The illustrations include a woodcut frontispiece of a standing child and in-text woodcuts show the “order of the human teeth,” shoe lasts, and the Arcuccio, an instrument used by Italian mothers to protect their babies from “all injury and danger” when they take them to bed. Shoes and teeth (milk and lasting) in fact appear to be points of special interest, the volume offering interesting discussions of the measurement of shoes in relation to the feet along with tables concerning the periods for dental growth and shedding; not forgotten are notes on wine, weather including how to behave in a thunderstorm, and “the entire Extirpation of the Small-pox and measles.” (Faust's passages onindividual and community responsibility for the communication of communicable diseases may perhaps, just now, perhaps, be particularly interesting.)

Provenance:  20th-century bookplate of the Detroit collector and physician Dr. Otto Orren Fischer.

The work is surprisingly little held in this first edition in U.S. libraries.

•  ESTC T121431; Wellcome III, 12.   Modern quarter calf over marbled boards, spine with raised bands, gilt devices in compartments, and gilt-lettered red morocco label. Untrimmed copy with rough edges often a little dusty/soiled and with widely varying degrees of mostly marginal waterstaining almost throughout; some signatures carelessly or ineptly opened. A sound, usable, frankly fascinating little volume.  (41343)

The vast bulk of this work attempts to convince the English to support the Scots' enterprise and cites political, religious, social, and economic reasons for doing so; clearly, the Scots knew that English naval might in particular would be essential for the success of the scheme. Beyond this, however, a section (pp. 42 to 51) addresses the natural history, native population, agricultural commodities, and indigenous industry of the region; and the work ends with an account of the Scots' settlement, the buildings erected there, and its intercourse with the indigenous people.

Authorship of this work is problematic: It is signed “Philo-Caledon” at the end of the dedication and three other names have have been proposed as possible authors in addition to Foyer's — George Ridpath, Andrew Fletcher, and John Hamilton (2nd Baron Belhaven). Added to the conundrum of authorship, the work was produced in four editions in the same year, each having different numbers of pages, each with a different signature scheme, none with a publisher, and this one without even a place of publication!

•  Wing (rev. ed.) F2047; Sabin 78211; Alden & Landis 699/9; ESTC R18505 ; and Halkett & Laing II:32.   20th-century half dark brown crushed morocco with brown linen sides. This copy has all the hallmarks of having once been through a British bookseller's “hospital”: all leaves are dust-soiled or age-toned; all leaves are uncut but some have been extended and others not, and some leaves with torn margins (but not all) have had lost paper restored; all such repairs and extensions are within the first six leaves, meaning these were probably supplied from another copy. Top of title-leaf trimmed with loss of “A” of the title; another leaf with a tear to the top margin with loss costing tops of several letters of words on one page, and two leaves with the running head guillotined by a binder; some stray stains. An interesting copy for its probable if problematic history and condition.  (34130)

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, and KVK find only one copy of the almanac and one of the New Testament, bound together. They are in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek. However Chambers lists five copies in addition to that one, including one at the National Library of Scotland that is not findable via COPAC.

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Van Eys, Bibles French, pt. II, 118; Chambers, French Bibles, 340; not in Darlow & Moule.   Bound as above, rebacked, with gentle rubbing. Light general age-toning with this greater at edges, Bible title-page lacking; two early leaves darkened and one repaired, some leaves closely trimmed touching captions or with loss of a letter or two from marginal notes, two leaves with short tears and three each with a small spot. Ex-library as above: pencilling on endpapers, five-digit acquisition stamp and call number on title-page verso, booklabel at back. A compact and dare it be said “darling” book.  (36407)

The plates are signed “F. Kearny,” an artist born in Perth Amboy, NJ, who studied drawing with Archibald and Alexander Robertson and engraving with Peter Maverick. From 1810 to his death in 1833 he practiced engraving in Philadelphia.

There are two states of gathering “U”: this copy has the typographical error “tibbon” with the stop-press correction to “ribbon” on p. 235.

The volume ends with advertisements for several sporting and fishing goods suppliers.

•  Shoemaker 27838; Howes K108; Henderson, American Sporting Books, 6; Phillips, Sporting Books, 21; Streeter Sale 4084; Bennett, Practical Guide, 60–61. On Stauffer, American Engravers, I, 148–49.   Publisher's sprinkled sheep with simple rope roll in blind on board edges, some abrasion to leather; round spine with gilt double rules forming “spine compartments,” black leather title label. The usual light and scattered foxing noted in all copies, nothing more. A very nice copy.  (28553)

Gerard's observations cover botany, linguistics, culture, and commerce, as well as geography. The area of his travels is depicted by an oversized, folding map of his own design.

•  NSTC 2G5453; Howgego, II, G7.   Contemporary brown cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; rebacked and 95% of original spine reapplied, with the publisher's name at the foot of the spine chipped. Front pastedown and back of map each with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings), front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated [18]49. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Last preface page with small inked annotation. Pages slightly age-toned; map with light offsetting and one short tear starting along fold, not touching image.  (24291)

This document is one of the very few printed in the temporary capital of Mixco, a press having been salvaged from the ruins in the former capital. Thus, Mixco was the second city/town to have a press in Central America, and then, for only a short time—appoximately two years.

In addition to being important for its contents and in the realm of printing history, the González Bustillo report is uncommon: We trace only half a dozen copies in U.S. libraries.

•  Medina, Guatemala, 384; Palau 105113; Sabin 27811. Modern full calf, very plain style. Without the final leaf with one erratum on it.  (13841)

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

•  American Imprints 40-16. Not in Gumuchian, not in Opie, not in Osborne Collection.   Sewn as issued, sewing loosening; front wrapper lacking, back wrapper with short tear from spine, corners rubbed. Pages age-toned and faintly foxed with a smudge or two only; free of markings or other signs of childish usage.  (41159)

As Hall writes that he will be easy to find because he is “about as well known here — though I hope in a different spirit — as in Yankee Land,” we date the letter to some time shortly enough after publication of Travels in North America for oblique reference to its angry reception there to be both natural and “fresh”; and, indeed, we wonder if his correspondent is American?

Provenance:  Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, recently deaccessioned.

•  Very good condition. Old folds, a few spots of pale tea-colored stains. Written in a pale ink that is yet quite legible.  (33346)

Thomas's monograph describes earwigs, cockroaches, devils-horses, walking-sticks, grasshoppers (this category including locusts), and crickets, and is illustrated with a few in-text wood engravings in addition to the lithographed plate (done by W.H. Holmes) showing 17 different U.S. insects. This copy is uncut and unopened.

•  Schmeckebier, Catalogue & Index of the Publications of the Hayden, King, Powell, & Wheeler Surveys, 21.   Period-style quarter tan cloth with light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Title-page institutionally rubber-stamped; title-page and half-title with outer margins repaired. Page edges untrimmed, signatures unopened. Spots of staining to outer margins of a few leaves. In fact a nice copy.  (25282)

•  Publisher’s cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; front cover with discoloration to upper edge and small bump to outer edge, cloth rubbed along edges and joints, spine scuffed. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped. Pages and plates clean, and the large volume quite solid.  (19652)

•  Rohde, Old English Herbals, 222; Nissen 881 (for Bungay 1803 ed.); Henrey, British Botanical and Horticultural Literature, III, 829.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and rules and blind-stamped devices in compartments; binding worn and scuffed, front joint cracked (sewing holding), spine leather with a number of small cracks. One plate with very short tear from upper margin, just barely extending into plate edge and not approaching image; small spots of foxing to some pages and plates, with two early plates showing somewhat more noticeable spotting. A very browsable and readable copy, with lovely plates.  (34849)

This is an early printing, following the first of the previous year. The present copy is in wrappers bearing a slightly altered subtitle, “Illustrative of the Arts of Rural Life,” and a publication line crediting Tabart & Company's “Juvenile and School Library.” The text is illustrated withtwo copper-engraved plates, one showing the first meeting with the “beggar” and his dog, and one the cabin-building in process. This edition is uncommon, with a search of WorldCat findingonly one U.S institution reporting ownership of this imprint.

Provenance:  Title-page with inked gift inscription from Belinda Crooke to Mary Arnold Hearn, dated 1821. Most recently in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  Gumuchian 3181 (describing this as the first ed.); Osborne Collection, 899–900 (for 1804 ed.).   Publisher's printed paper wrappers; worn, faded, and stained, front wrapper with faint pencilled inscription, spine with early hand-inked title. Inscription as above. Waterstaining, age-toning, and mild foxing throughout; a copy that got itself wet, but otherwise clearly was used with care (and still was cared for after the wetting). Scarce and fascinating.  (41031)

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)

Langham's organization is this: “He devoted a chapter to each plant, describing its parts and their uses, the different processes such as distillation that could be applied to it, and how the resulting products could be used for particular diseases. To every item of information he added a number and at the end of the chapter there is an index or table of conditions with the numbers that were in the main text. The reader can thus see at a glance that one herb could be used in a wide variety of conditions, and whether a specific illness could be helped by a particular drug” (Wear, pp. 82–83).

This is the second edition, “corrected and amended,” the first having appeared in 1597. We are sure the reading public, which was sufficient to support a second edition, would have been helped rather more if the work had had illustrations, but that would have increased the cost of the work dramatically and awide audience was sought. The text is printed chiefly in gothic type while the end of chapter “indices” are in roman. This herbal was not printed during a period of good English typography, so the pages are dense with little white space or appreciation for making the text on the page easy on the eye rather than wearying.

•  ESTC S108241; STC (rev. ed.) 15196; Alden & Landis 633/67; Huth Library 817. On Langham, see Andrew Wear, Knowledge & Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680.   Contemporary English calf, boards modestly ruled in blind at edges; rebacked in high quality goat. Age-toning or old soiling, especially at the edges of margins and with offsetting from binding to title-page; some light marginal waterstaining especially at end in index; some tears (one shown here) with last leaves' edges chopped and final two with edges strengthened.Overall, an unsophisticated copy that has been spared being washed, pressed, and gussied up.  (34545)

•  Wellcome, III, 458; Garrison-Morton 154; ESTC T139902; Lowndes II, p.1321 (“a sumptuous edition”); Osler, Bib. Osleriana, p. 283, no. 3178; Bentley Blake Books 481; Ryskamp, William Blake, Engraver, 22. On the parts, see: Arents Collection of Books in Parts, p. 74.   Contemporary calf ruled and tooled in gilt and blind with gilt board edges and gilt turn-ins, rebacked old style; marbled edges, and blue silk marker in all volumes. Extremities rubbed and corners bumped with small loss to leather. At least one small marginal tear in each volume; offsetting from letterpress on a few leaves; very mild to quite moderate foxing (or none) on illustrations, offset onto surrounding leaves; and other occasional minor stains. Most plates protected by tissue. A monument of labor, art, and excellent “system” devoted to an exploded but fascinating theory; in fact, a wonder.  (30974)

Americana contents includemany New World plants such as yucca, New World sunflower (baltimora), potato (solanum), tomato (solanum lycopersicum), and cacao (theobroma)

Provenance: From the residue of the stock of the F. Thomas Heller bookselling firm (est. ca. 1928).

•  Johnston, Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 642.   Contemporary mottled calf, covers framed in single blind rule, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and elaborate gilt-tooled foliate compartment decorations between raised bands; rubbed and scuffed with spine head chipped and otherwise spine least affected, front joint and spine with snall areas of worming. First and last pages with offsetting to margins; otherwise scattered spots of foxing only and the volume otherwise clean. A solid, in fact attractive copy.  (40660)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription of James Beatty; two additional similar inscriptions dated 1825 and 1826. First preface page with genealogical annotations regarding the Beatty family, including remarks on the Staten Island Moravian Church's acquisition of John Beatty's land, and a note that the James Beatty who owned this volume was the son of that donor; all three generations of Beattys were strong supporters of the Moravian Church.

•  Howes L474; Field 952; Sabin 42110; ESTC T88588.   Contemporary mottled sheep, shellacked, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; front cover with small abrasions, joints and extremities rubbed, spine with leather cracked (at one point deeply) and and chipped at head, joints starting from head and foot but binding still holding nicely. Map lacking. inner page portions with irregular semicircular of browning, sometimes deep into pages, sometimes quite shallow; old waterstaining across lower outer corners at beginning and end of volume only. Occasional other stains; occasional pencilled underlining.  (29265)

•  Publisher's half roan and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and arabesque decorations; mildly to moderately scuffed overall, spine sunned and with small tear in upper part of leather. Paper browned and slightly embrittled; one preliminary leaf with a tear from outer margin extending into text without loss. Front joint (outside cracked in top portion, hinge (inside) cracked and with an old repair, board holding nicely. Good condition with faults noted.  (35823)

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

•  Bennett, American Nineteenth Century Color Plate Books, p. 75; Nissen, Botanische Buchillustration, 1331.   Bound as above, moderate rubbing overall with small scuffs, sunning to cloth at edges, front joint of vol. I partially refurbished some time ago. Pages and plates age-toned with offsetting from plates and intermittent foxing; one leaf with short tear into lower inner margin, not touching text. Laid in is a small scrap of paper bearing an appealingly homemade rendition of a pink flower, in what looks like watercolor. A strong, clean, and attractive set of a significant American and Philadelphia-associated botanical work, beautifully illustrated.  (41168)

The “British Association” that visited Bath in 1888 was the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Few U.S. institutions report holding physical copies of this work: WorldCat finds only eight American locations.

•  Publisher's pebbled blue cloth–covered limp boards, front cover with gilt-stamped title; spine cloth slightly darkened and bubbled, extremities rubbed. Pages and color map slightly age-toned, minor offsetting to upper and inner margins of first few leaves (around tipped-in map), overall internally clean.A nice copy of an interesting work.  (40375)

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

•  Original green wrappers with bird illustration on front wrapper and advertisement on rear. Minor soiling to two pages and small crease in upper corner of rear wrapper, else fine. A very attractive little “toy.”  (38780)

In his second expedition to Central Asia (1876–77), documented here, Przheval’skii traveled through Kulja, today called Yining, to Lop Nur, although the ultimate goal of reaching Lhasa was not achieved due to an illness and worsening relations with China. For this first English edition, English explorer Edward Delmar Morgan translated the account of the trek and Thomas Douglas Forsyth provided an introduction. The volume includestwo color folding maps; the larger shows Przheval’skii’s journey through South Asia in 1877 and the smaller one depicts the “comparison between Chinese and Prejevalsky’s geography from tracings by Baron Richthofen.”

Evidence of Readership: On the title-page, beside the author’s name, “London 5/11/88 — Telegram death of Col. Prejevalsky while on expedition to Thibet.” Occasionally, an inked or penciled mark or number in a margin.

Provenance:  On verso of title-page, signature of M. Holzmann and (in a different hand) “C.J.M. 5944.” Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  NSTC 0618155.   Publisher’s brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine and minimal black decoration; light rubbing with a bit of unobtrusive spotting, corners a little bumped and a sliver of loss to spine-head. Finger smudges to front free endpaper, three small tears along folds to largest folding map. An interesting and important expedition; a copy complete with the colored maps.  (37867)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with small, neatly inked gift inscription reading “Eliza M. Elliott [/] Presented by her brother, B. Elliott 1840"; preliminary leaf with early inked inscription with similar content, in a larger and less precise hand. Later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  American Imprints 31768. Not in Osborne Collection.   Publisher's printed blue paper–covered sides with roan shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title; sides with small spots of discoloration and offsetting from leather, spine and edges rubbed with extremities chipped. Inked inscription on preliminary leaf (written inside a printed decorative flower urn vignette), this offset onto surrounding leaves including frontispiece. One leaf slightly crumpled during printing. Mild to moderate foxing throughout. A solid and entirely enjoyable copy of this impressive, seldom-encountered collection. (41188)

•  Contemporary mottled calf, nicely rebacked with calf, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label (reading “Francesco”), raised bands, and compartments elaborately blind-tooled; original leather edges worn. First volume only, offering the complete “De insectis” without the “Experimentia naturalia”; the two volumes were published separately and often separated. Title-page with two small early inked markings. One folding plate with short tear from inner margin; outer margins of a few plates slightly ragged or creased. A solid, sturdy, attractive copy of this scientific landmark, with all its fascinating plates.  (40410)

• DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 1574; VD18 80341896 & VD18 8034190X.   Contemporary mottled calf, spines with cream leather title-labels and gilt-stamped decorations between raised bands; edges and extremities rubbed, spine gilt all but lost (motifs now appearing blind-tooled on casual inspection), vol. II with early hand-inked numeral on title-label. All edges speckled red. Vol. I front free endpaper with scorched area, some offsetting to title-page. Pages gently age-toned with small spots of light foxing, overall very readable.This is a complete set of both volumes with all plates present, in contemporary bindings, and as such not often seen on the market.  (40102)

•  American Imprints 52683; Sabin 71961. This edition not in Palau. Publisher's pebbled brown cloth bindings: black tape at top of one spine and onto the covers. Bindings show modest wear, publisher's paper spine labels slightly chipped; text blocks slightly skewed in bindings and light waterstaining in lower inner margins of vol. I. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings.  (28891)