PEARSON, David.

Bookbindings: an illustrated History.

Oxford, Bodleian Library Publishing, 2026.

Richly illustrated throughout, this book provides a fascinating history of the development of bookbindings from Roman times to the present day.

£50

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

NIXON, Howard M. 

Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

£875

[ALMANACK.]

Étrennes mignones [sic], curieuses et utiles, avec plusieurs augmentations & corrections, pour l’année mil sept...

Paris, Claude-Jacques-Charles [Durand] and Pierre-François Durand, 1775.

A very rare Parisian almanack for 1775, our copy in a handsome binding embroidered in gold and silver threads and with emblematic mottoes and charming illustrations depicting putti fanning smoke from a burning candle and holding a flaming heart.

£1500

[EMBROIDERED BINDING.]

Etrennes mignonnes, pour l’an de grace de Notre Seigneur M. DCC. LIII. …

Liège, Everard Kints, [1753].

A charming almanack for 1753 printed in Liège by Everard Kints – bookseller, printer, and wine merchant – here in a delightful embroidered binding with raised work in silver thread surrounding a skilfully executed floral arrangement.

£400

[BIBLE.]

The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments … diligently compared and revised …

Oxford, T. Wright and W. Gill, 1769.

First quarto edition of the Oxford ‘standard’ Bible, as revised by Benjamin Blayney of Hertford College, Oxford (1728–1801), later Regius Professor of Hebrew. The quarto and folio editions of 1769, of which this was the first to be finished, were printed from the same setting of type differently...

£5250

CUJAS, Jacques.

Iacobi Cuiacii celeberrimi I. C. recitationes in II. et IV. libros Decretalium. Nunc primum in lucem editae.

Speyer, Bernhard Albin, 1594.

First edition of these commentaries on the Decretals of Gregory IX by the famous French jurist Jacques Cujas (1522–1590), printed in Speyer and bound in doeskin.

£750

[ALMANACK.]

Les étrennes à la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.

Paris, Janet, [1804?].

A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).

£2500

[CRIMEAN WAR.]

Les militaires chrétiens a la guerre d’orient. Récompenses annuelles.

Versailles, Beau jeune, [1856].

First and only edition, rare, of this unusual cartonnage giftbook history of the Crimean War.

£375

[ALMANACK.]

Les perfidies supposées ou les médisances pardonables. Almanach orné des jolies gravures.

Paris, Janet, ‘Successeur du S^r Jubert’, 1800.

A seemingly unrecorded almanack for 1800, issued by the prolific publisher of almanacks Pierre-Étienne Janet (1746–1830), with suggestive engravings accompanied by explanatory poems, songs, and music, our copy in a handsome binding of contemporary painted white sheep with designs of hearts, garlands,...

£1450

[PSALMS.]

Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.

Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.

New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.

£950

ZACHARIÄ, Just Friedrich Wilhelm.

Les quatre parties du jour, poëme traduit de l’allemand de M. Zacharie.

Paris, J. B. G. Musier fils, 1769.

First edition in French of this proto-Romantic poem on the times of day, splendidly bound with the arms of its dedicatee, the mentally ill Christian VII of Denmark and Norway.

£1500

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

[ALMANACK.]

London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1785.

[London,] Printed for the Company of Stationers, [1785].

A very attractive miniature London Almanack in its elaborate original binding of gilt white calf and matching étui, with an engraving of the soon-to-be-finished Somerset House.

£950

PITOU, Louis-Ange.

L’Urne des Stuarts et des Bourbons, ou le fond de ma conscience, sur les causes et les effets des vingt-un...

Paris, [Beraud for] L.A. Pitou, 31 August 1815.

First and only surviving edition of this account of executed royals from England and France by the royalist publisher and propagandist Louis-Ange Pitou (1767–1846), published on the return of Louis XVIII to Paris after the Hundred Days.

£650

SAUBERT, Johann.

Miracula Augustanae Confessionis, [engraved title: das ist] Wunderwerck der Augspurgischen Confession, oder eigentlicher...

[Nuremberg,] Wolffgang Endter, 1631.

First editions of three works of Lutheran polemic, the first two on the Augsburg Confession and written by the theologian, historian, and proto-bibliographer Johann Saubert, in a magnificent contemporary German Baroque binding apparently signed by the binder. 

£2850

HURTADO, Eugenio, scribe.

[Missal for feast days.]

Madrid, 1827.

An extraordinary and enormous liturgical manuscript with painted and stencilled decorations, in a remarkable binding on wheels for ease of movement.

£7500

LOMBARDI, Giovanni Francesco.

Oratio habita in synodo Tridentina die sancti Stephani protomartyris anno M. D. LXI.

Brescia, Lodovico Sabbio, [1561?].

First edition of this sermon delivered at the Council of Trent, in a magnificent Italian embroidered binding for a Cardinal.

£3750

LUCAN.

Pharsalia cum annotationibus in margine adiectis, quae brevis commentarii vice esse possint.

Antwerp, Michael Hillenius, 1528.

An uncommon edition of Lucan’s poem on the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey, with extensive Breton provenance and contemporary annotations, in a contemporary binding.

£2500

[OXFORD UNIVERSITY.]

Pietas Universitatis Oxoniensis in obitum serenissimi Regis Georgii II. et gratulatio in augustissimi Regis...

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1761.

First edition, one of fifty copies on large paper, an exceptional survival in the most luxurious (and fragile) of presentation bindings: full purple velvet with gold-fringed purple silk ties, typically reserved for a handful or fewer of royal copies.

£9500