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  1. FERDOWSĪ.

    Shāhnāmah.

    Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].

    A lavishly-produced edition of the Shāhnāmah (or Shahnameh), rare in the dustjacket, one of a thousand copies printed to mark the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire.

    £4000

  2. BEAUMONT, Joseph.

    Psyche: or Loves Mysterie in XX. Canto’s: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soule …

    London, Printed by John Dawson for George Boddington, 1648.

    First edition of this lengthy religious epic representing the journey of the personified Soul from England to the Holy Land and back, written by Beaumont, one of the Royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge in 1644.

    £1250

  3. BARTHOLOMEW OF PISA.

    Sermo[n]es lucidissimi et insignes dubiorum et casuum, co[n]scientialium co[n]te[m]ptivi et elucidativi sup[er]...

    Lyon, Romain Morin, 3 February 1519.

    Rare edition of forty-five sermons for Lent and Easter by the Franciscan friar Bartholomew of Pisa (d. c. 1401), printed in Lyon by Romain Morin.

    £2250

  4. ‘CODACCI, Scarpafico’, pseud. [i.e. Gaetano VERACI.]

    Cicalata sopra la coda in forma di lettera indirizzata alla Signora N.N....

    [Florence,] ‘nel Campo Cauditano’, 1765.

    First edition of this highly suggestive, mock-academic ode to the ‘tail’, dedicated to an anonymous lady on the birth of a son.

    £550

  5. [DUQUESNE, Arnaud-Bernard d’Icard.]

    Vie de la vénérable mère Catherine de Bar, dite en religion Mecthilde du S. Sacrement,...

    Nancy, Claude-Sigisbert Lamort; Paris, Le Berton and Herissant, 1775.

    Uncommon biography of the French nun Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament (née Catherine de Bar, 1614-1698), founder of the order of Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, by the French theologian Arnaud-Bernard d’Icard Duquesne (1732-1791). Most copies lack the frontispiece...

    £650

  6. GIOVIO, Paolo.

    Historiarum sui temporis. Tomus primus … ex Italico Latinus factus …

    Lyon, heirs of Sébastien Gryphe, 1561.

    The first Lyon pocket edition of Giovio’s history of his own time, in a charming gilt limp vellum binding.

    £350

  7. [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. The full text...

    £650

  8. HERMOGENES.

    Τεχνη ρητορικη τελειοτατη. Hermogenis ars oratoria absolutissima, et libri omnes. Cum nova versione...

    Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1614.

    A parallel text edition of Hermogenes in a simple but fine contemporary binding.

    £750

  9. [JUVENILE.]

    The Weasel Family.

    London, Edinburgh, and New York, T. Nelson and Sons, [1860s?]

    First edition, rare, of a rather charming Victorian picture-book, from ‘The Funny Animal Series’, later collected in Comical Creatures: a Picture Book for the Nursery (1868).

    £375

  10. [MISSAL.]

    Ordinaire de la Messe.

    [Paris?, c. 1890–1900].

    A lithographed and elegantly hand-coloured French Missal in the style of a medieval manuscript.

    £350

  11. [PLAYING CARDS.]

    Complete deck of 52 playing cards with harlequin design.

    London, Hunt’s Playing Card Manufacturing Co. Ltd., c. 1880.

    A lovely and well-preserved complete deck of playing cards by Hunt’s Playing Card Manufacturing Company, with a sumptuous design featuring a double-ended harlequin on a gold background.

    £175

  12. [RAGUENEAU DE LA CHAINAYE, Armand Henri.]

    Ivrogniana, ou bons mots et aventures d’ivrognes, recueil de cabaret, suite de Grivoisiana,...

    Paris, chez Madame Cavanagh, an. XII – 1804.

    Scarce collection of comic anecdotes and verse on wine and drunkenness compiled by Armand Henri Ragueneau de La Chainaye (1777–1850) and published by Madame Cavanagh.

    £550

  13. TACITUS, Publius Cornelius; N. S. SMITH, translator.

    Dissertation on the Manners of the Germans, and the Life of Agricola … translated...

    London, George and William Budd Whittaker, 1821.

    First edition, a seemingly unrecorded issue of this bilingual edition of Tacitus’ Germania and Agricola, a subscription copy uncut in publisher’s boards.

    £600

  14. THOMAS À KEMPIS; Johann Michael SAILER, translator.

    Das Buch von der Nachfolgung Christi … Zweyte Ausgabe.

    Munich, Ignaz Joseph Lentner, and Leipzig, Hartmann, 1820.

    Uncommon ‘second edition’ of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi as translated by Johann Michael Sailer, Bishop of Regensburg.

    £250

  15. [GREECE and TURKEY.]

    Sketchbook of a tour in Greece and Turkey.

    May–August 1884.

    An album of attractive pencil and watercolour sketches by one ‘C.A.E.’, an English traveller on a tour of Greece and Turkey in 1884.

    £1500

  16. CARY, John.

    A new map of Arabia, including Egypt, Abyssinia, the Red Sea &c. &c. from the latest authorities. By John Cary, engraver....

    London, John Cary, 28 November 1804.

    An attractive hand-coloured map of the Arabian Peninsula and northeast Africa by the English cartographer John Cary (1755–1835), later included in Cary’s New Universal Atlas of 1808.

    £800

  17. [TACCONI, Gaetano.]

    ‘Medicae inst[ructio]nes’, ‘Tractatus de febribus’, and ‘Compendiosa nonulloru[m] m[or]boru[m] peculiariu[m]...

    [Bologna, Italy,] 1739.

    An extensive manuscript compendium of apparently unpublished medical texts compiled by a student at the Archiginnasio of Bologna who studied under Gaetano Tacconi (1689–1782), comprising notes on the prescription and preparation of medication, on fevers, and on a wide variety of illnesses. The...

    £1250

  18. QUARLES, Francis.

    The Shepheards Oracles: delivered in certain Eclogues …

    London, Printed by M. F. for John Marriot and Richard Marriot … 1646.

    Third edition of this pastoral allegory, first published in 1644, which uses the genre as a thin veil for the discussion of autobiographical, political, and religious matters. The poem includes portraits of Quarles’s friend Phineas Fletcher and of Archbishop Laud, who is described as an Arminian ‘Master...

    £300

  19. [REEVE, Gabriel].

    Directions left by a Gentleman to his Sonns: for the Improvement of barren and heathy Land, in England and Wales.

    London, Printed by E. T. and R. H. for R. Royston … 1670

    Sole edition of one of the first books in English devoted to soil conservation. The dedication is signed Gabriel Reeve and dated from Hackney, 14 April 1670.

    £650

  20. CLEVELAND, John.

    Clievelandi Vindiciae: or, Clieveland’s Genuine Poems, Orations, Epistles, &c. purged from the many false and...

    London, Printed for Nath. Brooke ... 1677

    First edition, the issue with Nathaniel Brooke’s imprint. This ‘vindicatory’ text was prepared by Cleveland’s former students John Lake and Samuel Drake from authentic manuscripts to restore true readings to poems that had degenerated through six editions of The Character of a London-Diurnall...

    £250