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  1. PIGHIUS, Stephanus Vinandus. 

    Themis dea, seu de lege divina …  Mythologia … in quatuor anni partes, ab auctore recognita. 

    Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1568. 

    First and only edition, scarce, of Pighius’s two treatises on Roman archaeology, one of the founding texts of scientific research into myths. 

    £450

  2. FARINGTON, Susan Maria (illustrator). 

    The 104th Psalm.  Illustrated by Susan Maria Ffarington.  Worden. 

    London,  Vincent Brooks Day & Son, [c. 1867]. 

    The Faringtons or Ffaringtons were an ancient family of Worden Hall, Leyland, Lancashire, with a substantial family archive.  Susan Maria (1808–1894) edited The Farington Papers for the Chetham Society in 1856, and made other contributions to local history, but this unusual panorama seems to have...

    £650

  3. NICOLAI, [Christoph] Friedrich. 

    The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker.  Translated from the German … by Thomas Dutton,...

    London: Printed by C. Lowndes, and sold by H.D. Symonds, 1798. 

    First edition in English, very scarce, of Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–6), ‘probably the literary bestseller of the German Enlightenment’ (Selwyn), translated into many languages and much re-printed.  It is sometimes considered...

    £2750

  4. SCHUBERT, Franz, composer

    A fine contemporary volume of ten works containing eighteen Lieder including his most famous...

    Vienna, 1821-1833. 

    A rare collection of Schubert Lieder in a contemporary binding, apparently as retailed by the Czech music publisher Berra, including three first editions. 

    £7500

  5. GOETHE, Johan Wolfgang von; Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator

    Тайны [Tainy; ‘Die Geheimnisse’ or ‘The...

    Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Sovremennik, 1922. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of Pasternak’s early translation of Goethe’s epic fragment Die Geheimnisse (The Mysteries); with a long introductory note by Professor Grigorii Rachinskii.

    £1200

  6. ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

    Rime dell’Arnigio per la ill[ustre] signora Claudia Martinenga. 

    Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

    First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s collection of poems addressed to Claudia Martinengo, wife to Ludovico Martinengo della Pallata, an important association copy presented by the author to fellow poet Antonio Beffa Negrini. 

    £1750

  7. LOCATELLI, Lodovico. 

    Theatro d’Arcani … nel quale si tratta dell’arte chimica, et suoi arcani, con gli afforismi d’Ippocrate...

    Milan, Gio. Pietro Ramellati, 1644. 

    First edition of Locatelli’s alchemical tract, which includes the first Italian translation of Paracelsus. 

    £2500

  8. MERCURIALE, Girolamo. 

    De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...

    Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587. 

    Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton).  A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...

    £2750

  9. FLORUS, Lucius. 

    Lucii Flori rerum ab urbe condita liber primus [– quartus]. 

    [Venice, in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri, March 1521.] 

    Florus’s epitome of Roman history, extracted from the Aldine edition of March 1521 which comprised an epitome of Livy, Florus, and Niccolò Perotti’s translation of Polybius. 

    £750

  10. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  11. [TANGIER.] 

    A Description of Tangier, the Country and People adjoyning.  With an account of the person and government of Gayland,...

    London, for Samuel Speed, 1664. 

    Scarce first edition of this entertaining account of Tangier, in north-western Morocco, during the English occupation of the city, which had begun in 1661 following Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and which would come to an end in 1684. 

    £2750

  12. [HAMILTON, Alexander, James MADISON, and John JAY].

    The Federalist: A Collection of Essays written in Favor of the new Constitution,...

    New York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M’Lean … 1788.

    First edition in book form of The Federalist Papers, the single most important work of American political philosophy, a normal paper copy, very rare in the original boards, uncut and largely unopened. Volume II is in a mixed state, with the error ‘Letter LXXX’ rather than ‘LXX’...

    £220000

  13. HATHORN, James George.

    A hand-book of Darjeeling; with brief notes on the culture and manufacture of tea, and rules for the sale...

    Calcutta, R.C. Lepage & Co., 1863.

    Scarce first edition of this guide to Darjeeling by Hathorn (1826–1868), a Captain in the Bengal and then Royal Artillery.

    £2750

  14. LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth.

    Autograph letter, signed ‘Henry W. Longfellow’, to ‘Lady Emily’.

    Ouchy, 16 September 1868.

    Addressed to ‘Lady Emily’, Longfellow here expresses his regret at not being able to see her at Sécheron while he was staying at Geneva, and apologises also for not being able to return to Geneva ‘to accept your hospitable invitation. We go tomorrow to Yverdon, and thence through Neuchâtel, and...

    £450

  15. [PFORZHEIMER, Carl H.]

    The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library: English Literature, 1475–1700.

    New York, Privately Printed [at the Morrill Press], 1940.

    First edition, limited, numbered 17 of 150 copies and signed by Pforzheimer on the frontispiece portrait, from the library of the pre-eminent collector of English literature Robert S. Pirie.

    £3500

  16. POUND, Ezra.

    Quia Pauper amavi.

    London, The Egoist Ltd, [1919].

    First edition, one of 500 ordinary copies (there were also 100 signed copies on handmade paper’, inscribed ‘Bridson’s copy / 11 Ap ’59 / Ezra Pound’. This work contained the first English publication of Cantos I–III, not printed in that order.

    £1750

  17. DAVENANT, William, Sir.

    Two excellent Plays: the Wits, a Comedie: the Platonick Lovers, a Tragi-Comedie. Both presented...

    London, Printed for G. Bedel, and T. Collins … 1665

    First collected edition of two plays first published in 1636, probably published to fill the revenue gap after the temporary closure of the theatres in 1665 because of the Plague.

    £950

  18. SHEPHERD, Richard Herne.

    Forgotten Books worth remembering … No. I. Studies of Sensation and Event by Ebenezer Jones …

    London, Pickering & Co … 1878.

    An interesting collection of ‘rare tracts’, from the library of the Scottish lawyer and journalist John Skelton, who wrote for Blackwood’s under the pseudonym ‘Shirley’.

    £950

  19. CLARI, Giovanni Carlo Maria.

    Manuscript score ‘VI Duetti Madrigaleschi’.

    [Italian, late eighteenth century?]

    A collection of six madrigals for two voices, comprising ‘La Moglie gelosa’, ‘Il Pellegrino’, ‘Il Vanegio’, ‘L’ambizio indigente’, ‘Il Pazzo inamorato’, ‘Il Maestro di Cappella che compone alla Mosaica’.

    £850