
AMERICANA TO 1820
A-B Bibles C-E F-J
K-M N-Q R-S T-V W-Z
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Flavel, John. A token for mourners: or, the advice of Christ to a distressed mother, bewailing the death of her dear and only son.... Exeter[, N.H.]: Pr. by Henry Ranlet, sold also by the booksellers in Boston, 1795. 12mo (14.7 cm, 6"). 168 pp.
$225.00
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John Flavel (1630?–91) was a minister of Dartmouth, England, until he was ejected as a nonconformist in 1662. He continued to preach in the area and authored many works of practical piety. This popular work on grieving was first published London, 1674; the first American edition was printed in Boston in 1707 and would have found a ready audience among the Calvinists of New England.
This edition, the first to be printed in New Hampshire, exists in two states — this one has “sold also by the booksellers in Boston” on the title-page. (In addition, there was another 1795 edition printed in Newbury, Vt.) Regularly reprinted into the 19th century, the Token saw editions in Welsh and Gaelic.
ESTC W19733; Evan 28677. On Flavel, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Contemporary quarter sheep over brown paper covered boards, significant loss of paper and of edges of boards. Some shallow chipping, notable soiling, browning, and waterstaining (yet no difficulty reading text). A volume that’s been through a good deal, but is probably stable for quite a long while to come. (12461)

The Great Puritan: His Wars & Politics
Fletcher, Henry. The perfect politician: or, A full view of the life and actions (military and civil) of
O. Cromwel. Whereunto is added his character; and a compleat catalogue of all the honours conferr’d by him on several persons. London: printed by J. Cottrel, for William Roybould at the Unicorn, and Henry Fletcher at the three Gilt Cups in St Paul’s Church-yard, 1660. Small 8vo (13.5 cm; 5.25"). [4] ff., 459 [i.e., 359, [1] pp., port. in facsimile.
[SOLD]
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Published anonymously and often attributed to Fletcher and occasionally to William Raybould, this is one of three editions printed in 1660, the first year of the work's printing. It sometimes later appeared under the variant title A Full View of the Life and Actions (military and civil) of Oliver Cromwel.
In addition to telling of Cromwell's political life and his wars in Ireland, Scotland, and England, this offers a section on the Protectorate that has much to say about his policies and military actions in the Caribbean, especially the taking of
Jamaica from Spain.
The title-page is printed in black and red and this copy retains the vertical half-title on A1r, “O. Cromwel’s Life.”
Provenance: Pacific School of Religion (properly deaccessioned).
ESTC R18473; Wing (rev. ed.) F1334. 19th-century quarter leather, binding much rubbed and abraded; portrait supplied in facsimile. Age-toned; title-leaf and another leaf with an old cello-tape repair and resulting staining, last leaf torn in upper outer corner with small loss of a few letters. Top margins of some leaves trimmed with loss of page numbers and running heads; other leaves trimmed into heads and pages numbers.
Doodlings to blank areas, and the book priced for its faults though the doodles have their charms! (36184)
For “EVIDENCE of READERSHIP,” click here.

A Really Elaborate Apology — Columbus, Too!
Foglietta, Uberto. Uberti Folietae clarorum Ligurum elogia. Genuae: Ex officina Hieronymi Bartoli, 1588. 4to (24.5 cm, 9.6"). [8], 265, [3] pp.
$875.00
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First Genoa edition of Italian historian Foglietta's biographical sketches of influential citizens from Liguria, the region in which Genoa happens to be located, including
four pages on Christopher Columbus. Native Genoan and historian Fogiletta (1518–81) was banished from the city and moved to Rome after publishing his work Delle cose della repubblica di Genova, which described abuses of the old nobility against the new (the latter including his family). The present work, originally published in 1572 at Rome, was written to prove his loyalty to his hometown, to which he happily returned in 1576.
The text is sumptuously printed in single columns with spacious margins using roman and italic type with a few illustrated initials, headpieces, and type ornaments as well as a printer's device featuring a hydra surrounded by the motto “virtus virescit vulnere” on the title-page; an index printed in double columns and register follow the main body of text. Cataloging at the Library of Congress notes that this edition consists of the same sheets as the Rome, 1573 printing except for the first gathering (pp. [1–8]), which has been reset.
Provenance: “Foglieta Claro[rum] Illustrium” has been written in ink along the bottom edge with “Don Berardi della Ferra” and another name scribbled out on the title-page, as well as a signature dated 1669 below the colophon, in what appear to be three different early hands; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Alden & Landis, European Americana, 588/31; EDIT16 CNCE 19333; Sabin 24942. Not in Adams. On Foglietta, see: Treccani (online). Contemporary limp vellum, title inked on spine and bottom edge, evidence of now-absent ties; spine darkened and crackling just enough to show evidence of binding waste, some spotting on covers, endpapers repaired. Provenance notes and booklabel as above. Light to moderate age-toning and mostly faint marginal waterstaining throughout, with intermittent foxing and a handful of spots. Three leaves including the title-page have been repaired.
Exactly what one expects a nice 16th-century book to look like! (39368)

The Ill-Fated SCOTS Colony at
DARIEN
Foyer, Archibald, supposed author. A defence of the Scots settlement at Darien. With an answer to the Spanish memorial against it. And arguments to prove that it is the interest of England to join with the Scots, and protect it. To which is added, a description of the country, and a particular account of the Scots colony. No place [Edinburgh?]: No publisher/printer, 1699. Small 4to (20 cm; 8"). [2] ff., 60 pp.
$1250.00
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As the 1690s wound down the lords and and burghers of Scotland dreamed of an overseas empire such as Spain, England, Portugal, and the Dutch had, and to this end came into existence the Company of Scotland for Trading to Africa and the Indies. Chartered in 1695 and with a coffer of some £400,000, it established a colony (“Darien”) on
the Caribbean coast of what is now Panama, a worse location being hard to conceive. Even today that site is virtually uninhabited.
Trouble plagued the enterprise from the arrival of the first Scots in 1698 and it fairly shortly collapsed for lack of supplies, malaria, other diseases, internal dissension, a nonexistent trading base, and the might of the Spanish military in the region. The wreck of the scheme led to an economic crisis at home which in turn helped enable the 1707 Act of Unification.
The vast bulk of this work attempts to convince the English to support the Scots' enterprise and cites political, religious, social, and economic reasons for doing so; clearly, the Scots knew that English naval might in particular would be essential for the success of the scheme. Beyond this, however, a section (pp. 42 to 51) addresses the natural history, native population, agricultural commodities, and indigenous industry of the region; and the work ends with an account of the Scots' settlement, the buildings erected there, and its intercourse with the indigenous people.
Authorship of this work is problematic: It is signed “Philo-Caledon” at the end of the dedication and three other names have have been proposed as possible authors in addition to Foyer's — George Ridpath, Andrew Fletcher, and John Hamilton (2nd Baron Belhaven). Added to the conundrum of authorship, the work was produced in four editions in the same year, each having different numbers of pages, each with a different signature scheme, none with a publisher, and this one without even a place of publication!
Wing (rev. ed.) F2047; Sabin 78211; Alden & Landis 699/9; ESTC R18505 ; and Halkett & Laing II:32. 20th-century half dark brown crushed morocco with brown linen sides. This copy has all the hallmarks of having once been through a British bookseller's “hospital”: all leaves are dust-soiled or age-toned; all leaves are uncut but some have been extended and others not, and some leaves with torn margins (but not all) have had lost paper restored; all such repairs and extensions are within the first six leaves, meaning these were probably supplied from another copy. Top of title-leaf trimmed with loss of “A” of the title; another leaf with a tear to the top margin with loss costing tops of several letters of words on one page, and two leaves with the running head guillotined by a binder; some stray stains.
An interesting copy for its probable if problematic history and condition. (34130)

ALL the ACTUAL PRINTER'S BLOCKS for the *47* Illustrations
of Zoeth Skinner Eldredge's
The Beginnings of San Francisco
Francis, Walter, illus., et al. For Eldredge's The beginnings of San Francisco, the 47 California-themed printing blocks used to produce the volume’s illustrations. San Francisco: Pr. John C. Rankin Company (New York), 1912. 37 half-tone plates (on copper), 10 zinc cuts, all on their wood blocks; plus 3 additional plates on copper and another zinc cut, similarly mounted.
$2500.00
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A FULL SET of the printer's blocks prepared of the illustrations for Zoeth Skinner Eldredge's The Beginnings of San Francisco (1912), being 37 photographic half-tones on copper and 10 zinc cuts, all on wood blocks, ranging generally in size from approximately 2.5" square to 14" square, with oblong maps measuring up to 20" across. A number of the half-tones were done after drawings by Walter Francis, a California artist and illustrator who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle; a few blocks offer images of photographs, some identified as taken by W.C. Mendenhall of the U.S. Geological Survey or Captain D.D. Gaillard of the Boundary Commission; other images are said to be from paintings and a daguerrotype held privately, with another being the facsimile of a document in the John Carter Brown Library; and, indeed, some are simply “after” images in other books (e.g., The Annals of San Francisco and “Bartlett's Narrative”). The images include a dozen California maps and plans; photographic views of the Colorado Desert and an artistic sketch of “the Trail on the Gila”; portraits of prominent early Californians; several “military moments” and a plan of the Presidio in 1820; plus, notably, scenic and historic “views” including renderings of “the Palo Alto,” the ports of Monterey and San Diego, Yerba Buena, and a number of street and bay scenes depicting San Francisco proper.
Eldredge was a New York–born banker and amateur historian of California whose Beginnings of San Francisco, though possibly self-published, is listed in Cowan & Cowan and described there as “of great historical value.”
In addition to the 47 images/blocks from that work present here, we offer four others that seem to be “related” but which we have not identified beyond establishing that they do not seem to be from the same author's History of California (1915). We must wonder, were they images prepared for the Beginnings and not used? The additional zinc-cut image of a document signed by Gaspar de Portola and two of the three additional half-tones on copper (Portola sighting San Francisco bay and the Spaniards marching to Monterey) were found as online images without clear attribution as to their physical sources; and the last, a western scene not identified, has not yet been “matched” at all.
Most blocks from the Beginnings are still in or with
wrappers showing the images printed from them, as would have been convenient for the printers — these marked (as the backs of the blocks themselves sometimes are) identifying the images and/or showing that the work was completed. (The additional blocks are unwrapped and unmarked.)
In sum, this
complete array of the blocks used for printing a substantial and well-regarded Titanic-era book looks like something that was put on a printing house shelf one afternoon in 1912 at the end of an ordinary project for the pressmen and simply stayed there.
Seeing it on its present PRB&M shelf, coherent and unmessed-with more than 100 years later, is like walking up to that shelf through one of time's “wrinkles.”
On the Beginnings, see: Cowan & Cowan, Bibliography of the History of California, 193. For a list of all its images and notes on their origins, see: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hbbegidx.htm. The paper wrappers present are variously just fine or age-toned or browned, chipped, torn along folds.
ALL the blocks are in good condition; this is not a sort of thing easily damaged! (29741)

A Popular Edition from a
Surreptitious Manuscript Copy
Franklin, Benjamin. The works of the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin; consisting of his Life, written by himself. Together with essays, humorous, moral, and literary, chiefly in the manner of the Spectator. Philadelphia: Wm. W. Woodward, 1801. 12mo (16.7 cm, 6.6"). Frontis., 321, [11] pp.
$700.00
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Early American edition of the “unofficial” but extremely popular Life, re-translated into English from the French publication and released despite William Temple Franklin's attempts to suppress any version other than his own. This example comprises two volumes in one, opening with an engraved portrait of Franklin signed by Tanner and
featuring an addition “not in any other Edition,” according to the title-page: “An Examination, before the British House of Lords, respecting the Stamp-Act.” At the back are a six-page list of subscribers and four pages of advertisements for Woodward publications.
Sabin 25602; Shaw & Shoemaker 515. On Temple Franklin and early editions, see: Green & Stallybrass, Franklin,151–60. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; spine extremities a little chipped, front cover a little sprung, hinges (inside) reinforced. Frontispiece and title-page tattered and now mounted, with outer margin of first preface page repaired; a number of corners bumped or dog-eared, with a few in one section at some point delicately rodent(?)-nibbled. Subscribers' list trimmed closely, affecting two names only; pages age-toned with intermittent foxing. In fact, though certainly not “excellent” quite “satisfactory.” (25357)

By an Irish Augustinian
Gahan, William. A compendious abstract of the history of the Church of Christ, from its first foundation to the eighteenth century. New York: Pr. by J. Seymour, 1814. 8vo (18 cm, 7.125"). 408 pp.
$650.00
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First American edition. Gahan, an Irish Augustinian, was famous for his part in the absolutely rip-snorting Dunboyne will case (see the DNB). Gahan had received the grandly apostate bishop Lord Dunboyne back into the Catholic Church against the commands of his archbishop, and urged him to revoke his will in which he bequeathed one of Dunboyne family estates to the University of Maynooth. After Dunboyne's death a sister contested the will, and during the trial Gahan's refusal to break the seal of the confessional led to his imprisonment for contempt of court.
The present work shows this independent Augustinian in his role as a teacher and writer.
Provenance: Released as a duplicate from the greatest collection of American Catholica in the world, the Georgetown University Library, with a few faint rubber-stamps.
Parsons 468; Shaw & Shoemaker 31551. On Dunboyne, see: Dictionary of National Biography, VIII, 66–67. Original sheets
sewn but never bound. Edges chipped and dog-eared; age-toned and waterstained. Now housed in a simple acid-free phase box. (39461)

Polenta before It Was Made with
“Turkey Wheat”
& Woodcuts from the
Moretus Press
Gerard, John. The herball, or, General historie of plantes. London: Printed by Adam Islip, Joice Norton & Richard Whitakers, 1636. Large folio (35.5 cm; 14"). [19 of 20] ff., 1630 [i.e., 1634] pp., [24 of 25] ff. (without the initial and final blank leaves).
$13,500.00
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“When reading Gerard we are wandering in the peace of an Elizabethan garden, with a companion who
has a story for every flower and is full of wise philosophies” (Woodward, p. viii). And indeed, Gerard's herbal is written in “glorious Elizabethan prose, [with] the folk-lore steeping its pages'” (Woodward, p. vii), these factors going a long way towards making it one of the best-known and -loved of the early English herbals. The “herbs” surveyed include plants aquatic and terrestrial, New World and Old, embracing shrubs, plants, and trees, each with a description of its structure and appearance, where it is found (and how it got there), when it is sown and reaped or flowers, its name or names (often with engrossingly exotic etymologies), its “temperature,” and its “vertues” or uses (often curious).
The story is famous: John Norton, Queen's printer, wished to bring out an English language version of Dodoen's Pemptades of 1583 and hired a certain “Dr. Priest” to do so, but the translator died with the work only partially done. A copy of the manuscript translation made its way into John Gerard's hands and he seized the opportunity, reorganizing the contents, obscuring the previous translator's contribution, incorporating aspects of Rembert and Cruydenboeck's works, and commandeering the result as his own.
Gerard abandoned Dodoen's classification, opting for l'Obel's instead, and, in a stroke of ambition and brilliance, illustrated the work with
more than 2500 woodcuts of plants. Many of these are large and all are attractive but more than a few were of plants he himself did not know, thus leading to considerable confusion between illustration and text in the earliest editions, this being third overall and the second with Thomas Johnson's additions and amendments. For both Johnson editions
a large number of the woodcuts were obtained from the famous Leyden printing and publishing firm of Moretus, successors to the highly famous firm of Plantin. As Johnston notes: “Most of the cuts were those used in the botanicals published by Plantin, although a number of new woodcuts were added after drawings by Johnson and Goodyer” (Cleveland Herbal . . . Collections, #185).
The large thick volume begins with a handsome engraved title-page by John Payne incorporating a bust of the author, urns with flowers and herbs, and full-length seated images of Dioscorides and Theophrastus and of Ceres and Pomona. Replacing the missing initial blank is a later leaf on which is mounted a large engraving of Gerard. The text is printed in italic, roman, and gothic type.
There is, to us, a surprising and very interesting section on grapes and wines. The first part of our caption delights partly in discovery that maize, the “corn” of the U.S., is here called “turkey wheat” — with further note that you can make bread of it, but that the result is pleasing only to “barbarous” tastes! The entry as a whole shows
Gerard at his characteristic best, at once scientifically systematic and engagingly discursive.
Provenance: Neatly lettered name of “W. Younge” at top of title-page; it is tempting to attribute this to William Younge, physician of Sheffield and Fellow of the Royal Linnean Society, whose online correspondence shows him to have been an eager collector of botanical books.
STC (rev. ed.) 11752; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 636/25; Nissen, Botanischebuchs, 698n; Pritzel 3282n; Johnston, The Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 185; Woodward, Gerard's Herball: The essence thereof distilled (London, 1964). On the source of the blocks, see: Hunt Botanical Catalogue and Bowen, K. L., & D. Imhof, The illustration of Books Published by the Moretuses (Antwerpen, 1997). For “Turkey Wheat, “ see: Gerard, p. 81; for polenta, p. 71. Late 17th-century English calf, plain style; rebacked professionally in the 20th century, later endpapers. As usual, without the first and last blank leaves. Three leaves with natural paper flaws in blank margins. A very good copy. (34500)

First Irish Edition: Feudal Law & Its Applications, from a
Former Darling of the Nation
Gilbert, Geoffrey, Sir. A treatise of tenures. Containing the original, nature, use, and effect of feudal or common-law tenures. Dublin: Pr. by Alex. M'Culloh for Sarah Cotter, 1754. 8vo (19.8 cm, 7.8"). vii, [1], 144, [36 (index)] pp.
$700.00
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First Irish edition and, notably, printed for a
woman publisher. Sir Geoffrey (also given as Jeffrey or Jeffray) Gilbert (1674–1726), an eminent English judge, became chief baron of the Irish exchequer to the acclaim of all and sundry — until a case he was hearing put the Irish House of Lords in direct conflict with the British, leading to his brief imprisonment and, though much of the situation was beyond his control, much subsequent blame from the Irish for the passing of the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act of 1719. During his otherwise more fortunate career, Gilbert wrote a number of legal works, none of which were published until after his death but all of which were well-received upon their appearance.
This particular treatise was
praised by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1815, and by John Adams; it appears here in its first Irish and third overall edition, following the first of 1730.
ESTC T207893; Sweet & Maxwell (2nd ed.), I, 453:20. Contemporary speckled calf, joints reinforced some time ago, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and blind-tooled bands. Pages age-toned and lightly cockled, with mild to moderate offsetting and spotting; last few leaves of index waterstained. One leaf with printing flaw: final words of 10 lines at bottom of page printed out of true. Not pristine, but sturdy and still respectable. (34394)

Before the
War of JENKINS' EAR
Great Britain. The convention between the Crowns of Great Britain and Spain, concluded at the Pardo on the 14th of January 1739, N.S. London: Printed by Samuel Buckley, 1739. 4to (21.7 cm, 8.625"). 28 pp.
$600.00
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Ineffectual trilingual treaty, one of two copies printed in London in the same year, this edition most likely the first. The 1739 Convention of Pardo (a.k.a. Treaty of Pardo or Convention of El Pardo) was designed to avoid a war between Spain and Great Britain over trade conflicts and the boundaries of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas by reimbursing Britain for damaged ships and creating, through a committee, plans to negotiate a neutral trading area. Despite these efforts, the War of Jenkins' Ear erupted later that year.
This pamphlet presents the treaty and two separate articles with more specific details on implementation of its arrangements in French, Spanish, and English, with the British ratification statements recorded in Latin and English and the Spanish ones in Spanish and English.
Several ships are mentioned by name, and the West Indies and Puerto Rico appear as locales for conflict.
ESTC T4473; Sabin 16195; not in Alden & Landis, European Americana; Goldsmiths'-Kress 07664. Removed from nonce volume, first leaf separating from text block; light age-toning, one top margin trimmed closely, light marginal pencilling on first and final leaves.
A good printed relic of a failed peace effort. (38080)

AMERICAN Oak for
English Barrel Staves
Great Britain. Laws, statutes, etc., 1760-1820 (George III). Anno regni Georgii III...undecimo.... [An Act for Granting a Bounty upon the Importation of White Oak Staves, and Heading, from the British Colonies or Plantations in America....] London: Pr. by Charles Eyre and William Strahan, 1771. Folio. [1] f., pp. 1227-1234.
$175.00
An AMERICAN FIRST in
PHILOSOPHY
Gros, John Daniel. Natural principles of rectitude, for the conduct of man in all states and situations of life; demonstrated and explained in a systematic treatise on moral philosophy. New York: T. & J. Swords, 1795. 8vo (20 cm, 7.9"). xvi, 456 pp. (lacking half-title).
[SOLD]
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First edition. Born in Germany, Gros was a pastor and professor of both German and moral philosophy at Columbia University. This work is the text version of a course he taught there, and is the “first treatise on Moral Philosophy written and published in America,” according to Sabin.
ESTC W28659; Evans 28775; Sabin 28933. 19th-century quarter sheep in imitation of morocco, rubbed and worn; covers pressure-stamped by a now-defunct institution, spine with paper shelving label. Half-title lacking, title-page and a number of others stamped, back free endpaper with pocket. Pages clean save for stamps. (9536)

Hamilton, Madison, & Jay
Explain the Constitution
Hamilton, Alexander; James Madison; & John Jay. The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in the year 1788. Hallowell, ME: Glazer & Co., 1826. 8vo (22 cm, 8.75"). 582 pp.
[SOLD]
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All research into the meaning and intent of the framers of the Constitution begins with The Federalist. Published in 1788 as a refutation to those who opposed ratification of the Constitution of the United States, The Federalist is relevant today as lawmakers and Supreme Court justices dust off their old copies and consult it for its authoritative and incisive interpretations of constitutional matters such as the relationship between federal and state governments, lobbies and lobbying, the freedom of the press, nominations and confirmations, constitutional amendments, war and treaty-making powers, and the impeachment process. Although the 85 essays here were originally published anonymously, authorship was assigned beginning with the Washington, 1818 edition; also beginning with that edition, Madison's corrections of his essays are present. This is the first edition of this highly important book to be printed in Maine.
The appendices include the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution and amendments 1–12, and the Pacificus/Helvidius letters that Hamilton (Pacificus) and Madison (Helvidius) exchanged in response to President George Washington’s “Neutrality Proclamation.”
Howes H114 (for the first and several subsequent editions); Shoemaker 24513; Sabin 23987. Contemporary acid-stained sheep, flat spine darkened and slightly pulled at top with vertically cracked leather reflecting a gutter opening at pp. 234–35; rubbing and abrasions, but volume firm. Title-page and last leaves with offsetting from a previous binding, one short marginal tear a little into text without loss, one leaf with paper flaw in upper margin taking the two page numerals; some foxing and light age-toning, with a small number of pencilled lines, ticks, etc. to margins indicating points of interest. A good++ copy. (40899)
[Hare, Francis]. A letter to a member of the October-Club: Shewing, that to yield Spain to the Duke of Anjou by a peace, wou’d be the ruin of Great Britain. The second edition, with additions. London: A. Baldwin, 1711. 8vo (20.8 cm, 8.25"). vi, 42 pp.
$800.00
Generally attributed to Francis Hare, Bishop of Chichester, this anonymously published political analysis expresses concern not only that putting the Duke of Anjou on the Spanish throne would tilt the balance of power in Europe too far towards France, but also that such action would greatly damage the livelihoods of English textile workers, among others dependent on international commerce; also questioned are
Swift’s views on the ramifications of trade with Portuguese America. This is the second, expanded edition.
ESTC T58140; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 711/126; Teerink-Scouten 1034. Blue-green paper wrappers, old style. Title-page with small numeric stamp, faint traces of other annotations. Small area of worming in inner margins, touching a very few letters. A few scattered spots, otherwise clean; edges untrimmed. (6369)

France
Sadly Disappointed Him . . .
Harper, Robert Goodloe. Observations on the dispute between the United States and France, addressed by...one of the representatives in Congress for the state of South Carolina, to his constituents, in May, 1797...second edition. London: (Pr. in Philadelphia & repr. by) Philanthropic Press, 1798. 8vo (21.5 cm, 8.5"). [2 (lacking half-title)], 5109, [1] pp.
$200.00
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Denunciation of France's aggressive stance, written by a politician who had been one of that country's most vocal American supporters during the Revolution. Harper, a prominent Federalist who served as a representative from South Carolina and later as a senator from Maryland, admits in this address his former pro-French sympathies before going on to critique the French assertions regarding various American actions and the U.S. treaty with Great Britainin fact, he goes so far as to call for war. This much-discussed tract was reprinted numerous times throughout the United States and Great Britain, both in English and in French, immediately following its initial appearance in 1797.
ESTC T110138; Sabin 30433. On Harper, see: Dictionary of American Biography, VIII, 28586. Recent quarter blue morocco with blue cloth sides, spine gilt-stamped with title within gilt-ruled raised bands and with trefoils at head and foot. Half-title lacking; one page (not the title) stamped by a now-defunct institution. Faint traces of waterstaining to lower outer margins of most leaves.
A handsome copy of an important document. (4791)

More than One Lifetime's Worth of Adventure & Interesting Ideas
Harriott, John. Struggles through life, exemplified in the various travels and adventures in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, of John Harriott, Esq. London: Pr. for the author, 1815. 12mo (18 cm, 7.1"). 3 vols. I: Frontis., xvxv, [1], 443, [1] pp. II: xii, 428, [2] pp. III: vii, [1], 479, [1] pp. (lacking pp. 69–72); 1 fold. plt., 1 plt.
$750.00
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Autobiography of
one of the founders of the Thames police, a clever and independent mariner who went adventuring around the world before settling down to become an Essex justice of the peace and eventually Resident Magistrate of the Thames River Police (a.k.a. the Marine Police Force, sometimes called England's first official police force). Here he looks back on his remarkably varied youthful escapades, including travelling in the merchant-service,
visiting “the Savages in North America,” meeting the King of Denmark, serving in the East India Company's military service, and narrowly escaping such dangers as tigers, poisonous snakes, floods, fires, and scamming fathers-in-law. If the narrator is to be believed, the two issues that caused him the chiefest distress in life were pecuniary difficulties and other people's unchivalrous treatment of women. He also has much to say about
law and business in the New World and the Old, slavery in America, forcible incarceration in private madhouses (with excerpts from a first-person account of such), and
the nature of farming in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as the state of affairs in Washington, DC, and, of course, the history of the creation of the Thames police.
Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author, done by Henry Cook after Hervé; vol. III is illustrated with an
oversized, folding plate of a water-engine intended for millwork, devised by the author, and a plate of another of his inventions: the automated “chamber fire escape”, which enables anyone to lower him- or herself from a high window. This is the third edition, following the first of 1807.
NSTC H625; Sabin 30461. Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; vol. I with joints and extremities refurbished, vols. II and III with spines and edges rubbed, old strips of library tape reinforcing spine heads. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, vols. II and III with paper shelving labels at top of spines (vol. I showing signs of now-absent label). Vol. I title-page with offsetting from frontispiece; vol. III with pp. 69–72 excised (two leaves of a rather long religious-themed letter from Harriott to his son) and with upper portion of one leaf crumpled, reinforced some time ago. Some light age-toning, intermittent small spots of foxing and ink-staining, pages generally clean.
Utterly absorbing. (30651)
Hill, John. An account of the life and writings of Hugh Blair .... Philadelphia: James Humphreys, 1808. 8vo (21.7 cm, 8.5"). 229, [1 (blank)] pp.
$125.00
First U.S. edition, following the Edinburgh first of 1807, of this laudatory biography written by a professor at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Blair, a Scottish preacher, critic, and rhetorician, is best remembered for his sermons (which were praised by Dr. Johnson) and his involvement in the Ossian debate, in which he defended the poems’ authenticity.
Provenance: The Rev. Edwin A. Dalrymple; the Maryland Diocesan Library.
Shaw & Shoemaker 15224. Contemporary quarter cloth over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding moderately darkened and worn, cloth chipped over head of spine, spine showing shadow of a now-absent shelving label. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate and with institutional rubber-stamp (as above); title-page additionally with early inked gift inscription in upper margin (this cut into by binder). Some light spotting and age-toning. (19368)

Cutting Way Back on
Presidential Authority
Hillhouse, James. Propositions for amending the constitution of the United States, submitted by Mr. Hillhouse to the Senate on the twelfth day of April, 1808, with his explanatory remarks. [Washington]: 1808. 12mo (19.3 cm, 7.6"). 52, [2], 7 pp.
$150.00
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
Hillhouse, a United States Senator from Connecticut, put forth these seven amendments in the hopes of diminishing corruption and partisan politics.
One of the most interesting suggestions isthat the President of the U.S. be chosen by lottery from among the existing senators, to serve a one-year term!
Following Hillhouse's discussion of his purpose and reasoning, the actual amendments have a separate title-page.
First edition. Second and third editions were printed at New Haven by Oliver Steele & Co. in the same year as this first.
Sabin 31883; Shaw & Shoemaker 15230. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Pages with a few scattered spots of light staining and occasional early inked corrections; old stitching holes in inner margins. Page edges untrimmed. In fact, quite a nice copy. (25210)
Honeywood, St. John. Poems ... some pieces in prose. New York: Pr. by T. & J. Swords, 1801. 12mo (17.2 cm, 6.75"). viii, 159, [1 (errata)] pp.
$450.00
Toward the end of this volume of early U.S. poetry is a prose chapter entitled “The Shaking Quakers” — a well-observed account of two visits that the author made to the Niskayuna Shakers. The visits in all likelihood occurred in 1784–86, while Honeywood was studying law in Albany.
Wegelin 996; Shaw & Shoemaker 669; Sabin 32786; Richmond 2274. Period-style quarter tan cloth with light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Title-page and several others rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. An uncommon book, with many interesting points, including some charming little head- and tailpieces. (19972)

Armelle Nicolas in Philadelphia — An Early American Catholicum
Jeanne de la Nativité. Daily conversation with God, exemplified in the holy life of Armelle Nicolas, a poor ignorant country maid in France, commonly known by the name of the good Armelle, deceas’d in Bretaigne in the year 1671. Philadelphia: Reprinted by Henry Miller, 1767. 8vo (16.3 cm, 6.375"). 16, [2] pp.
$500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
An early American religious tract that tells the story of French maid Armelle Nicolas and her “child-like, hearty, and confident conversing with God as her only love, her father, and intimate friend.” This short English work was translated from a section of the 1704 French work “L'école du pur amour de Dieu” in the hopes that “some able pen or other” might be inspired to translate the entirety of the humbly pious woman's story into English.
WorldCat records suggest this could have been
a tract printed for Anthony Benezet (1713–84), a French-born educator and abolitionist who immigrated to Philadelphia.
Evans 10659; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania, 2289; Parsons 21. In modern tan wrappers; faint stain to front one. Leaves age-toned with some foxing, tip of one leaf corner torn away, tiny stain to bottom edge of leaves.
A small, neat product of earnest Philadelphia. (39894)

“Un Missionnaire Doit Être un Excellent Voyageur”
Jesuits. Nouvelles des missions, extraites des Lettres edifiantes et curieuses. Paris: Societé catholique des bons livres, 1827. 12mo (16.9 cm, 6.68"). 2 vols. I: vii, [3], 214 pp. II: [4], 243, [3] pp.
$350.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The first volume here opens with an impassioned defense of the overall interest and significance of the Lettres édifiantes, 34 volumes of correspondence from non-European Jesuit missions reporting back to Rome, originally published from 1702 to 1776. While there was obviously much therein on the condition of the various missions and missionaries and their conversion activities, the writers also addressed social and political conditions and events, as well as occasionally writing detailed descriptions of natural history. The present two volumes, an early 19th-century abridgement, offer some of the
highlights of letters from the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas (Constantinople, Armenia, Persia, Syria, Tripoli, Jerusalem and the Holy
Land, in the first volume; various parts of Canada, California, Santo Domingo, and Guyana in the second).
This ed. not in Sabin; see 40697 for main entry. Contemporary paper in tree calf pattern, spines with gilt-stamped red leather title-labels; rubbed overall. All edges stained yellow. Front free endpapers each with small 19th-century library paper shelving label. Occasional small spots of staining or foxing, pages generally clean. (40086)

“Planting in Virginia” — A Chiswick Type Facsimile
[Johnson, Robert]. Nova Britannia, offering most excellent fruits by planting in Virginia exciting all such as be well affected to further the same. New York: Printed for J. Sabin [at the Chiswick Press by Whittingham & Wilkens], 1867. Sq. 8vo (22 x 18 cm; 8.5" x 7"). [40] pp.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
Type facsimile reprint of the London original of 1609, from
the Chiswick Press. The reprint is edited by F.L. Hawks. “Two hundred and fifty copies printed, of which fifty are on large paper.” This copy one of the 200 ordinary copies, with number XIV in pencil in the number field.
Printed in black letter, this elegantly produced homage features a “period” ship in full sail on its title-page, two nice headpieces, and two decorated initials — a modest “F” of four-line size to start off the dedication and a very large “W” of 12-line depth signaling the text's first “Whereas.”
Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Sabin 36285; Clark, I,105. 20th-century three-quarter crushed blue morocco with blue cloth sides; top edge gilt. Very good. (37395)

America Reads about
the Irish Rebellion of 1798
Jones, John, of Dublin. An impartial narrative of the most important engagements which took place between His Majesty's forces and the insurgents, during the Irish Rebellion, in 1798; including very interesting information not before published. Carefully collected from authentic letters. Cambridge, N.Y.: Printed by Tennery & Stockwell, [1804]. 12mo. (17.5 cm; 7".) 237, [1] pp.
$400.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First U.S. edition of this collection of first-person accounts of the United Irishmen's 1798 uprising against British rule, originally published in Dublin in 1799.
The date of printing is based on the fact that the printing firm of Tennery & Stockwell was active at Cambridge, N.Y., in 1804 only.
Provenance: Ownership signature dated 1806 of M.H. Smith and another undated (i.e., Manassah H. Smith, a lawyer in Warren and Portland, Maine); 20th-century bookplate of Francis Massey O'Brien (Portland, Maine), bibliophile and bookseller.
Shaw & Shoemaker 6570. Publisher's acid-stained sheep, abraded; black leather spine label; front joint (outside) starting. Early and late leaves with discoloration in outer margins from migration of leather oils, otherwise typical age-toning and the occasional stain or spot. Generally a very nice copy. (29949)

The Check Is in the Mail
Joseph Anthony & Co. Autograph Letter Signed to Benjamin Bourne. Philadelphia, PA: 28 January 1800. 4to (10" x 7.75"). 1 p., without the integral address leaf.
$75.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
The merchant company of Joseph Anthony & Co. tells Bourne that on 18 January it sent him a post note for $170; it laments the irregularity of post mail, which is due (it thinks) to carelessness of the post riders.
Provenance: Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, recently deaccessioned.
Very good condition. Docketed on verso. (33398)

“There Will Always be Music, Art, & Church Bells . . .
There Will Always be a Memorable Meal”
. . . in San Francisco
Junior League of Pasadena. The California heritage cookbook. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., © 1976. 8vo (26.6 cm, 10.5"). [8], 424 pp.; illus.
$60.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Impressive testament to California cuisine and wine, with brief essays describing the history of the state's different regions and regimes along with its various culinary influences — particularly Mexican. Chapters include “Monterey Peninsula,” “The Redwood Empire,” “San Francisco,” “The Sierra Nevada,” “The Missions,” “The Desert Valleys,” and “Napa”; this is the 16th printing.
The recipes show a penetration of Mexican cooking that extends beyond tacos, tamales, and guacamole to Mexican coffee, avocado soup, salad dressing, fish dishes, and even a soufflé. And it is notable that now the Mexican dishes are no longer segregated.
Publisher's tan cloth-covered boards in original dust jacket; jacket evenly sunned with a few edge nicks.
A very nice copy of an interesting, attractive, historically oriented cookbook. (36107)
From
New England to the NILE . . .
Considerable Caribbean Content
[Justel, Henri, ed.] Recueil de divers voyages faits en Afrique et en l’Amerique, qui n’ont point esté encore publiez.... Paris: Louis Billaine, 1674. 4to (23.7 cm, 9.4"). á4ã4A–Z4Aa–Hh4 Ii2Kk4Ll21§–4§45§2 **A–**C4 a2b–g4 *A–*K4L2; [8] ff., 262, 35, [1 (blank)] 23, [1 (blank)], 49, [1 (blank)] pp., [1] f., 81, [1 (blank)] pp., 3 fold. plans, 4 maps (3 fold.), 9 plts.
$6500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of this collection of significant and interesting voyages, edited by a scholar and book collector who served in the employ of Louis XIV before being appointed Keeper of the King’s Library at St. James by Charles II. The compilation includes French-language travelogues of Barbados, the Nile River, Ethiopia, “l’Empire du Prète-Jean,” Guiana, Jamaica, and the English colonies, with illustrations including banana and palmetto trees, Caribbean pottery, and maps of New England, Jamaica (including Florida and the Antilles), and Barbados.
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)
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