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  1. 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

  2. COSTER, François. 

    Piarum et Christ. institutionum libri tres, in usum sodalitatis B. Mariae Virginis primum conscripti, nunc...

    Douai, Jean Bogard, 1582. 

    Very rare Douai edition of this devotional work by the Belgian Jesuit François Coster (1532–1619), first published at Cologne in 1578, illustrated with woodcuts of the Crucifixion and Our Lady of Sorrows. 

    £675

  3. 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

  4. [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

  5. [WETENHALL, Edward.] 

    Enter into thy Closet: or, a Method and Order for Private Devotion … The fourth Edition. 

    London, John Martyn, 1672. 

    Rare fourth edition (first published in 1666) of this manual of private devotion by Edward Wettenhall (1636–1713), ‘a treatise endeavouring a plain discovery of the most spiritual and edifying course of reading, meditation, and prayer; and so, of self examination, humiliation, mortification,...

    £375

  6. 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

  7. [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

  8. [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

  9. HAYLEY, William, and William BLAKE (illustrator).

    Ballads … founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals, with Prints...

    Chichester, J. Seagrave, for London, Richard Phillips, 1805.

    First edition of William Hayley’s sixteen Ballads illustrated by William Blake, with a fine provenance, plates I–III in the first state. 

    £3500

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. [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

  13. LEIGH, Samuel Egerton, Sir.

    Munster Abbey, a Romance; interspersed with Reflections on Virtue and Morality … in three...

    Cheyne … [and] for Hookham & Carpentar … Vernor & Hood … London. 1797.

    First edition. Despite its ‘gothic’ title this is a novel of contemporary high life in England and on the Grand Tour, avoiding ‘extravagant descriptions of supernatural scenes and events’. Munster Abbey in Devon is the seat of the hero, Mr. Belford, a bachelor ‘happily possessed of a...

    £1250

  14. [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

  15. 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

  16. [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

  17. BURBURY, John.

    A Relation of a Journey of the Right Honourable my Lord Henry Howard, from London to Vienna, and thence to Constantinople;...

    London, Printed for T. Collins and I. Ford … and S. Hickman … 1671.

    First and only edition of this account of a special embassy to the court of Sultan Mehmed IV, undertaken in 1664-5 by Walter Leslie, the Scottish-born Ambassador Extraordinary of the Holy Roman Empire. In his party was Henry Howard, later sixth Duke of Norfolk, along with the author John Burbury,...

    £5750

  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. [GREENE, Asa.]

    The perils of Pearl Street, including a taste of the dangers of Wall Street, by a late merchant.

    New York, Betts & Anstice and Peter Hill, 1834.

    First edition of a very early Wall Street novella, the fictional tale of Billy Hazard, an innocent carpenter’s son from rural New York state determined to make it as a merchant in the city. Billy’s attempts to establish himself in the mercantile trade in New York City are ultimately unsuccessful...

    £2750

  20. [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