
BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS

A-C
D-G
H-N O-Z
Wonderful
Japonica-style Book on Japanese Woodcuts
Hájek, Lubor; & Werner Forman. Japanese woodcuts; early
periods. London: Spring Books, n.d. (c.1950). 4to. Frontis., 96, [2], 50 pp., illus.
$65.00
96 pages of text with 25 b/w illustrations, plus 50 pages of color plates. At head of title: “Hájek-Forman. Translated by Ilse Gottheiner.” Includes bibliographical references on (p. 93–94).
Cloth slipcase with Japanese lettering on front cover and lovely illustration inside, held closed by two bone fasteners through silk loops. Book is in wrappers; Japanese-style string-held binding. A nice copy with slipcase (only) exhibiting slightest soiling.
(23115)

Arabic — Armenian — Antiochus
Hamaker, Hendrik Arent. Specimen catalogi codicum mss. orientalium bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae ... [bound with two other works as described below]. Lugduni Batavorum: Apud S. & J. Luchtmans, 1820. 4to (24.5 cm, 9.7"). [4], viii, 264, [4] pp. [bound with] Chahan de Cirbied, Jacques M. Notice de deux manuscrits Arméniens contenant l'histoire de Mathieu Eretz ... Paris: De l'imprimerie Impériale, 1812. 4to. 92 pp. [and] Tôchon
d'Annecy, Joseph-François . Dissertation sur l'époque de la mort d'Antiochus VII évergètes sidétès, roi de Syrie, sur deux médailles antiques de ce prince ... Paris: L.G. Michaud, 1815. 4to. Frontis., 68 pp.
$1250.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of this catalogue of Arabic manuscripts held by the university at Leiden, annotated by Hamaker; the text is printed in Latin and Arabic. That work is followed by one on ancient Armenian manuscripts and another on the last era of Antiochus Sidetes with reference both to numismatic and Biblical sources; these are also in their first editions.
Hamaker: Brunet, III, 26-27. Contemporary half red morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and publication information; binding darkened, corners and joints lightly rubbed. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped, front free endpaper with neatly inked list of contents, half-title with small inked annotation dated 1825. Hamaker: Occasional instances of light spotting, pages otherwise clean. Chahan: Light intermittent foxing; inked marginalia in a neat hand. Tochon: Title-page with inked ownership inscription in upper margin, dated 1848. (20613)
Dr. R's Class
Haney, John Louis, ed. Who's who in '98 in 1923. Twenty-five year record of the class of 1898 college, University of Pennsylvania ... 1898–1923. Philadelphia: Printed for private circulation, 1923. 8vo. 79 pp.; illus.
$45.00
This was Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach's college class. Other members included a number of enterprising women, including one who was a musician and an inventor! Original red cloth, black-lettered on the front. Traces of soiling on covers. Small ink stain on title-page. Author's rubber-stamp on inner margin of p. [5]. Very good. (15956)

Endorsed by Lew Wallace — A Sample Book
Hanson, John Wesley, Jr., editor. The Parties and the Men or Political Issues of 1896. Chicago: A. B. Kuhlman & Co., (1896). 8vo. various pagings.
$45.00
Salesman's sample/cavassing book. No subscribers noted in the orders section. Includes frontispiece and specimen plates pages. Cheap paper starting to brown.
This sample promises over 100 biographies, with photographic portraits, to be delivered; it contains, itself, a great many portraits and “bioblurbs.” Tipped-in colored-paper slips offer selling points; one notes that “Complete books will be available immediately after the Democratic National Convention . . .”
Bindings offered: Volume in original pictorial light blue cloth stamped in silver, gold, and black; sample spine for this variant stamped on outside rear cover. Sample red leatherette spine mounted on rear pastedown, with rubber-stamped notice: “This strip is paper and only represents the color and stamping on the leather of our half morocco book.”
Arbour 1270 (noting an imprint of Plymouth Publishing Co.). Cloth lightly sunned and a little soiled and worn.
A very good copy. (23487)

Neatly
Bound in
Quarter
Morocco
[Harrisse, Henri]. Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima: A Description of works relating to America published between 1492 and 1551. New York: Geo. P. Philes, 1866. Large 8vo. liv, 519 pp.
$700.00
Still a standard bibliography
for this aspect of Americana. This copy is no. 74 of
400 copies in royal octavo format. Harrisse provides considerably more information
than latter bibliographies such as European Americana, including details
of collation by signature.
Modern quarter brown morocco. Ex-library with red stamps. Top edge gilt. A few margins with chips or short tears. In all a rather nice copy, one now in a strong and appropriate
binding.


Careful Scholarship Handsome Limited Edition
Harrisse, Henry. Americus Vespuccius: a critical and documentary review of two recent English books concerning that navigator. London: B. F. Stevens (Chiswick Press), 1895. 8vo. Frontis., 72 pp., [6] ff.
$200.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
A scholarly review of both “The letters of Amerigo Vespucci, and other documents illustrative of his career. Translated, with notes and an introduction, by Clements R. Markham . . . President of the Hakluyt Society” and “The voyage from Lisbon to India, 1505–6. Being an account and journal by Albericus Vespuccius. Translated from the contemporary Flemish, and edited with a prologue and notes by C.H. Coote, Department of Printed Books (Geographical Section), British Museum.”
The present item includes a colored frontispiece of the coat of arms of Balthasar Sprenger, “the real author of the alleged Vespuccian voyage from Lisbon to India 1505–6,” with the accompanying tissue guard — the account long having been misattributed by historians to
Vespucci himself.
Handsomely printed at the Chiswick Press. Limited to 250 numbered copies (this is copy no. 236).
Quarter white vellum, lettered in gilt on the spine, single-rule gilt frame on front and back covers. Covers bumped at lower corners and darkened along edges; head of spine with scrape and ink blot. Dark offsetting on endpapers; otherwise, pages clean. Top edge gilt, others uncut. (21272)

Uniquely Bound? — Beautifully Bound!
Harvard College Library. Illuminated & calligraphic manuscripts. An exhibition held at the Fogg Art Museum & Houghton Library, February 14 – April 1, 1955. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard College Library, 1955. Small folio. 45, [1] pp., [1] f., 80 pp. of illus.
$150.00

Excellent exhibition catalogue with minimalist but at same time
full entries for each item in the exhibition; there are many black and white
illustrations. This is a specially bound copy, almost certainly done to one
bibliophile's private taste.
Click
either image for an enlargement.
Binding: Bound in black
niger goat with a tobacco-colored niger inlay on front cover of a blind-tooled
reproduction of the drawing of Bede presenting his work to Bishop Acca that
appears in item 11 of this catalogue. That inset is surrounded by a second
one of red niger, serving as a frame.
Binding as above. Original wrappers bound in. A treasurable
copy. (22442)

Cancellaresca Corsiva
Harvard, Stephen. An Italic copybook: the Cataneo manuscript. New York: Published for the Houghton & Newberry Libraries by Taplinger Publishing Company (a Pentalic Book), 1981. Oblong 8vo. 55 pp.
$45.00
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
A study of the manuscript upon which Cataneo's reputation rests. “Fifth of the 'Studies in the History of Calligraphy' [by the] Department of Printing & Graphic Arts The Houghton Library, Harvard University and The Newberry Library.”
Publisher's black cloth, with charcoal gray dust jacket. A very good copy. (22235)
For CALLIGRAPHY / WRITING BOOKS, click here.

The Collector as
Author & Publisher
(Hofer, Philip). Philip Hofer as author and publisher. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1968. 8vo. [6], 64 pp., [1] f.; illus.
$30.00


(Hofer, Philip). The Philip Hofer collection in the Houghton Library: Philip Hofer as a collector. A symposium in conjunction with the exhibition of the Philip Hofer bequest to the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts. Cambridge: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 1988. 8vo. [2] ff., 41, [3 (2 blank)] pp.
$15.00
Original printed wrappings. Very good condition.

(Hofer, Philip). The Philip Hofer collection in the Houghton library: A catalogue of an exhibition of the Philip Hofer bequest. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1988. Folio. [6], vii–xiv, [1], 218 pp.; 100 illus.
$35.00
Index librorum prohibitorum. Index librorum prohibitorum S[anctissi]mi D. N. Benedicti XIV. pontificis maximi jvssv recognitus, atque editus. Romae: Ex typographia Rev. Camerae Apostolicae, 1758. 8vo (19 cm, 7.1"). *6a8b10A8B10C–S8T6*4; [6] ff., xxxvi, 304, 8 pp.
$1500.00

Clean copy of this handsomely printed copy of the infamous Index.
The
engraved title-page incorporates an engraving of men burning books!
Click
either image for an enlargement.
Vellum over paste boards; spine with tan label, gilt-lettered and ruled. Ex-library: Rubber stamps, including on front pastedown and all edges of closed book, spine with call number label and inked-out area. Paper clean and crisp. All edges marbled red.
For
a short “shelf” devoted to
FREE PRESS/SPEECH
click
here.
One
Daring! Title . . .
Jenkins Company, booksellers, Austin.
The
whole world: Books and manuscripts on many subjects. Austin:
The Jenkins Company, 1980. Folio.
$25.00
The
LIST
Jonah &
the Woolly whale were breakfasting. . . . New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, [ca. 1934]. 12mo. 12 pp.
$25.00
English Trade Bindings
King, Edmund M.B. Victorian decorated trade bindings 1830-1880. A descriptive bibliography. London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 2003. 4to. xxiii, [3], 324 pp.; 16 double-sided color plts.
$98.00
Limited
to
500 Copies
Messerli, Douglas.
Djuna Barnes: A bibliography. [New
York]: David Lewis, 1975. 8vo. xx, 131, [1] pp.
$50.00

Cinderella “The Girl Who Used Her Wits”
& “Tippity-Witchit's
HALLOWEEN”
Miller, Olive Beaupré, ed. Through the gate of my book house. Chicago: The Book House for Children, 1947. 8vo. 224 pp.; illus.
$48.50
Internationally flavored anthology of short stories, fairy tales, and poems for children, several related to holidays, richly illustrated by Billie Parks, Hazel Brown, Mariel Wilhoite, Maud and Miska Petersham, and others. The collection, volume IV in the “My Book House” series, was originally published in 1920.
Binding: Publisher's blue cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, front cover with full-color halftone illustration on paper laid on.
Bound as above with very slight rubbing to corners, spine extremities, and gilt. Hinges tender. Clean and unmarked. (22211)
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