BOOKS IN FRENCH      

“Tell Us About MEXICO, WhereMAXIMILIAN Now Lives”

•  Written during the French intervention and clearly aimed at the French reading public who wanted to know more about the land that had attracted Emperor Maximilian. It is a history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times through the Mexican War, with attention paid to the Toltecs and the Aztecs and their arts, sciences, society, and religion. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

The latter part of the book offers a very brief recounting of Javier Mina, the War for Texas independence, and the U.S. intervention in the 1840s and consequent loss of California, New Mexico, etc. to the U.S.

Provenance: From the collection of Alberto Pareño, with his initials at the base of the spine.

•  Sabin 9561; Palau 37698; Bernal 4295.   20th-century red cloth, with original green printed wrappers bound in. Occasional light foxing. (21371)

Les Jardins — Illustrated & Charmingly Bound

•  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.

ABCs around the WORLD — Illustrated

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Eye pleasing and mind instructive, this volume contains24 double-spread engraved plates of alphabets for various languages. They were engraved for the article on alphabets in the Diderot Encyclopédie, a massive 20-year project aiming to encompass every branch of human knowledge that was a landmark of Enlightenment-era philosophy, attacking superstition while promoting science, rationality, and scholarship. Many of the volumes were supplemented with illustrations, such as the plates present here, designed to facilitate comparing and contrasting the alphabets and basic writing conventions of “dead and living” languages.

Languages charted in these tables include “Tartares Mouantcheoux,” Tamoul, Telongou, Persian (ancient and modern), Armenian, Russian (ancient and modern), Coptic, Hebrew, etc., with the engraving done by master artisan Robert Bénard (fl. 1750–85).

•  Half green calf with green marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; slight wear to corners and spine extremities. Lacking one plate (#25).  (24823)

The Lives of Plants

•  First edition of this translation of Sir Kenelm Digby’s Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants, originally published in 1661 and here, in its French guise, dedicated to the Dauphin. Digby’s best known work of natural history, the Discourse provides the first known documentation of the importance of “vital air” (i.e., oxygen) to plant life; the work also discusses spagyrical analysis, a procedure which the author helped to popularize and which has recently (and controversially) been put to use in examining crop circles.

Rare. Searches via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC locate only five copies worldwide: Two in the U.S. (both at same university!) and three in France.

•  Duveen D494. Recent calf with covers framed in single gilt fillets, spine with gilt-stamped title label and gilt-ruled raised bands. Leaves with some dustsoiling and dampstaining; now heavily sized, many with margins repaired and a few with stray pencil marks. Lacks final blank leaf (only). In fact, a rather nice copy of a very uncommon item.

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Early Biography of Palafox

•  First edition: Life of the celebrated yet controversial viceroy and reformer Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Abbé Dinouart consulted an unpublished biography begun by the Jesuit Pierre Champion (and halted due to Champion's “franchise,” according to Barbier) to produce this important account of Palafox's life, accomplishments, and disputes with the Jesuits. Dinouart's Vie includes the text (in French translation) of Palafox's letters to the king of Spain and to Pope Innocent X on behalf of the cruelly treated Mexican Indians, as well as the text of the petition by Charles III of Spain to the Pope, requesting that Palafox be considered for canonization. Click the images for enlargements.

The work is illustrated with a frontispiece and three copper-engraved plates done by Louis le Grand after designs by Gravelot.

•  Sabin 20201; Palau 73986; LeClerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 3180; Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, 1003–04.   Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label; corners, joints, and spine extremities rubbed, spine with two pinpoint holes and surface cracks to leather. Front free endpaper partially separated, with pencilled annotation on verso; inner margins of one plate and opposing page with small area of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item, pages otherwise clean. All edges marbled in blue. An attractive copy.  (25799)

Norman ConquestS

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  First edition: History of the Normans and their conquests in Europe, compiled by a prominent French historian and geographer. The title-page is printed in red and black, and bears an engraved printer's device. Although the preface describes a planned publication of three volumes altogether, only this first volume was ever printed; it incorporates Duchesne's editions of Orderic Vitalis's Historia ecclesiastica, William of Poitiers's Gesta Guilelmi II. ducis Normannorum, and a number of other now-scarce early texts and sources. This is in Latin, not French, but we felt it should be listed here!

•  Brunet, II, 856; Graesse 440. Period-style calf framed in blind, spine with raised bands and otherwise very plain– no label. Title-page with faint early inked inscriptions. Colophon with margins repaired, one repair at inner margin just touching a letter of text. Waterstaining to inner portions and lower outer corners of much of volume (not affecting title-page or preface, and generally faint); some pages browned. Numerous instances of early inked marginalia and underlining. (20816)

Carpet-Making — Four Plates

•  First edition of this stand-alone entry from the Description des arts et métiers, faites ou approuvées par Messieurs de l’Académie des sciences de Paris, a series of publications on French arts and trades sponsored by the Académie Royale des Sciences. Based on the papers of Jacques Noinville, former director of the famed Savonnerie carpet factory, the work describes the history and techniques of making Oriental-style rugs; the plates depict workers using looms and devices resembling spinning wheels, as well as individual pieces of equipment and a sample floral design.

•  19th-century quarter sheep over paper-covered boards, worn and abraded with small discolorations; spine leather chipped, with remnants of gilt-stamped leather title label. Edges untrimmed. Some offsetting and a very few spots to pages; small area of worm damage in upper margins.

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        FINANCE / ECONOMICS,  click here.

“La Condamnation des Templiers”

•  Third edition, following the first of 1654. As joint keepers of the king’s library, brothers Jacques and Pierre Dupuy handled numerous manuscripts and unpublished documents, which furnished Pierre Dupuy with materials for several important histories including the present account of the downfall of the Templars and of the Western Schism. Traitez concernant l’histoire de France was one of the earliest published sources for records of the Templar trial; the preface here notes that many previous historians had judged Philip IV and his attack on the Templars harshly “parce qu’ils ignoroient les fondemens de cette condamnation, qui consistoient aux preuves qui te sont ici representées” (p. [vii]).

Early editions of this work are all uncommon; only 10 U.S. holdings of this edition were found in searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956. The frontispiece portrait of “Petrvs Pvteanvs” is unsigned.

•  Brunet, II, 902. Contemporary vellum, spine with stamped, gilt-framed title; spine showing very faint traces of a now-absent label. Front pastedown with bookplate of a 19th-century collector; frontispiece shaved close (just into impression) by binder. Title-page browned; some intermittent moderate foxing. An attractive and interesting little book.

Business Correspondence inItalian & French

•  With two title-pages, an Italian title-page facing a French one as above, this work is a manual of business correspondence with examples of letters and financial instruments in both languages (the title in Italian reads Secretario di banco per tutti i negozianti, o lettere mercantili in francese ed in italiano).

Scarce: No U.S. copies traced via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, or RLIN; and only two via the Italian union catalogue (SBN), the British Library, the OPAC of the Dutch Royal Library, and the Catalogue collectif de France, both in France. First of three editions.

Provenance: On blank back of Italian title-page, “Comprato da me Filipo Ricccardini in Ancona,” dated 1801; similar note on title-page in French.

•  Goldsmith’s-Kress 9910.20 (for later ed. only). Uncut copy. Publisher’s cartonné binding, with some staining; spine perished and renewed with marbled paper not affecting inked notation in Italian on front cover. Some light browning and occasional spots of staining; actually rather clean for such a working volume. A few pages adhered together at their gutters, obscuring individual letters without loss of sense. Inked notations on endpapers; ownership inscriptions as above.

The Andes toANTARCTICA — 78 Plates / 5 Maps

•  Five uncommon works on South America, various islands of the Atlantic, and the polar regions, composing part of a lengthy series of geographical studies: Sabin identifies this as vol. XXV of L'univers. The ambitious pieces describe not only the physical geography of the territories covered, but also the religions, customs, costumes, and more of their native peoples. Chili was written by César Famin, Patagonie by Frédéric Lacroix, and Iles diverses by Lacroix and Rory de Saint-Vincent; all are indexed. Three of the oversized, folding maps are by Thomas Duvotenay, while the other two are signed by Jenotte. Two more single-leaf maps are unattributed. The impressive array of plates depicts dress, dwellings, rituals, scenic vistas, and flora and fauna (including a jaguar, cougar, coati, and tapir for Paraguay, and seaweed and jellyfish for the islands).

•  Palau 86546; Sabin 23767. Contemporary quarter sheep over marbled paper sides, modestly gilt; boards lightly worn, leather more so. Lacking five maps according to Palau, although at least one map is present for each section in this volume; Sabin cites 88 plates total without differentiating between plates and maps. One leaf removed at front and one at back. Lines of waterstaining, generally faint but present throughout; some plates with light spots of foxing, occasionally having offset onto surrounding leaves. Priced reflecting absent leaves. (1797)

For Books for the BUSTED
            BIBLIOPHILE,  click here.

Adventures of Telemachus inSix Languages

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  Uncommon first edition thus of Fénelon's classically inspired attack on the French monarchy, with a frontispiece portrait of the author signed in the plate by Geoffroy. The text is printed in three columns per page, inside decorative borders, with all six languages running parallel on double-page spreads.

•  Brunet, II, 1217; Graesse 565.   Contemporary quarter tan textured cloth with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label; rubbed with cloth chipped and pulled at spine head, label darkened, front hinge tender and front free endpaper lacking. Half-title, title-page, and first text page with private collector's decorative rubber-stamp; one leaf with short tear from upper margin, not touching text and a few corners dog-eared. Light to moderate foxing, most notably to frontispiece and title-page. An interesting production!  (24899)

Antiquity Jewish & Christian

•  Uncommon edition of a pair of treatises on Jewish and Christian customs of antiquity, originally published as two companion works in 1681 and 1682. Fleury, a lawyer turned theologian who tutored the sons of Louis XIV, is best known for his highly successful and oft-reprinted Histoire ecclésiastique; Brunet notes that the present items are “deux excellents ouvrages.”

•  Brunet, II, 1291 (for an 1810 ed. only, not citing this ed.). Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label; front joint entirely open with leather chipped along base of joint, spine leather and gilt rubbed in spots, corners bumped, small dent to outer edges. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate; front pastedown and free endpaper with institutional rubber stamp (no other markings). Pages faintly age-toned, else clean.

One of Only 20 Sets — Splendidly Bound

•  The special edition containing the plates in two states: a preliminary state ("à l'eau-forte") and another just before the lettering was added. Limited to 20 sets (this set #9). Produced for Antoine August Renouard, the great bibliographer and bibliophile of the late 18th and early 19th century, with 24 etched plates engraved by de Ghende after designs by Jean-Michel Moreau ("le jeune"). Ray notes, in his general remarks on Moreau's work of this period, that "bibliophiles of the time vied for the books which he illustrated, and . . . they went to the expense of having them bound by Simier and Thouvenin." (88).

Provenance: This set carries the bookplate of French collector Louis Mercier.

Binding:  Full crimson morocco, round spines with five raised bands (unsigned, and of a later date than the text). Spine gilt extra, two spine compartments reserved for gilt-lettered author, volume number, and contents (i.e., "Fables," "Contes"). Covers with gilt fillet borders; wide gilt inner dentelles; marbled endpapers. All edges very brightly gilt. Luscious.

•  Brunet, III, 748; Gordon N. Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700–1914. Bound as above, in excellent condition, and with wide margins. Some foxing of the kind and degree you can see in our illustrations above. A fine set of a scarce and beautiful edition.

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