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  1. [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

  2. [SWIFT, Jonathan.]

    The Hibernian Patriot: being a Collection of the Drapier’s Letters to the People of Ireland, concerning Mr....

    Printed at Dublin. London: Reprinted and sold by A. Moor ... 1730.

    First London collected edition of the Drapier’s Letters, preceded by the Dublin edition of 1725 (entitled Fraud Detected).

    £850

  3. WOLFERSTAN, Stanford.

    An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases in General, and the Disturbances of the Humors in Man’s Body …...

    London, Printed for Thomas Basset … 1692.

    First and only edition, very rare, of a short medical work on blood, air, and poison by Stanford Wolferstan (b. 1652), youngest son of the noted book collector Frances Wolfreston (1607–1677).

    £2850

  4. WYLD, James.

    Map of the islands of Japan, Kurile &c. and part of the Chinese dominions and a sketch of the river Amoor and the...

    London, James Wyld, 1859–1860.

    Rare four-sheet map of Japan, the Russian Far East, Mongolia and Southern Siberia, Korea, and China’s central coast, by James Wyld the younger (1812–1887), published just a few years after the end of Japan’s long isolationist period.

    £3500

  5. WYLD, James.

    The islands of Japan by James Wyld, geographer to the Queen & H.R.H. the Prince Consort.

    London, James Wyld, 1 January 1859.

    Rare folding map of Japan by James Wyld the younger (1812–1887) published just a few years after the end of its long isolationist era, showing treaty ports opening soon following the signing of the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States.

    £1950

  6. CREVE, Carl Caspar. 

    Vom Metallreize, einem neuentdeckten untrüglichen Prüfungsmittel des wahren Todes.  Mit einer Kupfertafel. 

    Leipzig and Gera, Wilhelm Heinsius, 1796.

    First edition of this uncommon contribution to the medical literature in which Creve proposes a new method of ascertaining death using a metal conductor attached to muscle tissue, part of the body of research that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

    £550

  7. DESLANDES, André-François Boureau.

    Dying Merrily: or, historical and critical Reflexions on the Conduct of great Men in all Ages,...

    London: Printed for M. Cooper ... 1745.

    First edition of this translation of Réfléxions sur les grands hommes que sont morts en plaisantant (1712), by the philosopher and naval official André-François Deslandes (1670–1757), an important precursor of the Encyclopédistes.

    £450

  8. GASPARIN, Agénor Étienne, Comte de.

    Des tables tournantes du surnaturel en général et des esprits par le Cte Agénor de Gasparin.

    Paris, Bonaventure and Ducessois for E. Dentu, 1854.

    Scarce first edition of Gasparin’s early experiments in table-turning – a form of séance in which tables appear to rotate or levitate of their own accord – which would prove highly controversial and integral to the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement.

    £1500

  9. MIMEREL, Marie-Thérèse.

    Vous êtes priés d’assister aux convoi & vigiles de Damoiselle Marie-Therese Mimerel ...

    [Amiens, 1779].

    An apparently unrecorded announcement of the funeral and burial of Marie-Thérèse Mimerel at Amiens, in northern France, on 17 January 1779.

    £250

  10. [OFFICE OF THE DEAD.] 

    Uffizio de’ morti, ad uso delle confraternite e congregazioni. 

    Turin, Bernardino Barberis, 1805. 

    An apparently unrecorded Turin-printed Office of the Dead, with striking woodcut memento mori ornaments, printed for the use of religious congregations and confraternities.  The Uffizio de’ morti, outlining the liturgy used in commemoration of the dead, is accompanied by a notice...

    £225

  11. PERUCCI, Francesco.

    Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.

    Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.

    First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....

    £975

  12. REFELL, A. 

    Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...

    Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865. 

    First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...

    £1250

  13. STIRLING, A.M.W.

    Ghosts vivisected. An impartial inquiry into their manners, habits, mentality, motives and physical construction....

    London, Robert Hale, 1957.

    First edition, a very readable account of otherworldly encounters, with illustrations by the Symbolist painter Evelyn de Morgan, the author’s elder sister.

    £40

  14. DENNYS, Nicholas Belfield (editor).

    The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A complete guide to the open ports of those countries,...

    Shortrede and Co., 1867.

    First edition, complete with all twenty-nine maps and plans, of this remarkable guide to the open ports of China and Japan in the late 1860s, aimed at ‘travellers, merchants, and residents’, compiled by Nicholas Dennys (1839–1900), a noted scholar of Chinese folklore, with the sinologist...

    £5750

  15. FISHER, Irving.

    Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. Read April 27, 1892. [in:] Transactions of...

    New Haven, by the Academy, 1892.

    First appearance of Fisher’s ‘startlingly original PhD thesis’ (Blaug) which contained, among other things, the design of a machine to illustrate general equilibrium in a multi-market economy. This work expounds his monetary theories and established his international reputation.

    £5500

  16. FRY, Theodore.

    A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.

    [London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.

    First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete...

    £850

  17. [BOOKBINDER.]

    Sentence rendue en la chambre criminelle du Châtelet de Paris, qui condamne Guillaume Maillet, maître relieur,...

    Paris, Jean-Charles Desaint, 1782.

    Scarce pamphlet documenting the misdemeanours of the Parisian master bookbinder Guillaume Maillet.

    £575

  18. [FIELDING, Sarah.] 

    The adventures of David Simple: containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster,...

    London, printed for A. Millar, 1744. 

    First edition, very fine.  The first and most popular novel of Sarah, the sister of Henry Fielding, who was to provide a preface and a few revisions to the second edition. 

    £1500

  19. [HERALDRY.]

    Manuscripts relating to Low Countries nobility.

    [Low Countries, mid-17th century?].

    A fine set of manuscripts relating to Low Countries heraldry and history compiled by a learned local antiquary.

    £1500

  20. STOBAEUS, Johannes.

    Εκλογαι αποϕθεγματων και υποθηκων … Sententie ex thesauris Graecorum delectae …...

    Basel, Johann Oporinus for Christoph Froschauer, August 1549.

    Second, ‘in every respect preferable’ (Dibdin) edition of Gesner’s Stobaeus, acclaimed as ‘the first critical impression of the text of the Florilegium’ (ibid.), philologically and critically much superior to the first, published in 1543. Gesner’s parallel printing of the Greek...

    £1750