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  1. THÜNEN, Johann Heinrich von.

    Der isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirthschaft und Nationalökonomie … [Part I and part II/1].

    Rostock, G.B. Leopold, 1842–50.

    Scarce second edition of the first part, revised and enlarged, being the repository of Thünen’s major theories, and the edition used by Roscher in his Geschichte der National-Oekonomik, here bound with the first edition of part II/1, the last to be published during the author’s lifetime; he died...

    £2500

  2. [SMITH, Adam.]

    ADLERSPARRE, Georg, et al., editors. Läsning i blandade ämnen. Första [– Femte och Sista] Årgången.

    Stockholm, Henrik A. Nordström, 1797–1801.

    First edition of all fifty parts of the Swedish literary periodical Läsning i blandade ämnen, containing over 200 pages of passages from various sections of the Wealth of Nations, making it the first opportunity for Swedish speakers to study Adam Smith. Georg Sartorius’s abridgement of the Wealth...

    £400

  3. VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I]. 

    Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes. 

    Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659. 

    First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I. 

    £3750

  4. [PLAYING CARDS.]

    Cartes Magiques Musicales. 1001 Danses pour Piano. / Magical Musical Cards or Thousand and one Dances for Piano.

    Paris, Bass, c. 1830.

    The complete Piquet deck of these rare and unusual musical playing cards including the English rules for the game, a delightful example of a nineteenth-century parlour game produced for the Anglo-French market.

    £3000

  5. [WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.] 

    Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...

    Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.

    Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.

    £1450

  6. [LABOURS OF THE MONTHS &c.] 

    Januarius.  Februarius.  Merz.  April … 

    Nuremberg, Joh. Andreae Endterische Handlung, [second half of eighteenth century]. 

    A scarce popular print depicting the labours of the months and signs of the zodiac, four continents, the four classical elements, and the four seasons. 

    £475

  7. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    Marcus Tullius Ciceroes three Bookes of Duties to Marcus his Sonne, tourned out of Latine into English,...

    [London, Richard Tottel,] 1583.

    Sixth edition of Grimald’s Cicero, first published 1556. De Officiis was perhaps the most pervasive piece of classical writing in early modern Europe – the second or third book to be printed in Europe, standard reading in England from at least the sixteenth century, recommended in Eliot’s...

    £3200

  8. BREREWOOD, Edward. 

    Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife Parts of the World … 

    London, Printed [by Eliot’s Court Press] for John Bill, 1614. 

    First edition.  Brerewood, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, was a scholar in many fields who published nothing in his own lifetime (he died in 1613).  Enquiries, seen through the press by a nephew, explores the spread of ancient, eastern, and modern languages, discusses the...

    £3000

  9. [ANON.] 

    Le moine galant, ou la vie de Don F… Bernardin, ecrite par lui-même.  [S.l., s.n.,] 1756. 

    [s.n.,] 1756. 

    Scarce first edition of this satirical ‘autobiography’ of a pleasure-driven law student-turned-monk, replete with amorous adventures. 

    £450

  10. BARBARO, Francesco. 

    De re uxoria libri duo, ut venustate sermonis praeclari, ita & praeceptis optimis & exemplis uberrimis ex...

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1639. 

    An attractive later edition of this famous treatise on marriage by the eminent Venetian humanist and politician Francesco Barbaro (1390–1454), arguing that the nobility, intellect, and virtue of brides-to-be are more significant than beauty or dowry. 

    £275

  11. CASANOVA, Giacomo.

    Казанова. Мемуары [Kazanova. Memuary ‘Casanova. Memoirs’] … St Petersburg, V.I. Gubinsky, 1887.

    [Memuary ‘Casanova. Memoirs’] … St Petersburg, V.I. Gubinsky, 1887.

    Very rare first substantial Russian translation of Casanova’s famous Histoire de ma vie, preceded only by short extracts published in periodicals.

    £2750

  12. [COURTESAN.]

    Les confessions d’une courtisane devenue philosophe.

    ‘London’ and Brussels, Le Francq, 1784.

    First edition (another appeared in the same year with a 'Londres et se trouve à Paris' imprint) of this anonymous novel describing the ascent (or perhaps descent) of a courtesan into the world of the philosophe.

    £850

  13. [DICKSON, William, photographer.]

    Ambrotype of two young men holding hands.

    [Glasgow, 1860s.]

    A very attractive ambrotype double portrait showing two seated young men holding hands, with subtle hand-tinting to their faces and hands.

    £450

  14. [KRÜDENER, Barbara Juliane de Vietinghoff, Freifrau von.]

    Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G… Tome premier...

    Paris, Henrichs, 1804.

    Rare first edition of Valérie, the famous semi-autobiographical Romantic novel by the Riga-born mystic and novelist Madame de Krüdener (1766–1824), whose influence as Tsar Alexander I’s spiritual adviser contributed directly to the formation of the Holy Alliance of 1815.

    £400

  15. [LA ROCHE, Sophie von.] 

    Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim.  Von einer Freundin derselben aus Original-Papieren und andern...

    Leipzig, bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1771. 

    First edition of Sophie von La Roche’s (1730–1807) bestselling epistolary novel, a bestseller featuring kidnapping, travels from Germany to Scotland, and a false wedding ceremony, a direct forerunner to Goethe’s Werther.

    £750

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

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

    ‘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

  17. MEREDITH, George.

    Modern Love, and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads.

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1862.

    First edition of a daring and innovative Victorian collection of poems adapting the sonnet sequence tradition (though in poems of sixteen lines) to the emotional realities of a failed contemporary marriage, tracing the course of estrangement as love gives way to discord, jealousy, unhappiness, and...

    £450

  18. [MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]

    The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...

    Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].

    The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).

    £7500

  19. MOREL DE RUBEMPRÉ, Joseph.

    Les secrets de la génération ou l’art de procréer à volonté des filles ou des garçons, de faire...

    chez tous les libraires, [c. 1870].

    Joseph Morel de Rubempré’s (1812–86) popular guide to the secrets of sex, (billed as the thirtieth edition of vol. I and the twelfth of vol. II).

    £150

  20. [NUPTIALIA.]

    Bartolomeo MOLAJONI.  Alla neogama donzella Marianna Molajoni negli Sforza, Bartolomeo Molajoni germano dirigge il...

    Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811. 

    Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed to the newlywed Marianna Molajoni by her brother Bartolomeo and dedicated to the sottoprefetto of Viterbo, Giulio Zelli Pazzaglia. 

    £275