Delille, Jacques. Les jardins, poëme...nouvelle édition, considérablement augmentée. Paris: Chez Levrault (pr. by P. Didot l’aîné), 1801. 12mo (13.5 cm, 5.25"). [6], xxxv, [1], 216 pp.; 4 plts. $250.00
Subtitled “L’art d’embellir les paysages,” this gardening-themed poem includes praise of the virtues of the relaxed, relatively “natural” jardin anglais. Les jardins, Delille’s most successful work, was originally published in 1782 with many subsequent editions appearing both in French and English; the present example is a nicely bound copy of the expanded version, illustrated with four engraved plates by Monciau after Benoît-Louis Prevost and other artists.
Binding:Contemporary treed calf. Spine with gilt-stamped red leather title label, gilt-stamped compartment lines, and floral devices within compartments.
Brunet, II, 576. Binding somewhat rubbed and starting to crack over joints, though very firm; some onetime water exposure visible on front cover (a not entirely unattractive effect). Pages with a bit of very minor spotting, and some offsetting from plates. An attractive copy of a pretty book.
A Practical Yet Picturesque View ofthe U.S. & Canada
De Roos, Frederick Fitzgerald [a.k.a. De Ros, John Frederick Fitzgerald]. Personal narrative of travels in the United States and Canada in 1826 ... with remarks on the present state of the American Navy. London: William Harrison Ainsworth, 1827. 8vo (21.8 cm, 8.55"). xii, 207, [1] pp.; 14 plts. (1 fold.). $550.00
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First edition. The author (whose name is given here as Fred. Fitzgerald De Roos, but often cited as John Frederick Fitzgerald De Ros), was at the time of this publication a lieutenant of the Royal Navy. His American journey took him from New York through New Brunswick and Trenton to Washington and Baltimore before heading back north through Philadelphia and Boston to reach Nova Scotia and Canada; in his travelogue, the author proves himself a curious yet gentlemanly observer not only of America's shipbuilding, marine affairs, and naval strength, but also of her customs, culture, women, and interactions with “the conquered Indian” (p. 165).
The volume is illustrated withan oversized, folding panoramic view of Quebec along with 13 other plates, including two maps of the Niagara Falls region; views of Bristol, DE, and Chester, MA; and a bucolic depiction of the “Water Works of Philadelphia on the Schuylkil,” all engraved after De Roos's own designs.
Binding: Contemporary hunter green diced calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets and an interior blind rule with small gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine gilt extra in five compartments. Board edges and turn-ins decorated with gilt rolls; rich blue marbled endpapers; all edges marbled.
Howes D268; Sabin 19677. Binding as above, corners/joints scuffed and back joint starting from head; spine a little sunned, evenly and attractively. Scattered light foxing, pages and plates otherwise clean. An admirable book in a nice copy. (26665)
If It Bleeds, It Leads!
Dickinson, S.N. The Boston almanac for the year 1848. Boston: B.B. Mussey & Co. and Thomas Groom, [1847]. 12mo (13.7 cm, 5.4"). 189, [3] pp.; 1 fold. map. $225.00
1848 edition of Dickinson’s almanac series. Although a few public occasions of genuine merit are noted in the calendar of “general events in 1847,” most of the listings run towards the shocking and scandalous, especially involving death by shooting or other catastrophe (“A little girl in Philadelphia died in consequence of over-exertion, by jumping a rope” for May 24); also listed for the reader’s edification are all the fires that took place in Boston in 1847.
The volume opens with an oversized, folding map of the city, with a note that the map is a specimen of a new type of plate printing. An advertisement on the back free endpaper mentions that Dickinson has “sold out his extensive Printing Office . . . [and] will now apply his whole attention to his favorite business, the manufacture of Printing Type,” providing stereotyping and music printing as well as “more than 120 different kinds of Job Type.”
Binding: Signed by Damrell & Moore of Boston, with their blind-stamp on the back cover: Brown cloth embossed with foliate designs, front cover with gilt-stamped decorative title.
Binding as above, covers with small, fairly unobtrusive spots of discoloration, cloth a bit rubbed over corners and edges and chipping over spine extremities. Map with small holes to two corners; pages clean, with memoranda leaves unused.
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Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus Siculus. [Operum lib. vi. priores, Latine Poggio interprete.] [Paris]: [pr. by Jean Marchant for] Jean Petit, [ca. 1507]. 4to. av8.4x6y4; 123, [6] ff. [bound with] Justinus, Marcus Junianus. Justini historia ex Trogo Pompeio quattor & triginta epithomatis collecta; acc. Lucius Florus et Sextus Rufus. [Paris]: De Marnef, [ca. 1507]. 4to. A8B4C6ay8.4z6&4; [18], 140 ff. $3200.00
Diodorus, according to the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, “is one of the sources of our knowledge of the legends of mythology.” His 40-book Bibliotheke Historike, with its accounts of the mythic origins of Hellenes, Greeks, and Egyptians, helps document the derivations of the Greek and Roman gods and also preserves fragments of the sources he consulted. Only 15 books of this history of the worldsurvive intact; the noted Renaissance scholar Poggio Bracciolini provided this translation of the first six from the original Greek for Nicholas V.
Diodorus's work is here accompanied by Justinus’s abridged version of Trogus Pompeius’s history. Both books feature striking capitals and title-page devices. The typography of the first book is Jean Marchant’s, done for Jean Petit whose lion-and-leopard device is prominently displayed. The second book’s device shows initials of two of the three de Marnef brothers (E and G) beneath a pelican in her piety. This second book collates exactly like the Jean Petit edition of Justinus, printed sometime after December of 1507, and appears to differ from it solely in its title-page, probably reset only for insertion of the de Marnef device.
While one copy of Diodorus bound with Petit’s Justinus was found at Harvard, no record of the apparently extremely scarce de Marnef variant could be located.
Provenance: Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 3934 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882).
Diodorus: Moreau 1508:64; not in Schweiger. Justinus: not in Moreau, not in Schweiger. On Diodorus, see: Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 146. 17th-century English calf, panelled, with gilt fleurons and elaborate front and back gilt floral center motifs, each worked with a minute WE. (You need a magnifying glass, but this is THERE.) Overall, showing wear with
some leather chipped from spine, covers abraded, and joints starting. Pages mostly clean, with slight staining to inner margins from binding supports. Gilt cover lozenges still bright and the whole safe to be worked with.
A
GORGEOUSBRIGHT RED COVER
Downey, William Scott. Proverbs...tenth edition. New York: Pub. for the author by Edward Walker, 1856. 12mo (18.8 cm, 7.4"). 128 pp. $200.00
Early edition of this popular collection of proverbs, originally printed in 1850 and here in a highly decorated binding. There are also several parables, and at the end are apocalyptic dreams. The “proverbs” are pithy preachings of the author.
Click the image to the right
for an enlargement.
Binding: Publisher’s red morocco, covers framed in gilt rolls, front cover with gilt-stamped angel vignette and title, back cover with gilt-stamped urn, spine gilt extra.
Binding as above, edges and extremities rubbed with cloth chipping over spine head, spine somewhat darkened and with gilt dimmed. Pages gently age-toned, with a few lightly foxed; first few leaves loosening.
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Creationist Guide to the Natural World — A Pretty 4-Volume Set
Duncan, Henry. Sacred philosophy of the seasons; illustrating the perfections of God in the phenomena of the year. Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon, & Webb, 1839. 12mo (18.5 cm, 7.3"). 4 vols. I: xvi, 389, [1] pp. II: 391, [1] pp. III: 401, [1] pp. IV: 416 pp. $250.00
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First U.S. edition of this widely read contemplation of of natural theology, here with “important additions and some modifications to adapt it to American readers,” done by the Rev. Frances William Pitt Greenwood. The work, which was endorsed by the Massachusetts Board of Education, was praised by Edgar Allan Poe as a “well-arranged and well-digested compendium, embracing a vast amount of information upon the various topics of physical science, and especially well adapted to those educational purposes for which the volumes are designed” (Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, March 1840). The practical sciences of agriculture, husbandry, and manufacture have their places here along with much on the physical and biological worlds as such.
Bindings: Publisher's half green morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped title and decorations; very attractive.
American Imprints 55446. Spines slightly darkened; lightly rubbed. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, no other markings. A clean, sound handsome set. (27171)
Elegant Production — GORGEOUS Copy
Ebhardt, Franz. Der gute Ton in allen Lebenslagen. Leipzig & Berlin: Julius Klinkhardt, [1889]. 8vo. viii, 774, [2 (adv.)] pp. $145.00
Bright, fresh copy of this gorgeously bound etiquette manual with each page of black-letter text framed in a teal border with floral decorations. Originally published in 1878, this guide stayed in print until 1928.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
Binding:Publisher's crimson cloth, front cover and spine gilt- and black-stamped, back cover black-stamped. All edges gilt. Actually, breathtaking.
Binding as above, clean and bright with only very faint traces of wear to corners and joints. Pages clean; some lower
outer corners slightly crumpled. It is hard to imagine a better copy. (23709)
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A Little Boy withHeaven on His Mind
The
flower gathered, or the history of Henry Packman Smith.
London: The Religious Tract Society, [1838–39?]. 32mo. 64 pp. $250.00
Edifying tale of a pious young boy who, before his death at the
age of seven, enthusiastically accepted Jesus as his Saviour. This is the uncommon
unabridged version; the story is more often seen in shortened form as part of
a later collection published by the American Tract Society. The publication
date given here was suggested by a mention of the item in the 1838 Baptist
Magazine.
Binding:
Contemporary blue calf framed in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons,
spine with gilt-stamped title and floral decorations, turn-ins with gilt dentelles,
front cover gilt-stamped “C. Anderson.” All edges gilt.
Portrait: In addition
to the personalized binding, this copy has the skillfully executed silhouette
of a boy in a cap glued to the back of its title-page, opposite the contents.Is
this Charles Anderson?
Provenance:
Charles Anderson.
NSTC 2S26587. Binding as above, corners and spine extremities
very slightly rubbed. Title-page with early inked inscription of Charles Anderson
in upper margin. A beautiful little volume. (22728)
This copy is SIGNED by President Gerald Ford. From Easton Press's “Library of the Presidents” series, this offering includes the introductory pamphlet by Henry Kissinger.
Stepping into the presidency amidst scandal, war, and a poor economy, Gerald Ford was presented with some very difficult leadership challenges. On the one hand, he was the right man at the right time: His honesty and reassurance restored the confidence in the presidency that been lost during the Watergate scandal, and his negotiation of the Helsinki Agreement contributed to the end of the Cold War. However, Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon eroded much of the trust he had built early in his term. This fateful decision, together with the fall of Saigon and his inability to “whip inflation,” were the main factors that cost him reelection. This memoir speaks to his role in navigating the challenges of his time with the same honesty and straightforwardness that characterized his tenure as president.
Full red leather, covers lavishly gilt-stamped with a pattern of elephants, spine with raised bands, gilt title, author's name, and gilt elephants within “compartments.” Endpapers bear a version of the image of the obverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. Silk ribbon placemarker. All edges gilt. Fine condition. (23605)
How
to be aGood
& Well-Liked
Little Girl
or Boy
Forrester, Francis [pseud. of Daniel Wise]. My Uncle Toby's
library. Boston: Brown & Taggard, 1862. 8 vols. (of 12). 8vo (15.5 cm, 6.2"). Each volume containing a frontispiece and either 64 or 62 pp. $900.00
A sparkling, as new set. “My Uncle Toby's Library” was the first children's series published by Wise (1813–98), an English-born Methodist Episcopal pastor, author, and editor who emigrated to New England in 1833. Originally published in 1853–54, this series comprises twelve illustrated didactic tales, eight of which are uniformly bound here as a charming and attractive set. The titles present are: Arthur Elleslie; or, the Brave Boy; Minnie Brown; or, the Gentle Girl; Ralph Rattler; or, the Mischief-Maker; Aunt Amy; or, How Minnie Brown Learned to Be a Sunbeam; Fretful Lillia; or, the Girl Who Was Compared to a Stingnettle; Minnie's Picnic; or, a Day in the Woods; Cousin Nelly; or, the Visitor; and Minnie's Playroom; or, How to Practise Calisthenics. The last-named volume involves Minnie and her friends learning various exercises (with dumbbells and other equipment) under the watchful eye of instructor Miss Pinkney, and is illustrated with woodcuts of the movements.
Sternick 496.4 (describing binding as red). Publisher's blind-stamped green textured cloth, spines gilt extra; bindings fresh and clean. Eight vols. of 12 present. Each volume with inked ownership inscription dated 1863 on front free endpaper. Pages slightly age-toned with occasional faint offsetting from illustrations, generally clean. A beautiful set, virtually as new. (24423)
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