Provenance:  Late 17th-century ownership inscription at top of title-page of “T. Engle”; 18th-century ownership inscription below that of “E. Ward”; on endpaper, “December, 1787,” with lines in French in an 18th-century hand.

•  Rius 11; Peeters-Fontainas 227; Suñé Benages 15; Palau 51988.   Contemporary limp vellum, soiled, ties perished; Don Quixote inked on spine, faded. Lacking one leaf of text, continuity supplied although not in facsimile from this edition (pp. 575–76). First and last gatherings guarded with strips of Renaissance vellum manuscript.  (23423)

•  O’Callaghan 288–89; Hills 1161. Binding as above, carefully and reasonably rebacked, with portion of uppermost spine compartment left free of gilt; a few small scuffs, and some minor refurbishing over extremities. All edges gilt. First few leaves with outer edges ragged; pages very faintly age-toned, otherwise clean. A gorgeous copy, with the interesting manuscript additions described above.

•  ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels. Boards sprung with front joint of vol. I open and separating from bottom, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early inked owner’s name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page, erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some pages; leaves otherwise clean.

This sole edition is ornamented with a woodcut printer’s device and a woodcut headpiece and initial; the text is referenced with sidenotes.

Rare: Only two copies traced in the U.S. via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956.

Provenance: Bookplate of Virtue & Cahill Library (the library of Portsmouth’s Catholic Cathedral) no. 8783, with a large overlaid rubber-stamp thereon starkly, blackly noting the dispersal and eventual sale of the library “following enemy action”—the cathedral having been bombed by the Germans in 1941.

•  On Allix, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, I, 334–35. 19th- or early 20th-century half calf over marbled paper, spine with gilt title; edges of leather with a dog’s tooth roll in blind. Leather rubbed, especially on joints and edges. Some soiling and waterstaining, mostly light and most notable on early leaves, with some small wormholes in the margins; a little fine chipping and some shallow dog-ears. Old inked ownership inscription on title-page, crossed out but still legible.

Provenance:  Alfredo Chavero's copy, with his bookplate on front pastedown and his stamp on the title-page.

•  Contemporary half black morocco over green and grey stone-patterned boards. A very good copy.  (21739)

Provenance:  From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christian church history.

•  Brunet 18324.   Contemporary calf, spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped compartment decorations at top/bottom, and later black leather gilt-stamped labels; covers blind-tooled in concentric compartments. Rubbed with bits of leather lost at extremities; offsetting from leather along margins of endpapers and title-pages. Marbled endpapers, free ones missing in both volumes; front pastedowns each with library bookplate and both title-page versos with call number in pencil. Initial pages of vol. II toned. A good solid set. (21186)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; light shelf wear to corners and spine extremities.  (22223)

This is Sesse's reports of the decisiones of the Aragonese senate as to civil law, marriage, wills, criminal matters, succession, and much more. Vols. II, III, and IV followed between 1615 and 1627.

The Giunta printer's device is on the title-page; this is printed in double-column format with a sprinkling of woodcut initials.

Provenance:  Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland (lot 3840 in the Sunderland Library sale [1882]). In the collection of a theological institute; deaccessioned.

•  Not in Palau.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, spine tooled in gilt and a nice gilt-stamped title-label; double fillets to form spine compartments, each compartment with a gilt floral center device. Pressure-stamp on title-page, old shelf-label on spine, pencilled note that this was “Sund. 3840.” A very nice copy.  (23014)

Illustrated with a folding map of Colombia, drawn by J. Finlayson and engraved by J. Yeager; a folding plan and elevation of “one of the better order of houses in Colombia”; and a folding plan of the city of Bogotá. The text is preceded by a two-page prospectus for the American Quarterly Review and a prospectus for William Strickland’s Reports upon Canals, Rail-ways, Roads, and Other Subjects (8 pp., bound at the volume's beginning).

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Provenance:  From the library of Thomas Oliver; after that, the Maryland Diocesan Library.

•  Shoemaker 27920; Smith, American Travellers Abroad, B1.   19th-century quarter brown cloth over tan paper-covered boards, spine with printed paper label; rebacked. Covers stained, exposed at corners, and chipped at top and fore-edges. Library markings: Rubber-stamp on front pastedown and verso of title-page; previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown (see above). Moderate foxing throughout, and other staining, heavy foxing on endpapers; offsetting from map affecting title-page. Outer and bottom edge untrimmed. Map of Colombia slightly tattered at bottom right corner. All maps generally clean and overall in very good condition.  (24425)

Provenance: Riggs family: Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of philanthropist Elisha Francis Riggs, who funded the Riggs Library at Georgetown University; volume inherited by T. Lawrason Riggs, founding chaplain of St. Thomas More Chapel, Yale University; donated to St. Thomas More Chapel Library; deaccessioned 2008.

•  ESTC S106924; STC (2nd ed.), 1169; Gibson, Bacon, 171. On Bacon, see: Dictionary of National Biography.   18th-century calf framed in gilt single fillet, spine with recent gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, board edges with gilt roll; a little rubbed and covers with portions darkened. All edges stained yellow. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Some pages gently age-toned, with occasional minor spotting. Small hole to added engraved title-page just beneath publication information, not affecting text. Final blank leaf (only) lacking.  (24666)

•  Bound by Granghaud in full red morocco with tooling in gilt and black. Wide turn-ins with gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; top edge gilt. In marbled, morocco-edged slipcase.

Provenance: Front fly-leaf inscribed “Thomas G. Arnolds Book Coventry,” inked in an early hand.

•  ESTC W37335; Evans 20950; Sabin 3366.   Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and very slightly sprung, spine scuffed with foot chipped. Pages age-toned and variably waterstained, with occasional edge nicks and crumpled corners; yet not brittle or nasty and the volume quite pleasant for reading.  (24391)

Sadleir's analysis suggested to him the following probable sequence: a) the private edition, b) copies of the public edition with p. 236 in the same form as it appears in the private edition, c) copies of the public edition with p. 236 blank; and d) copies of the public edition with the complete new version of the text on p. 236.

However, the remnants of the binding preserved at the back of the present first volume — see note below andtop-right image above — are red moiré silk (as opposed to the brown cloth of the public edition), with the side panels and spine ornately blocked with a gilt design and the title within the gilt frame (the spine is rather worn, but legible). This suggests that only some of the twelve private copies were bound in leather, and others, or at least one, were bound in this special silk cloth, gilt extra.

Barham began writing the short pieces making up this series as contributions to his friend and classmate's Bentley's Miscellany. The subject matter was “at first derived from the legendary lore of the author's ancestral locality in Kent, but soon [was] enriched by satires on the topics of the day and subjects of pure invention, or borrowed from history or the ‘Acta Sanctorum’. . . . The success of the ‘Legends’ was pronounced from the first, and when published collectively in 1840 they at once took the high place in humorous literature which they have ever since retained” (DNB).

Provenance: With R.H.D. Barham’s signature as noted above, and with the armorial bookplate of Sir David Lionel Salomons (1851–1925) in each volume.

•  NCBEL, III, 365; Sadleir 156a; Tinker 216 (public edition); Carter, Binding Variants, p.92. Bindings a bit darkened and slightly discolored at extremities, light rubbing to joints, some foxing to the prelims of the first volume, with an old tide-mark in the lower gutter areas of the plates; a tipped-in bookseller's description in the first volume. A very good, very interesting example of a very rare thing.

Binding: Publisher’s embossed morocco, spine with raised bands and blind-tooled decorations in compartments; all edges gilt.

Provenance: Presented to a library by Robert E. Keighton, a distinguished professor of homiletics from whom Dr. Martin Luther King is reported to have taken most of his nine seminary courses in pastoral rhetoric.

•  Sabin 3789; NSTC 2B10634; King connection noted in: Lischer, Richard. The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America (Oxford, 1997), p. 64. Binding slightly rubbed at edges, extremities, and joints. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, title-page pressure-stamped, contents page with inked notation in inner margin and stamped numeral in lower margin, back pastedown with pocket. Some light foxing, including spots to a few plates; plates with minor offsetting around guard leaves.

Provenance:  Early 19th-century armorial bookplate of Robert Chambers; manuscript ownership “Ex libris G.R.W.”— William R. Wittingham, fourth Anglican bishop of Baltimore (a Latinophile who used “Guillelmus” for “William”), dated Sept. 22, 1856; later in the diocesan library of Maryland; deaccessioned 2006.

•  VD16 B 727.   Contemporary limp vellum with evidence of ties; slightly yapp edges. Occasional light foxing. 19th-century library stamps on the front free endpaper and title-page. A clean solid copy.  (24432)

Provenance: On verso of frontispiece amidst much scribbling and crossing out — e.g., numerals and “I owe beyonde my power” — “Sr Charles Mordaunt's Book.” Inside front cover, bookplate of John Odiarne Luxford.

Provenance: Covers gilt-stamped “Gymnasium Velavicum.”

•  Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped bands and decorations within compartments; vellum chipped over spine extremities and showing moderate dust-soiling. Upper portion of front free endpaper excised; half-title crumpled, with inner and outer margins chipped. Pagination skips from 304 to 309, with signature complete and text apparently uninterrupted. Some edges and corners waterstained and a few lower margins inkstained, with occasional instances of edge chipping. Creasing to a handful of index leaves.

Click either image
for an enlargement.

Provenance: From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christianity.

Uncommon: Of U.S. institutional copies we trace fewer than 10.

•  19th-century German black mottled paper over boards. Binding shows wear. Ex-library with call number tag on spine; bookplate.