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  1. GELLIUS, Aulus. 

    Noctium Atticarum commentaria per Bonfinem Asculanum summa nuper diligentia et studio recognita. 

    Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 1517. 

    Second edition of Gellius’s opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia

    £5500

  2. POPE, Alexander.

    Of false Taste. An Epistle to the right honourable Richard Earl of Burlington. Occasion’d by his publishing...

    London: Printed for L. Gilliver … 1731 [1732].

    1. Third edition of Of false Taste, published on 15 January 1732, adding Pope’s long letter to Burlington in reply to ‘the clamour rais’d about this epistle’. This is the first of three issues, with the misprint ‘Cielings’ on p. 11. Griffith 267; Foxon P912.

    £850

  3. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Titus Flavius CLEMENS). 

    Omnia opera. 

    Paris, Sebastien Nivelle, 1572. 

    A thoroughly annotated copy of this early edition of the complete works of Clement of Alexandria, in the Latin translation of Gentian Hervet.  Clement lived and wrote in the second and third centuries, one of the most important interpreters of Christianity within an established Greek philosophical...

    £4750

  4. BRYDONE, Patrick.

    Voyage en Sicile et à Malthe, traduit de l’anglois de M. Brydone, membre de la Société Royale des Sciences...

    Neuchâtel, au magasin de la Société Typographique, 1776.

    Attractive edition of Brydone’s A tour through Sicily and Malta (1773) in the French translation of Jean-Nicolas Démeunier (1751–1814), ‘one of the most successful works on Italian travel in the eighteenth century and … the first important book on Sicily’ (Pine-Coffin).

    £225

  5. [BRISTOL.] 

    The Bristol Contest, being a Collection of all the Papers published by both Parties, on the Election, 1754. 

    Bristol, ‘sold by the Printing-Office … and by J. Palmer’, [1754]. 

    Extremely rare first edition of this Bristol-printed political pamphlet, bound with the first edition of a French work on pyrotechnics used both for spectacle and for war. 

    £650

  6. CONSTANT, Benjamin.

    Le “Cahier Rouge” de Benjamin Constant publié par L. Constant de Rebecque.

    Paris, [Paul Brodard for] Calmann Levy. [1907].

    First edition, no. 4 of 100 copies printed on Imperial japon. Written in 1807, Constant’s ‘Cahier Rouge’ describes his childhood and adolescence 1767-1787.

    £1000

  7. COLONNA, Fabio. 

    Φυτοβασανος, sive Plantarum aliquot historia … 

    Naples, Orazio Salviani, 1592. 

    First edition, a landmark in botanical illustration, ‘the first strictly botanical book with intaglio prints’ (Blunt). 

    £4000

  8. [ARCHERY.]

    Programme contenant les conditions du tirage d’oiseaux qui aura lieu en la commune de Lille, chef-lieu de la Sous-Préfecture...

    Lille, de l’imprimerie de Jacquez, [July 1801].

    An apparently unrecorded broadside advertising an archery contest on the ‘champ de Mars’ at Lille, in northern France, to mark the anniversary of Bastille Day on 14 July 1801.

    £375

  9. [HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.]

    Royal order in French authorising payment to various officials engaged in raising a levy (‘aide’) at...

    Paris, 30 March 1415.

    A royal order to pay officials involved in raising a levy at Avranches, issued a few months before the battle of Agincourt.

    £1750

  10. [MAISTRE, Xavier de.]

    Voyage autour de ma chambre par M. le Chev. X*** *** O. A. S. D. S. M. S. [Officier au service de Sa Majesté...

    Turin, 1794 [Lausanne, Isaac Hignou, 1795].

    First edition, rare, of the celebrated fantasy novel Voyage Around My Room, a parody of the grand travel narrative tradition, by Xavier de Maistre (Chambéry, 1763 – Saint Petersburg, 1852).

    A Savoyard officer in the army of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, de Maistre wrote the Voyage during the...

    £2800

  11. ECKARTSHAUSEN, Karl von. 

    Dieu est l’amour le plus pur, ma prière et ma contemplation.  Par Eckartshausen.  Paris, chez L. 

    Duprat-Duverger, rue des Grands-Augustins, no. 21, [1805-1813]. 

    Scarce edition of a French translation of Gott ist die reinste Liebe by the German Catholic mystic Karl von Eckartshausen (1752–1803), this copy formerly in the possession of the long-term lover of Queen Victoria’s father. 

    £475

  12. GULIELMUS, Janus.

    Iani GulielmI Plautinarum quaestionum commentarius. In quo omnes ordine M. Plauti Comoediae, tum multa veterum...

    Paris, Gilles Beys, 1583.

    First edition of an important work of Plautine and Ciceronian scholarship by the renowned German philologist and poet Janus Gulielmus (1555–1584), formerly in the possession of the French neo-Latin poet Jean Sirmond (1589–1649).

    £950

  13. FARIS, Ahmad.

    Abdaʻ ma-kan fi suwar Salitan Al ʻUthman … Album des souverains Ottomans édité par Selim Faris Effendy directeur...

    Leipzig, Carl Garte, [c. 1885].

    A handsome set of portraits of thirty-four Ottoman Sultans from Osman I (founder of the Ottoman Empire) to Abdul Hamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1909, this copy annotated with notes in Arabic.

    £3500

  14. [SPINELLI.]

    Illuminated arms of the Spinelli family of Florence.

    Italy (Florence), c. 1460s.

    Florentine border decoration of very high quality from what must have been a luxurious manuscript produced for a member of the wealthy Spinelli family. Sadly there is no indication of the contents of the parent manuscript, nor have we been able to identify a likely candidate, but ruling just visible...

    £3000

  15. [LE NOBLE, Pierre, and Eustache LE NOBLE (attributed).] 

    Les Amours d’Anne d’Austriche, Epouse de Louis 13. ...

    ‘A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau, 1696’ [France, early eighteenth century]. 

    An early manuscript copy of a salacious – and treasonous – history arguing that Louis XIV was the illegitimate child of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu, bound with four engravings. 

    £850

  16. MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano. 

    Illustrium poetarum flores. 

    Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563. 

    A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère,...

    £1950

  17. LE CLERC, Sébastien, the Elder. 

    Figures de la passion D. N. S. Iesus Christ presentées à Madame Madame de Maintenon, par...

    Paris, chez G. Audran graveur ordinaire du Roy, [early 1700s]. 

    Scarce later issue of this wonderful suite of engravings depicting the Passion of Christ by the noted engraver Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714), running from Christ’s arrival in the Garden of Olives to the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. 

    £675

  18. HUGO, Victor.

    Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].

    Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

    First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.

    £7500

  19. [EROTICA.] 

    Pencil drawing of a woman in eighteenth-century hunting dress. 

    [France, early nineteenth century?] 

    A fine erotically-charged figure study of a woman in rather masculine eighteenth-century French hunting dress, seemingly pleasuring herself for the gratification of the viewer.

    £6500