This edition of the Quaver chapbook is uncommon: WorldCat does not find any institutional holdings of this Walker printing, and NSTC lists only a slightly different title.

•  This ed. not in NSTC.   Removed from a nonce volume. Page edges untrimmed, several with short tear from outer margin; pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean.  (37201)

•  Publisher's printed yellow paper wrappers over printed paper–covered stiff boards; wrappers with spine sunned, minor edge wear. Contents clean and crisp. Very good.  (34969)

•  Publisher's cream paper wrappers; darkened, back wrapper with light spots, spine creased with chip at head. Pages clean.  (35687)

This is numbered copy 1051 of 1500 printed; it wassigned at the colophon by the artist.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 32.   Publisher's brown and orange cloth as above, spines with gilt-stamped titles; slipcase and wrappers lacking, bindings showing moderate shelf wear most pronounced at spine extremities. Clean.  (30404)

The edition was limited to a total of 240 copies; this is one of the 75 unsigned copies printed for the two American publishers, bound in hand-marbled Fabriano paper done by Susan Johanknecht and Claire Van Vliet. The text was hand set in Walbaum, also by Johanknecht and Van Vliet.

•  Fine, Janus Press 1975–80, 40.   Publisher's lilac marbled paper–covered boards with tan shelfback, front cover with printed paper label. A clean and crisp copy.  (32334)

•  New. Publisher's blue cloth shelfback and French swirl marbled paper over boards; white paper label on front cover.  (35760)

Binding: Publisher's green cloth stamped in gilt on front cover with title and a vignette of a nun in prayer at an altar.

•  Bound as above; a little frayed at spine tips, corners a little bumped, a little discoloration to forepart of back cover; gilt very bright. Bookplate roughly removed from front pastedown, exposing the underlying board, and front free endpaper gone (possibly also to eliminate old private ownership marks?). Text age-toned; the occasional spot, only.  (36574)

Binding:  Publisher's green cloth with a young farmer's vignette stamped in white, black, and gilt on the cover, spine with gilt-stamped title and bird vignette.

•  BAL 16671.   Binding as above, dust jacket lacking, very minor rubbing to extremities and front cover vignette. Front pastedown with ownership inscription of Alice Grace Stone. Clean and fresh.  (35049)

•  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)

The contents of these two volumes appear to be based almost entirely on John Roach's Beauties of the Poets of Great Britain, although Roach is not cited as the editor, the pieces are in a different order than originally presented, and there are a few minor changes: “The Negro Boy” is not included here, while several “runic odes” by Mathias and Penrose have been added. The expected highlights of Pope, Gray, Cowper, Burns, Chatterton, Goldsmith, etc. are present, as well as lesser-known pieces such as Mrs. Carter's “Address to Meditation,” Mary Darby Robinson's “Trumpeter,” and Helen Maria Williams's “Sonnet to Twilight” and “Sonnet to Hope” (the latter memorized by Wordsworth, whose first published poem was “Sonnet, on seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress”).

The volumes are illustrated with 18 wood-engraved plates signed by Sears, Willis, and others — not the 1793 originals.

Provenance:  Ownership note of “Adams Jewett, M.D.” to top of title-page.

•  This ed. not in NSTC, Lowndes, or Allibone. Not in British Library OPAC, not in NUC Pre-1956, not in OCLC, not in COPAC.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spines with printed paper labels. Each title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper margin as above. Some pages with offsetting; spots of light to moderate staining; one page with pencilled annotation.  (25339)

The author, who spent most of his life in Derby, was a sculptor as well as a Derbyshire historian, and he appears to have supplied theoriginal illustrations here himself. The two pairs of plates (one lithographed, one steel-engraved) are done in notably different styles — we suspect that two different engravers worked from Robinson's sketches. Robinson wrote one additional Twitcher piece in 1881, describing a visit to the Royal Agricultural Show, not included in this gathering.

All the Twitcher books are now scarce: WorldCat finds very few U.K. holdings of these titles and virtually no U.S.

Provenance: First text page with early pencilled ownership inscription of Mr. H. Mills in upper outer corner.

•  Crismas: NSTC 2R14138; Visit: NSTC 2R14139; Second Visit: NSTC 2R14140; Watter Cure: NSTC 0643751.   Later quarter green calf and fine combed marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; minor shelfwear. Pencilled ownership note as above. Light age-toning; first two works with mild foxing and last leaves with avery light, old waterstain across a lower corner. A highly personal production in text *and* illustration; an entertaining and very uncommon gathering.  (36501)

These volumes offer his “Composiciones líricas originales” in vol. I and “Composiciones dramáticas originales” in vol. II. The frontispiece is a fine lithographic portrait of Don Ignacio, in Romantic style of course; there is a liberal use of handsome tailpieces. The whole was compiled and edited by the author's brother Antonio.

This first edition is uncommon in our experience as dealers in Mexicana.

Provenance:  Masonic stamp, “Porfirio del Rio” on title-page; inscription to fly-leaf of A. Quijano, 1916.

•  Palau 273981; Sabin 72510.   Handsome contemporary quarter red morocco with red mottled paper sides, boards rubbed; spine exuberantly tooled in gilt, bright. Foxing and spotting variously; provenance indications as above.  (31961)

Binding:  Publisher's dark green cloth, front cover and spine with flowering branches stamped in black, spine with gilt-stamped title.

•  BAL 16902 (not matching either described binding); Wright, III, 4619.   Bound as above, extremities rubbed not too roughly; front cover with small areas of faint discoloration. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription (S.M. Woodburn) dated [18]81 and tear with a bit of loss from upper margin. Generally clean and nice with occasional light spots; ads at the back giving extra pleasure and interest.  (28406)

•  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)

This edition was designed by the great American typographer (or “typster,” as he labeled himself) Bruce Rogers, and he left his mark on its final page; it was limited to 425 copies printed at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, MA. Bound in maroon paper–covered boards with a white paper spine label printed in black, this is copy 405 and is in its original dust wrapper and with its box, beingrare thus.  The spare label is tipped in at the back.

•  Work of Bruce Rogers, 101.   Bound and in its box as above; dust jacket and box label sunned, box edges rubbed. The pristine text is, which can be read with enjoyment by peeping, is unopened and uncut.  (30539)

“This edition follows exactly the text of the original Belfast issue of 1897 except that certain misprints have been corrected,” according to the edition statement; the text is ornamented with reproductions of the originalthree wood engravings by W.M.R. Quick. The present example is numbered copy 719 of 1250 printed.

Provenance:  Calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.

•  McKitterick/Rendall/Dreyfus 33.   Publisher's half sheep and pink, red, and brown mottled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine gently sunned, extremities a bit rubbed. Front pastedown with bookplate as above; light foxing to endpapers, with a very few faint spots elsewhere. Lovely Nonesuch production of a “must read it to believe it” novel!  (32039)

•  Peterson A20; NSTC 0651818.   Original cream limp vellum, spine with gilt-stamped author/title; spine very slightly darkened, top rear and bottom front silk ties perished but their partners present. (The ties on Kelmscotts seem to always be a problem.) Housed in a quarter crushed brown morocco solander (i.e., clam shell) case with rust-colored cloth sides and a spine with five raised bands; title in gilt in one compartment, author in gilt in another; remaining compartments with a blind-tooled foliate center device.A lovely example of an iconic Kelmscott volume, fitly housed.  (36887)

Provenance:  From the collection of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).

•  Hatch, Mosher, 184; Bishop, Mosher, 47.   Vellum-cased boards with green silk accents, spine modestly lettered in gilt; very lightly dust-soiled and spotted, outer green silk uniformly faded, ties appearing to have been trimmed off at edges. Interior creamy and clean. A textually interesting work and a spectacular example of an unusual printing method from an American press.  (37302)

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

•  Brunet, IV, 1421. Contemporary black half morocco over blue pebbled cloth, spine beautifully gilt extra, leather edges ruled in gilt; volume clean and virtually unworn. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate and with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings); some soiling and offsetting to front pastedown and free endpaper. Many leaves lightly to moderately foxed, a few more heavily — the paper here was not as good as it might have been. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, touching page number but not text. An attractive production. (19301)

This is a later edition, following the first of 1728, with this particular printing being uncommon: ESTC locates only four institutional holdings (two in the U.K. and two in the U.S.), while COPAC does not find any additional U.K locations. WorldCat adds two more U.S. locations, for a total of only four.

Binding:  Contemporary treed sheep, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped red leather title-label, board edges with gilt roll; tooling very attractive along lines that “feel” just a touch “provincial.”

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription: “Mrs. Hinckley 1809.”

•  ESTC N3296; this edition not in NCBEL, but see II:565 for earlier editions and translations into French and German.   Binding with edges rubbed, spine leather showing small cracks, joints carefully repaired with tissue, caps rebuilt, corners reinforced, leather consolidated. Occasional minor staining; inscription as above. A very readable copy in an attractive period binding.  (28806)

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)

•  Publisher's teal cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; spines with gilt slightly dimmed and minor extremity wear, front cover of vol. II with a small light smudge. A solid and pleasant set, with its pages very crisp and clean.  (33164)

•  Publisher's red cloth, spines gilt-stamped, in matching slipcase; volume spines sunned, slipcase showing minimal shelfwear. Overall very clean and crisp.  (33160)