This gathering of three cahiers contains a copy, bearing the true signature of the king (not a stamped one), of the authorization allowing the Oratorians' move from their original site to a new one on the Plazuela de Fernando; documentation that the local officials and the bishop have received copies of that decree; and a laterdenial  by the king, likewise with his signature (not a stamp), of a petititon by the same house of Oratorians to establish a school for teaching boys. It seems the Oratorians had already established the school without permission, and were here royally ordered to cease operation of it!

•  All written in clear hands; cahiers sewn, one document, a single leaf, loose by itself. Minor staining in lower margins of some leaves; minor insect damage costing some letters and an occasional short word but not impairing ability to read and comprehend.  (35902)

•  ESTC T63374 & T68757.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, rebacked and corners refurbished; marbled paper sides with surface wear. Front pastedown with bookplate as above, pastedown and free endpaper with small pencilled annotations. Octavo history with small portion torn away in outer margin (only) of final “Additions” leaf; quarto history with dust-soiling to title-page around edges of bound-in octavo and following leaves showing impression of bind-in. Occasional light foxing only, to both items, mostly confined to margins; quarto with a very few early inked corrections and annotations.  (33314)

The engraved frontispiece is of the Troy Female Seminary, a.k.a. The Emma Willard School, the first school of higher education for women. The engraver is not known but the drawing upon which it is based was by “Miss Lee.”

•  American Imprints 20661.   Publisher's green cloth, printed paper spine label; cloth bubbling and label a bit rubbed. Frontispiece offset to title-page, text Irregularly foxed and browned; a Very Good copy.  (37008)

There are two illustrations with captions per page. Some of the engravings are reworkings of illustrations that had appeared previously (e.g., in The Wonderful Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Albany, 1810; Mother Goose's Melody, Worcester, 1794); others are entirely original to this production.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 11163 & 26465; Rosenbach, Children, 466; Welch 993.   Original yellow stiff wrappers, splitting along the spine. Small chip missing from the top of the title-page. The impressions are various, with some quite faint and others very bright and crisp. A good copy.  (36385)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper inscribed “To Michael Blaisdell from his grandfather — Fred D. Blaisdell [/] This book was a gift from his uncle 65 years ago.” Pencilled beneath is “Rec'd Christmas 1947.” The original Blaisdell inscription follows on the fly-leaf, in beautiful copperplate script: “To Freddie Blaisdell. From his Uncle Sam.l Facey. Christmas, Dec. 25th 1882.”

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with complex gilt-stamped architectural design and chromolithographic paper inset of a young girl with pinafore, toys, and blonde ringlets.

•  Binding as above, mild rubbing to extremities, gilt slightly dimmed; front hinge (inside) cracked. Inscriptions as above. Pages age-toned with occasional light smudges and tiny spots of foxing. Overall, surprisingly and delightfully clean — a children's book that wasclearly treasured.  (36598)

No copies found via WorldCat or COPAC.

•  Removed from a bound volume; now in modern wrappers. Old foliation neatly inked in upper outer corners; clean, with wide margins.  (28222)

Provenance:  Title-page with “M.S. [or possibly “A.S.”) Hubbard printed, in old ink, at top.

Owner's modification: This edition of this work was issued in “shingle boards” with a leather shelfback and blue paper over the boards. An early owner has covered the spine and outside of the boards with a piece of polychrome paper that its now so faded that its original colors are not clearly determinable — though the pattern was apparently(?) floral!

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 35424; Rosenbach, Children, 531; Heartman 445.   Publisher's binding, modified as above, some of the later paper flaked off especially from spine; as with most recorded copies, the first and last leaf are pasted to the appropriate boards of the binding. Small area of worming to inside of front board with loss of two words (“blesses them”) of caption of the frontispiece, and evidence of a onetime paper adherence to plate; part of image of last leaf (pasted to inside of rear board) abraded or torn off. Pages age-toned and with a few stains. A far better than average copy, given the usual state of these much-used schoolbooks.  (36829)

education

•  NSTC 2P27024. On Prinsep, see: DNB. Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly age-toned. Traces of soiling and small inked numeral on title-page. A few instances of pencilled sidelining.  (11186)

Binding/Provenance: Prize binding of contemporary vellum, covers framed and panelled in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and gilt central vignette with the crest of the city of Amsterdam, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. The partially printed, partially inscribed, bound-in prize certificate reads “Ingenuo magnaeque spei adolescenti, Henrico Gerteler propter insignes in artibus humanioribus progessus, in classe tertia . . . Quod testor R. v. Ommeren [/] Gymnasii publici Amstelaedamensis Rector,” dated 1791.

•  Brunet, IV, 905; Dibdin, I, 385–86; Graesse, V, 460; Sandys, II, 455; Schweiger, II, 831. Binding as above, vellum slightly darkened, lacking ties; spine with gilt dimmed and traces of a now-absent label and inked call number at foot of spine. Lower edges with institutional rubber-stamp; title-page with shadow of a pencilled numeral. Front free endpaper with paper adhesions from a now-absent bookplate; back pastedown with rubber-stamp and small adhesion. Pages clean save for offsetting to upper margins of a few, from a laid-in slip.  (20594)

The volume is illustrated with woodcut arms on the verso of the second title-page and bears many woodcut initials and tailpieces throughout This copy retains Ortuño's engraved frontispiece (often missing) of St. Francis.

Binding:  A very interesting contemporary Mexican sprinkled calf binding, probably by a “provincial” binder. Covers with a single gilt-roll border having a modest corner device in each corner, that tool reused to form a four-part center design on each cover; same gilt-roll used on spine to accent the slightly raised bands and form spine compartments, one of these compartments with a spine-label and one having the covers' corner device gilt-tooled at its center. Board edges also with a gilt-roll design; all edges green. Highly unusual endpapers of a pattern in blue and red resembling images of strings in string theory: This is the first time we have ever seen this pattern.

•  Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 56; Viñaza 341; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2286; Palau 269110; Medina, Mexico, 4500; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 210–211; Sabin 71488; Leclerc 2334; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2891.   Binding as above, in good condition; light offsetting from it to early and late leaves. A few small areas of discoloration where candle wax spilled on a page, and a bit of other light toning; p. 135 with “Per Omnia Secula Seculorum” neatly written in bottom margin. Very good.  (34611)

•  NSTC 2R11677; Lowndes 2099; Hugo, The Bewick Collector, 434.   Contemporary half dark green morocco with red marbled paper sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; some rubbing and with a bit of green discoloration to paper of front cover. Minor offsetting to frontispiece and title-page; mild to moderate foxing in first third of volume and to last few pages.  (21934)

Considerable attention is paid to art: painting, japanning, gilding, making casts and impressions, and the symbolism of flowers, birds, trees, and insects. An extended discussion of the history and ceremonial dress of the Orders of the Garter and St. Andrews may derive from and bear witness to Mrs. Robertson's social longings! And because young ladies need to secretly write to beaus or friends, there are recipes forinvisible ink.

Pages 20, 41, 52–53, 62–66, 87, and 119 all haveAmericana content showing the spread into daily life in Europe of New World crops and natural products.

“This book was first printed in Edinburgh in 1766 by Walter Ruddiman, and sold by the author herself at Perth, as well as by other booksellers. Second and third editions followed, also by Ruddiman for Robertson, the second with an additional engraved title page” (catalogue record, National Library of Scotland). This is the “fourth edition, with large additions.” It is the first edition printed in York and was printed in the same year as the Edinburgh second and third editions.

Searches of ESTC, NUC, and WorldCat locate only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership of this edition.

•  Cagle, Matter of Taste, 966; Bitting 400; Axord 432; Maclean 124; Noling 349; ESTC T122647.   Contemporary plain sheep, worn and with some stains on boards; rebacked, with raised bands, modest gilt ruling, and red leather spine label; new endpapers. A nice copy.  (37210)

•  Brunet, IV, 1224; Cohen, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siecle, 510–11; Lewine, Bibliography of eighteenth century art and illustrated books, 252.   Later quarter oxblood morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; light wear to paper. Frontispiece mounted some time ago, title-page with short tear from lower margin, repaired; pages age-toned, with foxing and soiling/staining in various degrees throughout; despite flaws, a charmer. Uncut copy.  (29322)

Garrison and Morton say of the first edition in English: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work 'the most progressive which had yet been written;' it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics.”

Translator Murray (1740–91) was a Swedish student of Linnaeus and later a professor of botany and medicine at Göttingen.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Adamus Elias Schmidt, dated 1784.  Early 19th-century signature of a Philadelphia doctor (erased) at top of title-page.

•  G&M 6323.   Contemporary half calf, well worn: leather dry and gone to red with joint leather lost, cords holding, paper of covers worn through to boards in some places. Text with age-toning. Not a pretty copy but complete, and solid for now. Housed in a red cloth clamshell case.  (22256)

Rosenbach was the leading bookseller in America during the first half of the 20th century, helping to form the collections of Huntington, Folger, Widener, Doheny, Bell, Lilly, Clements, and many others. His personal collecting included American Judaica and Early American children's books. This is the highly illustrated and very bibliographically detailed catalogue of his personal collection of the latter. The collection was donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The introduction is by A.E. Newton, Rosenbach's friend and customer, and a man whose own books on the joys of collecting helped fuel the fashion for it in the 1920s and 30s.

•  Blue pigskin, embossed in black on covers with an early American design; rebacked in plain blue morocco; abraded joints nicely refurbished. In the original black cloth slipcase but without the paper label. A good+ copy.  (34040)

•  Two Decades of Hamady & the Perishable Press, 90.   Publisher's paper wrappers, front wrapper with title printed in off-white. Crisp and clean.  (30903)

This letter to Mrs. Cowper (née Georgianna Tollemache) colorfully, vividly, and indulgently describes the energetic merrymaking of those girls who have not gone home for Christmas holiday. There are about 14 or 15 of them and on the wet day before that of the letter they played at noisy “hide & seek all day” in the enormous building: “The house has about three quarters of a mile of up and down corridors” and presently there are “seven or eight dozen empty rooms” because of the absent girls. As per our caption, he also writes in detail about teaching songs and dances to his charges.

On a personal note, he will go and have dinner with the Cowpers on Monday, he promises.

The text of the letter was published from the Cook and Wedderburn transcripts in the Bodleian Library (The Winnington Letters, ed. by Van Akin Burd, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1969; pp. 531–32). There are two small differences in the original that are not found in the printed version.

Provenance:  In the stock of Thomas H. Telford, an antiques and book dealer; sold in 1933 to Mrs. W.S. Bowen of Westfield, N.J.

•  Written on Winnington embossed stationery. Not the easiest hand to read but clearer than not. Old folds, fore-edges a little crumpled, short fold tears. Overall very good.  (34781)

This is the second edition, following the (scarce) first of 1852; the front cover differs from the title-page in giving the publication information as Chicago.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with several early pencilled inscriptions, including one reading “To Vestilla from W.B. Lear, July 13th 1857.” A folded section from a smaller hymnal is laid in.

•  Publisher's quarter sheep and printed paper–covered boards; binding darkened and rubbed, front joint starting from head, front cover creased. Front free endpaper partially excised and back free endpaper lacking; front pastedown with inscriptions as above, back pastedown with early inked annotations and numerals. First three leaves with central tear affecting several words. Laid-in hymnal pages with upper edges chewed. Moderate foxing and intermittent waterstaining; some corners dog-eared. Interesting for its graphically appealing cover and the array of its “juvenile” repertoire choices.  (30255)

The outer binding is red textured cloth with the front cover stamped in black and gilt, and the interior front cover sample for the children’s version is a different red textured cloth stamped in black. The leaves for subscribers’information are unused.

•  Not in Arbour. Publisher’s cloth as described above, gently worn with corners rubbed and small scrape to front cover. Interior clean.  (6954)

•  Shoemaker 6710. Publisher's sheep. Abrasions to covers and spine, with pieces of leather flaked off; joints abraded. Foxing. Tear to rear free endpaper. Bookplate on front pastedown.  (1078)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with Eton bookplate commemorating presentation to Gualterus Gulielmus Radcliffe [Walter William Radcliffe, 1847–1923], 1861. Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).

Binding:  Mid-19th-century textured red morocco framed in double gilt fillets, spine with gilt-stamped author's name and with gilt-ruled and -“hashed” raised bands. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt roll. All edges gilt.

•  Brunet, V, 341; Colbeck, Colbeck Collection, II, 976.15; Keynes, William Pickering (rev. ed.), 88; Lowndes 2266. Curiously, not in Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering.   Binding as above, spine slightly darkened, sides showing unobtrusive mottling, joints and extremities lightly rubbed. Bookplate as above. A few scattered spots of light foxing, with a handful of leaves (including frontispiece) a bit more noticeably spotted; pages overall quite clean. An elegant and delightful production, with nice provenance.  (37641)

A past user has helpfully labeled this book, “School/Slate.”

Provenance:  A note dated 1912, “Harry Wheeler from George Shrann”; another 1912 note, “Rememberance [sic] from George Shrann”; Harry's undated signature at front of volume.

•  Gently rubbed rust paper over boards with loop for slate pencil (not present) attached to back board. One page fully blank (except for “frame”), some “entries” rubbed away beyond deciphering, other markings as above. Interesting example of potential uses for a slate beyond schoolwork.  (37192)

•  Rosenbach, Jewish, 131; Shaw & Shoemaker 5067. Not in Singerman Judaica Americana. Contemporary quarter sheep with paper-covered paste boards; heavily worn; joints open and covers almost detached. Early ownership signatures on front and rear pastedowns. Signature torn from upper outer corner of title-page, taking upper parts of three letters. Small Library of Congress duplicate release stamp on verso of title-page.  (2603)