Search results
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EYRE, Henry.
A brief account of the Holt waters, containing one hundred and twelve eminent cures, perform’d by the use of the...
London, printed for J. Roberts, 1731.
First edition. The waters from Bath, Bristol and Holt, in Wiltshire, were the most popular English mineral waters of the eighteenth century, in no small part due to the activity of Henry Eyre, ‘Sworn Purveyor to Her Majesty [Queen Caroline, wife of George II] for all Mineral Waters’. Eyre ran a distribution...
£450
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TASSO, Torquato; Giovanni Francesco NEGRI, translator.
[Drop-head title:] Della tradottione della Gierusalemme liberata...
[Bologna, 1628.]
Rare first edition of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata to be translated into dialect, here in facing Bolognese and Italian translation, its printing suspended midway through the thirteenth canto, likely by Cardinal Bernardino Spada, a friend of the translator and the dedicatee of the work.
£1500
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ATWOOD, Margaret.
The Handmaid’s Tale.
Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
First American edition of Atwood’s award-winning theocratic dystopia, preceded only by the Canadian edition.
£300
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[BARSANTI, Pier Vincenzo.]
Della futura rinnovazione de’ cieli e della terra e de’ suoi abitatori libri tre.
[Florence,] Stamperia Bonducciana, 1780.
First edition of this polemical utopia by the Tuscan Dominican Pier Vincenzo Barsanti, which provoked the ire of Jansenists and led to accusations of Molinism and millenarism.
£675
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ECHARD, Laurence.
A general Ecclesiastical History from the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour to the first Establishment of Christianity...
London, W. Bowyer for Jacob Tonson, 1702.
First edition of Echard’s compendious history of the early Church, dedicated to Queen Anne. The work offers a concise and authoritative account compiled from a broad selection of authors, the preface noting: ‘that my Book might want nothing that cou’d be procur’d from others … I have...
£250
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[BOUCHET, Jean.]
Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse dame, et l’art de honnestement aymer, compose par le Traverseur des...
Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent, 6 June 1539.
Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative vernacular work of moral theology in prose and verse explicitly intended for a female readership, following the personified Soul in dialogue with several virtues as she attempts to combat the forces of earthly temptation with the power of divine grace,...
£4500
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HAREL, Charles.
Ménage sociétaire ou Moyen d’augmenter son bien-être en diminuant sa dépense, avec indication de quelques...
Paris, Bureau de la Phalange, à la librairie Sociale, 1839.
First edition of this work by the entrepreneur and inventor Charles Harel (1771–1852), a friend and disciple of Charles Fourier’s, describing Harel’s project for the founding of an utopian community of two hundred people housed in a single building, bound with eight other works in a sammelband...
£975
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HESSE, Hermann.
Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung.
Berlin, S. Fischer Verlag, 1922.
First edition of Hesse’s most celebrated work, the beautiful story of a young Brahmin’s search for the meaning of life on earth at the time of the Gautama Buddha.
£1200
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‘FLORENT DE SALES’, pseud.
Vrai systême du monde physique et moral.
[Switzerland,] 1797.
Only edition, rare, of this utopia, the identity of whose author, and even of whose printer, remains unknown.
£1500
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PAPINI, Roberto.
Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.
Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.
First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, preceded by the idea of a utopian town, ‘Universa’, where the futuristic ideal for a new society can be achieved and craftsmanship...
£300
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[DANIEL, Yuli Markovich,]
pseud. ‘Nikolai ARZHAK’. Говорит Москва. Повесть [Govorit Moskva. Povest’....
Munich, I. Baschkirzew for Washington, D.C., B[oris] Filippoff, 1962.
First edition, smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published pseudonymously, of this dystopian work in which the government ‘declares a “Day of Public Murders” and permits random murder’ (Terras), one of the books which led directly to Daniel’s arrest and show trial in 1966 for ‘anti-Soviet...
£150
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[IMAGINARY VOYAGE.]
Admirable Travels of Messieurs Thomas Jenkins and David Lowellin through the unknown Tracts of Africa: with...
London, ‘for the Benefit of Robert Barker, an unfortunate blind man’, 1785.
Rare, a lively chapbook novella of adventures and tribulations in Africa, fusing elements of a Robinsonade with a brief utopia.
£1500
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HOGG, James.
The Pilgrims of the Sun; a Poem …
London, Printed for John Murray … and William Blackwood … Edinburgh, 1815.
First edition, first issue, of a long poem by the Scottish shepherd and poet James Hogg, dedicated to Byron and detailing the journey of a local young woman, Mary Lee, to a heavenly world and back to earth, escorted by the spirit Cela.
£200
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JOHNSON, Samuel.
Mr. Johnson’s Preface to his Edition of Shakespear’s Plays.
London, Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and eleven others] … 1765.
First separate edition. ‘The separate Preface seems to be scarce. It is possible that the publishers were reluctant to let people read Johnson’s preface without paying for his edition … and while unable in decency to resist the public demand – or the author’s request – protected...
£1500
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[ISELIN, Isaak].
Träume eines Menschenfreundes. Erster Theil.
Basel, Johannes Schweighauser, 1776.
Uncommon first edition, part one only (very rarely to be found complete with both parts), of the most mature expression of Iselin’s anti-Rousseau republicanism, a social ‘dream’ of great articulation and – arguably – applicability, residing confidently on the borderline between utopia and...
£150
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PIRANI, Giovanni.
Le donne belle del secolo XVIII. Inferme nello spedale della voluttà visitate dalla ragione. Opera filosofico-critico-morale...
Rimini, Paolo Albertini, 1791.
Scarce first edition of this ‘libro bizarro’ printed in Rimini, in which the personification of Reason takes the narrator on an imaginary journey to a ‘hospital’ in order to heal young women corrupted by the decadence of the eighteenth century.
£950
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HAWTREY, George Procter.
Caramella. A Story of the Lotus Eaters up to date.
Bristol, J. W. Arrowsmith; London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., [1899].
First edition of this utopian novel exploring the bliss of Caramella, inspired by the land visited by Odysseus in book nine of the Odyssey, where the crew members he sent ashore consumed the lotus fruit and became addicted, forgetting all thoughts of return.
£250
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SAY, Jean-Baptiste.
Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.
Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].
Rare first edition of Say’s utopia, our copy presented to a politician from Calvados, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Which institutions are capable of establishing morality among a people?’. Say treats...
£2500
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BALLOU, Adin.
Practical Christian Socialism: a conversational Exposition of the true System of human Society; in three Parts, viz:...
Hopedale and New York, by the author and Fowlers and Wells, 1854.
First exposition of Ballou’s most important work, an explication of the principles behind his utopian Hopedale Community, established in Milford, Massachusetts in 1841.
£450
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[ISELIN, Isaak; Peder Topp WANDALL, translator].
Philosophiske og Patriotiske Drømme af en Menneskeven. Oversatte af Peder Topp...
Frid. Stein, 1774.
Very rare first Danish edition of Iselin’s earliest work, the very successful Filosofische und patriotische Träume, translated by the librarian, writer, and dramatist Peder Topp Wandall (1737–1794).
£250