Search results

  1. DUFTON, Henry.

    Narrative of a journey through Abyssinia in 1862-3. With an appendix on “The Abyssinian captives question” …

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1867.

    First edition recounting the author’s expedition through Abyssinia, along with three essays on the Abyssinian prisoner crisis following a diplomatic dispute between the Emperor Tewodros II and the British colonial government.

    £850

  2. 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

  3. BUSTEED, Henry Elmsley. 

    The Serampore Portrait.  Is it Madam Grand? 

    Calcutta, Thacker, Spink, & co., 1903. 

    First edition of a study probing the identity of a portrait then displayed at the Library of the Baptist Mission College at Serampore, India.  The portrait in question, attributed to the German neo-classical painter Johann Zoffany who was frequently patronised by British royalty and who had a...

    £125

  4. DURHAM, Arthur E. 

    Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia). 

    Circa 1870s. 

    A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy. 

    £1100

  5. GARDINER, John Smallman. 

    The Art and the Pleasures of Hare-Hunting.  In six Letters to a Person of Quality … 

    London: Printed by R. Griffith … 1750. 

    First edition, scarce, of this eloquent and amusing account of hare-hunting, the first monograph on the subject in English, comprising letters on the superiority of hare-hunting to fox-hunting (less dangerous, less laborious), on the best types of dogs, of trailing and starting hares, &c.  Gardiner’s...

    £1250

  6. [MARABOTTA, Cattaneo.] 

    Vita della serafica S. Caterina da Genova. 

    Genoa, Tipografia Frugoni, 1832. 

    Rare first edition thus, an attractive nineteenth-century reprint of Marabotta’s biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), first published in 1737, the date of her canonisation.  Catherine was known for her writings on mysticism and for her work with the poor and sick, notably during...

    £185

  7. 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

  8. [ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

    Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

    Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

    First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

    £575

  9. SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator). 

    Persianischer Rosenthal.  In welchen viel lustige...

    Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman in Hamburg, 1654. 

    Rare first illustrated edition, and the first edition translated by Olearius, of Sa‘di’s Gulistān or ‘Rose-garden’, with splendid engravings. 

    £6500

  10. 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

  11. DICKENS, Charles. 

    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club … with forty-three illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz. 

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1837. 

    First edition, first issue.  The Pickwick Papers was serialised in twenty parts from April 1836, the novel reaching its conclusion in November 1837, when it was also released as a three-decker.  It was both Dickens’s most popular work and the launch of his relationship with Hablot K. Browne...

    £2000

  12. SBRUGLIO, Riccardo. 

    Richardi Sbrulii equitis Foroiuliani Cesareiq[ue] poete ad magnificu[m] atq[ue] illustrem Maximilianu[m]...

    [Colophon:] Augsburg, Hans von Erfurt, 1519.

    First, very rare, edition, of Sbruglio’s Latin poems addressed to Maximilianus Transylvanus, published in the year that Charles V became Holy Roman Emperor.  A native of Cividale in northern Italy, Sbruglio (c. 1480 – after 1525) studied and taught at Wittenberg (where the rector compared...

    £1800

  13. JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianius, and Lucius FLORUS. 

    [Epitome historiarum:] Justini historici clarissimi in Trogi Pompei historias...

    [Venice, Bartolomeo Zani, 3 February 1503]. 

    A thoroughly annotated copy of a greatly influential compendium of Trogus’s monumental forty-four-book Historia of the world from Babylon to the Augustan era. 

    £3800

  14. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert].  BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque...

    Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.  This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. 

    £500

  15. NICOLAUS of Damascus, and Niels KRAG (editor). 

    Ex Nicolai Damasceni universali historia seu de moribus gentium...

    [Geneva or Heidelberg,] Pierre de Saint-André, 1593. 

    First edition of Krag’s translation of Nicolaus of Damascus’s observations on the customs of the peoples of the ancient world.  The observations on forty ancient peoples (among them the Iberians, Celts, Phrygians, Assyrians, and Ethiopians) are extracted from the Universal History...

    £300

  16. 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

  17. [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

  18. [TURKS.]

    Ein Gebet wider die vorstehende Noth und Gefahr der Christenheit, wegen deß Türcken. 

    [Wittenberg?], Im Jahr 1593. 

    A 1593 pamphlet containing a German prayer against the Turks.  Throughout the sixteenth century the Ottoman empire remained a powerful existential threat to western European Christendom.  Following a comparatively lengthy period of peace, renewed skirmishes and border conflicts resurfaced in...

    £875

  19. 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

  20. 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