
MANUSCRIPTS
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Our numerous SPANISH-LANGUAGE MANUSCRIPTS now have
their own separate, dedicated catalogue: Click here.
A Pastry Scholar's Manuscript Notes — These Ranging Well Beyond
Gateaux & Nougats
Mayer, Th. Autograph Manuscript Signed. In French with some English, on lined paper. France: 1860. 4to, 266 pp.; 135 pp. text, 1 p. diagrams, 20 pp. index.
$2250.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Monsieur Mayer, “confiseur Patisier [sic] de Thann Haut Rhin,” may well have been in culinary school when he filled this ledger book with recipes — many items are written in pencil and retraced in ink, as if he were going over his notes, and little sketches/diagrams in the margins remind him what the resulting desserts and pastries should look like.
The
132
well-filled pages here also offer instructions for making
eau de cologne, colored inks, calf-lung paté, absinthe,
“pastille purgation,” and “sirop d'escargots,”
with these often being intermixed among the sweets recipes and with a 20 pp.
index being supplied in the back of the book to sort all out again by category:
pâtisserie, confiserie, liqueur et parfum, produit
chimique. Without reference to that last index, it might be easy to miss
the fact that
Mayer
recorded formulae for rat poison, fireworks, metallic trees, and etching acids!
Near the end of the book is a full-page drawing of an apparatus labeled “percolater,”
which looks suspiciously like a still, followed by three pages of notes on
French measures. This last set of memoranda may suggest that Mayer did not
grow up with those measures, and that he might have been English is suggested
by the fact that English words appear sprinkled throughout while four leaves
are written entirely in that language.
A ten-centimes ticket to the Tuileries and an advertisement for a means of
reproducing engravings are laid in among the pages.
Original quarter sheep over blue marbled boards, with paper
label on front cover; spine and board edges worn, hinges (inside) open. Previous
owner's inscription and pressure-stamp on endpaper. All text is written in
a clear but not entirely consistent hand, the English-language recipes and
two others in bright blue (as opposed to the book's “regular”
brown) ink. (2551)
This entry is repeated in the
“KM” section of this
catalogue . . .


Extended MANUSCRIPT in an
UNCOMMON PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE
Antonio Lobato de Santo Tomás. Manuscript in Ibanag on paper: “Quinque sermones in quinque precipuis festivitatibus B. Maria Virginis. Quibus accedunt sermo in feria quarta cinerumz et sermo in dominica 2o post octavam trinitatis. Per R. P. fray Antoniium Lobatao de Sto. Thomas. Tuguegarao, The Philippines: 1776–80. Small 4to. 196 pp.
$30,000.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Precious few manuscript sources in the Ibanag language survive from the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines. Only a handful of missionaries worked in the region of the northeastern Philippine provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, most notably in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan, where the language was/is spoken; and not all mastered the tongue. Fray Antonio Lobato was one of those who did and it was he who took Fr. José Bugarin's Ibanag–Spanish dictionary, created in the previous century, and edited it to a usable work — though the result was not published until the 19th century, and, apparently, no other work was published in the language during the 16th, 17th, or 18th centuries.
The importance, then, of
a large body of work set down in the Ibanag language, from the 18th century and as written/spoken by one of the seminal scholars of the language, should be obvious for anyone researching the language as understood by missionaries, as used by missionaries, as influenced by Spanish, and as held out by Spaniards of authority as the model of Ibanag speech to be emulated. Beyond this, of course, is the interest of the sermons themselves, letting us see what the Ibanaq speakers were hearing from their missionaries — or, at least, this missionary — in this place, in this period.
Fray Antonio's sermons are here written in a clear, easy to read hand and the dates of composition or of delivery are often noted.
Provenance: A signature “Fr. Antonio Lobato de Sto. Thomas” appears at the bottom of the last page and is almost certainly that of the the friar himself, which would mean that this is his autograph manuscript of the sermons.
Contemporary very stiff vellum. Binding gnawed by a rodent with loss. Written on a good quality European paper, with some soiling and an occasional stain. No faults are serious and overall this is a remarkably good survival for an 18th-century Philippines manuscript. Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box. (23668)
(Augusta's Album).
Luckenback, Augusta, collector. Manuscript on paper, in English. Philadelphia, Easton, Bethlehem, and elsewhere. ca. 1853. 8vo (23.5 cm, 9.25"). [84 ff. (12 inscribed)]; 8 plts.
$350.00

Not many of the leaves in this autograph book (manufactured for and published by the New York firm of J.C. Riker, ca. 1850) have been inscribed, but those that have are appealing in content: A possibly original poem labelled “To My Augusta” praises her “mild but bright blue eye,” while another poem exhorts the recipient to “Hope! . . . Smile! . . . Remember Your Friend.” Some of the datelines give Mount Pocono, Bethlehem, and Easton (all in Pennsylvania) as locations, while “Phil.” presumably indicates Philadelphia. Following the theme stated on the front cover, with its portrait of Queen Victoria and banner reading “The Victoria Album,” the album pages are interspersed with metal-engraved plates depicting an assortment of royal women including Victoria herself (looking very young), Anne of Denmark, and Isabella of Valois.
The front cover vignette has been reproduced, in gilt, opposite the frontispiece portrait.
Provenance: The inscription on the front fly-leaf reads “Miss Augusta E. Luckenback [/] presented to her by her dear sister Em [/] Feb.y 11th/53.”
Binding: Publisher’s red morocco, spine gilt extra, front and back covers with gilt-stamped vignettes of Queen Victoria, front vignette surrounded by gilt-stamped floral border. All edges gilt.
Binding as above, edges and spine rubbed, still bright and attractive. Mild foxing to some leaves and plates.
“Northern
Liberties” Philadelphia
Broadside. Partially printed, completed in manuscript, beginning: To --------- Esq. Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas, at Philadelphia in the County of Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania to any other Attorney of the said Court, or of any other Court elsewhere. Philadelphia: before 1790. Folio. 1 page (13.125" x 8").
$100.00
By this legal instrument William Tyson “of Northern Liberties [now a part of the city of Philadelphia] in the County of Philadelphia and state of Pennsylvania, Dealer” agrees to pay Thomas Walton “of the same place” two hundred pounds “current money of the said state of Pennsylvania in specie” of 100 pounds is payable with interest. The rate of interest is unstated but is six percent per annum.
Tyson and Walton signed the document on 24 August 1791.
An excellent display piece.
Old folds with a few short tears. Residue of mounting tape at two points on the left margin. (14729)

BROUGHAM on Literature & Science — with MS. Letter
Brougham, Henry Peter, Baron Brougham & Vaux. Addresses on popular literature, and on the monument to Sir Isaac Newton: Delivered at Liverpool and Grantham. London: Edward Law, 1858. 8vo. 63, [1] pp.
$150.00
Sole edition. The first address extolls the virtues of popular literature as a means of educating the masses, while the second sums up Newton's career and contributions. At the back of the volume is affixed a lengthy newspaper clipping of a letter from Brougham, celebrating the poems of Burns — an unsurprising subject of effusion for this Scottish-born lawyer, journalist, politician, and man of many interests generally. Famous for defending Princess Caroline against the Pains and Penalties Bill, he was also the fashionable eponym of the brougham carriage, a prominent abolitionist, an educational reformer, and the man who made Cannes a popular vacation destination among the English.
Click the images for enlargements.
Provenance: Ownership signature on front free endpaper, “Mr. Justice McDougall, Jamaica.”
Autograph manuscript addition: Tipped onto the title-page is a manuscript letter signed by Brougham, dated 1839. In this informal but warmly written letter apparently addressed to an uncle, he declines an invitation and briefly mentions “the children,” whom he thought were left safe from the measles at Paris; he had one living daughter at the time of this letter's composition, and may be referring to members of his extended family.
NSTC 2B51067. Publisher's limp red cloth in imitation of morocco, yapp edges, covers blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title; extremities rubbed, spine slightly darkened with small paper label, sides with small areas of minor discoloration. All edges stained red. Front free endpaper with early inked inscription and small private pressure-stamp. Pages age-toned; one early inked correction. (26986)

A Volume EXTRA ILLUSTRATED & Then Some!
Brown University. Celebration of the one hundreth anniversary of the founding of Brown University, September 6th, 1864. Providence: Sidney S. Rider & Bro., 1865. 4to (26.5 cm; 10.25"). [4] ff., 178 pp., [1] f.
$10,000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
An extra-illustrated copy. Noted 19th-century book collector, devoted Baptist, and political and civic activist Horatio Gates Jones, an honored participant in the centennial celebration at Brown, created this extra-illustrated copy of the official publication. Added as embellishments are an original copy of the broadside publication of the theses for the first commencement of the College of Rhode Island (the first name of Brown University), 19 autograph letters signed, 14 engravings (views, portraits), 15 photographs (including cartes de visite), eight clipped signatures, and 5 other items including a partially printed document from 1738.
Provenance: Horatio Gates Jones, Jr. (American, 1822–93); donated to the Crozer Theological Seminary; later deaccessioned.
In a late 19th-century black half leather binding with red morocco spine label. Occasional library pressure-stamps. Very good condition. (25981)
Burnside, Thomas. Document Signed. Clearfield, PA, 1811. Double folio (39.5
cm, 15.5"). [1] f.
$125.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Deed from the Hon. Thomas Burnside to Benjamin Patton, transferring the rights to a 559-acre property in western Pennsylvania previously owned by David Curry, deceased, which land became the property of the county upon default of payment of taxes. Two years later Patton sold the same tract to the George Curry, executor of David Curry’s estate. Patton had paid $14.65 in 1811 and sold in 1813 for $200.00.The Irish-born Burnside, then treasurer of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, was later a justice of the Pennsylvania state supreme court.
A notary’s seal is affixed to the document, which was signed by both Burnside and Patton.
Creased and slightly age-toned, with the folios separated and some offsetting from seal; a few small holes, touching text without notable loss.
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