Recent Acquisitions
-
BAUR, Fidelis.
Geschichte der Hohenzollernschen Staaten Hechingen und Sigmaringen von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage,...
Sigmaringen, Bucher & Liener, 1834-6.
First edition. Perched on the Zollenberg, just south of Hechingen, is the castle of Hohenzollern, which gave its name to the ruling house of Brandenburg–Prussia from 1415 to 1918, arguably the most powerful family in German history. The ancestral lands were divided in 1575 by Count Karl...
£350
-
KIRAM, Zeki Hasmet.
Vocabularium anatomiae latine-arabice. [Qāmūs al-ta¬šrīḥ Lātīnī-‘Arabī].
Berlin, Morgen- und Abendland-Verlag, 1923.
First edition of an uncommon glossary of anatomical terms in Latin with corresponding translation in Arabic, intended for Arabic-speaking medical students studying in European universities, by army officer turned Berlin publicist, arms dealer, and Muslim activist Zeki Kiram (1886–1946).
£375
-
[WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.]
The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...
6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?].
Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’.
£450
-
JAYADEVA, and Friedrich MAJER (translator).
Gita-Govinda, ein Indisches Singspiel ... aus der Ursprache ins Englische...
Weimar, Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, 1802.
First and only separate edition of this uncommon German translation of Gita Govinda, a ‘devoutly erotic poem of the twelfth-century Bengali poet Jayadeva’ (ODNB).
£475
-
[JACOBUS DE GRUYTRODE, (attr.)].
Lavacrum conscientie [omnium sacerdotum].
[Colophon:] Cologne, Heinrich Quentell, 1504.
Rare edition of this popular late medieval treatise widely ascribed to the Carthusian monk Jacobus de Gruytrode (c. 1400–1475).
£750
-
TALIANI, Giuseppe.
Orologi riflessi, per mezo di un picciolo specchio parallelo o perpendicolare all’orizonte.
Macerata, Filippo Camacci, 1648.
Only recorded edition, rare, of this work by mathematician Taliani on the construction of sundials in the interior of buildings, to be achieved through mirrors reflecting solar rays – our copy uniquely furnished with a contemporary large hand-drawn representation of the face of a sundial. ...
£950
-
BIANCHINI, Giuseppe.
Enarratio pseudo-Athanasiana in symbolum ante hac inedita, et Vigilii Tapsitani de Trinitate ad Theophilum...
Verona, Pierantonio Berno, 1732.
First edition, presented by the author, of this scarce work on the Apostles’ Creed by the Veronese Oratorian, Biblical and liturgical scholar, and librarian Giuseppe Bianchini (1704–1764), with a delightful frontispiece depicting the city of Verona.
£675
-
LEWIS, Wyndham.
America and Cosmic Man.
London and Brussels, Nicholas and Watson Ltd., [1948].
First edition, second state binding as always (the first, in green cloth, was rejected by Lewis as ‘hideous’ and was used on only 3 trial copies). In hand by 1943, not finished until 1946 and then rejected by American publishers until it finally found a British home in 1948, America and Cosmic Man...
£200
-
[HOMILETIC.]
Meditations de la seconde annee.
[France, c. 1700.]
Apparently unpublished set of meditations for the Sundays in the liturgical year running from the seventh to the twenty-fourth week after Pentecost, shedding light on tools and practices in the homiletic art. Themes range from reflections on the Eucharist, to considerations on mortality, on...
£750
-
WILLIAMS, William Carlos.
Paterson [Books 1, 2, 3 & 4].
Norfolk, New Classics, [1951]. [with:]
First collected edition of Books One to Four and first edition of Book Five; inscribed on the front free endpaper of One to Four (in Williams’s distinctive scrawl, in two different pens after the first ran out of ink) ‘D.J. [i.e. G.] Bridson with my compliments / William...
£1250
-
[LE MARCHE.]
Deed relating to the sale of property in Beltrovato (a district of Morrovalle in the Province of Macerata in the...
[Rome, 1616.]
A curiously bound public instrument notarised by the Apostolic Camera in Rome detailing the sale of property belonging to two brothers from the influential de’ Mozzi family of Macerata.
£850
-
VILLA, Antonio, and Giovanni Battista VILLA.
Dispositio systematica conchyliarum terrestrium et fluviatilium quae adservantur...
Milan, ex typis Borroni et Scotti, 1841.
First edition of this catalogue of molluscs and shellfish in the collection of Antonio and Giovanni Battista Villa.
£275
-
[POPE, Walter.]
The Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall: containing the history of his Life and Death. Whereunto are annexed his last...
London, Printed for Henry Brome … 1670.
First(?) edition of a partly fictitious and often satirical life of the highwayman Claude Duval, published shortly after his execution in 1670. This is the more substantial of two opportunistic biographies, between them the main sources of information about him, though by no means entirely trustworthy. ...
£750
-
REXROTH, Kenneth.
An Autobiographical Novel …
Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.
First edition, inscribed ‘In friendship / for Geoffrey Bridson / Kenneth Rexroth SF June 66’.
£300
-
AIKEN, Conrad.
Ushant, an Essay.
New York & Boston, Duell, Sloan and Pearce / Little, Brown and Company, [1952].
First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoffrey [Bridson] from Conrad. Ex – Xmas 1956’. Ushant, Conrad’s ‘autobiographical narrative’, is often considered his most significant work in prose.
£300
-
AIKEN, Conrad.
Thee.
New York, George Braziller, 1967.
First trade edition, inscribed ‘For Geoffrey and Joyce [Bridson] / this little hymn of love / from Conrad / 1968’.
£250
-
LINNAEUS, Carl (or von LINNÉ), and James JENKINSON (translator).
A generic and specific Description of...
Ashburner, and Lancaster, A. Ashburner, 1775.
First edition of this provincially printed partial translation of Linnaeus’s Genera plantarum. It precedes both William Withering’s The Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain (1776), the first such work to be based on Linnaean taxonomy,...
£225
-
LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Vulgar Streak.
London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1941.
First edition, first impression, a scarce work because of wartime paper shortages and, possibly, the destruction of a portion of the first impression in the Blitz; certainly Robert Hale’s offices were bombed and the records destroyed, and the work was reprinted within a month.
£750
-
HUGHES, Langston.
Shakespeare in Harlem.
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1942.
First edition of this wartime collection of poems, inscribed shortly after Hughes and Bridson met for the first time: ‘For Geoffrey Bridson, with the friendship, and regards of Langston Hughes. New York, January 28, 1944’.
£1000
-
LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Revenge for Love.
London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., [1937].
First edition, very scarce in the dust-jacket, of ‘one of Lewis’s finest novels … a brilliant novel of character’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), set in pre-Civil War Spain and centred on an incident of Communist gun-running on the border. ‘Here for once, Communism is accepted as a...
£1250