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  1. [ORAN.]

    Diario distinto di tutto il seguito per la spedizione fatta d’ordine della maesta cattolica di Filippo V. Re delle Spagne...

    (Colophon:) Florence, Bernardo Paperini, 1732.

    A daily account in Italian from 20 June to 8 July 1732 of the Spanish capture of Oran. The Moroccan city had been governed by Spain since 1509 but had fallen into Ottoman hands in 1708. This 1732 invasion brought Oran once more under Spanish control, in which it remained until 1792.

    £175

  2. PALEY, William.

    Caution recommended in the use and application of scripture language. A sermon preached July 15, 1777, in the Cathedral...

    Cambridge, printed by J. Archdeacon for T. & J. Merrill (and others), 1777.

    First edition. A sermon (on 2 Peter iii, vv. 15–16) preached by Paley, author of the celebrated Evidences of Christianity (1785), at the invitation of Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle. ‘Paley’s connection with the Law family greatly advanced his clerical career. He regularly spent vacations with...

    £150

  3. PYNCHON, Thomas.

    Gravity’s Rainbow.

    New York: The Viking Press, [1973].

    First edition. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow is literally indescribable, a tortured cadenza of lurid imaginings and total recall that goes on longer than you can quite believe’, wrote critic Michael Wood on first publication of this, Pynchon’s magnum opus:

    £900

  4. ROTH, Henry.

    Call it Sleep.

    London: Michael Joseph, 1963.

    First English edition, first published in New York by Robert O. Ballou in 1934.

    £250

  5. SAY, Léon.

    [cover title: ] La Société coopérative est la meilleure des caisses d’épargne.

    Lille, L. Danel, [1866?].

    First edition. Léon Say (1826–1896), grandson of Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘became one of the most prominent statesmen of the French Third Republic. He served as Finance Minister from 1872 to 1879, and again in 1882, overseeing the largest financial operation of the century – payment of war reparations...

    £75

  6. SCHREBER, Johann Christian.

    Botanisch-Oeconomische Abhandlung vom Grasbaue. Preisschrift, welche die, in den öconomischen Nachrichten,...

    Leipzig, Johann Wendler, 1763.

    First separate edition of this prize-winning treatise on grass and hay, first published in the Ökonomische Nachrichten.

    £75

  7. [SINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1894–95.]

    Terrible war of General Sakamoto, leader of the imperial warship Akagi.

    Tokyo, Sekiguchi Masajiro, 1894.

    A portrait of General Sakamoto at the battle of Yalu River (1894) executed by the Japanese artist, Toshikata Mizuno. General Sakamoto was killed in this battle.

    £350

  8. SMITH, William.

    The Speeches of Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, in...

    Philadelphia printed, London reprinted for John Stockdale, 1794.

    First London edition, a rebuff to the punitive anti-British tariffs proposed by the future President James Madison, first printed in Philadelphia in the same year and also reprinted in Edinburgh.

    £175

  9. SQUIRES, Richard F.

    Typescript letter to John Derek Smith, signed Rick,

    dated Gladsaxe [Denmark], December 7, 1965.

    Squires’ main research was into multiple forms of monoamine oxidases, and their inhibitors, which are nowadays used as antidepressants. Squires reports of problems not entirely unrelated with psycho-active substances:

    £180

  10. STEPNIAK, Sergius [pseudonym for: Sergius Mikhailovich Kravchinskii].

    Podziemna Rosja. Obrazki z przeszłości młodej Rosji.

    Lviv, [ printers of the Dziennika Polskiego] for Gubrinowicz & Schmidt, 1897.

    Extremely rare first edition in Polish, anonymously translated and printed in nowadays Ukraine, of Stepniak’s most successful, translated and influential book.

    £100

  11. STEWART, Dugald.

    Esquisses de philosophie morale …

    Paris, A. Johanneau, 1826.

    First edition in French of Stewart’s Outlines of Moral Philosophy (1793), translated from the fourth English edition of 1818, with a 152-page prefatory essay by the translator, Théodore-Simon Jouffroy.

    £100

  12. WALRAS, Léon.

    Études d’économie sociale (Théorie de la Répartition de la Richesse sociale).

    Lausanne and Paris, Rouge and Pichon & Durand-Auzias, 1936.

    This, the second, definitive edition differs from the first (1896) in containing the ‘Souvenirs du Congrès de Lausanne’. The congress on taxation in Lausanne in 1860, at which Walras read a paper, was a climacteric in his career. In the audience was Louis Ruchonnet, who later became chief of the...

    £100

  13. WALRAS, Léon.

    Théorie critique de l’impot …

    Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1861.

    First and only edition of Walras’ second published book on economics and an important early testimonial to his profound admiration for, and intellectual identification with, his father. In the lengthy preface, he reviews the ideas contained in the works of Auguste Walras, including the concept of ‘rarety’...

    £5750

  14. [JOYCE.] ROTH, Samuel [Edits.].

    Two Worlds – A Literary Quarterly Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations.

    New York: Sign of the Mockigrisball, 1925.

    First edition. Unnumbered, one of 500, of which 450 numbered copies were designated for subscribers. Between September 1925 and September 1926 Two Worlds published installments of Joyce’s ‘Work in Progress’ (Finnegan’s Wake), reprinted from European publications (in this case from Criterion,...

    £150

  15. ZUCKERKANDL, Robert.

    Die Währungsänderung in Britisch-Indien.

    [Vienna and Prague, F. Tempski, and Leipzig, G, Freytag, c. 1894]

    First edition of this rare paper, offprinted from Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Socialpolitik und Verwaltung, volume III, issue I, on the changes of the Indian currency against the silver and gold prices. From 1873 the value of the Rupee sank considerably, leading to the British government of India’s...

    £120

  16. BERLIOZ, Hector.

    Mémoires . . . comprenant ses voyages en Italie, en Allemagne, en Russie et en Angleterre 1803–1865. Avec un...

    Paris, Michel Lévy, 1870.

    First edition, a fine copy in entirely original condition in the original wrappers. Berlioz’s colourful autobiography reads like a work of literature and remains the principle source for his life. This posthumous first edition of the Mémoires was preceded by excerpts which were serialised in Le Monde...

    £2750

  17. BLANCHET, Joseph.

    L’art, ou les principes philosophiques du chant. IIe edition, corrigée et augmentée.

    Paris, Augustin-Martin Lottin, Michel Lambert and Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, 1756.

    First edition. The designation ‘IIe edition, corrigée et augmentée’ on the title arises from the publication in 1755 of L’art du chant, dedié a Madame de Pompadour by Jean-Antoine Bérard, whom Blanchet accuses of incorporating his material. The two works certainly include many passages which...

    £750

  18. BALZAC, Jean-Louis Guez de.

    Aristippus, or, Monsieur de Balsac’s Masterpiece, being a Discourse concerning the Court … Englished...

    London: Printed by Tho. Newcomb for Nat. Eakins … and Tho. Johnson … 1659.

    First edition in English of Aristippe (1657), a treatise on wisdom in political administration dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden, who was an admirer. Balzac was particularly reputed for the quality of his prose, seen as raising it to the same perfection as Malherbe did for French verse. ...

    £750

  19. CARDONNEL, Adam de.

    Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …

    London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.

    First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.

    £975

  20. R., N.

    Proverbs English, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. All Englished and alphabetically digested …

    London, Printed for Simon Miller … 1659.

    First and only edition of a scarce collection of idiomatic phrases and proverbs, many translated from other languages, with a selection of 114 ‘Golden sentences’ at the end.

    £1750