Search results
-
RANK, Otto.
Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden. Versuch einer psychologischen Mythendeutung.
Leipzig and Vienna, Franz Deuticke, 1909.
First edition of this psychoanalytical investigation of mythological heroism and the role of birth legends in the stories of heroes, by the German psychoanalyst Otto Rank (1884–1939), published as part of the series Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde under the editorship of Freud....
£100
-
SHEPHERD, Richard Herne.
No. I. Studies of Sensation and Event by Ebenezer Jones …
London, Pickering & Co … 1878.
An interesting collection of rare tracts, from the library of the Scottish lawyer and journalist John Skelton (1831–1897), who wrote for Blackwood’s under the pseudonym ‘Shirley’.
£950
-
SOPHOCLES; Adrien TURNÈBE, editor.
Τραγωδιαι. Αιαξ μαστιγοφορος. Ηλεκτρα. Οιδιπους...
Paris, Adrien Turnèbe, 1553 [(colophon:) 24 December 1552].
A wide-margined copy of Sophocles in Greek owned by the Vatican librarian and Greek scholar Leone Allacci, with his name on the title-page. Sophocles’ seven tragedies narrate the stories of the Greek heroes and heroines Ajax, Heracles and Deianeira, Oedipus and Jocasta, Philoctetes, Antigone,...
£1850
-
SOPHOCLES; Ezra POUND, translator.
Women of Trachis. A Version by Ezra Pound.
London, Neville Spearman, [1956].
First edition of Pound’s version of Sophocles’ Trachiniae, inscribed by the editor Denis Goacher to Geoffrey Bridson (1910–1980), who had co-produced the play for BBC radio in April 1954.
£1000
-
[VOGEL, Johann Christoph.]
Démophon.
[France (probably Paris), c. 1787.]
A contemporary scribal manuscript of Johann Christoph Vogel’s opera Démophon, from the library of Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on the story of the legendary king Demophon of Thrace recounted in the De astronomia of Hyginus.
£5250
-
ZANCHI, Basilio.
Dictionarium poeticum, et epitheta veterum poetarum … nunc secundo trans Alpes editum.
Mons, Luca Rivius, 1612.
Scarce Mons-printed edition of Zanchi’s onomasticon from A to Z, providing a comprehensive list of deities, notable figures, and heroes and heroines from classical myth and legend, drawn from the works of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Propertius.
£375
-
VORAGINE, Jacobus de.
Lombardica historia que a plerisque aurea legenda sanctorum appellatur.
Strasbourg, [Georg Husner,] 1502.
Jacobus de Voragine’s influential Legenda Aurea in a contemporary gilt-lettered binding with an incunable fragment used as the rear pastedown. This copy is also notable for its extensive sixteenth century manuscript additions relating to Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg and former ownership by...
£8000
-
APOLLODORUS; Benedetto EGIO, translator.
Απολλοδωρου του Αθηναιου γραμματικου βιβλιοθηκης,...
[Heidelberg,] ex officina Commeliniana, 1599.
Second edition (first 1555) of this classic compendium of Greek myths and legends by Apollodorus, edited by Hieronymus Commelinus (1550–1597) and published posthumously by his heirs. The Greek text is accompanied by the Latin translation of Benedetto Egio, and is prefixed with Commelinus’...
£875
-
MILL, John Stuart; 中村 敬太郎 NAKAMURA Keitarō [i.e. 中村 正直 NAKAMURA Masanao], translator.
On Liberty. 自由之理...
Shizuoka, Ken’ichiro Kihira, Meiji Mizunoesaru/Jinshin [i.e. 1872].
First edition, rare, of the first Japanese translation of Mill’s On Liberty, published twelve years after the English original, and very popular in Japan as a result of this translation by the philosopher and educator Masanao Nakamura (1832–1891).
£2500
-
EURIPIDES; SOPHOCLES; AESCHYLUS.
Tragoediae selectae Aeschyli, Sophoclis, Euripidis. Cum duplici interpretatione Latina, una ad...
[Geneva,] Henri Estienne, 1567.
Handsome pocket-sized Estienne edition of eight plays by the three great fifth-century BC Greek tragedians, all based on figures and episodes from Greek myth, with interesting contemporary annotations to Euripides.
£1850
-
PLUTARCH; John Moyr SMITH, illustrator.
An Argive Hero … with Illustrations designed after the Manner of early Greek Paintings.
London, Arthur H. Moxon, 1877.
Scarce first and only edition of John Moyr Smith’s illustrations of the life of Theseus, accompanying the text of Plutarch’s Life.
£950
-
ANNE, Queen.
Warrant, signed, authorising John Grubham Howe as Paymaster General, to pay Major General James Mailand for the regiment...
27 January 1708/9.
An attractive document, bringing together the signatures of both Queen Anne and the future Prime Minister Robert Walpole.
£1750
-
BARCLAY, Arthur Kett.
‘Journal of a Tour through Cornwall and Wales 1826 by Arthur Kett Barclay’.
18 July–13 October 1826.
A most interesting diary recording a tour of England and Wales undertaken by the twenty-year-old Arthur Kett Barclay in 1826, especially valuable for its descriptions of English and Welsh mining in the late Industrial Revolution.
£3500
-
[BECKFORD, William, and Samuel HENLEY, translator.]
An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished Manuscript. With Notes critical...
London, Printed for W. Clarke … 1809.
Scarce second edition – in fact a reissue comprising the remainder sheets of the first edition of 1786 with a cancel title-page (printed by S. Gosnell) – of Henley’s English translation of Beckford’s Gothic masterpiece, first published against the author’s wishes and predating publication...
£1500
-
[BYRON, George Gordon Noel, Lord.]
AUCHER, Paschal. A Grammar Armenian and English ...
Venice, at the Press of the Armenian Academy, 1819.
First edition, scarce, of Byron’s Armenian Grammar, ‘the first English-language attempt to explain the structures of classical Armenian’, also containing ‘Byron’s only surviving verse translation of Armenian poetry’ (Rizzoli), but probably published without his knowledge.
£3250
-
[COLVIL, Samuel.]
‘Mock Poem, or Whiggs Supplication Part ii’.
1670s?
A fine early manuscript of the second part of Colvil’s rollicking ‘Scottish Hudibras’, a satire on Scots Presbyterianism and sectarian wrangling between non-conformists in general. It circulated widely in manuscript before its first publication in 1681, when Colvil complained of ‘Transcribers,...
£1250
-
HARRIS, James.
Three Treatises the first concerning Art the second concerning music painting and poetry the third concerning happiness...
London, John Nourse and Paul Vaillant, 1765.
Presentation copies, inscribed ‘From the Author’, of the revised second editions of these two works on art and language by the philosopher and latterly politician James Harris.
£600
-
HIPPOCRATES.
The Eight Sections of Hippocrates Aphorismes review’d and rendred into English: according to the Translation of...
London, W. G. for Rob. Crofts, 1665.
First edition of this translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a succinct summary of medical advice directed at the practitioner. The first English translation was published in 1610, and a second version, derived from it in 1655. Here the aphorisms are entirely re-arranged by topic...
£850
-
IRWIN, Eyles.
The Triumph of Innocence; an Ode. Written on the Deliverance of Maria Theresa Charlotte, Princess Royal of France,...
London, W. Bulmer for G. Nicol, 1796.
First and only edition, very rare, of this anti-Jacobin poem celebrating the release of Marie Thérèse of France (1778–1851), eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, from the Temple prison, where she had been held since 1792 as the rest of her family were gradually removed and executed.
£800
-
KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The most remarkable Year in the Life of Augustus von Kotzebue; containing an Account...
London, Richard Phillips, 1802.
First edition in English of Kotzebue’s Das merkwürdigste Jahr meines Lebens (1801), an account of his surprise arrest at the Russian border in 1800 on suspicions of being a Jacobin, and his transport to Tobolsk in Siberia. With some royal flattery, Kotzebue won his freedom back from...
£500