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.
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SOPHOCLES; Adrien TURNÈBE, editor.
Τραγωδιαι. Αιαξ μαστιγοφορος. Ηλεκτρα. Οιδιπους...
Paris, Adrien Turnèbe, 1553 [(colophon:) 24 December 1552]. [issued with:] TRICLINIUS, Demetrius. Εις τα του σοφοκλεους...
A wide-margined copy of Sophocles in Greek owned by the Vatican librarian and Greek scholar Leone Allacci, with his name on the title-page.
£1850
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SPATARI, Pellegrino.
Le orationi delle Messe di tutto l’anno, tradutte da Don Pellegrino Spathari canonico di Capodistria. Con...
Pesaro, Bartolomeo Cesano, 1555.
Rare first edition of this Italian translation of Latin prayers from the Missal by Spatari, a priest from Capodistria (modern-day Koper in Slovenia), dedicated to Vittoria Farnese, Duchess of Urbino (1519–1602).
£650
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STANYHURST, William.
Veteris hominis per expensa quatuor novissima metamorphosis, et novi genesis.
Antwerp, Cornelius Woons, 1661.
First edition, rare, of this work on death, the Last Judgement, Hell, and Heaven, by the Irish Jesuit William Stanyhurst (1601–1663), illustrated with five striking full-page emblematic engravings.
£875
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STAPLETON, Thomas.
Promptuarium Catholicum ad instructionem concionatorum contra haereticos nostri temporis, super omnia evangelia...
Antwerp, Pierre Beller, 1592.
Rare third edition, expanded, of Stapleton’s handbook or ‘storehouse’ of scriptural devotions for Sundays and feast days, first published in 1589. An independent companion volume for the weekdays in Lent was first published in 1594.
£700
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STATIUS, P. Papinius; John CAREY, editor.
Opera, sedula recensione accurata [cover: Recensuit et accuravit Joannes...
London, T. Davison for Rodwell & Martin, J. Booker, Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, G. & W. B. Whittaker, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Browne,...
An attractive copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed boards, of the ‘Regent’s Classics’ pocket edition of Statius.
£120
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STEPNIAK, Sergey.
דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד … איבערזעצט פון א. פרומקין
[Dos...New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921.
Scarce first American edition in Yiddish of Stepniak’s first and most influential book. Written in Italian during exile in Switzerland following his assassination of Nikolai Mezentsov, chief of Alexander II’s secret police, Underground Russia was published in 1882 and translated into...
£150
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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
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STRABO.
Strabonis geographicorum lib. XVII ... iam denuo a Conrado Heresbachio … ad fidem Graeci exemplaris, authorumque …...
Basel, Johann Walder, 1539.
Second edition of Strabo’s masterful Geographica in the Latin translation of the German Humanist and friend of Erasmus, Konrad Heresbach (1496–1576), here found with the first Latin translation of an epitome of Strabo’s work by the Basel professor of physic and logic, Hieronymus Gemusaeus...
£2500
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STRAPAROLA, Giovanfrancesco.
Le piacevoli notti di messer Giovanfrancesco Straparola da Caravaggio.
Venice, Domenico Giglio, 1558.
An early edition of both volumes of Straparola’s Facetious nights, first published in 1550–53.
£2750
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STRYPE, John.
The Life of the learned Sir John Cheke, Kt., first Instructer, afterwards Secretary of State, to King Edward VI.,...
London, John Wyat, 1705.
First edition of Strype’s biography of the courtier and classicist Sir John Cheke, inaugural Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.
£450
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SUCQUET, Antoine.
Via vitae aeternae iconibus illustrata per Boetium a Bolswert.
Antwerp, Martin Nutius, 1620.
First edition, an attractive copy, of an emblem book which unites the spiritual meditations and practices of the Belgian Jesuit Antoine Sucquet with fine emblematic illustrations devised by the great baroque engraver Boetius à Bolswert (c. 1580–1633), called by Praz ‘the illustrator of the sentimental...
£1500
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SUETONIUS Tranquillus, Gaius, and HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH.
Vita di duodeci imperatori… nuovamente tradotta in volgare. Historia...
Venice, Venturino di Rossinelli [for Curzio Navò], 1539.
Annotated copy of a scarce edition of this early Italian translation of Suetonius and Herodianus, two works of ancient history which explore the lives and deeds of Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian, and from Commodus to the Year of the Six Emperors in 238. The translator of this vernacular...
£1250
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SWIFT, Jonathan.
A Tale of a Tub … to which is added, an Account of a Battle between the antient and modern Books in St. James’s...
London, C. Bathurst, 1751.
A scarce later edition of Swift’s classic satires on corruption in religion and learning, as exemplified in the conduct of Peter (Roman Catholicism), Martin (Luther), and Jack (Calvin) in the Tale of the Tub, and the spirited fight over the highest peak of Parnassus in the Battel of...
£175
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SYKES, Arthur Ashley.
The Duty of Love to God, and to our Neighbours. A Sermon preach'd at the Assizes held at Chelmsford in...
London, J. Darby & T. Browne for Chelmsford, Samuel Lobb, 1728.
First and only edition of this sermon given by the latitudinarian and controversialist Arthur Ashley Sykes (c. 1684–1756).
£150
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TACITUS.
C. Cornelius Tacitus, cum optimis exemplaribus collatus.
Amsterdam, Daniel Elzevir, 1678.
A remarkably fresh set of the third and final Elzevir edition of this format, reprinted from the edition of 1665.
£275
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TACITUS, Publius Cornelius; N. S. SMITH, translator.
Dissertation on the Manners of the Germans, and the Life of Agricola … translated...
London, George and William Budd Whittaker, 1821.
First edition, a seemingly unrecorded issue of this bilingual edition of Tacitus’ Germania and Agricola, a subscription copy uncut in publisher’s boards.
£600
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TAULER, Johannes, attributed.
Exercitia D. Ioannis Thauleri piissima, super vita et passione salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi,...
Antwerp, Philippus Nutius, 1565.
Uncommon Antwerp edition of Laurentius Surius’s Latin translation of a devotional work on the life and passion of Christ attributed to the medieval German mystic Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), in an attractive contemporary binding and with interesting manuscript notes.
£1500
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TERENCE.
Les comedies … avec la traduction et les remarques de Madame Dacier ….
Rotterdam, Gaspar Fritsch, 1717.
A fine edition of Anne Dacier’s French Terence (first published 1688), the translation here revised by her, and the notes expanded, with delightful illustrations by Picart.
£850
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TERENCE.
Comediae sex. A M. Anto. Mureto locis prope innumeris suo nitore restitutae …
Carmagnola, Marcantonio Bellone, 1590.
A rare provincial printing of a school edition the plays of Terence, printed in the small town of Carmagnola in Piedmont, which had become part of the Duchy of Savoy only two years earlier, after almost half a century under French domination. The text is taken from earlier printings of Marc Antoine...
£375
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TERENCE Afer, Publius.
Comoediae sex, tum ex Donati commentariis … diligentius quam unquam antehac emendatae; Aelii Donati...
Paris, Robert Estienne, 1529.
First folio edition of Terence’s comedies by Robert Estienne. The printer had already produced a small, octavo edition of Terence’s works in 1526. Confident in its success, and through access to an excellent and ancient manuscript of the fourth-century commentary by Aelius Donatus, ‘in...
£1500