This is the third edition, following the first of 1817; the set is in the publisher's original bindings, and an uncut copy. Vol. I opens with an oversized, folding, hand-colored “Map of Hindoostan” done by Aaron Arrowsmith, while vol. II opens with an oversized, folding map of Persia, Afghanistan, etc.

•  NSTC 2M27509.   Publisher's dark red cloth, spines sunned to not-red with printed paper labels (chipped); cloth worn and wrinkling, some joints splitting, three spine heads reinforced. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, no other markings. Vol. I map with short tear along one fold and with tear from inner margin, repaired some time ago; vol. II map waterstained, with tear from inner margin. Vols. I and II with light to moderate waterstaining to lower portions, most pronounced at endpapers; vol. II map stained; vols. III and IV with endpapers stained; vol. IV with upper and lower margins of one internal signature and last few leaves stained; vol. VI with upper edges of portion towards back stained. A few instances of scattered spotting; three leaves with short edge tears; first few leaves of vol. VI creased. Page edges untrimmed. Definitely a “used” set, but not one so “distressed” as recital of faults may imply; overall, internally mostly clean and certainly sound for use.  (28162)

This isnumbered copy 733 of 2000 printed, signed at the colophon by the illustrator. Both the appropriate Club newsletter (in its original envelope) and the prospectus are laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 497.   Publisher's fabric-covered binding as above, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, in original brown paper–covered slipcase with printed paper label; spine cloth very slightly (and unobtrusively) sunned, slipcase showing only minimal traces of shelfwear.A nice copy of this handsome piece of LEC exotica.  (36838)

As Prof. Emerita Frances W. Pritchett of Columbia University writes on her great website (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/ikram/part2_12.html): “Of all the aspects of Akbar's life and reign, few have excited more interest than his attitude toward religion. . . . [H]e built the Ibadat Khana, the House of Worship, which he set apart for religious discussions. Every Friday after the congregational prayers, scholars, dervishes, theologians, and courtiers interested in religious affairs would assemble in the Ibadat Khana and discuss religious subjects in the royal presence.”

It was to these discussions/conversations/debates that Acquaviva was invited. The religions represented were many, the major participants including Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Jains, and Zoroastrians.  After several months Acquaviva felt his contributions to the debates insufficient to justify continuing as part of the mission and left the task to fellow Jesuits. On return to Goa his missionary work led him to the Hindu Kshatriyas of Salcette, south of Goa, which proved a fatal decision. Prior to his arrival, the Jesuits with the aid of Portuguese troops had destroyed some temples there; the Cuncolim Revolt of July, 1583, was partially a result of those actions and it was in the revolt that Acquaviva and the four companions alluded to in the title of this work were murdered.

The author of this biography was a major Jesuit historian of the Society's activity in Asia. He was the author of the monumental Istoria della Compagnia di Gesu (1650–1673) in 6 folio volumes, Della vita e dell'istituto di S. Ignatio, fondatore della Compagnia di Gesu (1650), L'Asia (1653), Il Giappone, parte seconda dell'Asia (1660), La Cina, terza parte dell'Asia (1663), L'Inghilterra, parte dell'Europa (1667), L'Italia, prima parte dell'Europa (1673), and biographies of Jesuits Vincenzo Caraffa (1651), Robert Bellarmine (1678), Stanislas Kostka (1678), Francis Borgia (1681), and Niccolo Zucchi (1682). Also of interest are his works on science: Della tensione e della pressione (1677), Del suono, dei tremori armonici, dell'udito (1679), and Del ghiaccio e della coagulatione (1682).

This is the second edition of Bartoli's account of Acquaviva and his mission, following the first of the previous year. Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPAC locate just two copies of the 1663 edition, both in the U.S., and similarly only two copies of this 1664 (one in Germany, one at Oxford).

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, I, 975; Graesse, I, 303 (for first edition and other later editions but not knowing of this second).   Late 18th-century quarter vellum over light boards covered with green paper. Undeciphered 17th-century ownership inscription on title-page. Waterstaining, at times significant, at others barely visible. A sound copy with no worming or tears.  (35200)

The paper used for the text seems to be native-made laid stock.

WorldCat and NUC combine to locate only six copies in U.S. libraries, one of which is this one, properly deaccessioned.

Provenance:  Ex–Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School library; properly deaccessioned.

•  Darlow & Moule 7651; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 826.   Contemporary boards covered with blue paper a bit scuffed, soiled, and with areas of wear; original paper shelfback replaced with cloth of a closely matching color. A very little library pencilling; no stamps.  (35167)

Titled in English, the text is in Bengali characters in a double-column format.

Binding:  Brown ribbon–embossed cloth, printed paper spine label, all edges speckled red. Bookcloth is Krupp style At2, whichsuggests the cloth was exported to India in addition to its use in England and America.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPAC locate only one copy in the U.S.. one in Canada, and two in Britain.

•  Not in Darlow & Moule; nor North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972); on binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, p. 50.   Bound as above; cloth lightly discolored in a mottled fashion, spine chipped with small loss of cloth and printed label rubbed, one mark on back cover. Gentle age-toning with light foxing on endpapers.  (36118)

Provenance:  Bookplate of the Baptist Missionary Society Mission House Library on front pastedown.

•  Not in Darlow & Moule; not list in North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972).   Publisher's textured olive cloth with paper spine label; spine ever so lightly faded, paper label (remarkably) intact. Marked as above, light pencilling on endpapers. A very nice copy with a very good provenance.  (36117)

We find six copies only in U.S. libraries.

•  Publisher's printed wrappers; minor pencilling in some margins, dust-soiling. Folded once lengthwise. Very good.  (34312)

Bengal

Attributed to the Earl of Buchan by Halkett & Laing (vol. 9 [1962 ed.]).

•  Goldsmiths’-Kress 13204; ESTC T143537.   Recent full brown speckled calf, covers gilt-tooled in the Cambridge style. Raised bands on spine accented with gilt beading on bands and defined by gilt rules above and below each band. Title-page printed aslant or trimmed somewhat askew, and with a few small old inkspots; pamphlet otherwise clean, with occasional light instances of foxing.  (21735)

•  NSTC 2D970.   Publisher's gray-blue paper wrappers; front wrapper with tiny hole, spine creased with one chip, edges and corners rubbed. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean. A solid, clean copy of a scarce item.  (36558)

•  NSTC 2E4979.   Removed from a nonce volume.  (11085)

While suffering from financial difficulties throughout his life, Frewen continually worked with influential people, many of whom are here discussed in detail, including his wife Clara Jerome, aunt of Winston Churchill. One way and another there is plenty of huntin', shootin', and fishin'; and there are plenty of politics.

Provenance:  A tantalizing “Wealdside 1924” in ink on the front pastedown. The Weald is of course of huge extent, and there are therefore potentially a number of possible “Wealdsides”; but it is notable that the Frewen family dates back to Elizabethan times in East Sussex — and, perhaps, that Moreton Frewen died in 1924.

•  Howes F380; Graff 1442.   Light green publisher's cloth, cover ruled and lettered in black, spine and back also stamped in black; gently rubbed and text slightly cocked, with a thumbnail-sized pink stain along the edge of the back cover and speckling the bottom edge. Light age-toning with offsetting to fly-leaves; inscription as noted. A good read in a good solid copy.  (37037)

There is, to us, a surprising and very interesting section on grapes and wines. The first part of our caption delights partly in discovery that maize, the “corn” of the U.S., is here called “turkey wheat” — with further note that you can make bread of it, but that the result is pleasing only to “barbarous” tastes! The entry as a whole showsGerard at his characteristic best, at once scientifically systematic and engagingly discursive.

Provenance:  Neatly lettered name of “W. Younge” at top of title-page; it is tempting to attribute this to William Younge, physician of Sheffield and Fellow of the Royal Linnean Society, whose online correspondence shows him to have been an eager collector of botanical books.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 11752; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 636/25; Nissen, Botanischebuchs, 698n; Pritzel 3282n; Johnston, The Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 185; Woodward, Gerard's Herball: The essence thereof distilled (London, 1964). On the source of the blocks, see: Hunt Botanical Catalogue and Bowen, K. L., & D. Imhof, The illustration of Books Published by the Moretuses (Antwerpen, 1997). For “Turkey Wheat, “ see: Gerard, p. 81; for polenta, p. 71.   Late 17th-century English calf, plain style; rebacked professionally in the 20th century, later endpapers. As usual, without the first and last blank leaves. Three leaves with natural paper flaws in blank margins. A very good copy.  (34500)

East India Company

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author, done by Henry Cook after Hervé; vol. III is illustrated with an oversized, folding plate of a water-engine intended for millwork, devised by the author, and a plate of another of his inventions: the automated “chamber fire escape”, which enables anyone to lower him- or herself from a high window. This is the third edition, following the first of 1807.

•  NSTC H625; Sabin 30461.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; vol. I with joints and extremities refurbished, vols. II and III with spines and edges rubbed, old strips of library tape reinforcing spine heads. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, vols. II and III with paper shelving labels at top of spines (vol. I showing signs of now-absent label). Vol. I title-page with offsetting from frontispiece; vol. III with pp. 69–72 excised (two leaves of a rather long religious-themed letter from Harriott to his son) and with upper portion of one leaf crumpled, reinforced some time ago. Some light age-toning, intermittent small spots of foxing and ink-staining, pages generally clean. Utterly absorbing.  (30651)

•  Stewart 94. Publisher's wrappers, front wrapper lacking, back wrapper torn and chipped. Publisher's slip detached (torn away, affecting four letters) but present. First and last few leaves lightly foxed.  (13989)

A good deal has been written about “Wee Willie Winkie” and the other short stories here, much of it negative-revisionary in nature, but we would call one's attention to John McGivering's evenhanded (but perhaps partisan) observations on the Kipling Society website: “Looking at this story of a spoilt and precocious child in the cold light of the 21st Century, it seems at first sight most unlikely, even in a work of fiction, that such a child could so confront and outface a gang of wild armed men. However, considering the status of the British in India in that era, and looking at Kipling’s account of his own childhood in Bombay reflected in the first part of 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep' . . . it is perhaps not as implausible as it seems.”

The illustrations on the wrappers are by Kipling's father, John L. Kipling, and were engraved on wood at the Mayo Art School in Lahore where he was the principal.

•  Richards A19; Stewart 54; Martindell 34; Livingston 43.   Never bound, in original green wrappers lightly soiled; light discoloration to lower corners of wrappers, front one with an old crease, short tear at base of spine. Advertisement leaf before title-leaf (not called for in any bibliography) torn and detached but present. A fragile publication, housed for protection in a red cloth chemise.  (37903)

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

•  Sabin 41069; Moreau, Éditions parisiennes du XVI siècle, II, 1099; not in Adams.   20th-century brown cloth, black leather spine label with gilt lettering and ruling, all edges speckled red; ever so gently rubbed, covers with two spots and one scuff, light pencilling and one removed booklabel on endpapers. Light age-toning and dust-soiling, a few small spots, a small hole through title-page and first leaf of text, final leaf repaired; provenance and evidence of readership as above; final three leaves of forematter (only) lacking. Significant content handsomely printed and embellished.  (38390)

Although Mela's work is solely concerned with the world as known by Greeks and Romans, one should remember that their world did encompass portions of Africa and a knowledge of India. Additionally the appendix, originally written in 1521 and first appearing in the 1522 Basel printing of Mela, has a coda consisting of a 1515 letter of Vadian’s to Rudolph Agricola, the younger, that briefly discussesVespucci (X5v) and the New World (Y1r) when discussing the Spanish empire.

This is the third edition of Vadian's Mela, taken from the second edition (1522), but only the second with Vadian's appendix. Graesse comments, “Second éd. . . . fort changée et corrigée sur des mss.”

Whether all copies of the work were issued with a map has been long discussed and is without resolution: What we do know is that some have a map, most do not.

Provenance:  Macclesfield copy with the bookplate and handsome pressure-stamps.

Evidence of readership: Scattered minor (usually one or two words) marginalia.

•  Harrisse, BAV, 157; Renouard, Paris, 2210; Alden & Landis 530/30; Sabin 63958 (not callin for a map); Graesse, V, 401 (not calling for a map).   18th-century quarter vellum with blue-green paper–covered sides, author's name in old ink to spine. Title-page lightly soiled, light discoloration or inkstains in some margins, light occasional foxing; pinhole-type worming in text of some pages with no loss of text, and a corner of last leaf torn away without loss of text; on pp. 170–96, a light waterstain across upper gutter not touching text and another across upper outer corners impinging on it. As usual, without the map found in only a few copies. Macclesfield pressure-stamps and marginalia as above. A good, sound, and soundly pleasing old folio.  (34114)

•  Publisher's tan linen shelf-back with rust-colored boards. Boards lightly chipped. A very good copy.  (36591)

This set includes two volumes of supplemental text, adding a number of entries. The first edition was followed by two volumes of supplemental plates, not present here and not called for: Graesse describes this edition as “sans grav.”

The pagination is erratic in a number of places; there is a numbering gap from 2342 to 2351 between vols. IV and V, but the text and signatures are uninterrupted.

Uncommon: OCLC locates only two U.S. institutional holdings of this second edition.

Provenance: Most volumes with small inked ownership inscription in an outer margin: “G.R.W.” the mark of William Rollinson Whittingham (1805–79), fourth Episcopal Bishop of Maryland and an enthusiastic book collector.

•  Brunet, IV, 851; Graesse, V, 429. Not in Sabin.   Contemporary half binding, recently rebacked with tan paper, spines with printed paper labels; boards rubbed and faded with small chips, one vol. with front cover waterstained. Foxing almost throughout, generally no worse than moderate; light waterstaining in upper margins of vol. I; one leaf in vol. VII with lower outer portion torn away, with loss of words from about 18 lines on each side. Vol. II with printer's error replacing pp. 1065–72 with duplicates of pp. 1057–64; pagination erratic in other places. Most vols. with ownership mark as above; vol. VI with one pencilled and one inked marginal annotation.  (25862)

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)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and fish vignette with blind-stamped decorative borders; spine slightly darkened, small spots of light discoloration, extremities rubbed. Sewing just barely starting to loosen but holding; pages clean. A more than decent copy of this interesting and, shall we say, “highly personal” work.  (35139)

The texts of both bills are present here, along with Sheridan’s analysis of how each would address “the question of right between the public and the [East India] Company” (p. 39).

•  ESTC T30944; Goldsmiths’-Kress no. 13610. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title label and spine with gilt-stamped leather author label. Half-title and several other pages stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages with edges untrimmed and a few small spots of staining; mostly, clean.  (10859)

•  Rust-brown publisher's cloth with gilt spine lettering and gilt medallion to front board, in an edgeworn, lightly soiled dust jacket with significant portions torn away at spine, smaller losses at corners/edges and price-clip, and two small stains to rear panel. Binding clean, with extremities bumped. Purple monogram ownership stamp to front free endpaper, p. 83, and a leaf in the index; text otherwise clean with upper corners lightly creased across and a few leaves unopened. Good, in a good- dust jacket that appears in most instances to be lacking entirely.  (37601)

Evidence of Readership: Underlining or other markings in a number of the pamphlets in very neat ink and pencil, sometimes colored.

•  Recent navy blue cloth, printed paper label on spine with gilt ruling and decoration, new endpapers; all pamphlet wrappers bound in text. Marked as above, one pamphlet with label residue to front wrapper.  (36132)

Health concerns forced him to leave India in 1818, but he returned in 1821. During his years away he lectured and travelled in the U.S. and England, raising money for his mission.

The present collection of letters first appeared in London in 1821 and this is its first American edition. His letters have much to say about his work and the native population; he is acutely aware ofthe position and treatment of women and in more than one letter addresses the issue.

Provenance:  The Rochester Divinity School, which in the 19th century trained more than a few noteworthy missionaries to India.

•  Shoemaker 7568.   Original boards covered in blue-green paper; rebacked in the style of the era. Ex-library with 19th-century stamp on title and librarian's pencilling on verso of same. Foxing throughout. Uncut and partially unopened: a good, solid copy.  (34989)

•  Publisher's red textured cloth with title and ALL authors' names gilt-lettered on spine; covers double-ruled in blind, gilt circlet surrounding title on front cover, yellow endpapers with printed publisher's advertisements; binding gently rubbed and lightly soiled, spine pulled at top with loss of cloth and text moderately cocked. Marked as above, interior clean.  (36185)