Search results
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[REYNOLDS, Joshua, Sir].
A Discourse, delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2, 1769 [also: October 16,...
London: Printed in the Year 1769.
First editions of seven discourses addressed by Reynolds to the newly founded Royal Academy, of which he was the first President.
£950
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[SARPI, Paolo (pseud.).] ‘Pietro Soave POLANO’.
Historia del Concilio Tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano. Seconda...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1629.
Second edition, the first to omit the extraneous additions of the 1619 edition introduced by Marco Antonio de Dominis, of the influential and groundbreaking history of the Council of Trent by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), described by Milton as ‘the great unmasker’.
£450
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CREVE, Carl Caspar.
Vom Metallreize, einem neuentdeckten untrüglichen Prüfungsmittel des wahren Todes. Mit einer Kupfertafel.
Leipzig and Gera, Wilhelm Heinsius, 1796.
First edition of this uncommon contribution to the medical literature in which Creve proposes a new method of ascertaining death using a metal conductor attached to muscle tissue, part of the body of research that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
£550
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GASPARIN, Agénor Étienne, Comte de.
Des tables tournantes du surnaturel en général et des esprits par le Cte Agénor de Gasparin.
Paris, Bonaventure and Ducessois for E. Dentu, 1854.
Scarce first edition of Gasparin’s early experiments in table-turning – a form of séance in which tables appear to rotate or levitate of their own accord – which would prove highly controversial and integral to the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement.
£1500
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PERUCCI, Francesco.
Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.
Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.
First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....
£975
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REFELL, A.
Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...
Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865.
First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...
£1250
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STIRLING, A.M.W.
Ghosts vivisected. An impartial inquiry into their manners, habits, mentality, motives and physical construction....
London, Robert Hale, 1957.
First edition, a very readable account of otherworldly encounters, with illustrations by the Symbolist painter Evelyn de Morgan, the author’s elder sister.
£40
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FRY, Theodore.
A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.
[London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.
First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete...
£850
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[BOOKBINDER.]
Sentence rendue en la chambre criminelle du Châtelet de Paris, qui condamne Guillaume Maillet, maître relieur,...
Paris, Jean-Charles Desaint, 1782.
Scarce pamphlet documenting the misdemeanours of the Parisian master bookbinder Guillaume Maillet.
£575
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[FIELDING, Sarah.]
The adventures of David Simple: containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster,...
London, printed for A. Millar, 1744.
First edition, very fine. The first and most popular novel of Sarah, the sister of Henry Fielding, who was to provide a preface and a few revisions to the second edition.
£1500
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WAPPEROM, Jacobus Joannes.
Gezangen door J.J. Wapperom.
The Hague, 1805.
Very rare collection of songs by the Dutch notary and poet Wapperom (1763–1822), one of only a small number of copies produced, decorated by the author himself and distributed among his friends and family.
£675
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VERHEYEN, Pierre Emmanuel.
Requiem mass in C minor.
[Flanders, c. 1810.]
A very grand unpublished Requiem mass in memory of Franz Joseph Haydn, by the Flemish composer and singer Pierre Emmanuel Verheyen (1750–1819).
£4750
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[DE LA COSTE.]
Voyage philosophique d’Angleterre fait en 1783 et 1784.
A Londres. Et se trouve à Paris, chez Poinçoit … 1787.
First edition, second issue, with cancel title-pages redated 1787 (first 1786) – an interesting and detailed sociological discussion of England and in the English on the eve of the French Revolution, in the form of discursive letters. The author deals with London’s institutions and buildings, taverns...
£250
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
A Welcome …
London: Edward Moxon & Co. … 1863.
Second edition, distinguished from the first by the hollow diamond at the centre of the French rule beneath the title.
£40
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[MULLIS, William].
A brief Account of the Blue Coat Hospital, and Public Library, in the College, Manchester, founded by Humphrey...
Manchester: Printed by Leech … 1826.
Sole edition, privately printed and very rare. William Mullis was the deputy librarian of Chetham’s Library, the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1653, along with the Blue Coat School (two years earlier), by bequests from the merchant and banker...
£600
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MEAD, Richard.
A Short Discourse concerning pestilential Contagion, and the Methods to be used to prevent it … The third Edition.
London: Printed [by William Bowyer] for Sam. Buckley … and Ralph Smith … 1720.
‘Third edition’ of the most famous medical tract on the plague scare of 1720-1, written at the request of James Craggs, the secretary of State following the bubonic outbreak in Marseilles in late 1719. There were seven London editions within the year, those from the third on being re-impressions...
£375
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[FORD, James, editor].
The Suffolk Garland: or, a Collection of Poems, Songs, Tales, Ballads, Sonnets, and Elegies, legendary and...
Ipswich: Printed and Sold by John Raw; Sold also by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown; and Rodd and Son, London. 1818
First edition of a miscellany of verse, much of it ephemeral, selected by the antiquary James Ford (1770-1850), perpetual curate of St. Laurence, Ipswich. In the preface Ford provides an outline of the history of ballads, drolleries, and penny literature and of how they have been collected by Pepys and...
£275
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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 and novelist Thomas Holcroft. The Egerton family gather in the library every evening to tell stories for their mutual instruction and amusement. The novel takes the form of twenty dialogues, and each includes a number of shorter tales. Several...
£950
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[BROWN, Thomas, M.D.].
The Bower of Spring, with other Poems … Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman,...
Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme and Brown, London. 1817
First edition. Brown was professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh and a prolific versifier (‘among the few Classical Writers of this scribbling generation’ according to the Edinburgh Review – for which Brown was a regular contributor).
£225
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WALKER, John.
An economical History of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland ... in two Volumes ... Edinburgh: Printed at the...
Edinburgh: Printed at the University Press; 1808
First edition. The eminent naturalist John Walker (1731-1803), professor of natural history in the University of Edinburgh (Smollett was one of his students) and keeper of the university museum, made six long journeys into the Highlands and Islands from 1760 to 1786. He was commissioned by the General...
£450