This edition is limited to 2,000 copies, was translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa, and carries an introduction by Alastair Reid. The colophon page issigned by both Rabassa and Reid, and also by the illustrator Rafael Ferrer.

Rafael Ferrer, a native Puerto Rican, created eight full-page oil paintings and 25 in-text ink drawings, well reproduced here — plus a full-page original graphic, laid in at the back (i.e., not bound into the book) and most suitable for framing. Ferrer's images, with their bold lines and colors, often pack an emotional punch. His style belongs to the New Image school of painting, which bears the unmistakable influences of neo-expressionism, surrealism, and Dada.

Binding:  Three-quarter leather, stamped in gold on the spine, over straw-colored textured Chinese silk.

This offering includes the monthly newsletter.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 532.   Binding as above. Book clean and bright, in slipcase with small scrapes at the lower spine and at the mouth. Fine, in a near fine slipcase.  (21791)

The present work opens with an oversized, folding view of the ruins of Persepolis, and includes a folding map of “Persia or iran” done by prominent engraver Samuel John Neele, as well as two small copper-engraved vignettes. The main text is given in Farsi and English on opposing pages; in addition to the portions of text taken from the Jahan-ara, Ouseley also provides “collateral illustrations from other manuscripts” (p. ii) and historical works. An errata slip is tipped in — this also, interestingly, containing instructions to the binder!

•  ESTC T97308; Lowndes 1741; Brunet, IV, 261; Allibone 1469.   Uncut copy. Publisher's paper shelf-back and plain boards, respined with similar paper; binding rubbed and soiled, spine head chipped, spine reinforcement with crack. Ex–social club: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, annotation on title-page covered over with slip of paper (pleasure and challenge of removal reserved for next owner), pressure-stamp on title-page. Frontispiece and map moderately waterstained, title-page with offsetting. Pages lightly age-toned, a few mildly foxed. Early inked corrections to a handful of words.  (26276)

The most striking feature of this piece is the first of the two plates, a lifelike portrait of the book’s subject engraved by Heinrich Wehymer after Antonio Davide. The other plate, an unsigned etching, depicts the statue of Our Lady of Consolation in the Augustinian church at Genoa. Also present is an engraved title-page vignette depicting the arms of Pope Benedict XIII, the work’s dedicatee, and there are a few initials and woodcut head- and tailpieces, the tailpiece on the last page being especially large and handsome.

This is apparently the sole edition of this biography, and it is rare: A search of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 revealed no copies, and the Italian Library Service union catalogue lists only one holding, at the Central Library in Turin.

•  Vellum over paste boards with staining on front cover; pastedowns torn along turn-ins and puter edge of front free endpaper somewhat tattered. Lightly foxed throughout, a few pages more heavily so, with a light waterstain on the bottom edge and/or lower outer corner of most leaves (barely visible, on some). Small hole in outer margin of half-title and hole with tear (from a paper defect) in the margin of pp. 51–52. The second plate with two closed tears into the engraving, without loss. All edges mottled red and blue.

•  Sabin 27289; not in Goldsmiths'-Kress.   Publisher's blind-stamped textured cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and pictorial vignette; binding cocked, extremities rubbed, spine sunned. Ex–social club library: call numbers on endpaper, front free endpaper excised, pressure-stamp on title-page, two other pages rubber-stamped, no other markings. Some plates with small areas of staining to margins.  (26638)

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•  Both in original wrappers, one (52) glossy and larger, one (45) smaller and “matte”; the larger one one with pencilled note on front cover.  (26154)

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Rare in the U.S.: We trace only the Getty copy of this edition, and earlier editions are no less rare.

•  Landwehr, German Emblem Books, 317. Boards covered in music-printed paper from an 18th-century antiphonal, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Engraved title and pp. 49/50 (emblem VII) lacking. Title-page and next leaf with long-ago repaired holes, one on the latter affecting an initial on the verso; title-page with old inked device(?) and 19th-century institutional stamp on verso, showing through in part to recto; a small hole in a third leaf, taking perhaps a letter or two. Final blank leaf and two other leaves also stamped. One leaf torn from margins into text, repaired with Japanese tissue. Pages slightly age-toned, some with mild foxing or the odd spot. Faults noted, this is yet a worthwhile and studyable/enjoyable volume.

Held in most of the expectable libraries but currently uncommon in commerce.

•  Sabin 70769. Recent black moiré cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page and several others rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages clean.

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•  Publisher's teal cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title and decorative floral motifs; back cover and corners showing very slight scuffing. Back hinge cracked and front hinge starting; front free endpaper excised. Still, an attractive copy. (18393)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription: “Miss Alice A. Chamberlin. Presented by her Grandfather Joel Chamberlin,” dated 1865, Sennett (in New York State).

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, covers blind-stamped with foliate decorations, spine almost fully and in fact rather gorgeously gilt-stamped with title and pictorial vignette.

•  Bound as above; corners rubbed, front cover with small spots of discoloration, spine gilt lightly rubbed. Front free endpaper with inscription as above. Some light spotting, foxing, and offsetting.  (25804)

•  Vollkommene: Jantz Collection, 3334. Neither work in Coumont, Demonology and Witchcraft.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, with slightly yapp edges; all edges red. Text unmarked and untattered. A very nice pair of uncommon books.  (26955)

Over60 large woodcuts illustrate the text, with some images appearing in both sections. The volume concludes with several poems on the themes of life, death, and the afterlife.

Uncommon: We trace only nine copies in the U.S., all but one in libraries east of the Mississippi.

•  Fairfax-Murray, French, 108; Morin, Bibliothèque bleue de Troyes, 435; Nisard, Histoire des Livres Populaires, II, 303. Binding with minor scuffing at corners and old (good) repairs to head and foot of spine, with leather starting to crack over joints; hinges tender. Pages slightly age-toned, with signature marks shaved.

Binding: Tan calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets and gilt roll with gilt-stamped corner stars, central gilt-stamped coat of the Warre family arms; board edges with gilt roll, gilt inner dentelles, fine marbled endpapers. Spine with raised bands accented with gilt rolls and gilt-stamped floral decorations in compartments. All edges gilt. Signed by Spottiswoode & Co.

Provenance:  The preprinted presentation leaf, completed in manuscript, notes (in Latin) that the recipient was Crichton Jordan Milne and the donor headmaster was Edward Warre.

•  Binding damaged by old fire with spine label chipped nearly away, corners/edges abraded, and significant cracking/darkening of leather overall; still sound and indeed attractive. Interior very good, having been protected from that fire by the heavy gilt to the page edges which prevented smoke entry. Presentation leaf as above, with information dated 1905.  (12687)

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The volume is illustrated with a total of 13 steel-engraved plates, including a frontispiece and two maps, most taken from drawings done by Charles McLaughlin, “a fellow prisoner.”

•  Howes G371; Sabin 28562; Streeter, Texas, 1581.   Publisher's speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; worn and stained, spine head reinforced with dark cloth tape extending onto boards. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, call number on front endpapers, rubber- and pressure-stamps on title-page. Plates variously lightly waterstained; folding map of Rio Alcantra with outer half torn away and edge tattered. Pages with minor age-toning and occasional stains.  (26394)

•  American Imprints 1679; Allibone 2292.  Publisher's red cloth, faded and discolored, recently rebacked preserving original spine label and as much of original spine cloth as possible; spine label darkened with chip. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Page edges untrimmed; pages moderately age-toned, otherwise clean. In fact quite a decent copy.  (26382)

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The volume is illustrated with five steel-engraved plates and an additional engraved title-page.

Binding:  Contemporary maroon morocco, covers framed in gilt single fillet and blind-stamped with arabesque designs, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-stamped raised bands, board edges gilt-tooled, all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Front cover with gilt supra-libros of A.M. Pratt.

•  BAL 6681; Sabin 28893; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 4386 (for a much later edition); Allibone p. 745; Poe, “The Female Poets of America,” Southern Literary Messenger, Feb. 1849; .   Bound as above, spine and edges gently sunned; edges lightly rubbed. Front cover gilt-stamped as above. Pages slightly age-toned, with offsetting around plates and scattered spotting; plates with spots of foxing. A very nice copy.  (25126)

•  Not in Gottlieb, Early Children's Books & Their Illustration.   Publisher's quarter rose and ivory cloth, covers with title stamped in brown surrounded by green latticework, dust jacket lacking; binding darkened and spotted. Front free endpaper with small inked ownership inscription. Sewing starting to loosen; light offsetting from facing images occasionally noticeable; some pages with tears at inner margins; a good copy only — yet, still, a charming thing!  (27046)

Binding: Publisher's brown suede, front cover with embossed Celtic designs, signed by Galwey & Co. of Dublin (with their ticket on the front pastedown).

•  Scott, A Bibliography of the Works of Sir Henry Haggard 1856–1925, 10. Publisher's red pictorial cloth, issued without frontispiece. Spine a bit darkened, a few leaves with faint spots of foxing, endpapers lightly discolored. Spine slightly cocked. (8614)

Provenance: Early inked ownership inscriptions reading “P.N. Spofford” on the front fly-leaf and the title-page.

•  Original printed paper–covered boards, front cover detached, with paper cracked over the spine and back joint, and some light staining to the covers. A few verses with pencilled notes; pages with occasional small, light spots. A binder's bad day: The pages from 157–68 are bound in twice in this copy, with the pagination skipped from 169–80; the text headers go from “rose, bridal” to “rose-bud, red.”

Cassian (1780–1847) published this “. . . remarkable book . . . in Prague in 1816. It contain[s] the maps for eclipses between 1816 and 1860. . . . The geometric constructions used by Hallaska anticipated the standard theory of eclipses developed later by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel” (S. Débarat, “Historical Eclipses in Europe,” in Astron. Abs. Skalnate Pleso 28 (1999), 167–68).

Provenance:  Inlaid to front pastedown is a red and green leather bookplate featuring a crowned lion en passant with a doubled tail (particularly associated with Bohemia).

•  Binding as above, discoloration in spots and patches to covers. Without the first plate, all others present and crisp. A most remarkable copy of a very scarce book.  (26668)

Also present here are The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy Consider'd, The Art of Lawgiving, and six political tracts, along with several other pieces. The volume is illustrated with three engraved plates by Michael van der Gucht: an allegorical frontispiece, a portrait of the author after P. Lely, and an oversized folding plate depicting “The Manner and Use of the Ballot.” The title-page is printed in red and black. This was edited by John Toland.

•  ESTC R009111; Goldsmiths'-Kress 3735; Wing (rev. ed.) H816. On Harrington, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter calf and marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands, leather edges tooled in blind. Minor offsetting to title-page and elsewhere; intermittent light to moderate foxing; good paper. Oversized folding plate with short tear from upper margin, just touching caption but not extending into text. A handsome book.  (25237)

•  BAL 7841.   Publisher's tan cloth, front cover with affixed color-printed paper illustration; binding somewhat darkened (especially spine), corners and spine extremities rubbed, a few small spots of discoloration to front and back covers. Front pastedown with pencilled gift inscription, front free endpaper with bookseller's small ticket. Pages clean. A very nice book. (20839)

Thomas's monograph describes earwigs, cockroaches, devils-horses, walking-sticks, grasshoppers (this category including locusts), and crickets, and is illustrated with a few in-text wood engravings in addition to the lithographed plate (done by W.H. Holmes) showing 17 different U.S. insects. This copy is uncut and unopened.

•  Schmeckebier, Catalogue & Index of the Publications of the Hayden, King, Powell, & Wheeler Surveys, 21.   Period-style quarter tan cloth with light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Title-page institutionally rubber-stamped; title-page and half-title with outer margins repaired. Page edges untrimmed, signatures unopened. Spots of staining to outer margins of a few leaves. In fact a nice copy.  (25282)

•  Publisher’s cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; front cover with discoloration to upper edge and small bump to outer edge, cloth rubbed along edges and joints, spine scuffed. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped. Pages and plates clean, and the large volume quite solid.

•  Original cloth over cardboard, front cover with printed and illustrated paper label; lightly faded, some discoloration and soiling. Sewing loosening but holding. Text clean. A delight.  (26798)

Many of the 52 lithographed plates are in duotone; some were done by Ackerman Lithography and some by P.S. Duval & Co., after views of scenery, buildings, and natives drawn by Lieut. Gibbon.

Two volumes of maps, not present here, were issued separately.

•  Sabin 31524; Palau 113897. Publisher’s textured cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title; vol. I with spine sunned and cloth chipped at spine extremities; vol. II with corners bumped, cloth peeling away from spine and chipped at spine extremities, spine with gilt dimmed and small area of unobtrusive discoloration from now-absent label. Front pastedowns each with pencilled owner’s name and institutional rubber stamp (no other markings); front free endpaper of vol. II starting to tear along inner margin. Mild to moderate foxing and spotting; a few text gatherings unopened. One plate in vol. I with short tear from outer margin, turning into a narrow scrape extending about halfway into the upper portion of the image; one leaf in vol. II with tiny portion (less than one word) affixed to opposing plate. Not a perfect set, but a perfectly fascinating one.

Provenance:  Rolle family armorial bookplate.

•  ESTC R10688; Wing (rev.) H1578; Allibone 813.   Contemporary sheep, covers framed in blind double fillets; leather rubbed and scuffed, partially cracked along front joint. All edges marbled. Pastedowns peeled up, front pastedown with early inked inscription; inside front cover with armorial bookplate. Title-page with inked numeral in upper outer corner. (21012)

•  Publisher's orange cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in green and gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities lightly rubbed, sides with small areas of minor discoloration, spine sunned. Ex–social club library: call number in 19th-century hand on front pastedown, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages and plates clean and fresh.  (26364)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with white-stamped title and pictorial vignette, spine with white-stamped title; joints and extremities showing moderate wear, covers with small spots of light discoloration. A solid, internally clean copy. A pleasure, in hand.  (26664)

Binding:  19th-century crushed half black levant morocco over black and white marbled paper; binding signed on verso of front free endpaper, but stamp mostly indecipherable. Spine with raised bands, gilt above, below, and on each; gilt-tooled skull and crossbones in three compartments, a flame in two others, and author and title in the remaining one. Gilt rule where the half leather meets the marbled paper on each cover. Green and red French swirl marbled endpapers. Silk ribbon place marker. All leaves tipped to stubs. Uncut copy.

•  Warthin, The Physician of the Dance of Death, pp. 79–80; NSTC B3545.   Binding as above. Joints and edges of covers lightly rubbed; top of front joint just starting. Age-spotting on pages and plates, generally light; some off-setting from the plates. Bookseller's catalogue description clipped and pasted to front pastedown. Dealer's letter pasted to rear pastedown. Two uncalled-for plates.  This is a pleasing, better than “decent” copy priced well below excellent ones in contemporary bindings.  (25933)

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•  Publisher's quarter cloth with illustrated paper sides, one small chip to paper of front cover and spine a tad “greyed”; otherwise, excellent. Slipcase with some chips and abrasions but solid. Signature in ink on half-title.  (6736)

The tales, many of which feature interesting animals, are illustrated with six full-page wood engravings and two vignettes. The title-page vignette is signed Butler.

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only three U.S. holdings of this printing.

•  Not in Sternick, 19th Century Children's Series Books.   Publisher's printed bright yellow paper wrappers; dust-soiled, front wrapper with tear from outer margin extending into image but not spoiling it, joints starting from foot. Light foxing.  (25344)

Provenance: Ownership stamp of “C. Witter . . . St. Louis, Mo.”

•  Amerine & Borg, Bibliography on Grapes, Wines, Other Alcoholic Beverages, & Temperance, 1851.   Publisher's dark green cloth, covers with blind-stamped grapevine borders, spine with gilt-stamped decorative title; spine extremities slightly rubbed, front cover with a few tiny spots of faint discoloration, otherwise a clean, fresh copy. Title-page with private owner's rubber-stamp in lower margin. Pages clean. A nice book. (20691)