This is an untrimmed copy in original boards, with 24 pages of advertising for Carey publications bound in at the front of the volume. The preliminary map, engraved by John Bower, has hand-colored border lines; this American edition does not call for the plates found in the English first, but does include in-text depictions of several “Ethiopic inscriptions.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 33864; NSTC 2S3118. Publisher’s quarter tan paper over light blue paper–covered sides; front cover detached and back joint cracked, binding spotted, paper cracked and split along spine, spine label now absent and replaced with hand-inked title, spine with later paper shelving label. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1829. Half-title with portion of outer margin torn away (not touching text) and laid in. Map lightly foxed, with two short tears along folds. Pages age-toned, with occasional spots of foxing.  (19413)

“Gaudentio,” under persecution by the Inquisition, reveals his fantastic voyages and travels through Egypt and an imaginary African land. While constantly assuring the stern inquisitors of his staunch adherence to Catholicism, he gives elaborate, admiring descriptions of the government, religion, and customs of his African utopia, particularly its training and education of women.

Provenance:  Pastedown with contemporary bookplate of James Butler.

•  Evans 35183; ESTC W10142. Not in Parsons; not in Finotti; not in Bowe, List of Additions and Corrections . . . to Parsons.   Contemporary sheep, missing pieces of leather from front cover and top and bottom of spine; spine with nice old red leather gilt label and front cover reattached using Japanese long-fiber method. Silverfish or roach damages to front free endpaper, fly-leaf, and title-page (costing small, small portion of two letters); damage also to lower outer corners of early leaves and upper inner area of leaves to p. 10 of preface with none of this impairing the reader. Age-toned, some foxing, occasional brown spots; an “old book” of the classic sort.  (37157)

•  Evans 36946; ESTC W10143; Minick, Maryland, 560. Not in Parsons; not in Finotti; not in Bowe, List of Additions and Corrections . . . to Parsons.   Publisher's sheep with modest gilt ruling on spine; spine label gone, front free endpaper loose. A few leaves starting to extrude; occasional spotting, but overall strong and good+ to very good.  (37183)

Kisagala, also known as Kisagalla, Sagala, Sagalla, Saghala, or Teri is the dominant language of Taita-Taveta county in the Taita hills, about midway between the towns of Mwatate and Rukanga in Kenya. It is a Niger-Kordofanian language.

The first translation of any part of the Bible into Sagalla came in 1892; a translation of the Gospels followed in 1912. In addition to the main text this volume has a preface, an index, inter-Gospel references, illustrations, a glossary, and maps.

Searches of WorldCat locateonly one U.S. library reporting ownership: The American Bible Society.

•  North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 1123; Lupas & Rhodes, Scriptures of the World, p. 25.   Publisher's black flexible plastic. Fresh and clean.  (36095)

WorldCat locates the American Bible Society as the sole U.S. library owning a copy.

•  Flexible black fabrikoid. Very good.  (35503)

This is the second edition (first was 1857) ofthe first work in the Igbo language, a member of the Niger-Congo family. It includes the basic orthography, phonemes, dipthongs, etc., of the language, reading passages, numerals (ordinal and cardinal), translations from the scriptures (Luke and Psalms), the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer.

Crowther's translations from Luke preceded the first printing of a book of the Bible (Matthew) in Igbo by three years.

Provenance:  Gift inscription on front pastedown, “To the Rev. C. W. J. Bowles with grateful thanks for his help and fellowship during his visit to the Niger Diocese, May 1950. Cecil John Patterson, Bishop of The Niger. Onitsha, Nigeria.”

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only three copies of this edition in U.S. libraries and none of the 1857 printing.

•  North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 529.   Publsher's flexible textured cloth, lightly chipped at edges. Text clean and crisp.  (35585)

From the preface: “This fifth edition of the Lonkundo Hymn Book is a result of the joint labor of the missionaries and the native Christians.”

Evidence of readership: Several hymns have pencilled emendations.

Provenance:  Signature of “Mrs. Hensey” on front fly-leaf, followed by, in same hand, “School & Church, as revised by me (in 1918).” Per Smith, “Alice Ferren Hensey, 1907–1931 [was a] talented musician and poet . . . [she] translated many hymns and songs, and taught them to new Congo Christians.”

This is a mission press production and was actually printed in Bolenge.

•  On the Disciples of Christ Congo Mission, see: Fifty Years in Congo by Herbert Smith.   Publisher's black and brown textured cloth, title stamped in blind on front cover and pencilled numeral to its upper outer corner; front free endpaper lacking and sewing beginning to stretch or weaken, with two gutter cracks apparent though the textblock is, still, essentially sound. A nice copy.  (37586)

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, in original printed dust wrapper; dust wrapper partially split along front outer fold and nicked at corners. Pages age-toned.  (28931)

16 steel-engraved maps

While the title-page gives the Boston publication line described above, the printed front cover gives Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait, & Co., 1838; this is a later edition, following the first of 1832.

A first impression is that “child” readers had, in 1832, much greater powers of attention to print than is now common, but indeed the history here is — the stories are — absorbing and evocative.

•  American Imprints 50587.   Publisher's quarter sheep and printed green paper–covered boards, rubbed and worn; pages cockled and foxed, yet paper good and untattered. One page with stray ink marks, not obstructing legibility. A good, solid, pleasing copy.  (33716)

Some of both the voyages and the maps make their first published appearances here—among them the New England map depicting the Maryland and Virginia coastlines, engraved by R. Michault after one contained in Richard Blome’s Description of the Island of Jamaica, part of which work appears here translated into French. Altogether, a volume notable both for its strong African and North American content and for the aesthetic appeal of its plates and pleasingly ornamented typography.

Sabin 36944; Alden & Landis 674/159; Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection 68; Baer, 17th-Century Maryland, 78. Recent 17th-century style mottled calf with covers framed in a gilt roll and double-panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons,; spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped decorative devices. Several pages (not including title) and the versos of a few plates stamped by a now-defunct institution. Paper slightly embrittled. Light waterstaining to a number of leaves and plates, mostly in margins; the first map with two repairs. One leaf (blank?) prior to Colonies Angloises excised; lacking the folding map of the Nile. A good copy, in a handsome binding of recent vintage and contemporaneous style. (8746)

The author was the cosmographer and historiographer of the Dutch East India Company as well as the Dutch royal family's official translator.

This is one of the scarcest volumes in commerce of the Elzevirs' series of histories in the Respublica series. It is only the fourth copy we have had in our 30+ years in the antiquarian book business.

Provenance: Faded 17th-century inscription on title-page indicating the volume was a gift of P. Dupre to a school whose name we do not decipher.

•  Willems 313; Rahir 284; European Americana 629/79; Palau 129562; Sabin 38560; Borba de Moraes (2nd ed.), Bibliographia brasiliana, I, 450.   Contemporary Dutch vellum over paste boards, all edges red with that dye sometimes spilling into margins. A clean, very good copy of this nice little book.  (33584)

The work is handsomely printed (although erratic in its pagination and signature markings), in double-column format, featuring title-pages in black and red with an engaging small engraved vignette of a ship between pillars reading “Plus” and “Ultra.”

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of Carlos Sanz in several places.

•  Sabin 40053; Palau 135738; Alden & Landis 737/135; Medina, BHA, 3071; Borba de Moraes, II, 150; LeClerc 872.   Contemporary vellum over pasteboards, a little soiled especially to spnes, retaining button and loop closures; hinges (inside) open in a few places but bindings strong. Occasional waterstain or other sign of exposure to dampness; a few gutter margins (only) of first volume with a short wormtrack; some cockling of paper.  (34810)

Provenance:  From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Sabin 41069; Moreau, Éditions parisiennes du XVI siècle, II, 1099; not in Adams.   20th-century brown cloth, black leather spine label with gilt lettering and ruling, all edges speckled red; ever so gently rubbed, covers with two spots and one scuff, light pencilling and one removed booklabel on endpapers. Light age-toning and dust-soiling, a few small spots, a small hole through title-page and first leaf of text, final leaf repaired; provenance and evidence of readership as above; final three leaves of forematter (only) lacking. Significant content handsomely printed and embellished.  (38390)

German printer Vindelinus de Spira (a.k.a. Wendelin de Speier or Speyer) was, alongside his brother John, in 1468 one of the first to bring printing to Venice from Germany, where their use of roman type was considered innovative. Trevitt & Steinberg note in Five Hundred Years of Printing that the brothers' publications “were well produced and show discrimination in their choice of authors” (p. 31).

Provenance:  From the incunabula leaf collection of the Grabhorn press.

•  Goff L238; IGI 5771; BMC, V, 154; ISTC il00238000; GKW M18494.   Leaf disbound and mounted along the top edge to a dark gray pasteboard. Very light dust-soiling overall, with none on the side facing the mounting; age-toning along edges with a few small spots; text block gently skewed. Faint bibliographical information pencilled in bottom margin. An attractive early leaf from an early press.  (38326)

Although Mela's work is solely concerned with the world as known by Greeks and Romans, one should remember that their world did encompass portions of Africa and a knowledge of India. Additionally the appendix, originally written in 1521 and first appearing in the 1522 Basel printing of Mela, has a coda consisting of a 1515 letter of Vadian’s to Rudolph Agricola, the younger, that briefly discussesVespucci (X5v) and the New World (Y1r) when discussing the Spanish empire.

This is the third edition of Vadian's Mela, taken from the second edition (1522), but only the second with Vadian's appendix. Graesse comments, “Second éd. . . . fort changée et corrigée sur des mss.”

Whether all copies of the work were issued with a map has been long discussed and is without resolution: What we do know is that some have a map, most do not.

Provenance:  Macclesfield copy with the bookplate and handsome pressure-stamps.

Evidence of readership: Scattered minor (usually one or two words) marginalia.

•  Harrisse, BAV, 157; Renouard, Paris, 2210; Alden & Landis 530/30; Sabin 63958 (not callin for a map); Graesse, V, 401 (not calling for a map).   18th-century quarter vellum with blue-green paper–covered sides, author's name in old ink to spine. Title-page lightly soiled, light discoloration or inkstains in some margins, light occasional foxing; pinhole-type worming in text of some pages with no loss of text, and a corner of last leaf torn away without loss of text; on pp. 170–96, a light waterstain across upper gutter not touching text and another across upper outer corners impinging on it. As usual, without the map found in only a few copies. Macclesfield pressure-stamps and marginalia as above. A good, sound, and soundly pleasing old folio.  (34114)

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  American Imprints 8657; Rosenbach, Children's, 763 (this copy differing slightly from Rosenbach's physical description).   Publisher's printed tan paper wrappers. Some minor foxing, otherwise clean. An unusually crisp, unworn example of the genre. (38474)

This set includes two volumes of supplemental text, adding a number of entries. The first edition was followed by two volumes of supplemental plates, not present here and not called for: Graesse describes this edition as “sans grav.”

The pagination is erratic in a number of places; there is a numbering gap from 2342 to 2351 between vols. IV and V, but the text and signatures are uninterrupted.

Uncommon: OCLC locates only two U.S. institutional holdings of this second edition.

Provenance: Most volumes with small inked ownership inscription in an outer margin: “G.R.W.” the mark of William Rollinson Whittingham (1805–79), fourth Episcopal Bishop of Maryland and an enthusiastic book collector.

•  Brunet, IV, 851; Graesse, V, 429. Not in Sabin.   Contemporary half binding, recently rebacked with tan paper, spines with printed paper labels; boards rubbed and faded with small chips, one vol. with front cover waterstained. Foxing almost throughout, generally no worse than moderate; light waterstaining in upper margins of vol. I; one leaf in vol. VII with lower outer portion torn away, with loss of words from about 18 lines on each side. Vol. II with printer's error replacing pp. 1065–72 with duplicates of pp. 1057–64; pagination erratic in other places. Most vols. with ownership mark as above; vol. VI with one pencilled and one inked marginal annotation.  (25862)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 42738; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 10602.   Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly pencilled librarian's notation on p. [1]. Leaves separated.  (18440)

•  Disbound; three holes in inner margin, not touching text. Ink notation and numeral on first page. Some dog-earing and tattering in corners and outer margins. Pencillings in several margins. Occasional mild spotting. Now housed in a simple archival phase box.  (13455)