[PADUA.] 

Statuta Patavina noviter impressa cum diligenti cura et castigatione et cum additionibus necessariis tam provisionum...

Venice, Girolamo Giberti, 25 January 1528. 

An attractive volume of statutes relating to the city of Padua in northern Italy, edited by the legal scholar Bartolomeo Abborario, with detailed annotations by a practicing local lawyer. 

£2500

CHEESMAN, Thomas. 

No. I. Six Heads Drawn and Engraved, by T. Cheesman. [London,] T. Cheesman, No. 40 Oxford Street; and to...

First and only edition, extremely rare, of this complete series of six heads of young women wearing head scarves by ‘one of Bartolozzi’s most outstanding pupils’.

£850

GIOVANNI BATTISTA DA NAPOLI. 

Opera et trattato, che insegna molti dignissimi secreti contra la peste, con li quali subito si...

[Venice, 1556?] 

Rare second revised edition (first 1527) of this work offering advice against the plague by the Augustinian friar Giovanni Battista, interleaved and annotated with unpublished Latin notes on the subject. 

£2750

AUDEN, Wystan Hugh.

Louis MacNeice, a memorial Address, delivered at All Souls, Langham Place on 17 October, 1963.

Privately printed for Faber & Faber, [1963].

First edition, one of 250 copies.

£150

CHEMIN-DUPONTÈS, Jean-Baptiste.

Code de religion et de morale naturelles, a l’usage des adorateurs de Dieu et amis des hommes;...

Paris, chez l’auteur, an VII [1798-1799].

A nice copy of this remarkable two-part handbook for members of the short-lived French Revolutionary deistic religious cult known as Theophilanthropy, compiled by its founder, the Parisian publisher and bookseller Jean-Baptiste Chemin-Dupontès (1760-1852).

£850

[VITTORIO EMANUELE II.]

Alla gloriosa memoria di Vittoria Emanuele primo re d’Italia, gli Italiani residenti in New York convenuti...

New York, Tipografia della scuola italiana, 1878.

First edition of a commemorative tribute to the late Vittorio Emanuele II, first king of Italy, by the Italian community of New York.

£500

BENZI, Ugo.

Regole della sanità et della natura de cibi … arricchita d’un trattato nuovo della ebbrietà et dell’ abuso...

Turin, heirs of Giovanni Domenico Tarino, 1618.

Scarce first edition of the vernacular works of the medieval Spanish physician Ugo Benzi (1376-1439) with commentary by the Turinese doctor Giovanni Lodovico Bertaldi (d. 1625), an extraordinary witness to their enduring popularity into the seventeenth century. Benzi’s Italian writings were first...

£2500

[PROCESSIONAL, Dominican use.]

Processionarium ordinis fratrum praedicatorum.

Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 3 April, 1494.

First edition of the first Spanish book to make extensive use of typeset music printing, one of the finest products of early Spanish typography.

£35000

ANDREWS, Mark E.

The Science and Engineering of Materials: A Theatre of Machine Books, 1472–1800.

Toronto, AE Publications, 2023.

An extraordinary survey of four centuries of machine books, tracing the evolution of printing techniques and draughtsmanship alongside the development of the machines themselves. In this catalogue of eighty-six works from his collection of books on civil engineering, Mark Andrews situates a series...

£85

PAZZI, Antonio de, and Torquato TASSO. 

Stanze inedite di Antonio de Pazzi e di Torquato Tasso in biasimo ed in lode delle...

Venice, Picotti, 1810.

Scarce first edition of verses ‘in blame and in praise of women’ by Antonio de Pazzi and Torquato Tasso, edited by the eminent antiquary and librarian Jacopo Morelli (1745–1819) from a previously unpublished manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, and dedicated to Baron Antonio Mulazzani...

£200

ROSSINI, Giovanni. 

Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del Marchese Consalvi di Macerata morta improvvisamente la sera del...

Pisa, Niccolo Capurro, 1852. 

Scarce first and only edition of this poem in memory of Maria Antinori, widow of the Marchese Consalvi, on her death at the age of thirty-five, penned by the poet, playwright, historical novelist, and art historian Giovanni Rossini (1776–1855). 

£275

[D’URFEY, Thomas].

Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …

London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.

First edition of D’Urfey’s sequel to Samuel Butler’s burlesque poem Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. Written in hudibrastic metre, the two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous hero from an interrupted...

£325

[D’URFEY, Thomas].

Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …

London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.

First edition of D’Urfey’s sympathetic continuation of Samuel Butler’s burlesque Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. The two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous Presbyterian Knight from an interrupted...

£500

COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].

The Statesman’s Manual; or the Bible the best guide to political Skill and Foresight: a Lay Sermon,...

London: Printed for Gale and Fenner … J. M. Richardson … and Hatchard … 1816.

First edition of the first of Coleridge’s ‘Lay Sermons’, written in Highgate at the house of James Gillman, to whom Coleridge had come as an in-patient for his opium addiction.

£200

DICKENS, Charles.

Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.

Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.

First edition in Swedish, rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.

£350

WHITEHEAD, William.

Plays and Poems … in two Volumes …

London, Printed for J. Dodsley … 1774.

First and only edition of the collected works of William Whitehead, a protégé of Alexander Pope and poet laureate from 1757-85.

£350

GRAILE, John.

Three Sermons preached at the Cathedral in Norwich. And a fourth at a parochial Church in Norfolk. Humbly recommending,...

London, Printed for W. Kettilby … 1685.

First and only edition, rare. The third of these four sermons was delivered on the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, 30 January 1684, drawing on the Proverb: ‘For the transgression of a land, many are the princes there’, in which the plurality of leaders is shown to be the ‘constant mischief’...

£850

SARGENT, John.

The Mine: a dramatic Poem.

London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand. 1785

First edition of Sargent’s poem on quicksilver mines, replete with subterranean gnomes. The poem was inspired by a fantastical story of misbehaving Austrian aristocrats who are forced to labour in the mines as punishment, told in letters quoted in the introduction. In the footnotes Sargent explores...

£650

BOSWELL, James.

A Letter to the People of Scotland, on the alarming Attempt to infringe the Articles of Union, and introduce a...

London: Printed for Charles Dilly … 1785.

First edition of Boswell’s second Letter to the People of Scotland, written to oppose a bill in Parliament for reducing the number of the Lords of Session from fifteen to ten. Boswell, who believed that this attack on the highest court in Scotland for civil causes was a direct infringement of the Articles...

£1500

PERRIN, M.

[Jean Baptiste]. Fables amusantes, avec une Table générale & particulière des Mots & de leur Signification en Anglois,...

A Londres chez B. Law & Fils …T. Cadell … P. Elmsly … 1793

Seventh edition of a popular educational work first published in 1771. Jean Baptiste Perrin (fl. 1767-98) worked as a private French tutor in Dublin. He was a prolific author of works for learning French (the advertisements at the end list 18 of them, several commended by the Monthly Review). The 140...

£75