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  1. BUNSEN, Christian Karl Josias von.

    Autograph letter unsigned to the publishers Longman & Co.

    [London,] Carlton Terrace, 12 February 1845.

    ‘Chev[alie]r Bunsen presents his compliments to Messrs. Longman & Co. and begs to state in answer to their note of this day, that he has written the answer under the enclosed paper from Paris.’

    £150

  2. BOWMAN, William, Sir.

    Autograph letter, signed, to ‘Mr Cooke’.

    [London?,] 18 January 1870.

    Bowman writes to ‘Mr Cooke’ to postpone a visit, having heard from ‘Mr Webb’ that he is to give evidence at a trial. ‘Mr Webb proposes Thursday week the 27th on which day we could be with you at the hour previously arranged for, supposing the day quite suits you.’

    £200

  3. BONAPARTE, Jerôme-Napoléon.

    Letter signed as governor of Les Invalides to the members of the Conseil d’administration de la...

    Paris, Hôtel des Invalides, 16 February 1849.

    Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte (1784–1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I, King of Westphalia, between 1807 and 1813. He became governor of Les Invalides when his nephew Prince Louis Napoleon became president of the second French Republic in 1848.

    £300

  4. BELL, Charles, Sir.

    Letter signed to ‘the Treasurer of the Committee for Mr Macleay’s Portrait’.

    Soho Square, London, 18 March [probably 1824 or 1825].

    The neurophysiologist Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842) ‘begs the Committee will put his name down as a subscriber for the Portrait of Alexander Macleay Esq.’. The portrait in question is doubtless the one painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1825 and now in the Linnean Society.

    £375

  5. BEAUMONT, Gustave-Auguste de la Bonninière de.

    Autograph letter signed (‘Gustave de Beaumont’) to Sarah Austin.

    Birmingham, 27 June [1835].

    A warm and personal autograph documenting the relationship between Beaumont (1802–1866), prison reformer and travel companion to Alexis de Tocqueville, and one of the most accomplished contemporary catalysts of philosophical exchange, the translator Sarah Austin.

    £350

  6. BONET, Nicolas.

    Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri p[er]spicacissimi quattuor volumina: Metaphysicam videl[icet] naturale[m] phylosophia[m]...

    Venice, Boneto Locatello for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 1505.

    First collected edition of the works of the French Franciscan Friar Nicolas Bonet (c. 1280–1343), owned and annotated by the Italian historian, biographer, and physician Paolo Giovio (1486–1552).

    £4000

  7. KEATE, George. 

    An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the western part of the Pacific Ocean: composed from the journals...

    Dublin, Luke White, 1788. 

    First Dublin edition of this popular work, first published in London earlier the same year, by the virtuoso George Keate, member of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquities (1729−1797). 

    £650

  8. [JAMIESON, John.] 

    Congal and Fenella; A Tale in Two Parts. 

    London, C. Dilly, 1791. 

    First and only edition of Jamieson’s Scottish epic, bound with an early edition of Gray’s Poems

    £250

  9. GIBELLI, Giacinto. 

    Due dissertazioni sopra li vantaggi, che si ottengono in medicina dall’uso del ferro per guarire molte infermità,...

    Genoa, Paolo Scionico, 1767. 

    First and only edition, rare, of these treatises on the medicinal benefits of iron supplements, with accounts of their use by the author in curing over 450 patients of maladies ranging from anorexia to melancholy. 

    £600

  10. [PAPER TRADE.] 

    Arrest du conseil d’état du roi, portant modération et interprétation de plusieurs articles du tarif des...

    [Besançon?, 1772?] 

    A seemingly unrecorded issue of this decree governing tariffs on paper and cardboard in Louis XV’s France, with no imprint but with the colophon ‘fait à Besançon le 18 avril 1772, signé, Lacoré’. 

    £175

  11. [BOLOGNA.] 

    Delle oggetti di belle arti nel famoso Tempio di S. Paolo in Bologna e delle vicissitudini di esso brevi notizie. 

    Bologna, ‘nella stamperia di San Tommaso d’Aquino’, 1831. 

    First edition of this detailed description of the Baroque masterpieces in the church of San Paolo Maggiore (or San Paolo Decollato) in Bologna, among them works by Guercino and Cavedoni. 

    £275

  12. HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.

    Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...

    Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].

    Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).

    £6000

  13. CAMBOUT, Sébastien Joseph du, and John EVELYN (attributed translator)].

    The moral Practice of the Jesuites. Demonstrated...

    London, Printed for Simon Miller, at the Star at the West-end of St. Paul’s, 1670.

    First edition in English of La morale pratique des Jesuites (1669), a polemical Jansenist critique of Jesuit practices intended to ‘inspire the World, and the Jesuites themselves, with horror at their detestable Morality’ (p. [4]).

    £700

  14. [KNOX, Charles Henry, Captain].

    Hardness: or the Uncle. In Three Volumes...

    London: Saunders and Otley … 1841.

    First editions, scarce. The author, son of William Knox, Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora (later of Derry) and chaplain to the Irish House of Commons, joined the army in 1826, was made a captain in 1836, and retired on half-pay in 1838. After leaving the regular army he served as a Lieutenant-Colonel...

    £1200

  15. [BECKFORD, William.]

    Vathek, conte Arabe.

    Paris, Chez Poinçot ... 1787.

    First Paris edition of Beckford’s gothic masterpiece in the original French, so considerably revised from the Lausanne edition (also 1787) as to amount to ‘almost a new version’ (Chapman & Hodgkin, p. 127). Beckford also took the opportunity to expand the notes from one to twenty-four pages.

    £3250

  16. MARINIS, Dominico de. 

    Dissertatio philosophico-medica de re monstrosa à Capuccino Pisauri per urinam excreta.  Plura de sanguinis...

    Rome, typis Iacobi Mascardi ... sumptibus Ben Carrarae, 1678. 

    First edition of this scarce dissertation on worms focussing on the extraordinary case of a Capuchin preacher from Pesaro who in 1677 passed a ‘monster’ worm in his urine, which upon subsequent examination was declared to be a serpent. 

    £1850

  17. [BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.] 

    Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier de l’Inquisition...

    Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus, 1754. 

    Second edition of this much expanded and altered translation of Berington’s celebrated utopian novel, Memoirs of Sigr Gaudentio di Lucca (1737). 

    £500

  18. [COOK, James, and Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la PÉROUSE.]

    Tableau des decouvertes du Capne. Cook, & de la Pérouse....

    S. Sauveur, l’an 7 de la République Française [1798-1799].

    A splendid hand-coloured engraving depicting indigenous peoples of the Pacific and beyond, drawn from the voyages of James Cook (1728–1779) and La Pérouse (1741–1788), and published by the Canadian-born writer, artist and diplomat, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Saveur (1757–1810).

    £1500

  19. [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

  20. [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