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  1. RECUEIL DE QUADRILLES

    pour le Piano.

    [France, 1840s?]

    A delightful album, evidently produced as a gift, collecting 17 popular dances arranged for the piano, each with a different decorative title-page. Composers whose work is featured include Philippe Musard (1792–1859), one of the most famous musicians in Europe in the 1830s and ’40s, ‘the doyen...

    £850

  2. PLAYFORD, John.

    Psalms & Hymns in solemn Musick of foure Parts on the common Tunes to the Psalms in Metre: used in Parish-Churches....

    London, Printed by W. Godbid for J. Playford, at his Shop … 1671.

    First edition of the first harmonised Psalter after the Restoration, a landmark work in the re-introduction of part-singing into churches.

    £1850

  3. [PRELLEUR, Peter.]

    The Compleat Tutor for the Harpsichord or Spinnet wherein is shewn the Italian Manner of Fingering with suits...

    London, Peter Thompson, musical instrument maker [1755?]

    First edition thus?, an abridgment of part 6 of Prelleur’s Modern Musick-Master (1731) but with different musical examples. The examples, printed on pp. 5–32, include popular tunes and dances alongside pieces adapted from Handel and Corelli.

    £1250

  4. RINUCCINI, Ottavio.

    La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini,...

    Florence, Borgognissanti, 1810.

    Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.

    £650

  5. [SWEDENBORG, Emanuel.] 

    De nova Hierosolyma et ejus Doctrina Coelesti: ex Auditis e Coelo.  Quibus praemittitur aliquid de Novo...

    London, [John Lewis,] 1758. 

    First edition of Swedenborg’s ‘New Jerusalem’, in which he describes a new church based on faith, charity, and the unification of existing protestant churches. 

    £975

  6. BEATTIE, James.

    Original Poems and Translations.

    London: Printed [by F. Douglas, Aberdeen?]; and sold by A. Millar, 1760.

    First edition of Beattie’s first collection. It is always described as his first book, but it is in fact preceded by an unique Elegy on Mrs Walker (1759), discovered by us in 1991 and now in the National Library of Scotland (but still not listed by ESTC).

    £450

  7. TANS’UR, William.

    The Royal Psalmodist compleat: or, the universal-Harmony …

    [St Neots?,] Printed by the Author, 1750.

    Unrecorded edition of Tans’ur’s Royal Psalmodist (first 1742), comprising seventy-three psalm tunes, a ‘Jubilate Deo’, a ‘Doxology’, ‘A New Magnificat’, and eleven anthems. It is based on the same selection (and plates) as he had issued in an edition of 1748 (BL only in ESTC),...

    £850

  8. FORD, Simon.

    The Restoring of fallen Brethren: containing the Substance of two Sermons … preached on the Performance of public...

    London, Printed for Henry Mortlock … 1697.

    First edition, the last published work of the clergyman and poet Simon Ford (1618/9-1699), being two sermons preached on the occasion of the performance of penance ‘for the late Fornications, and filthy Uncleannesses. that have been committed in this Neighbourhood’.

    £275

  9. BYRON, George Gordon, Lord Byron.

    Hebräische Gesänge. Aus dem Englischen … von Franz Theremin. Mit beigedrucktem englischen Text.

    Berlin, Verlag von Duncker und Humblot. 1820.

    First edition in German (and first dual-language edition) of Byron’s Hebrew Melodies (1815), translated by the theologian Franz Theremin. Omitted are ‘It is the hour’ and the ‘Lines on the Death of Sir Peter Parker’.

    £450

  10. DONNE, John.

    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ...

    London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.

    Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him. It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer.

    £13500

  11. RENOWNED HISTORY (The)

    of Primrose Prettyface, who by her Sweetness of Temper, & Love of Learning, was raised from being the Daughter...

    London, Printed & sold by J. Marshall & Co. … (Price 6d in Gilt Paper – 9d bound in Red.) [1788?]

    One of three undated editions, probably the last (adding Marshall’s Cheapside premises at 17 Queen St to the imprint), but the only one with an engraved title-page and frontispiece.

    £1000

  12. NAUNTON, Sir Robert.

    Memoirs … with some of his posthumous Writings, from Manuscripts in his own Hand, never before printed.

    London: Printed and sold by G. Smeeton … and J. Caulfield … 1814.

    First edition, a large paper copy, imposed as a folio rather than a quarto (and fully 11 cm taller than usual).

    £450

  13. PARNASSIUM (The)

    : or Beauties of English Poetry. Selected from the Works of Blair, Philips, Young, Pope, Gray, Parnell … The...

    London: Printed for W. Lane … [after 1776.]

    A very scarce reissue by the enterprising William Lane, later of the Minerva Press, of A Collection of Modern Poems (London, J. James, 1762) – with a cancel title-page and a new frontispiece. The contents comprise the Love of Fame and The Last Day by Young, Gray’s Elegy, The...

    £325

  14. SMITH, Hubert, and Thomas Charles BROMWICH, photographer

    A short Memoir of the late eminent Shropshire Genealogist...

    Madeley (Shropshire), J. Randall, 1879. 

    First separate edition, photographically illustrated, of this short memoir of the Shropshire antiquary William Hardwicke. 

    £150

  15. FREEMAN, Arthur, and Janet ING FREEMAN.

    Courtship, Slander, and Treason: Studies of Mary Queen of Scots, the Fourth Duke...

    London, 2019.

    Courtship, Slander, and Treason presents two independent but complementary studies of episodes in the career of Mary, Queen of Scots after her flight to England in 1568: her ‘forbidden match’ with the ranking English peer Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, in 1568–72, and her own...

    £55

  16. WIEST, Stephan.

    De iustitia dei punitiva contra quaedam adserta cl. Eberhardi et Steinbartii aliorumque disserit P. Stephanus Wiest...

    Ingolstadt, Johann Wilhelm Krüll, [1787].

    Rare dissertation under the supervision of the Cistercian theologian and philosopher Stephan Wiest (1748–1797), at the time rector of the University of Ingolstadt, on the subject of whether divine justice is to be seen as punitive or restorative.

    £175

  17. MACHIAVELLI, Niccolò.

    Opere inedite di Niccolò Machiavelli.

    ‘Londra’ [Lucca, Jacopo Giusti], 1760.

    First edition of previously unpublished writings by the great Florentine statesman and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), edited by Giovanni Maria Lampredi (1732–1793).

    £500

  18. [GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]

    Il Pastor Fido.

    ‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

    Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s immensely popular ‘pastoral tragi-comedy’, charmingly illustrated by Antonio Luciani.

    £175

  19. SPENCE, James.

    The Light of Heaven, on the Path of Youth: A Sermon tot the Young, preached in Cannon Street Chapel, Preston, on...

    Preston, John Walker, and London, John Snow, [1849].

    First edition, apparently unrecorded, of this sermon on Psalm 119, ‘Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word’.

    £175

  20. TULL, H., Rev.

    A Sermon preached in St. Mary’s Church Oldham on Sunday Evening December 22 1850 … being the first of six sermons...

    Oldham, D. Evans, 1851.

    First edition, very rare, of an anti-Catholic sermon by Henry Tull (1791–1859), graduate of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and vicar of St John’s Chadderton, preached and printed in Oldham.

    £150