HOOKER, Richard.

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, eight Bookes [Bound with:] Certayne Divine Tractates … London, Printed...

… London: Printed by Will. Stansby, and are to be sold by Mat. Lownes … 1617.

Fourth edition, first issue, of the Preface and Books 1-4 (first published in 1593), third edition of Book 5 (first published in 1597), bound here with the third edition of ‘Certayne Divine Tractates’ (1631), issued with a 1622 general title-page (rather than the usual 1632).

£650

WALLER, Edmund. 

Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing.  All the lyrick Poems...

London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645. 

Second (but first licensed) edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to...

£850

[JOHNSON, Samuel].

The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In two Volumes …

London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley … and W. Johnston … 1759.

First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral. Its rapid execution is said to have been due to the fact that he had been pondering its chief topics all his life. It soon became his most popular work. Although now inevitably called...

£1600

[DODSLEY, Robert, editor].

A Collection of Poems. By several Hands. In three Volumes.

London: Printed for R. Dodsley … 1748.

First edition, the most influential poetical miscellany of the eighteenth century. Dodsley’s avowed aim was ‘to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a longer rememberance than what would probably be secured to them by the Manner wherein they were originally published’....

£450

WALTON, Izaac.

The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert … to which are added some Letters...

London, printed by Tho. Newcomb for Richard Marriott … 1670.

First collected edition of Walton’s celebrated lives of poets and divines. ‘If its rarity was as great as its merit it would be one of the most coveted books of the period’ (Pforzheimer). The biography of Wotton was published as part of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651); Walton’s life of Donne first...

£850

DRYDEN, John.

Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.

First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...

£400

COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].

The Watchman. No. I [III, IV]. Tuesday, March 1 [17, 25], 1796. Published by the Author …

Bristol: and sold by the Booksellers and Newscarriers in Town and Country.

Three (of ten) issues of The Watchman, Coleridge’s first journalistic endeavour, very rare: published in March to May 1796.

£750

JOHNSON, Samuel.

Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are added some Poems never before printed. Published...

… London: Printed for A. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1788.

First edition. Mrs Piozzi, when she was Mrs Thrale, was Johnson’s principal correspondent for a decade; her edition of Johnson’s letters is the ‘first publication and canonization of a large body of his correspondence’ (Oxford DNB). The Letters sold well, notwithstanding some complaints of manipulative...

£650

[SMOLLETT, Tobias].

The Adventures of Roderick Random … in two Volumes … The second Edition.

London: Printed for J. Osborn … 1748.

Second edition, with ‘major imaginative changes’, and frontispieces which appear here for the first time. Even though there were only a few weeks between the first and second editions, Smollett found time to make a number of significant corrections in the text, on average about one substantive change...

£500

ROSCOMMON, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of.

Poems … to which is added an Essay on Poetry, by the Earl of Mulgrave, now Duke of Buckingham....

London: Printed for J. Tonson … 1717.

First edition of this collection, notable for Richard Duke’s unfinished Review, a vehement satire in response to, and in the allegorical manner of, Absalom and Achitophel, and featuring Dryden as one of the figures satirised. According to Tonson in the preface, it was written ‘a little after the...

£400

PRIOR, Matthew.

Poems on several Occasions.

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1709.

First authorised edition, preceded by Curll’s pirated collection of 1707. In the preface Prior complains that in Curll’s edition poems by other authors have been misattributed to him and that some of his own poems are ‘transcribed … so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine’....

£400

POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:

from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...

Printed in the Year 1702

Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...

£425

HALIFAX, George Savile, Marquis of.

Miscellanies … viz. I. Advice to a Daughter. II. The Character of a Trimmer. III. The Anatomy...

London: Printed for Matt. Gillyflower … 1700.

First edition, the issue without the two rows of ornaments to the title-page, and with Q4-R3 uncancelled. Defoe’s Letter to a Dissenter (first published 1688) rather than Halifax’s was printed in error on leaves Q4-R3, and these leaves are cancelled in later issues (in the present copy Q4 is torn...

£450

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor.

Biographia Literaria; or biographical Sketches of my literary Life and Opinions … Vol I[-II].

London: Rest Fenner … 1817.

First edition. Coleridge’s estimates of contemporary German poets and philosophers are justly celebrated, and the long autobiographical passages and critical analyses of Wordsworth and of Lyrical Ballads are of primary interest. ‘Though maddeningly unsystematic in structure, the book is a touchstone...

£450

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

OVERBURY, Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife. With Additions of new Characters, and many other Witty Conceits never before...

London, Printed by John Haviland, for A. Crooke … 1638.

Sixteenth edition of the most popular character book of the early seventeenth century.

£600

ALVAREZ DE ARENALES, Jose.

Noticias historicas y descriptivas sobre el gran pais del Chaco y Rio Bermejo; con observaciones relativas...

Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del Plata], 1850.

Rare second edition, after the first of 1833, of this analysis of the Chaco and Rio Bermejo regions of Paraguay, divided into three sections. The first covers the geography, population and natural history of the area, the second relates the conquest of Paraguay and Peru, containing extracts from various...

£100

BARDUZZI, Bernardino.

A Letter in Praise of Verona [1489]. In the original Latin Text with an English Translation by Betty Radice.

Verona, [Officina Bodoni,] 1974.

First edition, No. 34 of 150 copies: an elegant facsimile reprint of one of Verona’s rarest incunables. Barduzzi’s eulogistic letter to Giovanni Nesi was first printed in 1489 by Paulus Fridenperger. The Latin text is followed here by an English translation and a biographical postscript by Giovanni...

£375

BEARDÉ DE L’ABBAYE.

Essays in agriculture: or, a variety of useful hints, for its improvement, with respect to air, water, earth,...

London, T. Carnan, 1776.

First and only edition in English. Little is known of Beardé; born at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he won the 1766 prize offered by the Agricultural Society of Saint Petersburg with his Essay in answer to the question ‘Est-il plus avantageux à un état que le paysan possède en propre...

£200

BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.

Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à nos jours, suivie...

Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.

First edition of ‘the first major history of political economy’ (The New Palgrave). Blanqui (1798–1854) taught at the Institution Massin, where he came into contact with J. B. Say, who was greatly impressed by him. In 1833, he succeeded Say as holder of the chair of political and industrial economy...

£125