Search results

  1. STRABO.

    Strabonis geographicorum lib. XVII ... iam denuo a Conrado Heresbachio … ad fidem Graeci exemplaris, authorumque …...

    Basel, Johann Walder, 1539.

    Second edition of Strabo’s masterful Geographica in the Latin translation of the German Humanist and friend of Erasmus, Konrad Heresbach (1496–1576), here found with the first Latin translation of an epitome of Strabo’s work by the Basel professor of physic and logic, Hieronymus Gemusaeus...

    £2500

  2. SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.

    L. Annei Senecae opera, et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendu[m] utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod....

    Basel, ‘in officina Frobeniana’, 1529 [(colophon:) Basel, Johann Herwagen, March 1537].

    Second Erasmus edition of the moral essays and letters of Seneca, owned and annotated by Ludovicus Carinus (d. 1569), friend and later foe of Erasmus himself.

    £5000

  3. VORAGINE, Jacobus de.

    Lombardica historia que a plerisque aurea legenda sanctorum appellatur.

    Strasbourg, [Georg Husner,] 1502.

    Jacobus de Voragine’s influential Legenda Aurea in a contemporary gilt-lettered binding with an incunable fragment used as the rear pastedown. This copy is also notable for its extensive sixteenth century manuscript additions relating to Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg and former ownership...

    £8000

  4. SMITH, Albert.

    A large archive of printed and manuscript material, including drafts of shows and lectures, including portions of...

    [1820s to 1860s.]

    Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860) trained as a surgeon but shortly afterwards turned to the world of letters, becoming a regular contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany and Punch; he adapted works by his friend Dickens for the theatre and edited The Man in the Moon (1847–9). ‘During...

    £15000

  5. BARCLAY, Alexander.

    Part-printed commission as Comptroller of Customs in Philadelphia.

    5 August, 1749.

    After a dissolute youth and a period in the army, Alexander Barclay (1711–1771) had been made Comptroller of Customs at Philadelphia in 1749, a position almost certainly engineered by his father David Barclay (1682–1769) – it required a significant sum (£500) advanced in security. David Barclay,...

    £850

  6. AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].  

    Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.

    Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.

    First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.

    £22500

  7. CASAL, Gaspar do.

    Axiomata christiana ex divinis scripturis & sanctis patribus.

    Coimbra, João da Barreira and João Alvares, 1550.

    First edition of Gaspar do Casal’s major work of theology, which informed his participation in the Council of Trent, from the library of another participant in the Council.

    £2500

  8. DIODORUS Siculus.

    Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...

    Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.

    Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.

    £2500

  9. SOONE, William, and Pomponius MELA.

    Gulielmi Sooni Vantesdeni Auditor, sive Pomponius Mela disputator, De situ orbis.

    Cologne, Johann Birckman, 1572.

    First edition of English jurist and cartographer William Soone’s notes on Pomponius Mela’s geography, presented in the form of an imaginary dialogue between the two authors.

    £1750

  10. [THOMAS À KEMPIS.]

    Messer Giovanni Gerson. Utile & divota operetta della imitatione di Giesu Xpo …

    Florence, Piero Pacini da Pescia, 16 April 1505.

    Scarce edition of an anonymous Italian translation of the Imitatio Christi, with a striking woodcut of Christ to the title.

    £4000

  11. DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

    Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

    Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

    A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.

    £3000

  12. ZEVIANI, Giovanni Verardo. 

    Del flato a favore degl’ipocondriaci. 

    Verona, Antonio Andreoni, 1755. 

    Rare first edition of the first medical treatise on tympanites, a distention of the abdomen caused by the accumulation of gas in the gastro-intestinal tract, linking it with hypochondria and melancholy. 

    £650

  13. [SORKOČEVIĆ, Antun, also known as Antoine de SORGO.] 

    Fragments sur l’histoire politique et littéraire de l’ancienne...

    Paris, Imprimerie de Madame Porthmann, 1839. 

    First edition, very scarce, of this collection of short pieces on Dubrovnik by the Croatian writer and composer Antun Sorkočević (1775–1841). 

    £350

  14. MILL, John Stuart, and Nikolai Gavrilovich CHERNYSHEVSKY, translator.

    Osnovaniia politicheskoi ekonomii s nekotorymi...

    St. Petersburg, [n.p.], 1865.

    First complete edition of Mill’s Principles in Russian, translated by the economist, nihilist and social critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), ‘corrected and expanded from the most recent (fifth) edition of Mill’s book, published in 1864 in New York’ (‘From the publisher’, our...

    £3750

  15. MARLOWE, Christopher, and Konstantin BAL’MONT, translator.

    Tragicheskaia istoriia doktora Fausta [The Tragedy...

    Moscow, K.F. Nekrasov, 1912.

    First edition in book form, scarce, of Balmont’s translation of Marlowe’s Faustus, first published over two issues of the journal Zhizn in 1898.

    £500

  16. ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.

    Rus’ [Russia] …

    Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1923–4.

    First edition of the first two parts of an epic novel, which describes rural life in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Three more parts came out over the next 12 years; complete copies are very rare.

    £1200

  17. MILL, John Stuart, and Edward Livingston YOUMANS.

    Новѣйшее образованiе: его истинныя цѣли и требованiя....

    St Petersburg, Izdanie “Russkoi knizhnoi torgovli”, 1867.

    First edition in Russian of these two works, published in the original that same year.

    £100

  18. SMITH, Albert Richard.

    The Story of Mont Blanc …

    London, David Bogue, 1853.

    First edition of Smith’s famous book on Mont Blanc, a lovely copy formerly in the possession of his sister, Laura Eady.

    £1275

  19. [OBSTETRICS and GYNAECOLOGY.]

    ‘De morbis mulierum’. 

    Italy, 1779.

    A most interesting unpublished manuscript on diseases in women, examining their causes, symptoms, and cure. 

    £950

  20. ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.

    ...

    [Moscow,] “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1927.

    First edition, containing three stories: that of the title, Chelovecheskaia dusha (‘Human soul’), and Zvezdy (‘Stars’).

    £400