Gift Ideas
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TRAVERS, John.
A Letter to the Editor of the Courier Newspaper, in Reply to an Article inserted in that Journal of the 22d August,...
London, Effingham Wilson, 1834.
Second, expanded edition of this tract on reforming the duties on tea imported from China to Britain, this copy presented to the Sinologist Sir George T. Staunton, member of the Select Committee on Tea Duties and author of the letter appended here, likely with his annotations and corrections; bound...
£850
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KEATS, John.
Endymion. A poetic romance … with engravings by John Buckland-Wright.
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, [1947].
No. 200 of 500 copies of the Golden Cockerel Endymion (the first 100 specially bound in full vellum), also found in brown buckram rather than red as here; Buckland-Wright’s greatest work and one of the most important Golden Cockerel publications, begun in 1943 but not completed until...
£1750
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FLOWER, Stanley Smyth.
Album of 14 watercolours of India and Malaya.
India and Malaya, October 1894 to August 1895.
A charming album of vivid watercolour views of India and Malaysia, painted by a British zoologist and army officer during his time serving in India and the Straits Settlement.
£750
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HUGO, Victor.
Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].
Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.
First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.
£7500
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COLONNA, Fabio.
Φυτοβασανος, sive Plantarum aliquot historia …
Naples, Orazio Salviani, 1592.
First edition, a landmark in botanical illustration, ‘the first strictly botanical book with intaglio prints’ (Blunt).
£4000
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[BIBLE.]
Erläuterte Bibel mit Fragen, das ist, die ganze Heilige Schrift, Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der teutschen Ubersetzung...
Altdorf, Joh. Adam Hessel for Ernst Friderich Zobel, 1751.
A German Bible with extensive apparatus, divided into five volumes and strikingly bound in a book-shaped pull-off case.
£2750
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[DENS, Pierre, editor.]
Tractatus selecti de sponsalibus et matrimonio. Duae partes.
Louvain, Louis Joseph Urban, 1775.
Uncommon first edition of this interesting work on the legal aspects of betrothal and marriage, in a handsome contemporary binding.
£800
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NERVAL, Gérard de.
Lorely, souvenirs d’Allemagne. Paris, [Gustave Gratiot for] D.
Giraud et J. Dagneau, 1852.
First edition, second issue, of a collection of Nerval’s writings on Germany.
£800
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ANACREON.
Ανακρεοντος τηιου μελη praefixo commentario quo poëtae genus traditur et bibliotheca Anacreonteia...
Parma, [Bodoni] ‘in aedibus Palatinis’, 1791.
Thick paper copy, apparently one of 12 copies from an edition of 212. This attractive edition of Anacreon’s Odaria was edited by G.C. Amaduzzi and printed by Bodoni. ‘The editions of 1785 and 1791 are printed in capital letters, and more elegant and exquisitely finished productions...
£650
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington…
London: Edward Moxon … 1852.
First edition of Tennyson’s ode to the Duke of Wellington; one of his earliest Laureate poems, it was, of course, a patriotic piece, but also, as a Horatian ode in English, a notable technical achievement.
£100
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CHALKHILL, John.
Thealma and Clearchus. A pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq;...
London, Printed for Benj. Tooke … 1683.
First edition of Chalkhill’s unfinished pastoral poem, with the corrected state of the title, designating the author as ‘an acquaintant and friend of Edmund [originally ‘Edward’] Spencer’.
£1850
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ROTH, Henry.
Call it Sleep.
London, Michael Joseph, 1963.
First UK edition of Roth’s precocious masterpiece, generally regarded as the finest novel of Jewish immigration to America before and after the turn of the century.
£250
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[BECKFORD, William.]
Vathek, conte arabe.
Paris, Poinçot; Chatellerault, P. J. B Guimbert, 1787.
Extremely rare, the only traced copy, of a reissue of the sheets of the first Paris edition with a provincially-printed cancel title adding to the imprint the imprimeur-libraire Pierre Jean Baptiste Guimbert, of Châtellerault. This is the rarest piece of Beckfordiana we have ever encountered,...
£3750
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VARILLAS, [Antoine].
La pratique de l’education des princes, contenant l’histoire de Guillaume de Croy, surnommé Le Sage,...
Amsterdam, H. Wetstein & H. Desbordes, 1686.
A highly unusual pyrographic binding, likely an amateur imitation of then-fashionable tooling.
£750
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[DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]
‘Atlas’.
Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].
An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.
£875
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MATURIN, Charles.
Melmoth the Wanderer: a Tale … Edinburgh, Archibald Constable and Company
London, Hurst, Robinson, and Co., 1820.
First edition, with excellent provenance, of what is often considered alongside Frankenstein as the supreme masterpiece of the Gothic genre.
£7500
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[WYNNE, John Huddlestone.]
The Child of Chance; or, the Adventures of Harry Hazard.
London, T. Hookham, ‘1796’ [recte 1786].
First edition of a very rare picaresque novel in the manner of Tom Jones. Though largely London-based, there are interludes in India (where Wynne had served two years) and the West Indies. Many of the tropes of Wynne’s earlier novel The Man of Honour are present – orphans, female duplicity,...
£3500
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[TOMKIS, Thomas.]
Lingua: or, the Combat of the Tongue, and the five Senses for Superiority. A pleasant Comoedie.
London, Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson, 1617.
Third edition, rare, of this allegorical Cambridge play, perhaps the earliest academic drama to achieve popular success.
£3000
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ROHAN, Henri, Duke of; [Henry HUNT, translator].
A Treatise of the Interest of the Princes and States of Christendome....
London, Richard Hodgkinson, 1641.
First edition in England (and second in English) of this groundbreaking work on political interest and the balance of power by the leader of the Huguenots, this copy with hitherto unnoticed printing variants.
£1800
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[CHARLES II.]
RIVET, Jean. ‘Le favory du Ciel ou Meditation sur le pseaume cent un par Jean Rivet laisné Sainctongeois’.
[Caussade en Quercy, 1664.]
A fascinating manuscript meditation on Psalm 101, a text traditionally used as an exposition on princely authority in Protestant theology, with a long dedication ‘A Tres Puissant et Serenissime Roy Charle deuxiesme Roy de la grande Bretagne’.
£1850