Search results
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BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett.
Poems before Congress …
London, [Bradbury and Evans for] Chapman and Hall, 1860.
First edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’), published a year before her death.
£200
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[CIRCUS.] SCHREYER, Heinrich.
Teatro del Corso.
Straordinario spettacolo di quadrupedi ammaestrati … Bologna, Tipi belle arti, [1846].
Seemingly unrecorded Bologna-printed broadside advertising a travelling show of ‘small Scottish horses’, monkeys, and dogs at the Teatro del Corso in Bologna on 30 November 1846, led by circus trainer Heinrich Schreyer, noted for his theatre of monkeys in Vienna.
£450
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CORNEILLE, Pierre.
Nicomède tragedie.
Rouen, Laurens Maurry, and Paris, Guillaume de Luyne, 1653.
Rare second edition (first 1651) of Corneille’s tragedy of sibling rivalry and the conflict of political and aristocratic ideals, set in Rome in the second century BC.
£750
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DVIGUBSKY, Ivan Alekseevich.
Опытъ естественной исторіи всѣхъ животныхъ Россійской...
Moscow, University Press, 1831.
First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829–1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.
£2000
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FROST, Robert.
A collection of five Christmas Poems for 1953, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963, all in the issues printed for distribution...
New York, Spiral Press, 1953–1963.
Five poetic Christmas cards by Robert Frost, one of which inscribed, sent by Frost to the poet and BBC broadcaster D.G. Bridson, the last of the Christmas cards arriving at Bridson’s home on the day Frost’s death was announced.
£1000
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FULBECKE, William.
An Historicall Collection of the continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians during...
London, Printed for William Ponsonby. 1601.
First edition of Fulbecke’s Historicall Collection, a ‘narrative history of the last years of the Roman republic’ (ODNB), one of very few such works by a Renaissance English writer, featuring much material on the rebellion of the nobleman Catiline, undoubtedly included as a reference...
£5250
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GAYOT DE PITAVAL, [François].
Question d’estat: fille reclamée par deux meres.
Paris, Nicolas le Gras, 1716.
Very rare first edition of this account by the famous advocate François Gayot de Pitaval (1673–1743) of a 1709 case in which a midwife had substituted a newborn girl who was then claimed both by the real mother and the woman to whom the baby had been given.
£350
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[CIRCUS.]
Programme of a show of acrobats and strongmen at the Teatro del Cocomero. [Incipit:] I. e R. Teatro del Cocomero per...
[Florence, 1833.]
Seemingly unrecorded advertisement and programme of a show of the two French strongmen, acrobats, and gymnasts Desiderio Manché and Desiderio Darras, together with one Vettorina Darras, likely the wife of the latter, arranged by the Accademia degli infuocati at Florence’s most famous theatre.
£375
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HARDY, Campbell.
Sporting Adventures in the New World; or, Days and Nights of Moose-Hunting in the Pine Forests of Acadia …
London, Hurst and Blackett, 1855.
First edition of this most interesting account of Nova Scotia, Canada, by the Royal Artillery officer Campbell Hardy (1831–1919).
£575
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HOLCROFT, Thomas.
The Family Picture; or, domestic Dialogues on amiable and interesting Subjects: illustrated by Histories, Allegories,...
London, printed for Lockyer Davis … printer to the Royal Society, 1783.
First edition of an early work by the radical playwright, translator, and novelist Thomas Holcroft, a series of dialogues by members of the fictional Egerton family, who gather in their library every evening to tell stories for their mutual instruction and amusement.
£950
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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
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JENKINS, Edward.
The Devil’s Chain … Twentieth Thousand. With twelve Illustrations by Barnard and Thomson.
[Southwark, M’Corquodale and Co. for] London and Belfast, William Mullan & Son, 1877.
A reissue of the illustrated edition, from a different publishing house, of this lively narrative tracing the ‘universally ruinous effect of drink on all classes of the English population’ (Sutherland) by Member of Parliament, anti-slavery campaigner, and ardent imperialist Edward Jenkins.
£100
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[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 (1867).
£375
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LAING, John.
An account of a voyage to Spitzbergen; containing a full description of that country, of the zoology of the north,...
[Balfour for], London, J. Mawman and David Brown, Edinburgh, 1815.
First edition of Laing’s account of his voyage as a ship’s surgeon on a whaling vessel under Captain Scoresby to the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago, in 1806 and 1807.
£850
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LE SAGE, Alain René.
The History of Vanillo Gonzales, surnamed the merry Batchelor. In two Volumes. From the French …
London, printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, 1797.
First complete translation of Le Sage’s Histoire d’Estevanille Gonzalez, surnommé le garcon de bonne humeur (1734), itself a loose French adaptation of Vida y hechos de Estebanillo Gonzalez (1646), preserving only a few episodes of the Spanish original.
£1250
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LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude.
Le Père Noël supplicié.
[Paris, Chantenay, 1952.]
Rare first separate appearance, a presentation copy, of Lèvi-Strauss’s article ‘Father Christmas tortured’, an ethnological analysis of French ecclesiastical authorities’ disapproval of the ‘paganisation’ of Father Christmas, describing the hanging and burning of an effigy at Dijon just...
£250
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LEIGHTON, J. Harold.
Collection of exhibition prints.
1920s–1940s.
An impressive portfolio of exhibition prints made using the innovative gum bichromate process by the renowned Pictorialist photographer J. Harold Leighton, an expert in the process, exhibited from England to continental Europe, United States, Canada, and India.
£7500
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MEGUSCHER, Francesco.
Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...
Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.
Uncommon first edition of this comprehensive report on the best means of reversing the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy in a way that would be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.
£950
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PRIOR, Matthew.
Poems on several Occasions.
London, printed for Jacob Tonson and John Barber, 1718.
First edition, a subscriber’s copy on large paper, of one of the most imposing volumes of verse of the eighteenth century, in a strictly contemporary binding, with endleaves on the same paper stock as the text, our copy in a strictly contemporary binding and presented to the Scottish poet and songwriter...
£5000
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[RAYNAL, Guillaume-Thomas, Abbé;] Johann Adam HILLER, translator.
Anecdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter französischer,...
Leipzig, Lankisch, 1762.
First edition in German of this collection of amusing literary, philosophical and historical anecdotes on French men and women of letters from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, translated by the composer and conductor Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804), one of Bach’s successors as Cantor in...
£250