Binding:  Gorgeous 19th-century acid-stained autumnal binding: Covers framed with a gilt floral roll and brilliantly crossed with bands of walnut brown, ochre, deep green, russet red, black, and grey, allvery bright. Spines gilt extra with compartment devices and multiple interesting rolls, and bearing black leather gilt labels; board edges touched at corners with gilt; marbled endpapers.

Provenance:  Signature of Sam Baird on front endpaper and title-page of vol. I and half-title of vol. II.

As described in the BAL, signature sign 6 is not present on p. 41 in vol. I and the last page of vol. III is unnumbered.

•  BAL 10124.   Bound as above, bindings moderately rubbed with one sliver of leather lost at a joint and a small patch lost near the bottom of one back cover. Age-toning, foxing, and some other spotting; some corners creased (some corners improperly trimmed during manufacture. Inscriptions as above, light pencilling on endpapers of one volume; map wrinkled with some old light staining and a tear repaired some time ago from back, with cloth tape — folds strong. A classic semi-historical work most strikingly bound.  (36170)

Binding:  1920s-era half brown morocco with marbled paper sides and matching marbled endpapers; round spines, raised bands accented with gilt rules and gilt beading, and a gilt center device in each spine compartment. Top edges gilt, others uncut; binding unsigned, but elegantly accomplished.

•  Bound as above. Vol. I lacks half-title, colophon leaf, and the two states of the frontispieces before the lettering. Vol. II lacks the cancelled title-page, the two states of the frontispieces before the lettering, and the instructions to the binder. A lesson of a set, as the lacking elements that so affect the price of this handsome duo are so not-obviously “missing”:  One must *know* they're supposed to be there!  (35436)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplates of prominent Philadelphia collector Robert R. Dearden and Philip Justice Steinmetz, an Episcopal clergyman; the latter design shows a view of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park, PA, of which Dr. Steinmetz was the pastor.

•  BAL 10188.   Publisher's slate-green cloth, covers with blind-stamped rococo frame, front cover with gilt-stamped scenic vignette, spine with gilt-stamped author/title and embossed decorations; binding very slightly cocked, extremities rubbed, cloth somewhat faded overall. Front pastedown with bookplates as above and with affixed slip of old cataloguing. Frontispiece and added title-page with margins lightly stained; pages faintly age-toned, otherwise clean.  (29557)

The LEC illustrations consist of 8 full-page and 41 in-text color drawings by Everett Gee Jackson (no relation to the author), who also signed the colophon. Saul Marks designed the book, selecting a monotype Bembo font with the chapter titles printed in red ink, and the printing was done by Saul and Lillian Marks at The Plantin Press, Los Angeles.

Binding:  In an attractive full woven fabric derived from a striated Native American design, with a colorful paper spine label.

This is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed; the appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 298.   Binding as above in original slipcase, volume spine label slightly darkened, slipcase showing only minimal wear and with a spot or two of darkening to front panel. A very nice copy.  (30117)

This leaf of The Golden Legend has on its recto, and continuing on the verso, the final portion of account of the nativity of the Virgin, which recounts episodes from her mature adulthood andshows the Mother of God as a powerful figure with a powerful sense of what is due her.  She promises death within 30 days to a bishop who has removed from office an unsatisfactory priest that she appreciates as specially devoted to her (he is reinstated and the bishop lives); she intercedes in another vision with her “debonayre sone” to reverse the damnation of a “vayne and ryotous” cleric who, on the other hand, has been specially devoted to her and her Hours (he reforms). In a third case, she redeems from the grasp of hell a bishop's vicar who, disappointed of promotion in office, had engaged “a Jewe [who was] a magycyan” to facilitate his signing in his own blood a soul-sacrificing deal with “the devyll” (the vicar repented).  The Marian section closes with an account of “Saynt Jherom's” devotion to her. All this is followed on the verso by the beginning of the life of St. Adrian of Nicomedia, who before his conversion to Christianity and subsequent martyrdom was a Herculian Guard of the Roman Emperor Galerius Maximian. He is the patron saint of soldiers, arms dealers, guards, butchers, victims of the plague, and epileptics. The text is printed in double-column format inEnglish gothic type.

Provenance:  From an offering of leaves from this edition of The Golden Legend by the Dauber & Pine Bookshops, New York City, in ca. 1928 .

English incunable leaves are increasingly difficult to obtain.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 24876; ESTC S103597; Duff 411; Copinger 6475; Goff J-151; ISTC ij00151000.   Removed neatly from a bound volume. With a “cover leaf” in approximation of a title-page, reading “The Golden Legende. J. de Voragine. Printed by Wynkyn de Worde 1498. Dauber & Pine Bookshops, Inc. New York.” A striking relic recounting multiple miracles and presenting Mary as a most interesting personality.  (40744)

We have, at the moment, an interesting number of such “first American editions.” Please, enquire!

•  BAL 10549; Edel & Laurence, Bibliography of Henry James (3rd. ed.), A11b; Wright, III, 2913.   Publisher's terra-cotta cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; extremities rubbed and cloth with areas of discoloration. Ex–social club library: call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages with scattered light stains, still a very nice copy.  (26637)

•  BAL 10537; Edel & Laurence, Bibliography of Henry James (3rd. ed.), A7b.   Publisher's green finely cross-ribbed cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; corners and spine extremities rubbed, sides with small spots of discoloration, spine darkened with lighter, rubbed patch under title. Ex–social club library; 19th-century call-number inked to a front blank and rubber-stamp to title-page, no other markings.  (26569)

Limited to 1000 copies.

•  Publisher's red cloth with gilt title and “tailpiece-“like device on front board and title in gilt on spine. Fore- and tailedges deckled. A fine copy.  (36981)

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 487.  Bound as above, with ochre linen shelfback and gilt-stamped title, in yellow paper–covered slipcase with gilt-stamped title; slipcase with inch-long ding to one edge and otherwise but a few small scuffs and light shelfwear to edges; volume just reached by the blow and cover just showing that — otherwise (blessedly) clean and fresh. (36861)

Although Wellcome gives 1776 for the date of publication, ESTC suggests 1780.

The second, similarly themed work — which closes witha section praising music as beneficial to health — here includes its half-title, which notes this is “a new edition,” following the first of 1744. The author was a Scottish-born physician who published a number of poems, essays, and other pieces, including the scandalously explicit The Oeconomy of Love.

•  Joannes: ESTC T135836; Roscoe A389; Wellcome, IV, p. 494. Armstrong: ESTC T59726; Foxon A297 (for first ed.).   Later half reddish-brown calf and chestnut cloth, spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped title, and gilt-stamped compartment fleurons; minor wear overall, boards carefully and unobtrusively reattached with new endpapers. First few leaves with edges chipped, a little staining, and one corner taken (away from text); otherwise the gently age-toned pages are clean with only one or two minor exceptions. A pleasing pairing, of interest to scholars of both medicine and poetry.  (39529)

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, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

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)

Binding:  Signed “Liebherre, GRA.” Midnight blue or purple cloth with blind-stamped boards and richly gilt-stamped spine.

Provenance:  On front free endpaper, “Present to Albert Loomis by N.L. Tilden, Teacher.”

•  Sternick, Bibliography of 19th-century children's series books: 1291.   Binding as above, minor rubbing of spine foot and crown, gilt very bright. Calligraphic inscription and ownership stamp to front endpapers; light foxing throughout. Very good.  (37749)

This isnumbered copy 262 of 450 printed.

•  Olive cloth–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; spine and board edges sunned, extremities slightly rubbed, lower front board edge with small dent. Front pastedown with bookplate of one of Harvard's undergraduate houses (with small deaccession stamp); title-page with pressure-stamp from the same house, with deaccession stamp on the reverse. Pages gently age-toned. Clean.  (33613)

Binding:  Contemporary speckled calf framed and panelled in blind with roll-bordered panel in plain calf, blind-tooled corner fleurons.

•  ESTC T79993.   Binding as above, rebacked some time ago with mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt floral decorations in compartments; upper corners refurbished, edges and extremities rubbed, hinges (inside) cracked, volume holding. A copy without the general title-page, and with bookplate as above. First and last few leaves (including frontispiece) with offsetting to margins from pastedowns; back free endpaper with a corner torn away; pages age-toned, with some instances of mild foxing. A nice 18th-century look at Jonson, with the bonus of the contemporary theatrical catalogue. (35449)

Uncommon: ESTC, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956 find only 9 U.S. holdings.

•  ESTC S107911; STC (2nd ed.) 14831.   Period-style calf framed and panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Lacks initial blank leaf, as is the case with virtually all copies. Two leaves with tattered outer edges, one leaf with small hole affecting a few letters; pages with some moderate offsetting, a few browned.  (25084)

Provenance:  Printed presentation leaf at front inscribed to “Harford” with two inked dashes through a printed date of 1841; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  On Hawtrey, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.   Binding as above, rubbed and scraped with leather loss and some spotting; front hinge (inside) starting, boards firmly attached. Dust-soiling of varying degrees along top edges with the occasional spot; moderate foxing to first and last few leaves, two leaves with offsetting from ribbon placemarker that is still present. Presentation inscription and booklabel as above.  (38839)

apparently the first printing at The Hague of any Latin Classic(s) in their original Latin.

Juvenal was a Roman poet of the early second century A.D. His Satires are a standard of the genre, eloquent, humorous, and rhetorically polished, but revealing a very bitter man. Persius (a.d. 34–62), was a gentler soul than Juvenal, and his poems are more Stoic sermons than satires, preaching a moral life during one of Rome's more corrupt periods and doing so, most remarkably, without a hint of self-righteousness. The two Satyrae are often published together, in contrast and comparison.

This is the first printing at the Hague of this edition with Farnaby's notes, originally printed at London in 1612 and then reprinted in Amsterdam in 1630. The emblematic engraved title-page here was done by A. de Blois; the separate title-page for Persius bears the printer's device.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with three generations of early, dated, inked ownership inscriptions: Thomas Mansell, first Baron Mansel (1684); Robert Mansel (sic, 1712); and Thomas Mansell (1730–31).

•  Brunet, III, 631; Graesse, III, 520; Morgan, Bibliography of Persius, 298; Schweiger, I, 511.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Front fly-leaf darkened and engraved title a littlevery little tattered at edges, the first with inscriptions “stacked” as above and the second with old repair. Pages gently age-toned and generally clean, with all edges red.  (25952)

This is thefirst book-form edition of the translation, following its original appearance in Keene's Anthology of Japanese Literature; three hundred copies were set by hand in Garamond and printed on Masa paper by Fredericks and David Beeken.

•  Original hand-stitched wrappers resembling bamboo grain, with paper label on front wrapper, in paper overlay matching the endpapers; outer overlay with minor edge wear and with small annotation (possibly from publisher) on label. A lovely and uncommon production.  (35979)

•  Osborne Collection, p. 50; Opie PP 190.   Publisher's brightly color-printed paper–covered sides with green cloth shelfback; spine and edges rubbed, hinges (inside) tender, paper split along gutters and sewing starting to loosen, ready for ongoing comfortable handling if care is used. Pages very slightly age-toned with a handful of spots of foxing, overall clean. An outstanding Victorian children's production.  (40823)

•  ESTC T75210. Marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Half-title lacking. Upper margin of title-page showing small abrasions and traces of affixed paper; title-page and several others stamped by a now-defunct institution.

This limited edition keepsake pamphlet is one of 50 printed by Martino Mardersteig at theOfficina Bodoni, handset using a variant of Dante type on Magnani handmade paper.

•  On the poem, see: Milnes, ed., Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats, pp. 83–86.   Stitched in gray paper wrappers with author and title printed in black on front cover. Fine.  (30803)

Includes two poems by Whittier: “My soul and I” and “The wife of Manoah to her husband.”

Binding:  Publisher’s textured brown calf, covers with blind-stamped frame of foliate design; front cover suitably gilt-stamped with central vignette ofJesus and the woman at the well, back cover centrally gilt-stamped with a weary-looking woman harvesting grain (Ruth?). Spine gilt-stamped with foliate (ivy?) design and ornate title; all edges gilt.

Provenance:  19th-century stencilled ownership name of H. Amelia St John (Purdy) (1838–1925) of Yates County, NY.

•  Faxon 622; Thompson 145; Tepper, American Gift Books & Literary Annuals. (Second edition), 167.   Binding as above, gilt designs moderately rubbed, edges and corners worn, spine faded and head of spine pulled. Front free endpaper clipped to remove inscription; ownership stencil to front fly-leaf. Some pages with soiling, light foxing, or brown stains. Mezzotints well accomplished and several quite lovely.  (37280)

A fictionalized account of the author's life and family and friends, the novel is somewhat conventional but contains the seeds and hints of things that will mature, expand, and dominate in his later writings.

•  Charters A1a for the first edition, first issue; Charters notes the existence of advance reading copies, but does not give them a separate entry, nor speculate about the number bound as here.   Publisher's printed salmon paper wrappers, rear cover with a slim crease to paper (in production?); a fresh, unworn copy. Cryptic pencilled characters (totalling 13) on endpapers and rear endpaper with one very short tear. Housed in a quarter green morocco clamshell box.  (34815)

This isnumbered copy 298 of 750 printed by R. & R. Clark in Edinburgh for the Nonesuch Press, with the four collotype illustrations printed by the Chiswick Press.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.

•  Dreyfus, History of the Nonesuch Press, 75.   Publisher's quarter blue-grey paper with taupe paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label, in original dust wrapper with black-stamped spine label; binding very slightly cocked with corners rubbed; wrapper sunned with edge chips and short tears, and interior tape reinforcements to two tears at spine and one at back fold. Offsetting from jacket flaps to endpapers; front pastedown with previous owner's pencilled annotations. A clean, solid, andquite pleasant copy.  (33868)

one of 350 copies printed at the University of California Press for the Book Club of California

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked gift inscription from historian Carl Wheat, author of Mapping of the Trans-Mississippi West, to Joe Blumenthal (of Spiral Press fame), a “fellow member of WOOFFB.”

•  Publisher's quarter vellum and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author/title; minimal shelfwear to outer corners. A fresh, clean copy with an interesting inscription.  (30622)

Binding:  19th-century brown morocco, spine gilt extra with red leather label, daisy-stamped spine compartments, and minute daisy roll along raised bands; covers framed in gilt vinous and foliate roll, board edges gilt-beaded. A completely different gilt daisy and dog-tooth roll adorns the turn-ins; striking marbled endpapers, and all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Very small embossed armorial stamp (featuring three cross crosslets and a mullet in the base) above inked signature of J.J. FitzAdam on front endpaper; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering, 1842.6; Keynes, William Pickering (rev. ed.), p. 76; Pickering & Chatto, William Pickering (catalogue 708), 185.   Bound as above; gently rubbed at corners. A few small, scattered specks to interior, otherwise clean; one or two uneven edges from manufacture. Provenance indicia as above. A neatly printed collection beautifully bound.  (38386)

Kleist's life was a troubled one financially, psychologically, and creatively. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) characterizes him as “by far the most important North German dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic indignation.”

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only two copies in U.S. libraries, but we know of a third.

•  Later 19th-century blue-green marbled paper–covered boards; foxing and browning as typical of the paper with but a few odd spots additionally, and perhaps six leaves with a stain as from a spill, extending across text but not hampering reading. Very readable in both senses; a decent, solid copy of an important work of German literature.  (33011)

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)

The original author's name appears in innumerable variations according to various transcribers' nationalities; Count Georg Wilhelm von Kniphausen (or Knyphausen) of Nienort (or Nienoort) was also known as George Willem (or Guillaume), Comte van Kniphausen, etc.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 28892.   Contemporary treed sheep, recently rebacked with complementary mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; original leather showing expectable rubbing/cracking. Title-page with institutional pressure- and rubber-stamp; no other marks. One leaf with old burn damage (the ash from a pipe??) to lower inner portion, margins repaired, loss of a few letters without obscuring sense; one leaf with closed tear from outer margin and no loss; one leaf with a corner taken, just touching text without loss; upper corners dust-soiled, and pages generally age-toned, with no brittleness or other “issues.”  (27242)