Our caption must be credited to “Anonymous”!

•  Later red pebbled cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; laces clean and well preserved. Volume and contents in very good condition.  (31365)

•  Moreau, I, 127; Panzer, VIII, 537, no. 324; Adams L13. Not in Schweiger. Recent calf old style, tooled in blind on spine and covers. Faint traces of water and resultant mild arrested mildew in lower outer corners of earliest few pages. Marginalia in some parts affected by a binder’s trimming; in other cases, not. All edges carmine. A very good copy.  (12637)

This is the first appearance of this commentary byXystus Betuleius (Sixt Birk, 1501–54), a corrector for the Basel printers and a teacher at various schools who composed German and Latin didactic dramas; commentaries on Lactantius (this) and Cicero; and a concordance of the Greek New Testament. An associate of Erasmus, he witnessed Erasmus's first will, in 1527.

•  Adams L27; VD16 L42; Graesse, IV, 66. Not in Schweiger or Brunet. On Lactantius, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 308–09. On Birk, see: Contemporaries of Erasmus, pp. 150–51.   Recent full brown morocco blind-ruled, old style; raised bands on spine accented with gilt ruling, author and title gilt in second compartment and date collector style at spine base, edges lightly speckled brown. Mild foxing on some leaves; limited, very light old waterstaining in latter half, this rising on a few leaves to “moderate” and being virtually all marginal; a few small stains from chemical reactions in paper. One marginal oxidized inkstain, slim but dark, offset onto next neighboring pages (only); two very small tears in last leaf. There is one short paragraph of contemporary inked marginalia on one leaf, and one instance of underlining on another.  (31312)

The document is addressed to the fourth provincial council, called by Archbishop Lorenzana, and is a plea on behalf of the nuns to not change how things are done and administered in the nunnery, to not introduce innovations.

Guatemalan by birth, Guevara (d. 1804) studied civil and canonical jurisprudence at the Tridentine Seminary in Mexico, where he graduated from the university and became a lawyer at the royal court. One ofthe leading lawyers in Mexico, he ascended quickly to high office, and was appointed governor in absence of the viceroy four times; according to Beristain, he was called the “American Ulpian” (after the Roman jurist) by at least one contemporary.

•  Palau 129542; Medina, Mexico, 5451; Beristain, II, p. 61.   Recent marbled paper over boards, title and author gilt on green leather spine label, new endpapers. Short, shallow instance of insect gnawing at fore-edge of first ten leaves and very limited, minor worming throughout along with mild to moderate mostly marginal speckles of foxing; light waterstaining at fore-edge of some pages and occasional inkstains or smudges; one corner of textblock bumped or “creased across” (with no tearing) and another corner just bumped. A copy not “fine” but definitely worth having.  (31197)

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)

Uncommon: WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only three U.S. institutional holdings. The publication information comes from the colophon.

•  Later plain paper wrappers, front wrapper with paper shelving label in lower inner corner and pencilled initials in upper outer corner. Intermittent faint staining and spotting; one leaf with ragged lower margin.  (30934)

Lake was “chaplain and tutor to the princesses Mary and Anne, daughters of James, duke of York” and originally wrote this “devotional manual . . . for his royal pupils” (ODNB).

Provenance: On front free endpaper in an 18th-century hand; “Wm. A. Put Bo[ugh]t of Nau Winkle & Co.”

•  ESTC T134200.   Contemporary acid-stained calf, round spine, no raised bands, gilt double-rules creating spine compartments, one with a red leather gilt title-label; front cover reattached using the long-fiber method. Light age-toning. A very nice copy.  (33142)

This is the 40-page variant (Martin and Walter note a 35-page printing), with a warning on the final page regarding pirated, incorrect versions of the piece.

•  Martin & Walter, III, 18722 (variant ed.).   Removed from a nonce volume, first signature separated. Title-page with paper shelving label in lower corner, touching one letter of publication line, and with pencilled monogram in upper outer corner; also with short tear from lower margin, not touching text. Pages age-toned and lightly spotted; shouldernotes (only) occasionally shaved and price reduced for this reason.  (30826)

true first edition of the unofficial second series

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)

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Good; spine gently faded with gilt dulled, corners and extremities lightly worn. Front free endpaper with pencilled gift inscription dated 1868. Plates somewhat darkened.  (1916)

Uncommon: WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only three U.S. institutional holdings of this particular Instruction.

•  Martin & Walter 19033.   Removed from a nonce volume. Title-page with paper shelving label, touching the first few letters of the publication line, and with inked numeral and pencilled monogram in upper outer corner. Page edges untrimmed; pages slightly age-toned.  (30825)

Provenance: Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 7230 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882).

•  On Lamy, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 354–55. 18th-century vellum over boards with raised bands, lightly soiled; on the covers an ornate mandorla inside a composite frame. Crack in the vellum along front joint, joint itself sound. Ex-library with paper labels on spine; old pressure-stamps, including one on title-page of vol. I. Upper outer corner of title-leaf lost taking part of one letter of title; small tear into printed border of first map in vol. II. All edges speckled blue and red. A stout, substantial volume.

Bound with Lancellotti's work is a summary of titles of chapters of canon law compiled by Thomas Naogeorg (1508–63). Naogeorg's wanderings took him from being a Dominican to being a Lutheran to being a Calvinist. Along the way, during his Lutheran phase, he studied canon law for a year (1551) at Basel, during which time he compiled and published this work, likely as a student's guide. He is better known for his plays, in which he sharply attacks the Papacy.

The two works here were first published by the firm of Guillaume Rouillé, in 1587 and 1588 respectively, and may have been intended to be bound together, as witnessed by the Library of Congress copy. The title-page transcriptions of the earlier editions (except for the date and "hæredes"), and their signatures, pagination, and arrangement, match those of these present 1614 editions. There are italic shouldernotes, and woodcut headpieces and initials.

•  On Lancellotti, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 356. Contemporary calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets, rebacked with calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; corners and edges rubbed, sides with small cracks and scuffs. All edges speckled brown. Bouquiniste's paper label on front pastedown and front free endpaper lacking. Two words inked long ago in two margins, and one page with old pencilled underlining. (3797)

Langham's organization is this: “He devoted a chapter to each plant, describing its parts and their uses, the different processes such as distillation that could be applied to it, and how the resulting products could be used for particular diseases. To every item of information he added a number and at the end of the chapter there is an index or table of conditions with the numbers that were in the main text. The reader can thus see at a glance that one herb could be used in a wide variety of conditions, and whether a specific illness could be helped by a particular drug” (Wear, pp. 82–83).

This is the second edition, “corrected and amended,” the first having appeared in 1597. We are sure the reading public, which was sufficient to support a second edition, would have been helped rather more if the work had had illustrations, but that would have increased the cost of the work dramatically and awide audience was sought. The text is printed chiefly in gothic type while the end of chapter “indices” are in roman. This herbal was not printed during a period of good English typography, so the pages are dense with little white space or appreciation for making the text on the page easy on the eye rather than wearying.

•  ESTC S108241; STC (rev. ed.) 15196; Alden & Landis 633/67; Huth Library 817. On Langham, see Andrew Wear, Knowledge & Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680.   Contemporary English calf, boards modestly ruled in blind at edges; rebacked in high quality goat. Age-toning or old soiling, especially at the edges of margins and with offsetting from binding to title-page; some light marginal waterstaining especially at end in index; some short tears with last leaves' edges chopped and final two with edges strengthened.Overall, an unsophisticated copy that has been spared being washed, pressed, and gussied up!  (34545)

Binding:  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and train vignette stamped in black and gilt, vignette extending onto spine.

•  Binding as above, extremities very slightly rubbed, spine dimmed. Light waterstaining to inner margins of front fly-leaf and half-title, otherwise clean. A volume “got up,” given its content, with remarkable style and charm!  (29124)

Provenance: Title-page stamped by a private collector: “Thomas Witherell Palmer, Log Cabin Park” (Detroit).

•  Contemporary half calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and ornate gilt-stamped decorations within compartments; binding with light to moderate rubbing overall, with spine leather starting to show some cracking. All edges stained red. Delightful reading and looking, and a delightful copy.

•  Publisher's paper wrappers, front wrapper stamped in black and blue; spine and edges very slightly sunned. A nice copy.  (32655)

This isone of 183 copies total, signed on the half-title by the author.

•  Two Decades of Hamady & the Perishable Press, 32.   Publisher's navy and white patterned paper–covered boards, front cover with blind-stamped and printed paper title-label. A crisp, clean copy.  (31277)

Uncommon: WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only two U.S. institutional holdings of this 1671 edition, one of which was deaccessioned and is in fact this copy.

•  Contemporary mottled sheep framed in blind double fillets, recently rebacked with complementary calf, spine with raised bands and blind-tooled compartment decorations; edges and extremities rubbed, sides with old scuffs. Title-page and first text page with institutional perforation-stamp, title-page also with pencilled annotation as above, first text page with rubber-stamped numerals in lower margin, no other markings. Pages clean.  (31049)

•  Wellcome, III, 458; Garrison-Morton 154; ESTC T139902; Lowndes II, p.1321 (“a sumptuous edition”); Osler, Bib. Osleriana, p. 283, no. 3178; Bentley Blake Books 481; Ryskamp, William Blake, Engraver, 22. On the parts, see: Arents Collection of Books in Parts, p. 74.   Contemporary calf ruled and tooled in gilt and blind with gilt board edges and gilt turn-ins, rebacked old style; marbled edges, and blue silk marker in all volumes. Extremities rubbed and corners bumped with small loss to leather. At least one small marginal tear in each volume; offsetting from letterpress on a few leaves; very mild to quite moderate foxing (or none) on illustrations, offset onto surrounding leaves; and other occasional minor stains. Most plates protected by tissue. A monument of labor, art, and excellent “system” devoted to an exploded but fascinating theory; in fact, a wonder.  (30974)

•  Dreyfus, History of the Nonesuch Press, 88.   Publisher's dark blue marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed label on silvered paper, in slipcase with marbled paper color pattern reversed; spine slightly sunned with label interestingly oxidized, joints and edges rubbed, slipcase rubbed with spine label chipped. Bookplates and inscription as above. Pages clean and crisp.  (33159)

Elizabeth Webb, "an acknowledged minister among the people called Quakers," first encountered Prince George of Denmark's chaplain Boehm while on a visit to Great Britain; the missive with which she opened her subsequent correspondence with him, here, greatly inspired him and a number of his friends.

Provenance: With inscription reading "Miss Hannah Amelia Moore / Book a Present from her worthy / Friend Ruth Patton / 1789."

The present example isone of 2000 copies printed, with the type afterwards distributed.

•  Jackson, D.H. Lawrence Handbook, 24; Roberts A50c.   Publisher's olive green cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped phoenix vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title; dust wrapper lacking, spine slightly sunned, spine extremities and lower corners rubbed. Free endpapers with offsetting(?) and front one with upper outer corner torn away; text gently age-toned, with small areas of staining to two pages. Showing signs of wear, this is yet a solid, attractive, and pleasing copy.  (33546)

This is numbered copy 538 of 2000 printed, and wassigned by the artist at the colophon. The appropriate LEC newsletter and prospectus are laid in, in the original envelope.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 493.   Binding as above, spine with printed paper label, in original glassine wrapper and paper-covered slipcase with printed paper spine label; slipcase spine gently sunned, the whole otherwise in beautiful condition.  (30709)