•  Publisher's printed cream-colored paper wrappers, front wrapper with cornucop ia design in navy and gold; back lower outer corner bumped, light dust-soiling to back wrapper. One page with small affixed sticker in upper portion, partially obscuring header but no other text.  (30227)

This, the editio princeps, was edited by and has the notes of Matthew Bust (1543 or 1544–1613), Fellow of Eton College and father of his namesake who was Master of Eton (1611–30). The prefatory matter and notes are printed in Latin in italics and the main text is in a large greek face; the actual printer's name is from STC.

Searches of STC, WorldCat, and ESTC locate many copies in Britain and even Europe, but only five in U.S. libraries.

Provenance:  18th-century ownership inscription at top of title-page: “Petri Bonifantii.” Most recently in the collection of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).

An amazing early English schoolbook!

•  STC (rev.) 14622; ESTC S103427.   20th-century quarter red morocco with red cloth sides. Light age-toning and some stray ink spots. In fact, very good.  (37309)

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with inked inscription: “Ivon Braby, from his affectionate father [/] Christmas 1884"; front free endpaper with Braby's bookplate.

•  Contemporary crimson calf, covers framed in gilt roll, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label, board edges and turn-ins with gilt roll, rebacked with similar leather, preserving original spine; edges rubbed, spine leather with small chips. Plates and surrounding pages with spots of light foxing; frontispiece plate with outer edge lightly waterstained. A solid, very readable, andpretty copy.  (36248)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 17875; Welch 739; Rosenbach, Children, 395; German Language Printing in the U.S. 1690; Pomeroy, Anderson, 289.   Publisher's stone-pattern marbled-covered boards.A very nice copy; remarkably, beautifully clean.  (36378)

Knight, who was devoted to books and to literature from the time he was a small child, was a much-admired printer and publisher, as well as an author, reformer, and would-be educator: Many of his publishing endeavors were aimed at improving and enlightening the working class.

•  NSTC 2K7731. On Knight, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. On binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth, style Wav3.   Publisher's textured brown cloth, covers blind-stamped with muse motif and title, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped decorations; lightly worn overall with some fading, vol. II spine head with traces of a strip of cloth tape. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Paper slightly embrittled (more so in second volume), with a few short edge tears. Externally ordinary; internally worthwhile.  (26860)

true first edition of the unofficial second series

attending boarding school

The first series made its first appearance in book form in London, 1823. The authorized second series was not published until 1833, under the title The Last Essays of Elia; the pieces selected for the unauthorized American second series offered here are different from those contained in that volume, and mistakenly include three essays written by other hands.

•  Shoemaker 33813 & 33814; NCBEL, III, 1225; NSTC 2L2346.   Vol. I: Uncut copy. Publisher's quarter once-red cloth and paper sides, covers printed with “Elia” within a simple frame, spine with printed paper label; binding rubbed and lightly soiled, spine sunned to yellow. Repaired tear to one leaf, touching text without loss; remarkably clean and sound. Vol. II: Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; rubbed, and head of spine chipped with old refurbishing. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number ticket on front pastedown, front free endpaper with inked numerals, title-page pressure-stamped. Author's name inked on title-page; front free endpaper and title-page reinforced at fore-edge (the latter from the back). Both volumes age-toned, with intermittent spots of staining; advertisements absent. The set now housed in a quarter blue morocco and blue cloth–covered clamshell case with marbled paper–covered sides and gilt-stamped spine.  (26434)

Binding:  Original red cloth, elaborately stamped in gilt on front cover and spine (a bit faded on spine), and in blind on rear cover. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  Miniature bookplate of Grace Broecker, a major collector of miniature books: a portion of her collection is now at the Huntington Library.

•  Welsh 4311.   Very good copy.  (35617)

The work is a classic in the field of early European accounts of China, of missions to and in China, and of travel in general. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of this edition and may have done so for the work's sections on education in that kingdom.

Provenance:  Signature of M. Middleton dated 1699 at top of the frontispiece. Later in the collection of the Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Wing (rev. ed.) L831; ESTC R15898; Goldsmiths'-Kress 3379; DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1356; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, I, 40.   Contemporary modest Cambridge-style binding of speckled calf; very nicely newly rebacked. Small institutional stamp on title-page and in margin of one other page. A very good copy.  (36372)

•  Publisher's quarter ivory cloth and black paper–covered sides in original color-printed dust-jacket; jacket with cream areas (including spine) very slightly darkened, extremities lightly rubbed, back panel with short tear from upper edge, volume with minimal wear to extremities. A pleasing copy of a classic from an award-winning children's author/illustrator.  (34435)

•  Metallic marbled paper-covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Clean and pleasant, in original glassine dustwrapper remarkably intact.  (31136)

Recent research (Wichlan, Complete Poetry of Jack London, 2007) suggests that this was printed atthe Keesling Press in Campbell, California. The number of copies printed is unknown.

•  BAL 11989; Woodbridge, p. 275.   Printed on heavy, textured card stock and folded lengthwise once to form a booklet. Front cover irregularly age-toned; interior facing pages, displaying whole poem, very fresh and nice.  (30148)

Provenance:  The title-page bears “Ex libris Romanet” inked in an early hand.

•  Barbier, III, 1026; Jones 82; Cioranescu 40953.   Contemporary mottled calf framed in single blind fillet, sympathetically rebacked with gilt-stamped red leather title-label, raised bands blind-ruled, and blind-stamped floral motifs in compartments; binding moderately but not unappealingly worn overall, boards slightly sprung, joints and extremities refurbished, front hinge (inside) cracked but holding. Title-page inscription as above. First three leaves with waterstaining in upper outer margin and resulting small loss to edge of title-page, central signatures with waterstaining at inner margins and three leaves there repaired, other pages with scattered light stains and smudges, one leaf with short tear from outer margin not extending into text., and faults not nearly so distressing as that recital suggests they might be. A solid, very readable first edition from an author deserving of scholarly attention.  (37211)

An engraved frontispiece of Ptolemy done by Menzel opens the volume; the main title-page is printed in red and black, with an engraved allegorical vignette.

Provenance:  Title-page verso with intaglio-printed armorial ex libris, printed directly on the leaf (not a bookplate that was glued on): “Ex Bibliotheca Friederici Roth-Scholtzii.” Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (1687–1736) was a prominent Nuremberg printer and publisher, as well as the author of Icones bibliopolarum et typographorum de republica litteraria and the Bibliotheca chemica; there are several reported examples of such bookplates in his books.

•  Recent quarter calf and speckled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author, title, place, date and gilt-ruled raised bands. Volume a little cocked. Endpapers soiled; some pages with mild offsetting, and text otherwise clean.  (25490)

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers; one faint vertical crease throughout and light wear overall, with a bit of abrasion to one corner of cover; generally a pleasing copy.  (36532)

•  Light discoloration and minor cockling.  (35307)

•  Original quarter cloth with decoratively printed paper sides, paper chipped over edges. One instance of pencil marking; otherwise clean and unused.  (4954)

•  NSTC 2E4287.   Removed from a nonce volume. Title-page with small inked numeral in upper outer corner.  (17041)

•  Publisher's color-printed wrappers; lightly dust-soiled, corners and spine showing minor rubbing, front wrapper with one faint spot of staining and inked owner's name in upper outer corner. Pages very slightly age-toned with one small adhesion between first two leaves, otherwise clean. A pretty and now relatively uncommon book, overall showing impressively little wear for an item of this nature.  (36527)

Rare.  No copies traced via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC or RLIN.

•  On Muretus, see: Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, II, 148–52. Contemporary half vellum over stencilled paper, spine with inked title; stained and paper torn with much chipping, especially on edges of covers. Ex-library with white-lettered call number on spines and, on title-pages, two different Catholic institutions’ rubber-stamps, plus the old inked ownership inscription of a Jesuit novitiate (Maryland). Ink scratches to frontispiece portrait (intentional?), and some inkstains in margins elsewhere. Lightly foxed. All edges speckled red.  (11574)

Printed in Latin and Greek, in roman and italic, this has a (sectional) title-page with its text framed in a wide ornamental border of acanthus leaves and flowers. In text are a number of ornate woodcut initials in white against a white-floriated background.

Evidence of readership: Early ink annotations in a few margins (partially cut off at the time of rebinding).

Provenance:  From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).

•  EDIT16 CNCE 47085; Sander, II, 4984.   Modern vellum over flexible boards, author/contents/date inked on spine, binding gently cocked; marginalia trimmed as above. Very lightly age-toned; clean and crisp.  (37311)

The frontispiece portrait of Nelson was engraved by George Vertue after a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The volume also includes all publisher's advertisements as well as the rather uncommon Poem in Memory of Robert Nelson Esquire.

This was produced to be a handsome work, printed in large type on good paper with wide margins — the better to appeal to a “quality” audience?

•  ESTC T85360; Goldsmiths’-Kress 5249. Poem: ESTC T25431; Foxon P538.   Contemporary speckled calf, framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons; rebacked with speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, raised bands, and blind-tooled foliate compartment decorations. Original leather abraded, front cover with small chip to outer edge and area of faint discoloration from a now-absent label; title-page institutionally rubber-stamped (no other markings). Some signatures browned and foxed, most pages clean.  (25999)

•  Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers, spine chewed and overall with soiling; back cover with tear from upper edge into text without impairment to reading. Paper age-toned; some text pages ragged at edges, again, without harm to reading.  (26935)

•  Publisher's color-printed paper wrappers; spine and edges chewed with overall light soiling. Paper age-toned and actually rather good/strong, of its sort.  (26936)

The Rev. Norris (1657–1712), rector of Bemerton near Salisbury (“Sarum” as the title-page fashions it), was an Anglican divine, a poet, a Platonist, and a prominent disciple of Malebranche, and a noted opponent of Locke and critic of philosophical writings.

Provenance:  From the Ambrose Swasey Library (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School) with library stamp on verso of title-page and bottom edge of text block.

•  Wing (rev. ed.). N1274; ESTC R32226; Smith, Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana, p. 340; on Norris, see: DNB (online).   Recent marbled paper–covered boards with gilt black leather label, new endpapers, all edges speckled red. Marked as above, light to moderate age-toning and occasional wormwork, almost completely in margins; one leaf with some paper torn away at foremargin. Avariety of pieces from a prolific theological writer.  (36098)