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  1. [TRIALS.]

    Authentick Coppie of the Tryal of Scot and Mackpherson Anno 1712. Laid before the House, pursuant to their Lordships’...

    London: Printed by John Baskett, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. 1737.

    First edition of this London trial of Scottish cattle-rustlers. Donald McPherson, a merchant drover, was driving black cattle from the North of Scotland into England, when he was attacked near the river Tweed by William Laidly, or ‘Scot’, his brother Walter and their gang. McPherson was dragged backwards...

    £45

  2. [ANON.]

    The Gentleman’s compleat Jockey, with the perfect Horse-Man and experienc’d Farrier, containing: I. the Nature of Horses,...

    London, Peter Parker, 1711.

    Fifth edition, very scarce, of an anonymous early farriery manual. Among the first popular guides to farriery, a form which would be much copied throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Gentleman’s compleat Jockey (formerly attributed to Adolphus Speed) was first published...

    £1750

  3. SAUNIER, Jean de, and Gaspard de SAUNIER.

    La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes & mauvaises...

    The Hague, for the Author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734.

    First edition of Gaspard de Saunier’s most important work, the only one published during his lifetime. Gaspard de Saunier (1663 - 1748) established his reputation with the foundation of his equestrian academy at Leiden in 1707 and as riding master to the university there, having previously served...

    £1950

  4. WOOD, John.

    A new compendious Treatise of Farriery, wherein are set forth in a plain, familiar, and natural Manner the Disorders...

    London, Hewett for the author, and sold by J. Brindley, T. Payne, and R. Withy & J. Ryall, 1757.

    First edition of a treatise on farriery by John Wood, formerly groom to the King of Sardinia. The contemporary manuscript notes appear in several hands belonging to members of the Green family of Uppington in Shropshire, though the majority match inscriptions by Barnard and Jane Green. Several...

    £650

  5. GEORGE, Henry.

    A perplexed philosopher, being an Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s various Utterances on the Land Question,...

    New York, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1892.

    First edition of George’s examination of Spencer’s stance on the land question. Asking the reader ‘to judge for himself Mr. Spencer’s own public declarations’ (p. 8), the political economist, popular orator, and politician Henry George (1839-1897) dismantles the arguments of the British...

    £30

  6. JACOMB, Charles Ernest.

    And a new earth. A romance.

    London, George Routledge & Sons, 1926.

    First edition. A post-apocalyptic fantasy novel relating the history of a utopian island that survived a ‘second flood’ in 1958, which destroyed the world’s civilization and reduced the human population to just 10,000. The island was re-discovered by the New World Fleet in 2832, 872 years after...

    £75

  7. [ISELIN, ISAAK].

    Träume eines Menschenfreundes. Erster Theil.

    Basel, Johannes Schweighauser, 1776.

    First edition, part one only (very rarely to be found complete with both parts), of the most mature expression of Iselin’s anti-Rousseau republicanism, a social ‘dream’ of great articulation and -arguably- applicability, residing confidently on the borderline between utopia and reformism, and the...

    £150

  8. DESFORGES, Pierre Choudard.

    Tom Jones a Londres, Comédie en cinq actes et en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding … Réprésentée,...

    Paris, Chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi … 1789.

    Later edition, first published 1782. Desforges’s dramatic adaptation of Fielding’s novel was followed in 1788 by an apparently inferior sequel, Tom Jones et Fellamar.

    £95

  9. KOCH, Mansuetus.

    Philosophia transnaturalis, sive metaphysica, centum assertionibus comprehensa, et publicae disputationi in celeberrimo...

    Augsburg, Maria Magdalena Utzschneiderin, 1697.

    Only edition (complete despite the pagination) of this dissertation defended at the Augustinian college in Rottenbuch, attempting to provide a survey of metaphysics in one hundred paragraphs. The work explains, among other matters, the scope and purpose of metaphysics, the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics,...

    £225

  10. [LAFONT, Joseph de.]

    Hypermnestre, tragedie, mise au theatre de l’Academie Royale de Musique de Lyon, pour la prémière fois...

    Lyon, de l’imprimerie d’Aymé Delaroche ... aux dépens de l’Académie Royale de Musique, 1742.

    Very scarce Lyon edition of the libretto for the tragedy Hypermnestre by the French playwright Joseph de Lafont (1686-1725). First performed in 1716, with music by Charles-Hubert Gervais, the play was initially criticised for its fifth act, but after rewriting by abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin enjoyed...

    £175

  11. VALENTINE, James (photographer).

    Album of Scottish views, mainly of Stirling and surroundings.

    Circa 1870s.

    A handsome example of a topographical view album by the Scottish photographer James Valentine, focusing on Stirling and the surrounding areas.

    £600

  12. OSBALDISTON, William Augustus.

    The British Sportsman, or Nobleman, Gentleman, and Farmer’s Dictionary of Recreation and Amusement,...

    London, J. Stead for the Proprietor, and sold by Champante & Whitrow and at the British Directory Office, [c. 1792-6].

    First edition, issued in forty-two parts, of one of the first sporting dictionaries. ‘The pleasure and convenience of being well informed in the Recreations and Amusements of a Country Life, are objects of themselves sufficiently interesting, to justify the Author in presenting this Work to...

    £650

  13. WHITE, James.

    A Compendium of the veterinary Art, containing an accurate Description of all the Diseases to which the Horse is...

    London, J. Badcock and Longman & Co., and Canterbury, W. Bristow, [c. 1804].

    Sixth edition. Evidently a successful text, further editions appeared soon after the work’s first publication and would eventually be expanded into four volumes (the present edition is often found accompanied by The materia medica and pharmacopoeia).

    £225

  14. BLAINE, Delabere Pritchett.

    The Outlines of the veterinary Art, or the Principles of Medicine as applied to a Knowledge of the...

    London, A. Strahan for T.N. Longman & O. Rees and T. Boosey, 1802.

    Very rare first edition, with contemporary manuscript notes. Blaine’s most comprehensive work, The Outlines of the veterinary Art is written in three parts, discussing the history of veterinary science, anatomy, and the practice of veterinary medicine. ‘The earliest record in the English...

    £1400

  15. STRAPAROLA, Giovanfrancesco.

    Le piacevoli notti di messer Giovanfrancesco Straparola da Caravaggio.

    Venice, Domenico Giglio, 1558.

    An early edition of both volumes of Straparola’s Facetious nights, first published in 1550–53.

    £2750

  16. [AUXIRON, Claude-François Joseph d’.]

    Principes de tout gouvernement, ou Examen des causes de la splendeur ou de la foiblesse...

    Paris, J. Th. Hérissant fils, 1766.

    First edition of this influential study of the roots of a thriving state, by the anti-physiocratic economist Claude François Joseph d’Auxiron (1728 – 1778).

    £1500

  17. CARAVADOSSI, Enrico.

    La moderna filosofia convinta d’inganno nelle sue promesse di felicità libertà ed uguaglianza ragionamenti...

    Turin, Giammichele Brioio, 1793.

    First and seemingly only edition of this attack on the false promises of the philosophes, by the Torinese Dominican friar Enrico Caravadossi.

    £395

  18. CARON, Jean-Charles-Félix.

    Compendium institutionum philosophiae, in quo de rhetorica et philosophia, tractatur. Ad usum candidatorum...

    Paris, N. M. Tilliard, 1770.

    Very uncommon guide, by the Parisian surgeon Jean-Charles-Félix Caron, to the philosophy student in the University of Paris needs to know in order to graduate first as bachelor and then as master of arts in the university. The work is essentially a kind of bluffer’s guide: “there are people who,...

    £750

  19. [CAVALLERI, Paolo Agostino.]

    Lettera dall’Adriatico del signor Antonio Bianchi sopra l’opera de’diritti dell’uomo del sig....

    Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1792 (colophon 1793).

    First edition, uncommon, of this counter-revolutionary polemic written in response to Spedalieri’s I diritti dell’uomo of the previous year and attributed to the Barnabite Paolo Agostino Cavalleri (1742-1803). Spedalieri had attempted a Catholic response to the revolutionary ideas of the rights of...

    £375

  20. CHEVRET, Jean.

    Épitre a l’humanité et a la patrie en particulier, sur le bon ordre & l’idée de la véritable liberté. Suivie...

    [Paris?], au temple de la vérité, 1789.

    A good copy of this rare essay on the workings of society and the conditions required for human flourishing, by the controversialist and librarian Jean Chevret (1747-1820). After a brief letter addressed to humanity in general and France (even, perhaps, Chevret’s own home town of Meulan) in particular,...

    £275