Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan

Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
  1. PLINY the Younger.

    Epistolarum libri X & panegyricus.

    Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1640.

    First Elzevir edition, handsomely bound for the Irish politician Thomas Wogan Browne.

    £450

  2. PLINY the Younger. 

    Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …

    Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.

    A handsome quarto Pliny from the Foulis press, published in the same year as the three-volume duodecimo.

    £600

  3. PLINY the Younger. 

    Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Opera quae supersunt; omnia. Ad fidem optimarum editionum diligenter expressa …

    Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.

    A handsome Foulis Press pocket Pliny. The first two volumes comprise the ten books of Pliny’s Epistulae (particularly important for their description of the eruption of Vesuvius), the third his Panegyric to Trajan: ‘clearly it was intended that sections Z to the end should comprise...

    £850

  4. PLUTARCH.

    ...

    Venice, Nicolao di Aristotile detto Zoppino, March 1525.

    An attractive illustrated edition of twenty-seven of Plutarch’s lives, extensively annotated by a Papal tax-collector, in a striking contemporary binding.

    £2750

  5. PLUTARCH.

    Τα εθικα. Moralia, id est opera, exceptis vitis, reliqua [edited by Daniel Wyttenbach].

    Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1795–1800; 1810; 1830.

    Gaisford’s own copy of the Oxford Plutarch containing letters between him and the editor, Daniel Wyttenbach. Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855) was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford in 1812, and later became Dean of Christ Church in 1831. He had an active role at the University Press,...

    £2500

  6. POCOCKE, Richard. 

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.  London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and...

    [Nourse, and J. Rivington’ (I)], 1743–1745. 

    First edition, demy folio issue. A successful churchman Pococke (1704-1765) is now best remembered as a traveller and mountaineer. His earliest journeys were undertaken between 1733 and 1736 through continental Europe. His ‘next and most ambitious journey, from 1737 to 1740, was to the Near...

    £8000

  7. POPE, [Alexander].

    The second Epistle of the second Book of Horace, imitated by Mr. Pope.

    London, R. Dodsley, 1737.

    First edition, the issue (presumably early) with the footnote on p. 12 misnumbered ‘16’ for 15.

    £275

  8. POPE, [Alexander].

    The sixth Epistle of the first Book of Horace imitated.

    London, L. Gilliver, 1737.

    First edition. Foxon P965; Rothschild 1638; Griffith 476.

    £250

  9. PORTA, Giambattista della.

    De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...

    Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.

    The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.

    £2500

  10. [PRAYER-BOOK.]

    The new and complete Family Prayer-Book, or Church of England Man’s Divine Library: being an universal Illustration,...

    London: Printed for Alex. Hogg … [1784-5.]

    First edition thus, rare, published in 36 weekly parts, each originally accompanied with an illustration, and now correctly bound according to the complicated ‘Directions to the Binder’ at the end. Wright’s exhaustive compilation, with notes and commentary on each page, assembled calendars,...

    £950

  11. [PRAYERBOOK.]

    ‘Gebetbuch’.

    [Germany, early nineteenth century.]

    An attractive early nineteenth-century Catholic prayerbook in German, containing prayers for both daily use and for use during Mass.

    £185

  12. [PRAYERS.] 

    ‘Orationes diversae pro temporum opportunitate dicendae’. 

    [Likely Lucca, late eighteenth century.] 

    A delightful manuscript prayerbook for use in communal worship, most likely for a rural community, with prayers for help in times of plagues and of animal diseases, prayers seeking protection from storms and alleviation of droughts, for times of earthquakes, for the sick, and against pagans. ...

    £475

  13. [PRAYERS.] 

    Récueil de plusieurs prieres.   

    Vienna, ‘chez Georg Müllner libraire et relieur des livres’, [c. 1810].

    Very rare and charming early nineteenth-century prayer book in an attractive binding by the Viennese ‘libraire et relieur’ Georg Müllner. 

    £450

  14. PRESENT FOR THE YOUNG (A).

    London: Printed for The Religious Tract Society … and sold at their Depository … also by J. Nisbet...

    [c. 1827]

    First edition. A finely illustrated anthology of religious verse, contemplations, and prayers for children. Pieces include poems on the seasons and stories about a Welsh Shepherd, and ‘The Hill and the Valley’, all with heavily metaphorical content.

    £175

  15. PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.

    Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...

    Cambridge, University Press, 1928.

    First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.

    £400

  16. [PSALMS.]

    Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.

    Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.

    New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.

    £950

  17. [PSALMS.] 

    The whole Booke of Psalmes, collected into English Meter by Tho. Strenhold, Jo. Hopkins, W. Whittingham, and others...

    London, Printed by T. C[otes] for the Company of Stationers, 1637. 

    A very attractive pocket psalm-book with tunes, ruled in red throughout and in a handsome binding.  Such diminutive psalm books began to appear at the end of the sixteenth-century, printed for the Company of Stationers, who had the monopoly.  The printer here was Thomas Cotes, most famous as...

    £2750

  18. [PSALMS.]

    Psalterium Davidis carmine redditum per Eobanum Hessum. Annotationes Viti Theodori Noribergensis, quae vice commentarii...

    Paris, [(colophon:) Guillaume Morel for] Jacques Dupuys ‘sub insigni Samaritanae’, [August] 1550.

    Seemingly unrecorded issue of the Psalms of David in Latin as edited by the Lutheran theologian Eoban of Hesse (1488–1540) with commentary by Luther’s housemate, associate, and sometime secretary Veit Dietrich (1506–1549).

    £1250

  19. [PSALMS.]

    Les Pseaumes de David, mis en rime Françoise, par Clement Marot, et Theodore de Beze.

    ‘Se vendent à Charenton, par Antoine Cellier, demeurent à Paris … à l’Imprimerie des Roziers’, 1667.

    Charenton-printed French Psalms in a remarkable shagreen binding with silver-filigree furniture, with English provenance since the eighteenth century.

    £2750

  20. [PSALMS; Basil WOODD, editor.]

    The Psalms of David, and other Portions of the Sacred Scriptures, selected from various Authors,...

    London, Watts & Bridgewaters, Rivingtons, and Matthews, 1800.

    A pocket-sized Psalm- and prayerbook with a hidden heraldic fore-edge painting for Horatio Walpole, later first Earl of Orford.

    £2000