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

•  NSTC 2F11546.   Late 19th-century half black calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine gilt extra; front board and spine neatly and unobtrusively reattached with new gilt-stamped leather title-label, leather refurbished, sides and edges rubbed. Top edges gilt. Frontispiece recto with former owner's label partially removed from upper inner corner; upper outer frontispiece corner with small repair neatly done some time ago, offsetting onto previous and following leaves. Pages gently age-toned. Like its author, showing signs of having travelled; like its subject, both enduring and attractive.  (39766)

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)

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)

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)

Trigger warning:  This is a 19th-century book and does use the “n” word more than once in very derogatory ways.

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 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)

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)

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 short tears 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)

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)

The 11 engraved plates have been especially attractively shaded, and include depictions of “Le Souci” (sometimes incorrectly called “Le Soufré,” according to Malo), “Le Petit Nacré,” and “Le Sphinx de la Vigne,” along with Hyperia, Priamus, Anceus, and those butterflies listed in the header above.

Printed by the Imprimerie de Richomme, this bears a note at the foot of the title-page reading, “Gravés d'après les dessins de P[cancrace] Bessa.” Plates (unnumbered) and vignette on title-page are in stipple, printed in color and finished by hand, and were engraved by Francois Janet.

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

•  Contemporary-style quarter morocco over marbled paper sides, leather edges embellished with a gilt roll, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt decorative motifs between raised bands. Moderate foxing to first and last few leaves, with the few spots elsewhere mostly found surrounding plates. A little volume both instructive AND charming.  (38639)

This copy has lost its title-page and apparatus including the first of its two prefaces i.e., (the dialogues) and the preliminary index; but its primary preface (“Praefatio Dioscoridis”) and all of the Materia Medica itself are present.

•  Adams D667; Brunet, III, 1538; Nissen, Botanishe Buchillustration, 1305; Pritzel 5985.   Covers lacking, with sewing structure intact and in fact with thetext block workably solid; first text page tipped on (outer edge chipped), back fly-leaf tattered. Title-page, 100 preliminary, and 50 final pages (“Apologia adversus Amathum Lusitanum, cum censura in ejusdem ennarrationes”) lacking. Upper outer corners of about 20 early leaves dog-eared; a few leaves creased; two leaves with short tears from upper margins, not touching text; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into text, without loss; one leaf with outer margin chipped, affecting marginalia and one shouldernote but not main text; one leaf with closed tear within text; one leaf with lower outer portion torn away, with loss of portions of ten lines. Scattered spots of mild staining and foxing; markings as above; some marginalia shaved. An imperfect copy, but one withall illustrations present, excellent evidence of contemporary scholarly interaction with the text, and binding structure exposed for potential study.  Housed in a phase box for protection.  (36428)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 20980.   Contemporary treed sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; leather rubbed and volumes pleasantly refurbished. Front and back pastedowns with institutional bookplates; pencilled shelfmarks, etc., with shadows of these visible on title-pages. Occasional spots of light to moderate foxing.  (14453)

•  This ed. not in Brunet; see Mortimer, Italian 16th-Century Books, 398; Cicognara 2460. See also Seligmann, The History of Magic, 319. No edition of the Polemo forgery is listed in Freeman, Bibliotheca Fictiva.   Contemporary mottled calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets, spine with gilt-stamped title, compartments ruled in gilt and holdaing gilt-stamped decorative motifs, and raised bands with gilt roll; leather expectably acid-pitted, binding moderately worn overall. Annotation as above. This is a very pleasing copy, with pages clean and images printed darkly and crisply.  (39430)

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)

•  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)