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  1. [GALEN.] STEPHANUS.   

    Stephani Atheniensis philosophi explanationes in Galeni priorem librum therapeuticum ad Glauconem, Augustino...

    Venice, Giunta, November 1554. 

    First edition of Agostino Gadaldini’s Latin translation of Galen’s medical treatise Ad Glauconem and of Stephanus’ commentary upon it, enhanced with his own scholia.

    £950

  2. H.M.S. COMUS and H.M.S. TOURMALINE. [HELBY, Harold Wildey Hasler.]   

    Log Book.  Hong Kong, Singapore, Palau, Yokohama,...

    Dec 1881–Feb 1884. 

    A characterful log book charting the voyage of Royal Navy steamer H.M.S. Comus, beginning with its berth in Hong Kong and following its course around the Pacific, before its passage home across the Atlantic. It records the technicalities of cruising by steam; the significant international...

    £3000

  3. MASTER B.F.

    Three very large historiated initials cut from a set of choirbooks.

    Italy (Lodi), early sixteenth century.

    Three extremely fine initials by the enigmatic artist known as Master B.F., one of the most inventive and accomplished illuminators of the Italian High Renaissance. They come almost certainly from a magnificent set of about twenty choirbooks belonging to the Olivetan monastery of Santi Angelo...

    £150000

  4. [ROUSSEL DE LA TOUR, Claude Pierre GOUJET, and Abbé MINARD, editors.]

    Extraits des assertions dangereuses et pernicieuses...

    Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1762.

    First edition of this systematic selection of Jesuit writings intended to demonstrate the many dangerous ideas endorsed by the Order, arranged under headings including probabilism, simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, astrology, idolatry, perjury, homicide, and regicide.

    £1500

  5. APULEIUS, Lucius. 

    L. Apuleii Metamorphoseos, sive lusus Asini libri XI.  Floridoru[m] IIII.  De deo Socratis I.  De philosophia...

    Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri’, May 1521. 

    First Aldine edition of the works of the second-century AD Numidian novelist Apuleius, with the editio princeps of Alcinous’s second-century handbook on Plato’s philosophy in the original Greek, from the library of the great French writer Victor Hugo. 

    £2000

  6. BEARDSLEY, Aubrey, art editor; Henry HARLAND, literary editor

    The Yellow Book.  An Illustrated Quarterly.  Volume...

    London [– & New York], Elkin Mathews & John Lane [– John Lane, The Bodley Head], and Boston, Copeland & Day, April 1894 [− April 1897]. 

    An excellent set of the first edition of The Yellow Book, the decade-defining illustrated quarterly that captured the spirit of decadence and aestheticism and gave its name to ‘the yellow nineties’. 

    £2000

  7. JACQUEMOT, Jean. 

    Variorum poematium liber. 

    [Lyons,] Jean de Tournes, 1601. 

    Very rare first edition of this collection of neo-Latin Protestant biblical poetry by Jean Jacquemot (1543–1615), a notable Geneva preacher, poet, and translator, friend of Theodore Beza, here with the original French in civilité type. 

    £875

  8. PEPE, Stefano. 

    [Half-title: ‘Il Cappuccino d’Este del Padre Pepe’] ‘Historia Della Vita, e della Morte, et Attioni...

    [Italy, second half of the seventeenth century.] 

    A seemingly unpublished life of Alfonso III d’Este, Duke of Modena, who renounced his title to become a Capuchin friar. 

    £1250

  9. [VERACI, Gaetano.] 

    Nuova cicalata sopra la coda in forma di lettera responsiva alla Signora N.N. 

    [S.l., s.n,. c. 1770.] 

    Second edition, extremely rare and significantly expanded, of this highly suggestive, mock-academic panegyric on the ‘tail’. 

    £850

  10. FENOUILLOT DE FALBAIRE, Charles-Georges. 

    Le fabricant de Londres, drame en cinq actes et en prose; représenté à la Comédie...

    Paris, chez Delalain, 1771. 

    First edition of a London-set play by the French dramatist and contributor to the Encyclopédie, Fenouillot de Falbaire (1727–1800), illustrated with five fine plates after Gravelot. 

    £250

  11. [MISSAL.]

    Missal, in Latin, with readings for the first Sunday in Advent.

    Southern Netherlands or northern France (Arras?), c. 1425.

    A remnant of what must have been an exceptionally grand missal, with illumination of considerable finesse. We have been unable to trace any other leaves from the same manuscript.

    £3250

  12. ST JOHN, Spenser Buckingham.

    Life in the Forests of the Far East.

    London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1862.

    First edition. A richly illustrated account of pioneering expeditions on the island of Borneo, by St John (1825-1910), who had been introduced to Sir James Brooke (the ‘White Raja’) in 1847, when Brooke was visiting England. St John ‘was quickly caught by Brooke’s charm and accompanied him as...

    £850

  13. MARVIN, Charles.

    The Russians at Merv and Herat and their power of invading India …

    London, W.H. Allen & Co., 1883.

    First edition of this work on the Russian threat to India by Charles Marvin (1854-1890), ‘the most widely read writer on Anglo-Russian matters of his day’ (Hopkirk).

    £875

  14. BORSO D’ESTE, Duke of Modena, Duke of Ferrara.

    Letter in his name in Italian, addressed to Feltrino Boiardo.

    Modena, 3 July 1453.

    A letter from early in Borso d’Este’s rule as first Duke of Modena. It is addressed to the condottiero Feltrino Boiardo, instructing him to raise taxes from the territories of Casalgrande, Dinazzano and Montebabbio for the support of a brigade of men-at-arms.

    £750

  15. CORRADO III TRINCI, Lord of Foligno.

    Letter in his name in Italian to Cipriano, ‘lieutenant of the territory of Trevi’,...

    Foligno, 9 February, no year but c. 1430s.

    The family of the Trinci ruled over Foligno, first as independent princes and then as vicars of the church from 1305 to 1439. The sender of the present letter is probably the third Corrado, last of the dynasty, ‘detested for his cruelty’ (Litta, Celebri famiglie Italiane vol. I fasc. 6,...

    £600

  16. FORTUNE, Robert.

    Three years’ wanderings in the northern provinces of China, including a visit to the tea, silk, and cotton countries:...

    London, John Murray, 1847.

    First edition recounting the travels through China of the Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune (1812–1880), a frequent visitor to China who as agent of the Tea Committee became a pivotal figure in bringing Chinese tea to British India. Originally a botanist, Fortune travelled to China in...

    £400

  17. ANTIPHONAL,

    with neumes, containing antiphons, responses and versicles for Trinity Sunday, the Octave of Pentecost, Sundays after...

    Germany, 1st half of 12th century. 

    Two bifolia from a notably early antiphonal. 

    £5000

  18. SASSOON, Siegfried. 

    Nativity. 

    London, Faber & Gwyer, 1927. 

    First edition of this striking collaboration between Siegfried Sassoon and Paul Nash. 

    £175

  19. [OPTICAL PRINT.] 

    ‘No. 5.  Morgan’s improved protean scenery: Mount Vesuvius, as represented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens...

    London, Published by W. Morgan, [c. 1837]. 

    A remarkable metamorphic or ‘protean’ print depicting a dormant Vesuvius by day but, when held up to the light, showing a dramatic eruption in the night sky. 

    £675

  20. [CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.] 

    ...

    Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874. 

    Very rare complete run of this short-lived satirical magazine against the pro-government newspaper Il Monitore, produced by a group of young liberals from Bologna including the poets Giosuè Carducci and Olindo Guerrini. 

    £1000