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  1. BARNWELL, Patrick Joseph.

    Visits and despatches (Mauritius, 1598-1948) …

    Port Louis, The Standard Printing Establishment, 1948.

    First and only edition of P.J. Barnwell’s documentary history of Mauritius featuring more than fifty extracts of various accounts of the island from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.

    £100

  2. NEW, Charles.

    Life, wanderings, and labours in Eastern Africa. With an account of the first successful ascent of the equatorial...

    London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1874.

    Second edition recounting the travels through central and eastern Africa by the explorer Charles New, a former member of the Livingstone relief expedition and the first European to reach the snow line of Kilimanjaro.

    £200

  3. SHOOTER, Joseph.

    The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu country ...

    London, E. Stanford, 1857.

    First edition, one of the earliest studies of the Zulu people.

    £175

  4. BURTON, Richard Francis editor and translator.

    The lands of Cazembe. Lacerda’s journey to Cazembe. In 1798 … also journey of...

    London, John Murray, 1873.

    First edition thus containing three first-hand accounts of journeys across southern and central Africa translated into English, including Richard Francis Burton’s edition of the travel diaries of the Portuguese explorer Francisco de Lacerda (1753-1798). The signature to the title appears to be that...

    £300

  5. BURTON, Richard Francis.

    Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains. An exploration …

    London, Tinsley Brothers, 1863.

    First edition, in two volumes, recounting Burton’s travels to the city of Abeokuta (south-west Nigeria), as well as his subsequent voyage to Mount Cameroon volcano. Burton left Lagos for Abeokuta, the capital of the Egba Yoruba tribe, in October 1861, arriving on the first of November. Although he...

    £400

  6. DUNDAS, Anne.

    Beneath African glaciers. The humours, tragedies and demands of an East African government station as experienced...

    London, H.F.& G. Witherby, 1924.

    First edition, an account of the years spent in Africa by Anne Dundas, wife of an African colonial official.

    £125

  7. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Red Priest.

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1956.

    First edition, the last book published before Lewis’s death in March 1957. Bridson and Lewis had corresponded about a possible radio adaptation but Bridson had concluded it was over-episodic and would not translate well (letter of 6 March 1951).

    £150

  8. DUFTON, Henry.

    Narrative of a journey through Abyssinia in 1862-3. With an appendix on “The Abyssinian captives question” …

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1867.

    First edition recounting the author’s expedition through Abyssinia, along with three essays on the Abyssinian prisoner crisis following a diplomatic dispute between the Emperor Tewodros II and the British colonial government.

    £850

  9. RAIMONDI, Eugenio. 

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa. 

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626.]

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking venatic plates.  The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  10. CATANEO, Girolamo. 

    De arte bellica, sive de designandis ac construendis arcibus et propugnaculis, necnon et de iis oppugnandis,...

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1600.

    First Latin edition, scarce on the market, of this handsomely illustrated military classic, first published in Italian at Brescia in 1564.  Edited and published by Jean de Tournes, this edition is dedicated to Henry IV of France.  The military architect Cataneo (active 1540–1584) was considered,...

    £1850

  11. BIANCHINI, Giuseppe. 

    Enarratio pseudo-Athanasiana in symbolum ante hac inedita, et Vigilii Tapsitani de Trinitate ad Theophilum...

    Verona, Pierantonio Berno, 1732. 

    First edition, presented by the author, of this scarce work on the Apostles’ Creed by the Veronese Oratorian, Biblical and liturgical scholar, and librarian Giuseppe Bianchini (1704–1764), with a delightful frontispiece depicting the city of Verona. 

    £675

  12. BUSTEED, Henry Elmsley. 

    The Serampore Portrait.  Is it Madam Grand? 

    Calcutta, Thacker, Spink, & co., 1903. 

    First edition of a study probing the identity of a portrait then displayed at the Library of the Baptist Mission College at Serampore, India.  The portrait in question, attributed to the German neo-classical painter Johann Zoffany who was frequently patronised by British royalty and who had a...

    £125

  13. DURHAM, Arthur E. 

    Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia). 

    Circa 1870s. 

    A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy. 

    £1100

  14. GARDINER, John Smallman. 

    The Art and the Pleasures of Hare-Hunting.  In six Letters to a Person of Quality … 

    London: Printed by R. Griffith … 1750. 

    First edition, scarce, of this eloquent and amusing account of hare-hunting, the first monograph on the subject in English, comprising letters on the superiority of hare-hunting to fox-hunting (less dangerous, less laborious), on the best types of dogs, of trailing and starting hares, &c.  Gardiner’s...

    £1250

  15. [MARABOTTA, Cattaneo.] 

    Vita della serafica S. Caterina da Genova. 

    Genoa, Tipografia Frugoni, 1832. 

    Rare first edition thus, an attractive nineteenth-century reprint of Marabotta’s biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), first published in 1737, the date of her canonisation.  Catherine was known for her writings on mysticism and for her work with the poor and sick, notably during...

    £185

  16. TALIANI, Giuseppe. 

    Orologi riflessi, per mezo di un picciolo specchio parallelo o perpendicolare all’orizonte. 

    Macerata, Filippo Camacci, 1648. 

    Only recorded edition, rare, of this work by mathematician Taliani on the construction of sundials in the interior of buildings, to be achieved through mirrors reflecting solar rays – our copy uniquely furnished with a contemporary large hand-drawn representation of the face of a sundial. ...

    £950

  17. [ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

    Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

    Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

    First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

    £575

  18. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

    £6500

  19. SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator). 

    Persianischer Rosenthal.  In welchen viel lustige...

    Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman in Hamburg, 1654. 

    Rare first illustrated edition, and the first edition translated by Olearius, of Sa‘di’s Gulistān or ‘Rose-garden’, with splendid engravings. 

    £6500

  20. GREENE, Graham. 

    A burnt-out Case. 

    London, Heinemann, [1961]. 

    Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition in English.  This was evidently used as a review copy, with the upper cover annotated in pencil ‘700 words by Nov 28’.  The unknown reviewer has made several notes in pencil on the half-title: ‘Criticism – c[oul]d come from the soc[ial] realist...

    £275