Search results
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COCHRANE, John Dundas.
Narrative of a pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, from the frontiers of China to the...
London, John Murray, 1824.
First edition of this account by the Scottish naval officer Cochrane (1793–1825). Having unsuccessfully offered his services for the exploration of the Niger, Cochrane ‘left England with the intention of making a tour of the world by way of Russia, Siberia, and North America. He travelled by Dieppe,...
£750
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SIMPSON, Alexander.
The life and travels of Thomas Simpson, the Arctic discoverer …
London, Richard Bentley, 1845.
First edition of this account of the life and adventures of the Scottish Arctic explorer Thomas Simpson (1808–1840), by his brother Alexander. Simpson joined the Hudson’s Bay Company and arrived in Canada in 1829. Between 1836 and 1840 he took part in a remarkable expedition under Peter Warren Dease,...
£650
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[SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert.] BODDAERT, Pieter.
Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...
Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770.
First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.
£500
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LUTHER, Martin.
Eyn Sendbriff … uber die frage. Ob auch yemandt, on glawben verstorben selig werden müge &c. An Er Hansen...
[Wittenberg, N. Schirlentz, 1522].
First edition, rare, of a momentous letter on predestination addressed by Luther to his friend Hans von Rechenberg.
£1500
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FERRARI, Giovanni Francesco.
Le rime burlesche, sopra varii, et piacevoli soggetti; indrizzate à diversi nobili signori.
Venice, heirs of Melchior Sessa, 1570.
First edition, rare, of the only work published by Giovanni Francesco Ferrari, a Renaissance court poet of whom little is known. Most information is gleaned, or will be gleaned in the future, from these verses; for example, his attachment to the entourage of the Mantuan prelate Ippolito Capilupi...
£1250
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[RICHMOND.]
The Belvidere: a Poem. Inscrib’d to Joseph Grove, Esq. of Richmond, in the County of Surrey …
London: Printed in the Year 1749.
First edition, rare (British Library and Yale only) of a very attractive description in verse of a country estate in Richmond. The first pages offer a prospect of the garden with its flowers and shrubs, shaded walks and arbours, a bower with the escutcheon over the door of the late Sir William...
£2750
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KIRAM, Zeki Hasmet.
Vocabularium anatomiae latine-turcice. [Qamūs te šrih lātīnğe-türkğe].
Berlin, Morgen- und Abendland-Verlag, 1923.
First edition of a comprehensive glossary of anatomical terms in Latin with corresponding translation in Ottoman Turkish, intended for medical students among the increasingly large Turkish community in Germany, by the Syrian Ottoman officer turned Berlin publicist, arms dealer, and Muslim activist...
£375
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KIRAM, Zeki Hasmet.
Vocabularium anatomiae latine-arabice. [Qāmūs al-ta¬šrīḥ Lātīnī-‘Arabī].
Berlin, Morgen- und Abendland-Verlag, 1923.
First edition of an uncommon glossary of anatomical terms in Latin with corresponding translation in Arabic, intended for Arabic-speaking medical students studying in European universities, by army officer turned Berlin publicist, arms dealer, and Muslim activist Zeki Kiram (1886–1946).
£375
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AELIANUS, Claudius, Conrad GESSNER (translator), and Pierre GILLES (editor).
Περι ζωων ιδιοτητος...
Cologny, Philippe Albert, 1616.
Uncommon Geneva edition of Aelianus’s De animalium natura, the Greek printed in parallel with Gessner’s Latin translation. A third-century work on natural history, Aelianus’s text offers accounts and anecdotes of animals, ‘an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal...
£300
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BAUR, Fidelis.
Geschichte der Hohenzollernschen Staaten Hechingen und Sigmaringen von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage,...
Sigmaringen, Bucher & Liener, 1834-6.
First edition. Perched on the Zollenberg, just south of Hechingen, is the castle of Hohenzollern, which gave its name to the ruling house of Brandenburg–Prussia from 1415 to 1918, arguably the most powerful family in German history. The ancestral lands were divided in 1575 by Count Karl...
£350
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BALBI, Girolamo.
Oratio habita ab eloquentissimo viro Hieronymo Balbo Praesule Gurcen[sis] Serenissimi Principis Ferdinandi Archiducis...
[Rome, Francesco Minucio Calvo, 1523.]
First(?) edition of Balbi’s celebrated oration in praise of newly elected pope Adrian VI, one of several editions to appear in the same year, with priority not established.
£550
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RÜCKERT, Friedrich.
Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, ein Lehrgedicht in Bruchstücken. Erstes [– Sechstes] Bändchen.
Leipzig, Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung, 1836-39.
First edition of one of the most important poetical works by Rückert, here in the publisher’s attractive original paper wrappers. Rückert’s large output of poetry inspired many composers, among them Schubert (‘Du bist die Ruh’), Schumann (‘Widmung’), and Mahler (‘Kindertotenlieder’...
£500
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HALL, Basil.
Account of a voyage of discovery to the west coast of Corea, and the great Loo-Choo Island; with an appendix, containing...
London, John Murray, 1818.
First edition of this important work on Korea and the Ryukyu Islands by Basil Hall (1788-1844), narrating his 1816–17 voyage aboard the Lyra in the company of Murray Maxwell in the Alceste. The first chapter is devoted to the west coast of Korea – ‘until then unknown except by hearsay, and drawn...
£1950
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GROSIER, Jean-Baptiste and Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’ANVILLE.
Atlas général de la Chine; pour servir à la description générale...
Paris, Moutard, 1785.
A handsome atlas with a full set of 54 maps and plans of China by the celebrated French geographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, the basis ‘for all maps of China, both in China and abroad, down to the early twentieth century’ (Wilkinson).
£5000
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PERRY, Matthew Calbraith.
Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the years...
Washington, A.O.P. Nicholson, Printer, 1856.
First edition of the official account of the naval expedition that established diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Japan and forced the end of Japan’s self-imposed policy of seclusion from the outside world.
£4500
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TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine.
On the Processes for detecting Blood in medico-legal Cases.
[London, Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1870.]
Taylor’s own offprint of this interesting article on detecting blood ‘for the purposes of pathology and legal medicine’, in which he publishes, for the first time, a description of the spectroscopic process developed by the eminent microscopist and geologist Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908),...
£350
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NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández.
Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China. Descripcion breve...
Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676.
Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689).
£4750
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ORLEANS, Pierre Joseph d’ and Francis EGERTON, 1st Earl of ELLESMERE (editor and translator).
History of the two Tartar conquerors...
London, The Hakluyt Society, 1854.
First edition thus, a Hakluyt society translation of Pierre Joseph d’Orleans’ history of the Manchu conquest and the reign of the Kangxi emperor, appended with reports by the seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary travellers Ferdinand Verbiest and Tomás Pereira.
£175
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PEISSEL, Michel.
Tibetan pilgrimage. Architecture of the sacred land. Text and watercolors by Michel Peissel.
New York, Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
‘Tibetan Pilgrimage … is the result of forty-five years of study by author and illustrator Michel Peissel … With nearly a hundred exceptional watercolour illustrations, this book reveals the elegance, variety, and originality of Tibetan architecture in all its splendor’ (dust jacket).
£75
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ALEXANDER, William.
The costume of China, illustrated in forty-eight coloured engravings …
London, William Miller, 1805.
An incomplete first edition of William Alexander’s important and widely popular illustrated work on China, containing 44 of the original 48 aquatint plates. A one-time student of William Pars and later Julius Caesar Ibbetson, Alexander travelled to China as artist-in-residence for the diplomatic trade...
£750