Rare.  We trace no U.S. copies of this edition via NUC Pre-1956, OCLC, or RLIN.

•  NSTC 2P809, Imprint 3; this edition not in Goldsmith’s-Kress. Recent speckled brown wrappers. Some shallow chipping. Closely trimmed by binder, shaving a few signatures and borders of tables. Inked numeral in margin of title-page.  (11201)

With the leaf of advertisements for “new publications for sale by John Fellows.”

Provenance: Signature of “Geo. Wilson jr,” dated 1880, inked to title-page.

•  Evans 30944; ESTC W20110 & T5824.   Uncut copy, without the half-title, stitched in modern plain wrappers; dust-soiled and age-toned with old dampstains. Ownership signature as above on title; pencilled note on verso (not in the same hand), “bad effect on bank of connection with gov't.” A good copy.  (29899)

Paleario was at once a creation of the Renaissance and of the Reformation.  He carried on a wide correspondence with the intellectuals of his time, he studied the writings of Luther and Erasmus, and he sought to reconcile the old with the new. This edition of his works is chiefly composed of his letters, but also includes “De Immortalitate Animorum libri III,” and “Poematia.”

•  On Paleario, see: Contemporaries of Erasmus, III, 45–46. Contemporary vellum over boards; bit of abrasion and black speckling in lower area of spine. 18th-century armorial bookplate on front pastedown. Occasional light spotting in text. Notes in pencil on rear endpapers. Rear free endpaper torn with loss of paper in the lower outer area.  (19246)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 20980.   Contemporary treed sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; leather rubbed and volumes pleasantly refurbished. Front and back pastedowns with institutional bookplates; pencilled shelfmarks, etc., with shadows of these visible on title-pages. Occasional spots of light to moderate foxing.  (14453)

•  Adams P238, P239, P246 (1560 ed. only), P243; Brunet, IV, 356. Contemporary vellum-covered boards, spine with inked title; vellum slightly soiled, with spine title faded. All edges stained blue. First title-page mounted and several leaves with outer margins or upper outer corners reinforced, two pages with loss of a few letters at upper outer corners. Second play lacking two preliminary leaves and final register leaf. Two leaves with annotations in an early inked hand, now faded; pages with intermittent mild waterstaining.

Toxites (born Johann Michael Schütz) was poet laureate of Holy Roman Emperor under Charles V, himself an alchemist, and, like Paracelsus, a doctor.

Evidence of readership: The recto of the front free endpaper is filled withquotations from the Bible that the reader feels bear on the text of the first tract; the verso of same bears an extensive quotation from Toxites' foreword to Paraceleus' Astronomia magna. At least one reader has written commentary in the margins of both texts and even written miniscule inter-liner corrections, observations, or explanations of words. Some marginalia is merely “indexing” so as to be able to re-find a text section by keyword in the margin; other marginalia tie concepts in the texts to other published texts. In the blank area below the colophon and continuing on the blank verso of that same leaf is an extensive quotation from Georg Forberger followed by more quotations from the Bible that are apposite to Paracelsus' text.

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only four copies in U.S. libraries and searches via COPAC, VD16, and KVK find precious few in Britain or Europe.

•  Sudhoff 141; Ritter, p. 1144; Wellcome 4788; Durling 3494; VD16 P611. Not found in Gerguson or Duveen. On “electron,” see: C.J.S. Thompson, The Lure and Romance of Alchemy (London: Harrap, 1932), p. 42; and cited in Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel: Karger, 1982), fn. 230, p. 87.   19th-century tan half pigskin and marbled boards, with remnants of an old paper label. Front free endpaper and title-leaf loosening, moderately browned, good margins; overall a rather nice copy of aremarkably scarce work of pharmaceutical and alchemical science.  (37189)

When in need of a little entertainment, consider fireside games like hide and seek or the cat and the mouse! George Frederick Pardon advises his Victorian audience on fun pastimes for children, from mechanical puzzles to charades and “parlour magic.” Pardon (1824–84) frequently wrote handbooks on card games, chess, and billiards using the pseudonym “Captain Crawley,” in addition to the “Uncle George” pseudonym he used here.

The engraved, black-and-white frontispiece (with tissue guard) featuring families indulging in “parlour pastimes" was done bythe Brothers Dalziel.

Binding:  Publisher's textured green cloth with gilt lettering and decoration to spine; front board has stylized gilt lettering and a gilt vignette of a child entertaining a crowd of sitting children, with corner lily decorations in blind. The rear board design is identical but all in blind. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  From the library of Ellery Yale Wood, a collector of children's books and young adult literature, with her name inked on front free endpaper.

•  Binding as above; spine darkened, corners bumped, boards dirtied, with embossed lettering on the rear board pencil-filled by a childish hand. Small spot of webbing exposed at hinges; light finger smudging to several pages. Clearly cherished and often consulted by children for its many amusements.  (38185)

Parker's biography is well illustrated with 32 black-and-white plates (including his frontispiece portrait) featuring the many people he met throughout his “lives” — early life, musical life, theatrical life, and pageant life (as the book is sectioned).

Binding:  Half red morocco double gilt-ruled, over red cloth sides; five raised bands to spine, lettering or elegant gilt floral decoration in ruled compartments. Top edge gilt, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed. Signed by Bickers & Son.

Provenance & added material: Previously owned by Parker's friend “Saint” (unidentified; see further). Mounted on front free endpaper, a black and white photograph of Parker in front of shelves holding a glass collection; mounted underneath is a clipping from a letter: “Your very affectionate, Luigi.” On following verso, a newspaper clipping of an interview from 1932 is tipped in; on the next recto is mounted a letter to “Saint” (a delightfully written apology for the friend's absence in the book) with, on its second leaf, an original poem asking his friend to “accept this trivial book.” Additional newspaper clippings laid in. On rear pastedown, a black and white photograph with a small ink note indicating it is of Parker's salon; on rear free endpaper, Parker's obituary clipped from the Illustrated London News (as indicated by previous owner's pencilled note) dated 1944. Occasionally a pencilled word or checkmark; one clipping with cut-off words supplied in ink.

•  Bound as above, minor rubbing to corners, small stain and light fading to boards; offsetting to endpapers and soiling from glue used to attach ephemera, evidence of one glue-in removed. Evidence of readership as above; one checkmark in old-fashioned red pencil. A splendid, unique volume containing intriguing related ephemera — clearly owned by a special friend of Parker's.  (38018)

Binding:  Publisher's grey silk, front cover with affixed color-printed illustration, spine with title stamped in black, in a striking lucite slipcase.

•  Binding as above, lucite showing predictable minor shelfwear, overall a beautiful copy. An uncommon printing of work by one of the most popular contemporary crime writers; actually, ofan all-star trio of writers.  (33332)

The volume opens with anoversized, folding map, engraved by M.M. Peabody, which Graff describes as “the earliest map of the Oregon interior with a pretense to accuracy”; includes an account of Parker'svoyage to Hawaii and Tahiti; and closes with avocabulary of Indian languages (Nez Perce, Klicatat, Calapooa, and Chenook). The plate depicts “Basaltic Formations on the Columbia River.”

•  Flake & Draper, Mormon Bibliography, 6100; Graff 3193; Hill, Collection of Pacific Voyages, 1306; Howes P89; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2907; Sabin 58729; Wagner-Camp, Plains & Rockies, 70:3.   Publisher's charcoal-colored ribbed cloth, covers with blind-stamped arabesque frame, spine with gilt-stamped title; cloth chipped at spine extremities and front joint, corners rubbed. Mild to moderate foxing. Map with faint spotting, a pinpoint hole at one corner, and one very short tear from inner edge; foxing and soiling, never dark/nasty but present throughout. A comfortably solid copy.  (29273)

The illustrations number three, of which two are hand-colored. The uncolored one is on the front wrapper and is a repeat of that on p. 4. One cataloguer says the plates are “metal-engraved” but we would think them wood-engraved.

Issued in the series “Peter Parley's smaller tales,” thisincorporates the “be kind to animals” lessons seen in this era.

Provenance:  Very clear, even elegant ownership signature on front wrapper “Mary D. Perkins, 1829"; “Mary Dening Perkins, 1829" on front free endpaper. Most recently in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

WorldCat locates a total of five libraries reporting ownership.

•  Shoemaker 38790. Not in Sternick; not in Rosenbach.   Publisher's bright yellow wrappers, printed and illustrated. Light finger soiling on front wrapper along fore-edge; spotting to interior, not distressing; a charming little book.  (38490)

We trace only five copies in U.S. libraries of the Haymarket item andnone of the novel.

•  Contemporary half brown cloth in imitation of leather, with marbled paper sides; rubber-stamp of Milwaukee bookseller C.N. Caspar on back pastedown. Haymarket item printed on highly acidic paper and brittle, brittle, brittle, and totally browned; novel with foxing. (32122)

Provenance:  The 19th-century joint bookplate of the Rev. J. Jones and the Rev. W. Wilds; later in the collection of The Society of the Holy Child Jesus with its bookplate laid over.

Sole edition (save for a modern reprint) of this Jesuit author's choleric and interesting Recusant work, this has added attraction for collectors and scholars of English law for the entire eighth chapter takes Sir Edward Coke to task “about a nihil dicit, & some other points uttered by him in two late Preambles, to his sixt and seaventh [sic] partes of Reports.”

•  STC (rev. ed.) 19412; Allison & Rogers, II, 635; DeBacker Sommervogel, VI, 313; ESTC S114160.   18th- or early 19th-century half calf over marbled boards, worn and abraded around edges, recently rebacked and original spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment devices retained; hinges (inside) strengthened. Two brief old inked notes on title-page; some sections with captions trimmed-into; rather a nice copyand very wild reading.  (36743)

•  Sutro 756 ("19p." being a typographical error for collation given here); not in Steele, Independent Mexico: A Collection of Mexican Pamphlets in the Bodleian Library. Folded and never sewn or bound; as issued.  (4992)

The first three volumes were printed in Amsterdam in 1734, and each opens with an engraved frontispiece; the fourth volume was printed in Cologne in 1739. All four volumes have title-pages printed in red and black, with the fourth specifying that Nicole's notes were translated by Mademoiselle de Joncourt.

Provenance:  All four title-pages with small early inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner of “A. Thorpe, York.”

•  Period-style quarter mottled calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Vols. I and II with frontispiece rectos institutionally rubber-stamped, with bleed-through into images; ownership inscriptions as above. Pages clean.  (27243)

•  Publisher's tan and brown printed paper–covered boards; spine somewhat darkened, paper chipped at spine and cracking along front joint. Front and rear free endpaper with inked presentation inscriptions dated 1914. Pages age-toned; one leaf with short tear from outer margin.  (33100)

•  Sabin 59130; Shaw & Shoemaker 6994. Recent simple paper-covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Slight cockling; minor foxing to first and last few leaves. Edges untrimmed. Two leaves with inner margin reinforced. A good copy.  (3230)

The Americana content is found in the first section of the volume, dedicated to “deists,” chapter XI (subsections xxvi–xxxii); the natives discussed include those of Canada (Hurons), Virginia, Florida, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Earlier in the “deists” section there is equally interesting discussion of the afterlife in the religions for variousAfrican nations.

The title-page is printed in red and black with an engraved armorial design in the center. Several engraved historiated initials, including a few that show people holding books, and one engraved headpiece of women leading horses on clouds decorate the text.

Binding:  Uncut text in an 18th-century cartonné binding with an attractive hand-lettered vellum spine label.

Provenance:  “Ex Libris P. Josephi Sacella” written in the bottom margin of the title-page; Sacella has also inked a few words (mostly obliterated) to the front pastedown and a manicule within the text.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 748/147.   Uncut and bound as above, corners bumped and binding rubbed with some loss of paper at front bottom corner, binding dust-soiled and spotted. Volume with final blank (only) lacking and with markings as noted above; half-title with loss of some paper at fore-edge. One leaf detached and two with short to medium marginal tears; central gatherings with a very pale, old, circular stain across gutter reaching type on a few leaves only; and a few leaves creased or with small spots. A handsome text interestingly cased.  (36831)

Part of the “Harper's library of select novels” series, the work appears here with vol. I in the second printing (vol. II had only one printing); the binding is BAL's state A, with the front cover of vol. II incorrectly marked “No. XXV.”

•  American Imprints 14120; Wright, I, 2024; BAL 15715.   Publisher's green cloth, covers and spines stamped in black; corners bumped, spots of discoloration, spines sunned (and a little bubbled) with extremities rubbed. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number on endpapers, title-pages pressure-stamped. No other markings; endpapers foxed and pages with intermittent moderate spotting.  (26533)

Provenance:  Ex–Theological Institute of Connecticut, properly deaccessioned.

•  Contemporary wrappers, with pencilling, spine perished and repaired with archival paper tape. Ex-library: two paper shelf labels on front cover, seven leaves with library's blind pressure-stamps. Light age-toning. A nice example of this press's typography in an interesting, characteristic text.  (36690)

•  Apparently not in Palau.   Repairs to first leaf of part I, with loss of a very few words; close trimming of two pages touching some lines without actually taking type (this last suggesting the hasty production typical of such cheap, essentially ephemeral publications).  (38510)

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, gilt-and black-stamped.

•  A little spotting, a little shaken; a good++ copy.  (34001)

•  ESTC N34872; Part IV: ESTC T93310. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Title-page with traces of now-absent early ownership inscription and with an early inked annotation identifying Pearce, then the Bishop of Bangor, as the author; one page with inked and pencilled annotations. Pages mildly age-toned.  (14335)

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  American Imprints 8657; Rosenbach, Children's, 763 (this copy differing slightly from Rosenbach's physical description).   Publisher's printed tan paper wrappers. Some minor foxing, otherwise clean. An unusually crisp, unworn example of the genre. (38474)

Five celebratory harvest scenes are depicted — [1] a group of six adults and two horses moving a haycart, [2] a waitress holding a stein and four male customers in a pub setting, [3] a man asking a woman to dance in a wooded scene with a group of people to the left and a two-man band to the right, [4] a couple dancing with wreaths and a couple walking, in a wooded scene incorporating sheaves and a garland, and [5] several couples dancing around a tree with a village in the background.

To see the full vista, a viewer looks though a hole in image of the first scene, which is attached to the front of the box, to see the other scenes arrayed “within” the final one attached to the inside back of the box. All five etchings are meticulously hand-colored and complete.

•  Box covered in marbled paper; moderately rubbed and only slightly soiled with use, outside plate gently age-toned. Folds strong and plates firmly attached; one spot, two pinpricks, and light pencilling on accordion-folded paper but not plates. A dashing 3-D depiction of a 19th-century harvest celebration in a sweet small format.  (36054)

This is an uncommon edition: WorldCat does not find any institutional locations. There is apparently one copy of the same printing at the University of Essex, and the date given here is based on their assessment.

•  This edition not in NSTC.   Removed from a nonce volume; sewing loosening, with signatures starting to separate. Pages age-toned, with small area of waterstaining to upper outer margins; title-page with small spot of staining; plate mounted (some time ago), with three small spots of staining and some darkening around caption. A very readable copy of a striking and strikingly vivid morality tale.  (37200)

WorldCat and Shaw & Shoemaker locate a combined total of fewer than a dozen copies.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 18345.   Sewn, as issued, but without the wrappers; edges tattered. Waterstaining, heavy on first and last few pages. Uncut.  (25966)

•  Shoemaker 30185; on Powel, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XV, 143–44. Contemporary paper wrappers, front with printed paper label and separated from spine but present; chipping, soiling, and pencilling, with staining especially to lower edge of front wrapper. Pages untrimmed; varying degrees of foxing and staining; lacking frontispiece and one plate — a still-interesting volume priced according to its faults.  (3384)

•  NCBEL, II, 1583 (for the 1854 ed. on which the present ed. was based). Publisher’s textured cloth, worn, covers framed in decorative blind-stamping, spines ruled in blind and simply gilt-stamped with titles and volume numbers; spines faded, slightly discolored, all pulled with cloth lost above page level and one with additional chip out of cloth near head. Front pastedowns with tickets from a Nashville bookseller. Many pages with light offsetting (darker following frontispieces) and foxing such as the paper is prone to; front free endpaper of vol. IV with pencilled ownership inscription and back fly-leaf of vol. II with pencilled annotations. (4737)

The poem was originally printed in 1771. While this mid-19th-century chapbook was printed with reckless disregard for the amount of ink that actually wound up on any given page (for that is very uneven), it does feature a wood-engraved vignette on the title-page and what appears to be a tombstone tailpiece. It is also uncommon, WorldCat locatingno U.S. institutional holdings of this printing.

As the final page is devoted to an enticing description of “WARKWORTH CASTLE” and its environs, set in larger type than the poem, we wonder if this wasgiven or sold to tourists as a souvenir?

•  NSTC 2P11186.   Removed from a nonce volume; one leaf with two nicks to outer edge. A look at the enduring appeal of medieval legend to the Victorian audience.  (37230)

Provenance:  Title-page with signature of noted illustrator and caricaturist George Cruikshank, dated 1832, in pencil with part of one letter in ink; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Later 19th-century half very dark blue morocco and marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt lettering and floral stamps in compartments, covers with double gilt fillets along edges of leather; gently rubbed, most notably to joints. Marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Provenance indications as above. Light pencilling on endpapers; light age-toning with some spotting, mostly marginal. Neatly illustrated, and a copy in nice condition with exceptional provenance.  (37984)

Perez de Ribas' work is exceedingly rare on the market. In forty years of bookselling, this is only the second copy we have handled. Very important and desirable.

•  Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 43; Alden & Landis 645/96; Sabin 60895, 70789; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 525; Servies 176. JCB (3), II, 333. Medina, BHA, 1083; Palau 222254; Streit 1745; Barrett 1984; Bell P169; Howgego R35; Brunet, IV, 21590; Graesse, VI, 106; Leclerc, Bibl. Amer. (1867), 1305; Huth, Catalog, IV, 1243; Heredia 6836; Salva 3376.   Contemporary vellum, manuscript spine title, marca del fuego; hinges (inside) cracking, light soiling. Very small ink stamp on title-page. Light foxing and tanning to text; some very slight worming, confined primarily to margins in rear of text block. A few ink notations and stains. A very good copy in a cloth clamshell case, leather label.  (34581)

•  Fine copy.  (30791)

WorldCat finds only nine U.S. libraries reporting ownership.

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  Not in American Imprints.   Publisher's green printed paper wrappers, nicked at extremities and along spine, trimmed very close at top; small chip/”bite” out of upper edge (all leaves) and a smaller one to outer margin of last leaf (wrapper); interior with a few spots only.  (38730)

The inside front wrapper bearsan interesting little early affixed label reading “Such is life.”

WorldCat finds no copies west of Rochester, NY.

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Not in Rosenbach.   Publisher's printed tan paper wrappers, lightly dust-soiled, extremities rubbed, spine unobtrusively reinforced. Moderate foxing; inkstain to outer portions of last few leaves, touching but not obscuring a few letters, paper brittle in stained area. Showing signs of age, but none of childish abuse.  (38473)

And yes, Claude was related to (brother, in fact, of) Charles Perrault, the fabulist and reteller of the Cinderella story and other tales.

•  Brunet, IV, 507; Graesse, V, 207; Cicognara, I, 607.   Contemporary speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations, board edges with gilt roll; joints and extremities carefully and unobtrusively repaired and refurbished, edge gilt rubbed. Pages slightly age-toned, with scattered spots; last few leaves with margins a bit darkened. Small area of pinhole worming to outer margins, not touching text (three plates each with tiny portion of one line touched); some instances nicely refurbished with long-fiber tissue. A clean, wide-margined, attractive copy of an attractive book.  (33221)

•  Plain pale green-gray light boards printed in black; soiling to boards and fraying along spine. Occasional spotting in margins. Hand-coloring brilliant.  (38719)

The forematter includes a history of the text, a bibliography, a study of medieval customs and the characteristics of the protagonists and antagonists, and an introduction to the versification.

Binding:  Contemporary dark brown morocco, covers framed and panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-tooled corner fleurons, spine gilt-lettered and with gilt-beaded raised bands and compartments stamped similarly to covers using same tools; board edges with gilt fillet, free endpapers in maroon silk. Doublures of brown morocco matching covers and stamped more ornately, in foliate and floral designs. Top edges gilt, page edges otherwise untrimmed; silk place marker. Front pastedown (doublure) signed, gilt-stamped, “The Harcourt Bindery.”

Provenance:  From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Bound as above, spine gently and evenly sunned to olive and spine edge of front cover slightly so, extremities lightly rubbed. Some gatherings in introduction and in notes unopened. Minor foxing throughout, pages otherwise clean. A great example of the binders' style/philosophy rewarding those who care actually to open their subtly-finely bound volumes; “but look, here's more!”  (37751)

Petrarch did not conceive of I Triomphi as a single, unified work: They do not represent a continuous writing, they differ in character one from another, and they were not assembled as a single poem until after his death. Still, once brought together the six are clearly Petrarch's greatest effort to bring the model of Dante's Comedy into his own canon.

•  Adams P-801; Fowler, M. Petrarch, Pet N 533a.   18th-century quarter vellum over marbled paper–covered boards with “Petrarca – Trionfi” inked to spine, all edges speckled red; volume rubbed, especially at corners, boards gently bent inwards at fore-edge, light worming at spine, one small mark on front cover. Part of a larger work as mentioned above, with light pencilling on endpapers and one instance of old crayon, small signs of worming on front endpapers and most inner margins with several repaired, light waterstaining to upper inner margins and also across upper outer corners at end, a no more than ordinary degree of variable light foxing and soiling generally and a handful of leaves with uneven edges from paper manufacture. A noble fragment, in fact very attractive and evocative.  (36559)

•  Brunet, IV, 575; Dibdin, II, 276–77; Schweiger, II, 725. 19th-century quarter sheep in imitation of morocco, with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles; spines, edges, and extremities rubbed, vol. I with spot of discoloration to spine. Main title-page with shadows of pencilled numerals. Pages clean.  (16816)

Binding:  Contemporary mottled calf panelled with plain calf, framed in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped red morocco title-label.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of John Thomas Ambrose (1798–1881), a philanthropist and solicitor in Mistley and Manningtree.

•  ESTC T17788; Lowndes 1843; Schweiger, II, 727.   Binding as above, rubbed and spine leather cracked; joints strengthened, portion of headband replaced, extremities subtly refurbished with toned long-fiber tissue. Bookplate as above. Varying degrees of age-toning, with a few signatures (only) browned or foxed and some leaves showing sometime exposure to water with no plates affected; additional engraved title-page lacking and index pages bound in incorrectly, interspersed with two poems towards the back of the volume! (29672)