This handsome and SCARCE book is famous for its woodcut illustrations: It has one quarter-page, four half-page, one three-quarter page, and eleven full-page woodcuts. These include battle scenes, the assassination, camp life, etc., all of the figures being dressed anachronistically in Renaissance garb.

The text is printed in large gothic in double-column format.

•  Index Aurel. 128.654; Schmidt, Repertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois, no. 91, p. 40–41; Schweiger, II, 51; not in Adams (who only lists much later editions in German). Recased in an 18th-century vellum-over-boards binding. Sophisticated copy in all likelihood, with several leaves apparently supplied from a different copy, those leaves being either slightly smaller than the others or more heavily sized. Occasional light waterstains in from a very few margins; two leaves with old scribbling in ink in margins; minor worming in lower margin of last six leaves. A very nice copy of a very scarce book that is clearly difficult to find complete, incomplete, or sophisticated.

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author.

•  Howgego, II, C2.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels. Five plates and one map lacking (frontispiece present); two leaves each with tear along inner margin, not touching text; foxed throughout but without embrittlement.  (24387)

Single-click the image, for an enlargement.

•  Removed from a nonce volume and now in wrappers. A very good copy.

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The engraved portrait of Queen Elizabeth was done by C. van Queboren.

•  Willems 227; Copinger 759.   Period-style calf framed and panelled in gilt fillets embellished with blind rolls and gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-decorated raised bands, and blind-tooled patterned bands in compartments; binding signed G.B. (Grace Bindings) in blind at inner area of rear cover, lower turn-in. Pages age-toned. Title-page with inked numeral in upper outer corner; pages with scattered instances of early inked underlining and bracketing. Approximately 50 leaves with light to faint waterstaining in outer portions, extending into text; one leaf with tear from upper margin, extending through first paragraph.  (18995)

•  Narratio: Adams C436; Brunet, II, 1009; VD16 C480 / VD16 C408. Libellus: Brunet, II, 1009; VD 16 C409; not in Adams. Tertius libellus: Brunet, II, 1009; VD16 C410. Binding as above, spine with later hand-inked paper label; binding much darkened and somewhat rubbed, one clasp intact and the other lacking. First title-page with ownership inscription dated 1559 inked in lower margin; Libellus alter lacking last leaf of preface (with errata on reverse) and Tertius libellus epistolar lacking title-page. Some corners dog-eared; two leaves with outer corners torn away, without loss to text. Early inked underlining and lining through of text, with a few marginalia, mostly in Narratio and occasionally in other two works. Last few leaves of final work with light waterstaining to lower outer corners.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Binding:  Contemporary dark green straight-grain morocco, spine with gilt-stamped rules, rolls, and devices. Covers framed with a delicately curly gilt-rolled border; the center panels, within, accented by gilt-stamped corner fleurons. A bit of additional filigree in blind appears both within the rules of the gilt border and within the border on each center panel, to nice subtle effect. Gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  NSTC C355.   Binding as above, leather rubbed at edges and joints, spine a bit dimmed. Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of John Allan Powell; front fly-leaf with inked inscription dated 1922. A few spots of foxing, pages otherwise clean. A pretty and very English production for this Portuguese poet.  A charming volume.  (23077)

Single-click image at left
for an enlargement.

Rare: Only one copy of this edition traced via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, and RLIN (at the Bancroft Library).

•  Quarter vellum with vellum turn-ins. Covers originally covered with gilt or marbled paper, now lost, exposing underlying paste boards—a rather interesting effect. Spine divided into compartments by gilt rolls; a tan leather label, gilt-lettered. Somewhat cockled. Pages untrimmed. Upper outer corner of title-leaf repaired with paper. Two wormholes through frontispiece, plate, and first three printed leaves, with a little loss to illustrations (which yet remain effective) and to parts of individual letters; some additional worming in the margins, not affecting text.

•  Norona & Shetler, West Virginia, 236. Not in Sabin.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Title-page institutionally rubber- and pressure-stamped, dedication with inked annotations along inner and lower margins, one (blank) page rubber-stamped, last index page pressure-stamped. Light staining to margins of first and last few pages (from a previous binding), otherwise clean.  (25839)

Offered here is an early printing of the version for the youngest students. The title-page and calendar are printed in red and black, and a few headlines in the early section are also in red.

Uncommon.  OCLC locates only this now deaccessioned copy in the U.S., and one copy in Europe. Index Aureliensis fails to list this edition at all.

•  Not in Index Aurel.; not in Adams.   Recent ebony-brown calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt and with blind-tooled devices in compartments; single blind rules extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils, and covers framed in blind double fillets. Author's name and date of printing in gilt on spine. Early underscoring and some minimal marginalia in red ink in a 16th-century hand; ownership note of same era on title-page. Some age-spotting and other light discoloration, not serious. For an early children's book, a very, very nice copy.  (24855)

In his capacity as a leader of the early Reformation he was present at several important “conferences” (the second Zürich and that at Marburg). He coauthored, with Martin Bucer, the Confessio Tetrapolitana.

Capito's archenemy was a Dominican named Hans Faber (a.k.a. Johannes Faber), the vicar general of the bishop of Constance, who at every turn sought to undermine Capito and his relations with authorities and other Reformers, Zwingli in particular. Der nüwen zeytu[n]g is Capito's rebuttal of Faber's Newe Zeittung vnd heimliche wunderbarliche Offenbarung etlicher sache[n] vnd handlungen so sich vff dem tag der zw Baden, in which Faber published distorted versions of letters his agents had stolen that were addressed to Zwingli by Capito and relate to the disputation at Baden in 1526, which Zwingli had decided not to attend.

Schrodt and Vogelstein summarize: “Capito's defense in this tract suggests that he was not altogether comfortable with the language he had used, intended as it was for the eyes of a friend and spiritual comrade in arms. By presenting his original text passage by passage together with Faber's published German version of the same, Capito shows that it given the most offensive turn through the opponent's manner of translation.”

This proffers a large, interesting woodcut device on the verso of its last leaf and two small but nice woodcut initials in text.

Provenance: Ownership signature on title-page of Howard Osgood, noted late 19th- and early 20th-century collector and scholar; old circular pressure-stamp on same page of a seminary (properly released).

WorldCat finds no copies in North America and COPAC finds none in Great Britain.

•  Panzer, II, 3051; Kuczynski 381; Index Aurel.; 131.648; VD16 C828; Schrodt & Vogelstein 28–29.   In later plain wrappers; title-page torn with small loss of blank foremargin, repaired. Two different sequences of manuscript pagination, one in red, indicating the opusculum was bound at least twice in different sammelbands. Provenance indications as above, and a five-digit number in ink in the inner corner of the title-page; dust-soiling and old staining.  (25953)

Provenance:  On front free endpaper in 18th-century hands: “del uso de Sor Maria Coleta,” lined through; below which, “del uso de Sor M[ari]a Juan Nep[umacen]a.

The printer has supplied two charming initials, an “I” and a “C.”

•  Medina, Mexico, 9208.   Publisher's limp vellum with remnants of ties. Occasional light foxing. Ownership signatures as noted.  (23966)

Click the image for an enlargement.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements in the Commonwealth was established in Philadelphia, in December 1824, to disseminate information on the latest improvements in the development of transportation systems including roads, railways, canals, bridges, etc.; William Strickland, Mathew Carey, Richard Peters, Jr., Joseph Hemphill, Stephen Duncan, and Gerard Ralston were among its members.

•  Shoemaker 15654, 21855, 19953, 19955, & 19949. Light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper title-label. Light age-toning and spotting, more pronounced in last few leaves. Final (blank) leaf with early inked ownership signature; child’s pencilled drawings on one blank page.

An Englishman through and through, Carr seems sincerely to have liked Ireland and the Irish he met. His book is full of extended and very readable detail — some original, much quoted — on (e.g.) language matters and Irish poetry, Irish agriculture and industry, Irish management of charities, Irish “sights” and ruins, Irish marriage cust marriage customs — and the implications of a potato-based diet.

Provenance: Contemporary inked inscription reading “Tho.s Wynne.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 10096. On Carr, see: The Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped title-label; leather moderately rubbed, joints cracking and spine label dimmed. Title-page with owner's name as described above; title-page and one other stamped. Pages, except for central leaves, with waterstaining in lower margins; two pages with smeared spots of ink. (11960)

Writer Carrera:  From one of the leading families of Chile, José Miguel Carrera led the successful coup de etat of 15 November 1811 that overthrew the Junta de Gobierno that was established in the political void after the capture of the king of Spain. As sole leader of the nation he created the first Chilean constitution, designed the first Chilean flag and coat of arms, and was responsible for bringing the first printing press to Chile. Disagreement with the Lautaro Lodge of the Masons led to his overthrow by Bernardo O’Higgins and the rift never healed, eventually leading to Carrera’s exile in Argentina, the U.S., and later Uruguay. His brothers fell into the hands of O’Higgins who had them executed.

Recipient Didier:  Henry Didier was the godfather of Edgar Allan Poe’s older brother, William Henry; he was to take the boy into his home for some years, though accounts differ as to whether this happened immediately after the death of the Poe children's parents (1811) or after the death of their guardian grandfather (1816). He ran a counting house in Baltimore and William Henry worked there as a young man. Though the Poe brothers' intimacy varied due to circumstances over the years, clearly Edgar knew Didier; he would surely have visited his brother at the Didier house.

On Uruguay:  “Las cosas continuan en el mismo estado. Los Portugueses no han recivido refuerzo despues de los 500 Pernambucanos. Artigas se mantiene firme, esta guarnicion no se mueve. El Rey ha escrito para que el Gobierno de Buenos Ayres se desida.”

On Argentina: “Buenos Ayres continua tranquilo, está entretenido en la eleccion del nuevo cavildo que se verificará a fines del presente.”

On Peru:  “En el Perú no hay novedad considerable. [L]os españoles tienenel aquella costa 11 buques de guerra, inclusas dos de 44, pero esto no estorbó al Berg.n chileno el Aguila. . . . No pasa de 9000 veteranos el Ex[erci]to en aquel pais, aseguran que llegando los buques de guerra de Estados Unidos piensan atacar a Arequipa y seguir a Lima; no lo creo por ahora.”

On O’Higgins: “O’Higgins sigue mandando el Ex[erci]to y Brayer es sus m[ay]or gene]ral. — Pueyrredon ha mandado a esta un comisionado para que alcance de Leon que se me eche de aqui; Leon constante en su amistad y systema se negó despresiando al comisionado.”

On Prisoners: “Mi viejo Padre, 85 años de edad, ha estado incomunicado 17 dias, y ultimamente sigue su arresto en casa. . . . Mis hermanos presos aun, y lo mismo muchos de nuestros compatriotas. . . . Mr. Handle continua en su prision con todos sus oficiales y tripulacion.”

•  Very good condition. Written in a very clear hand.  (24646)

Provenance:  Flourishing old signatures of “J. Lowry” to pastedown and title-page.

The title-page appears within a very fine copper-engraved architectural and allegorical frame. This copy bearsinteresting evidence of early readership, with inked marginalia in a very neat hand and underlining in both black and red.

Binding:  Contemporary alum-tawed pigskin, covers elaborately tooled and embossed in blind with resulting concentric compartments (one roll being pictorial representations of the virtues).

•  Brunet 21364; VD17 12:116615R.   Binding with some portions darkenedor rubbed, spine leather with numerous small cracks, clasps now absent; front hinge (inside) repaired, and binding strong. Title-page and first dedication page each with reasonably unobtrusive institutional pressure-stamp. Pages age-toned, with annotations as above. A solid, engaging copy.  (26927)

•  ESTC R16460; Wing (rev. ed.) C1225; Vancil 46; Lowndes 386; Dibdin, I, 31–35. On Castell, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   18th-century speckled calf, covers bordered with a darker calf band blind-rolled and then framed with single gilt fillet; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, darker-leather raised bands gilt-stamped/blind-tooled, and compartments gilt- and blind-tooled enclosing gilt-stamped floral decorations. Binding rubbed, with leather significantly lost in top compartment and and lost also at foot. All edges marbled. Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription as above dated 1837; title-page with old institutional pressure-stamp. Frontispiece with outer margin reinforced some time ago. One leaf slightly oversized and creased, intermittent soiling in many upper margins, one leaf with text affected but not obscured, small sections with light waterstaining to outer or upper margins; over all, a book both impressive and pleasant. Columns erratically numbered, text complete.  (25792)

The first edition appeared in Seville in 1491. In the 1555 Gregorio López issued his influential edition with commentary, which became the standard edition, reprinted several times in subsequent centuries. According to Palau, López "revisó y corregió escrupulosamente los manuscritos y textos anteriores, en los que el descuido de copistas e impresores había llegado a introducir variantes de importancia y a falsear el espiritú del legislador. De modo que esta edición [i.e., la primera] fue declarada como texto único auténtico y legal en la práctica del foro."

In the years following issuance of the 1555 edition, corruptions began to enter the text yet again, and in 1759 a further revision was ordered to bring the text back to its original wording and sense. This is only the second edition of that revision. Its printer was Monfort, one of Spain's best 18th-century practioners of the black art. The main title-page is printed in black and red, the text in clear and precise roman with some italic in double-column format; López's notes are laid in below the text. A fine engraved headpiece adorns the "Prólogo" in vol. I and a handsome woodcut headpiece of a ship under full sail on the open sea introduces each partida. Additionally there is a modest use of historiated initials.

•  Palau 7007 (Siete partidas) & 7008 (index). Contemporary mottled calf, round spines, raised bands, gilt spines extra. Minor abrasions on some covers. All edges carmine. Silk place markers. A very few instances of worming, holes filled by means of the 18th-century version of leafcasting (i.e., a paper slurry "painted" onto the paper to fill the opening): a few letters lost in some words, but sense not obscured. A very handsome set of a very important book.

•  Not in Weale & Bohatta.   Bindings as above, edges and extremities rubbed, spine leather with tiny cracks, one spine head chipped, one joint starting. Ex-library with bookplates, rubber-stamp on lower edges of pages of the closed volumes. One volume with text block separating from spine and sewing loosening; this with the most leather rubbed away and the darkest instances of the usually-light waterstaining and spots of foxing seen occasionally throughout. Endpapers bear early inked ownership inscriptions and annotations. An elegant quartet.  (12406)

•  Publisher’s printed paper wrappers, detached and darkened, front wrapper with tear from inner margin, paper split and chipped along spine, front wrapper with paper shelving label. Title-page with institutional stamp (no other markings). A few plates with very light spots of foxing. Very interesting!

•  Very good condtion, in a single-ply mat.  (24660)

•  Sabin 80996; Pilling, Algonquian, 462; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3601a. Not in Banks; not in Evans. Original buckram, showing minor water damage; upper page margins waterstained, obviously to very lightly. Title-page with library stamps and some rough old pen-markings; first two leaves a bit torn at binding.

Click the image for an enlargement.

This little pamphlet appears to be a scarce variant; OCLC finds no holdings, and the title is not listed by Lindsay & Neu.

•  Not in Lindsay & Neu, French Political Pamphlets 1547–1648.   Disbound. Title-page with paper shelving label, institutional pressure-stamp, and residue from previous nonce binding along inner margin; four other pages also pressure-stamped. Additional inked pagination in upper outer corners, in an early hand.  (24463)

This is printed in Latin with a Spanish translation in the facing column, sidenotes, and a woodcut initial. A search of NUC Pre-1956, RLIN, and OCLC revealed only two copies of the constitution in addition to the one given in Palau.

•  Palau 27260. On Benedict XIV, see New Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 278. Removed from a nonce volume. Paper generally clean and crisp with a few small spots of foxing and waterstaining. Paper closely trimmed by binder, shaving some sidenotes.

Burghers (1653–1727) was born in Amsterdam, worked initially at Utrecht, and fled to England after the capture of Utrecht by the French in 1672; he settled in Oxford in 1673. There he worked under David Loggan and succeeded him as engraver to the University.

The volume closes with “A Chronological Table of the Three First Ages of the Christian Church,” which has a separate title-page dated 1686, but is paginated continuously with the preceding work.

Cave, a Church of England clergyman whose scholarly interests were primarily patristic, also wrote Primitive Christianity, or, The Religion of the Ancient Christians in the First Ages of the Gospel as well as Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria; the DNB notes that his works “follow the tradition of Christian bio-bibliography that in late antiquity and into the medieval period had such a long and rich history.”

•  ESTC R26585; Wing (rev.) C1592; Lowndes 395; Allibone 356–57. On Cave, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter calf with marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges tooled in blind, spine with gilt-stamped author and title labels and gilt-stamped decorations between raised bands. Half-title with inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner.  (24886)

•  Publisher's cloth, covers framed in blind, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities lightly rubbed, spine darkened with gilt dimmed. Front fly-leaf with inked gift inscription dated [18]96. Pages clean, two with lower corners dog-eared. All edges gilt. (13988)

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