Gift Ideas
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BRUNFELS, Otto.
Precationes Biblicae sanctoru[m] patrum, illustrium viroru[m] et mulierum utriusq[ue] Testamenti.
Strasbourg, Johannes Schott, 1528.
First edition, rare. The earliest Protestant prayer-books, of which this is perhaps the most notable example, often comprised prayers taken directly from (or adapted from) the Bible. Brunfels’s Precationes Biblicae appeared in the same year in German translation (Biblisch Bettbüchlein...
£3500
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ISIDORUS A CRUCE.
Devoti admodum et consolatione pleni confessionales Psalmi septem in quibus peccator divinam pro criminibus...
Dillingen, Johann Caspar Bencard, 1675.
Rare illustrated edition of this work devoted to confession and seeking forgiveness for sins by Isidorus a Cruce (d. 1681), abbot of St Charles the Great in Prague.
£450
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GREENE, Graham.
A burnt-out Case.
London, Heinemann, [1961].
Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition in English. This was evidently used as a review copy, with the upper cover annotated in pencil ‘700 words by Nov 28’. The unknown reviewer has made several notes in pencil on the half-title: ‘Criticism – c[oul]d come from the soc[ial] realist...
£275
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Limited edition, no XXVII of XXX copies not for sale, signed by Mrs Wyndham Lewis, Michael Ayrton & Walter Allen, with a signed etching by Michael Ayrton. A further 100 numbered copies were for general sale at £30 each.
£500
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WATTS, Isaac.
Psalms of David imitated in the Language of the New Testament …
Birmingham, Printed & sold by Knott and Lloyd. 1806.
Unrecorded Birmingham editions of Watts’s Hymns (first 1707) and Psalms (first 1719), both many times reprinted, especially in America. The portrait of Watts was printed especially for this edition and is dated 10 October 1806.
£300
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FROST, Robert.
A collection of five Christmas Poems 1953, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963, all in the issues printed for distribution...
1953-1963, see below.
One more Brevity. New York, Spiral Press, 1953. Pp [12]; illustrations by Philip Grushkin; small stain to one page, else very good, stapled in the original wrappers, booklabel of D. G. Bridson, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson from Robert Frost after the pleasantest sort of encounter Dec 13...
£2000
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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
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[MONROE, Marilyn.]
DIENES, André de. Marilyn.
Cologne, Taschen, 2002.
First edition of this celebratory book on Marilyn Monroe, collecting photographs by her friend (and briefly lover) André de Dienes, who met Norma-Jean in 1945 and helped launch her career.
£200
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ZUKOFSKY, Louis.
Some Time. Short Poems …
Stuttgart, Jonathan Williams, 1956.
First edition, one of 300 copies, inscribed ‘for D. G. Bridson, Sept. 21, 1957, Louis Zukofsky’.
£500
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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
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[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
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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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CURTIUS Rufus, Quintus.
De rebus Alexandri Magni, cum commentario perpetuo & indice absolutissimo Samuelis Pitisci, quibus accedunt...
Utrecht, Franciscus Halma, 1685.
First Halma edition of Curtius’s history of Alexander the Great, with a series of accomplished etched illustrations by Jan van den Aveelen.
£375
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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
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[BOLINGBROKE, Henry St John, Viscount].
Letters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: on the Idea of a Patriot King: and on the State of...
London: Printed for A. Millar … 1749.
First authorised edition. Written in 1738 for the Prince of Wales, the manuscript was then entrusted to Pope who had it printed, to Bolingbroke’s fury: he bought up the entire edition and had it burnt in October 1744 (only two imperfect copies survive, at the British Library and Princeton). He later...
£375
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WHITMAN, Walt, and Antonio FRASCONI (illustrator).
A Whitman Portrait.
[New York, Spiral Press, 1960.]
First edition, comprising extracts from Leaves of Grass, facsimile letters and a selection of woodcut ‘portraits’ by Frasconi. Numbered 149 of 525 copies signed by Frasconi, printed on Japanese Goyu paper.
£250
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KELLER, Martialis.
Neueröffnete Himmels-Schule, in welcher aus zwölf, als so vielen Theilen vorgesetzten Lehrpunkten verschiedene...
Augsburg, Matthäus Riegers, 1793.
Rare later edition of this educational and devotional work by the Bavarian Benedictine Martialis Keller, containing prayers, exercises, and points of doctrine, and illustrated with attractive engravings, this copy in a contemporary local binding.
£500
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LAING, Alexander.
The True Hero and Other Poems …
Glasgow, Morison Brothers, 1893.
First edition, scarce, a presentation copy, inscribed in a shaky hand ‘To Wm J. Robertson / with author’s regards / Alex Laing / 8-4-19’.
£375
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[THE BOOK COLLECTOR.]
A special Number to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Bernard Quaritch Ltd.
The Book Collector, 1997.
A collection of essays together recounting the history of Bernard Quaritch Ltd, published by The Book Collector to commemorate the firm’s sesquicentenary in 1997.
£25
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MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).
Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...
Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.
‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...
£35