London, Printed for Benj. Tooke … 1683.
First edition of Chalkhill’s unfinished pastoral poem, with the corrected state of the title, designating the author as ‘an acquaintant and friend of Edmund [originally ‘Edward’] Spencer’.
£1850
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[CHAPBOOK.]
Narrow Escape from the Punishment of Death, or, The Case of John Taylor and John Burton, who were left for Execution...
London: Printed by Augustus Applegath and Edward Cowper … Sold by F. Collins … and Evans and Sons … [c. 1820–1826].
An uncommon early chapbook from the press of Augustus Applegath (1788–1871), interpreting the real-life stay of execution for two sheep-stealers as an act of divine providence.
£225
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COUPÉ, Jacques-Michel.
De la moralité des sépultures et de leur police ...
Paris, Calixte Vollant, an IX [1800–1801].
A scarce and most interesting pamphlet on dealing with the dead, written in the aftermath of the French Revolution by the cleric and politician Jacques-Michel Coupé (1737–1809), a member of the Club des Jacobins who had voted for the death of Louis XVI as a deputy of the National Convention.
£475
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[DEATH CERTIFICATES.]
Certificates recording the deaths of three women.
Rome, 1762–1819.
An interesting set of death certificates for three female residents of Rome, issued respectively by the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the hospital of San Salvatore (now San Giovanni in Laterano).
£750
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[FRANKLAND, William.]
A large collection of manuscript correspondence relating to the death of William Frankland.
[Manchester, Slaidburn, and Blackburn, June 1886–May 1888].
An interesting archive relating to the death of William Frankland, a Lancashire railway worker killed in a shunting accident, consisting largely of manuscript correspondence from his father’s landlords – two solicitors evidently working pro bono – fighting to obtain an insurance payout from...
£650
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[FUNERAL NOTICE.]
[Incipit:] On recommande à vos charitables Prieres & saints Sacrifices, l’Ame de Mademoiselle Marie-Joseph...
[Liège,] L. Devillers, [1796].
A strikingly printed broadside funeral notice for Marie-Joseph Chapelle, ‘a young girl of the parish of St Feuillen, who, after having suffered a long and painful illness, with a perfect resignation to the will of her Creator, furnished with the Sacraments of our Mother the Holy Church, died...
£1850
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[FUNERAL SERMONS.]
Annotated sammelband of eleven eulogies, a discourse, and an address, with additional manuscript material bound in.
[Paris, 1682–1692.]
A sammelband of funeral sermons for distinguished women and men of the late seventeenth century, published in Paris between 1682 and 1692, thoroughly annotated by a cleric for use in his preaching and interspersed with early seventeenth-century manuscript material mostly relating to the bishopric...
£1200
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[GAVARD, Franz.]
‘Ritratto di Francesco Gavard Tedesco, figlio del quondam Claudio Gavard, di anni 45. Morto in Ro.ma nel Ospedale...
Rome, ‘si stampeno [sic] incontro il Palazzo di Fiorenza’, [1787].
Seemingly unrecorded popular engraving depicting Franz Gavard of Wurzburg lying in state, a pious man who moved to Rome and whose body was displayed for three days after his death.
£350
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GRÜNEISEN, [Karl].
Niclaus Manuel: Leben und Werke eines Malers und Dichters, Kriegers, Staatsmannes und Reformators im sechszehnten...
Stuttgart & Tübingen, J.G. Cotta, 1837.
First and only edition of the first separate biography of the Bern painter, writer, and politician Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (c. 1484–1530), with a striking frontispiece from the Berner Danse macabre.
£120
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HEINSIUS, Daniel.
Poematum editio nova; accedunt praeter alia libri, De contemptu mortis antehac una non editi.
Leiden, [Isaac] Elzevir and Jean Maire, 1621.
First Elzevir edition of the poems of Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), expanded to include his didactic epic De contemptu mortis, on facing death with courage, our copy in a handsome red morocco binding attributed to Roger Payne from the celebrated library at Syston Park.
£800
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HOGG, James.
The Pilgrims of the Sun; a Poem …
London, John Murray, and Edinburgh, William Blackwood, 1815.
First edition, first issue, of a long poem by the Scottish shepherd and poet James Hogg, dedicated to Byron and detailing the journey of a local young woman, Mary Lee, to a heavenly world and back to earth, escorted by the spirit Cela.
£200
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HOLBEIN, Hans; Wenceslaus HOLLAR, engraver; [Francis DOUCE, editor].
The Dance of Death, from the original Designs...
[McMillan] for J. Coxhead, 1816.
An attractive early nineteenth-century edition of Holbein’s Dance of Death, printed from Hollar’s etchings with descriptions in English and French and prefatory essays by the antiquary Francis Douce.
£375
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[HÖSS,] Maria Crescentia, Saint.
‘Wahre Abbildung der From[m]en Schwester Maria Crescentia des Heilige[n] Ordens S. Francisci,...
Jahr ihres Alters.’ Mindelheim, Lingauer, 1744.
Extremely rare devotional engraving of Maria Crescentia Höss, a mystic and sister of the Third Order Regular of St Francis at the Franciscan convent in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, issued shortly after her death at the nearby town of Mindelheim.
£750
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[MARIA THERESA.]
Sammelband of twenty-three works, including two broadsides, published on the death of Maria Theresa of Austria.
[Naples, 1781.]
An extraordinary sammelband gathering eulogies and epigraphs to Maria Theresa of Austria, including several ephemeral pieces and broadsides and displaying the breadth of southern Italian typography in the late eighteenth century.
£1950
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[MILAN – DEATH DUTIES.]
[Incipit:] Ad un reale dispaccio in data del 4. corrente ottobre ...
Milan, Pirola brothers, [31 October 1787].
Scarce edict issued by Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este and Governor of the Duchy of Milan, on behalf of his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, describing amendments to Joseph II’s Enlightened religious reforms, including the transfer of funeral expenses to the Church and a table of...
£500