Sole edition.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14179 & 12469. Recent gray-green paper over light boards; front cover with paper label, lettered in black. Uncut copy. Paper lightly age-toned and deckle edges with some light browning, waterstaining, and traces of soiling.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with illustrated paper sides. Inside front hinge weak and paper split due to nature of binding. Else, sound. (3595)

•  Publisher's brown cloth, covers blind-embossed, and spine with gilt decoration, lettering, and cameo portrait; portions of binding discolored, gilt-lettered author's name on spine rubbed, spine slightly cocked, corners bumped. Pages with light age-toning and offsetting; intermittent staining/spotting, and a few old ink stains. Small chip at bottom margin of pp. 155/156. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, pressure-stamp on title-page, ink numeral in lower margin of p. [5], charge pocket on rear free endpaper, no other markings. Small booksellers' label of “Leary & Getz” inside front cover.  (26332)

Binding: Publisher's red cloth, front cover handsomely stamped in black and gilt.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription of Thomas D. Embree (later a prominent Democrat in Bates County, MO) dated 1891, back fly-leaf with inscription in the same hand reading “Bates Co. Teachers' Institute, Butler Mo.”

•  Marple, Iowa Authors & Their Works, 312.   Spine very slightly sunned, sides with a few small, unobtrusive spots of discoloration — overall a bright copy showing virtually no shelf wear. Front and back fly-leaves with inscriptions as above. A few scattered spots of light foxing, pages otherwise clean.  (26761)

•  Recent paper wrappers. Reverse of the title-page and one other page with institutional stamps; a few pages with pencilled marginalia, otherwise clean.

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Illustrated with four color plates done by Max and Louis N. Rosenthal of the famed Philadelphia firm Rosenthal's

•  Allibone 2641. Not in Reese, Stamped with a National Character.   Publisher's blind-stamped green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine sunned, chipped at head, and with small darkened area. Ex–social club library: Call number on front pastedown, front free endpaper lacking, title-page and several others (not plates) with old, round, light rubber-stamp. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean.  (26420)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 30511; Richmond 1416.   Full original calf, plain style, rubbed overall with small chips on front cover; chip at head of spine, front joint starting. Paper browned, and some stains; a bit of blue crayon doodling in blank area of top left corner of p. 50. Early leaves with stitch holes in inner margin, not touching text; three leaves with tears, not affecting text. Ex–theological library with area of spine blacked out where call number once was; library name and five-digit number rubber-stamped on front pastedown, accession number inked and rubber-stamped at base of p. [iii]. (21139)

As an historical record, this is probably the best contemporary account of Walker and the expedition. It details events up through Walker's “election” as president of Nicaragua and the subsequent U.S. recognition of his government in June 1856. Walker was forced out ten months later.

The large map of Central America opposite the title-page bears the imprint of J.H. Colton, New York, 1856, and includes insets of the Isthmus of Panama and “The Nicaragua Route” for getting from the U.S. eastern seaboard to California.

•  Howes W256; Nicaraguan National Bibliography 20727 (not calling for the map). Not in Sabin. On Wells, see DAB, X, 646.   Publisher's charcoal-colored cloth, stamped in blind on covers; spine with author's name, title, and Walker's logo of “Estado Soberano de Nicaragua” in gilt. Lacks the wood-engraved portrait of Walker.  (24825)

The advertisement leaves are devoted specifically to books of phallic subject matter.

•  NSTC 0803266; Allibone, Critical Dictionary, 1505. Publisher’s green cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped medallion, spine with gilt-stamped title; cloth rubbed at corners and pulled at spine extremities, board edges lightly discolored. Pencilled owner’s name in upper margin of title-page. Title-page and two others pressure-stamped; preface with inked annotation and stamped numeral. Pages slightly age-toned, else clean.

NUC Pre-1956 locates only one copy; RLIN adds no others.

•  Quarter recent leather over marbled boards; spine with gilt-stamped title label and five raised bands, two inscribed lines above and below each gilt band. Edges stained green. A handsome copy. (24884)

•  Garrison A.19.1.f. Publisher’s cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gold; lacking the very scarce dustjacket, with spine sunned, and cloth wrinkled over lower portion of back cover. Pages clean.

•  Garrison A28.I.a. Publisher’s green cloth, front cover stamped with a French country scene in white, red, and gold, spine with gilt-stamped title; original box lacking, cloth a bit rubbed over corners and spine extremities, with spine title dimmed. Front free endpaper with inked owner’s inscription dated 1919. Faint waterstaining to outer margins of pp. 21–35.

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The title-page proclaims “This book is not to be sold, but given away.”

•  ESTC N9602. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Title-page with repairs to margins and one page crease; title-page verso rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. First few leaves with inner margins repaired. Pages untrimmed, and gently age-toned.

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In the document at hand, Whitcomb in his capacity of justice of the peace attests on the verso of the leaf to the authenticity of the document on the recto. His attestation is approximately 1.5" high by 8" wide, with a clear signature.

The document on the recto is a printed legal form by which Artemus How of Boton, Worcester County, Massachusetts Bay Province, sells 50 acres of land to Bezeleel Hale. Interestingly, both Artemus and his wife Abigail signed the instrument of sale.

•  On Whitcomb, see: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia. Good/Good+ condition: short fold tears. Three small areas of discoloration from old tape used to tip item into an album. With old pencilled dealer’s code (Sessler’s).

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 39807; Smith, Americans Abroad, W66. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spines with printed paper labels; darkened and worn, vol. I with covers detached and paper cracked over spine, vol. II with front joint open though presently holding Front pastedowns with bookplates of the Salem Library Company; vol. I with early inked inscriptions to endpapers and half-title. Light to moderate foxing, no other stains.

Fifth edition of the Voyage from London and second edition of the Continuation.

•  Voyage from London: Sabin 103534; Alden & Landis 739/343; ESTC T29204. Continuation: Sabin 103535 & 103538; Alden & Landis 739/340; ESTC T34033 & T34025.   Recent full calf antique-style with gilt concentric panels on covers and gilt corner-devices on same; round spine with raised bands, each accented by gilt rules. 19th-century wood-engraved portrait of Whitefield added as a frontispiece. A very pleasing volume.  (21775)

Here he not only rebuts Gibson's charges, but also accuses the Church of England of preaching false doctrine.

•  ESTC T44854; Sabin 103577.   Recent quarter calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands. Lacking half-title and final advertisement leaf; p. 3 incorrectly numbered 1, matching ESTC's description. Pages lightly age-toned, a few with small areas of staining in outer margins.  (25955)

•  NSTC 2W17788.   Original wrappers, front wrapper chipped at edges, back wrapper chipped at inner edge and with paper remnants affixed at top. Leaves loose (wrappers included). Long tear in fore-margin of title-leaf and small chips in inner margins of title- and final leaves. Some short marginal tears. Small chips to lower outer margins. Lengthwise fold mark. (8931)

•  BAL, VII, p. 146.   Publisher's terra-cotta ribbed cloth, covers framed and modestly decorated in blind, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; binding cocked, a little rubbed, and spine gilt slightly darkened. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number on endpapers, title-page and two others rubber-stamped, back endpaper with pocket. No other markings. Pages age-toned and slightly embrittled. A good copy, with list of Rudd & Carleton's “NEW BOOKS” at the end.  (26513)

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Whitworth was perhaps the most effective English ambassador to Russia in the first half of the 18th century. His Account was originally written for the foreign office and remained in manuscript till Walpole printed it. The DNB (on-line) writes of it, “Succinct and perceptive, it was a survey of Petrine Russia which held its readership through to the century's end and beyond.”

Horace Walpole (1717–97), the 4th earl of Orford, is best remembered as the author of the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. Among bibliophiles he is also remembered for his private press, variously known as the Officina Arbutana or the Strawberry Hill Press. Walpole's almost fantastic wealth allowed him the connoisseur's luxury of maintaining this noble enterprise, which he operated in the arena of the rebirth of fine printing in Great Britain that was being carried on by the Foulis brothers, Baskerville, and others.

Provenance:  20th-century bookplate of William & Helena Hand.

•  Hazen (1973 ed.), Bibliography of the Strawberry Hill Press, 5; ESTC T138827; Rothschild 2560; Cox, I, 195.   Contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt spine extra, gilt dull; joints and hinges with good repairs. Two old booksellers' descriptions taped to front pastedown. Off-setting from the turn-ins on the front and rear free endpapers and fly-leaves, title-page, and errata leaf; else, quite clean. A handsome book.  (26862)

The second work here is a solid work of Lutheran doctrine on the omnipresence of God and His presence in the Eucharist.

Provenance: 17th-century signature on title-page of Caspar Lutz; late-19th-century signature of Howard Osgood on same (and his bookplate on the front pastedown). Pressure-stamp of a theological library on title-page (properly deaccessioned).

Evidence of readership: Scattered underlining in both works and a few instances of marginalia of a few words. Marginalia of second work in a different hand and sometimes cropped by binder.

•  I: VD16 W2708; Hillerbrand, Anabaptism; 2426. II: VD16 W883; Kuczynski, Thesaurus, 3664.   Full dark walnut modern calf old style: Spine with raised bands accented with gilt beading on ech band and blind rules above and below each band, the latter extending onto covers to terminate in trefoils; burgundy leather author label and gilt place/date at base of spine; blind-tooled device in spine compartments. Blind double fillets framing covers. Browning to text, paper good and supple.  (25819)

•  Publisher's textured brown cloth, front cover and spine stamped in green, front cover with vignette of deer in pot, dustwrapper chipped at corners, upper edges, and spine extremities with spine lightly sunned. Front fly-leaf with inked owner's name. Pages clean.  (26903)

•  Not in Library Company, Afro-Americana (rev. ed.).   Recent red cloth with black leather spine label. Library pressure-stamp (defunct library) in margin of one page. A delicate book, as one must expect given the place and date of publication. Old stab holes in inner margins.  (26097)

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  NSTC 2F755 & 2W16139.   Disbound. A few light brown spots on title-page. A very good copy.  (11078)

Willis himself was the founder of the magazine that became the Home Journal, and was celebrated in his day for his essays and travel writings as well as several collections of his journalistic work. The Cambridge History of American Literature calls him the “prince of magazinists,” and remarks on “the evanescent sparkle and glancing brilliance” of A L'abri, later known as Letters from under a Bridge. These charming, witty essays touch on Willis's Yale education (and its lack of practical application!); fishing; a dinner with Lady Blessington, Benjamin Disraeli, Count D'Orsay, and Lord Durham; the possibility of local railroad construction to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie; the relationship of American to British literature, etc. Whatever the ostensible topics of the individual letters, each touches in affectionate and amusing fashion on some aspect of life in the Susquehanna region.

A publishing practice, demonstrated: Bound in at the back of this volume are yellow printed paper wrappers for John Smith's Letters, and the title-page and preface for Fireside Education — both items published by Colman in the same year as the present work.

•  BAL 22752 (spine label in first state, cloth described as “Brown S cloth “); American Imprints 59260; Fearing, Check List of Books on Angling, Fishing, Fisheries, Fish-Culture, etc., 135; Sabin 104504. On Willis, see: Cambridge History of American Literature online.   Publisher's brown cloth embossed with floret and dash pattern, spine with printed paper label; corners rubbed, and spine cloth chipped with paper label chipped and darkened. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Foxing throughout; occasional pencilled marginalia and marks of emphasis.  (25806)

This work is rarely found in the deluxe binding: The handsomely gilt-stamped publisher's cloth is the norm.

•  NSTC 2W24418; Allibone 2762.   Binding as above, showing minor wear to extremities and front cover vignette, original silk bookmark detached and laid in. Volume slightly shaken with text block starting to pull away from spine; this is the kind of volume that wants to do that, and the reader will want to “cradle” it in hand — that done, no worries. Front fly-leaf with early pencilled gift inscription and with a Maine druggist's small ticket. Mild to moderate foxing. Both funny and decorative, in an American publisher's binding that may fairly be called “DAZZLING.”  (26748)

This has a very few, very elegant headpieces, tailpieces, and historiated initials.

•  ESTC T138654. Contemporary calf double-panelled in blind, outer and innermost panels speckled; blind-stamped corner fleurons, center panel framed in blind roll; spine with raised bands and painted gilt cross decorations. Leather worn, with medium-sized abrasions, and cracked over joints; binding still holding reasonably solidly. Front pastedown showing traces of now-absent bookplate; title-page with small inked notation in upper outer corner, and first text page with personal stamp. Pages gently cockled, with a few scattered spots, but generally clean.

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This Boston edition most likely appeared shortly after the Philadelphia edition printed in the same year; among the prominent American women’s rights activists known to have read and been influenced by the Vindication are Judith Sargent Murray, Abigail Adams, and (later) Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

•  Evans 25054; ESTC W2450; PMM 242 (for first ed.); Windle, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, A5d. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped devices between raised bands. Half-title mounted; a few leaves with old repairs to lower inner margins. Pages age-toned, with offsetting, staining, and spotting.

This is the sole American edition. First printed in England in 1804.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 30564; NSTC W2651. Contemporary speckled sheep. Spines divided into compartments by double gilt rules with large red leather title labels and small round black volume labels, both edged with gilt fillets and gilt-lettered. Fine cracking to spines with shallow chipping from head and foot; edges rubbed, corners bumped. Pages with light browning around impression and on edges, with darker browning from turn-ins towards beginning and end of each volume. Large bite from rear free endpaper of vol. II; generally, text problem-free, with but a few shallow tears and chippings and a few light waterstains.

Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.

The printed Career is followed in this little volume by an extended manuscript section containing neatly written excerpts from Wooley’s Science of the Bible or an Analysis of the Hebrew Mythology.

•  Contemporary half calf over textured cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands; front cover detached, leather scuffed. All page edges marbled. Upper portion of front free endpaper torn away; two front fly-leaves partially excised. Back free endpaper with pencilled owner’s name. Printed portion very slightly age-toned, with faint creasing to first section.

•  NSTC 2W33589. Recent plain paper-covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Frontispiece, title-page, and several other pages stamped by a now-defunct institution. Lacking all but one plate (the frontispiece). Page edges untrimmed.

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Uncommon: OCLC locates only six copies of this in the U.S., including this copy deaccessioned from one of those six reporting institutions.

Provenance:  From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christian church history.

•  19th-century German boards covered with black mottled paper. Ex-library with minimal markings; adhesive shelving label to spine, blacked over. Text age-toned but paper very good; a nice wide-margined copy.  (16899)

Appended to Xerez's account (fols. [43v] to [55r]) is a translation of Miguel de Estete's account of Pizarro's army's journey from Cajamarca to Pachacamac and then to Jauja. Estete too was present at Cajamarca and is said to have been the first Spaniard to lay hands on Atahuallpa.

•  Whaton & Kelly 6655; Cagle & Stafford, American Books on Food and Drink, 840.   Publisher's ribbed brown cloth, covers elaborately embossed in blind. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, lacking the front free endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. A rather handsome book, and one in nice condition.  (26509)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 22127.   Full original sheep, spine showing flex marks with small chips at extremities and a gilt-stamped leather title-label; first and last leaves with offsetting from leather turn-ins. Short tear at top margin of one leaf, without touching any text; some scattered spots of foxing. Ex-library with (attractive) old pressure-stamp to half-title, five-digit accession number rubber-stamped on front pastedown and base of p. [iii], evidence that an inked call-number on spine was sometime obscured. A clean, nice, solid copy. (21126)

•  Sabin 106261; Palau 379641. Contemporary mottled sheep and calf as above, corners and edges worn, all joints cracking, both volumes with minor worming to front covers and pinholes to spines; vol. I with loss of leather over spine head (half of top compartment). Pencilled check marks scattered throughout; front free endpaper and recto of last text page of vol. II with annotations.

The engraved frontispiece was done by Philipp Jacob Leidenhoffer after a design by Johann Asem; one of the engraved in-text emblems attributes its design to “I.C. Banaivir,” about whom no information could be found, while the others are unsigned.

The title-page bears an inked inscription reading “SanCto MarCo / In aVgIa DIVIte,” dated 1714; a few small scraps of paper with notes in an early inked hand are laid in.

•  Landwehr, German, 660; Praz 543. Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind triple fillets, spine thickly blind-stamped with arabesque motifs; binding rubbed and abraded with leather cracked over joints and spine, spine stamping dimmed, and shelving number inked on spine. A few spots of pinhole worming to front cover, front free endpaper, and first few leaves; front pastedown with old bookseller’s ticket. Some pages with light foxing; one leaf with an old repair to the upper corner and one with a short tear from the lower margin. An interesting rarity, and one worthy of study.

Click the images for enlargements.

The concordat defines Anabaptism as a vice and the punishment ranges from fines to “drowning without mercy” depending on who the accused Anabaptist is; “foreigners” (non-natives of the jurisdictions), preachers, and backsliders are dealt with the most severely. Every citizen is bound to denounce anyone known to be or even suspected of being an Anabaptist. The concordat was a codification of Zwingli's extreme animosity towards the sect. It is considereda major document in Mennonite history.

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 locates only three copies in North America and COPAC locates only the copy at Oxford, but there is a copy at the British Library.