An engraved frontispiece of Ptolemy done by Menzel opens the volume; the main title-page is printed in red and black, with an engraved allegorical vignette.

Provenance:  Title-page verso with intaglio-printed armorial ex libris, printed directly on the leaf (not a bookplate that was glued on): “Ex Bibliotheca Friederici Roth-Scholtzii.” Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (1687–1736) was a prominent Nuremberg printer and publisher, as well as the author of Icones bibliopolarum et typographorum de republica litteraria and the Bibliotheca chemica; there are several reported examples of such bookplates in his books.

•  Recent quarter calf and speckled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author, title, place, date and gilt-ruled raised bands. Volume a little cocked. Endpapers soiled; some pages with mild offsetting, and text otherwise clean.  (25490)

Five Thousand Receipts was first printed in America in 1826, and enjoyed as enthusiastic a reception in the United States as it previously had in England. This is the fourth American edition, here in the Kay variant giving “122 Chestnut Street – near 4th” as the publisher's address.

Provenance: Francis Kelsey, New York City.

•  Bitting 299; Lowenstein 122; Shoemaker 39366.   Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations; worn and abraded, joints open and fragile, front cover darkened, leather lost at spine extremities. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription; front fly-leaf with small hole and pencilled annotations. Pages with varying degrees of age-toning and spotting, several signatures deeply browned. Some corners dog-eared. One leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into text without loss; one leaf with internal closed tear, without loss. Used, as this usually was!  (27405)

Following the work is a biographical sketch of nonconformist clergyman and writer David Clarkson by dissenter William Bates (1625–99). A mourning border surrounds the title-page of this work, which also offers a skull and crossbones woodcut device.

Searches of WorldCat and NUC reveal only one copy of the Bates in the United States, at Duke University; there are several more of the Cloud but not many.

Provenance:  Ink signature of the Rev. C. Bedford of Denton; later in the library of the Pacific School of Religion.

•  On Mall, see: ESTC R20113; Wing (rev. ed.) M330. On Bates, see: ESTC R492575.   17th-century calf, covers framed in blind double-rules, turn-ins unevenly trimmed with pastedowns lacking; rebacked, rubbed with some loss of leather at base of spine, corners, and edges. Ex-library as above: bookplate, rubber-stamp on endpaper and two leaves of text, pencilling on title-page, circulation materials at back. Marked as above, pencilling on endpapers; dust-soiling, some bent/chipped corners and jagged edges, one leaf with two small holes and tear taking part of a printed marginal note, light to moderate age-toning. For all faults that must be noted, this is a sound, usable copy.  (36655)

Merlin also printed a duodecimo edition in 1767; in the present edition, “Fragmens de philosophie morale” is found on pp. 273–340, followed by the Addition and Approbation.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with large, round, gilt-stamped armorial leather bookplate of notable 19th-century bookseller and book collector James Toovey; smaller, round, gilt-stamped “I.T.” bookplate with motto “Inter folia fructus” (also Toovey's and of cream-colored leather); and bookplate of Sir Montague Shearman.

Binding:  Contemporary crimson morocco, covers framed in gilt triple fillets; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather labels, board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. This volume (complete in itself) seems at one time to have been part of a set of Marmontel's works, and bears an (unnumbered) spine label reading “Oeuvres de Marmontel.”

•  Brunet, III, 1440; Cohen de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 688; Graesse 406; Tchermezine 455.   Binding as above, with edges, extremities, and joints showing minor rubbing. Front pastedown with bookplates as above; front free endpaper with affixed slip of early cataloguing; rear pastedown with small chip out of paper. Light spots of foxing, slightly heavier around plates. All edges gilt.  (25776)

The Inuktitut dialect of the translations is that of Newfoundland and Labrador: the texts were used in the Moravian missions there.

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate two U.S. and three Canadian libraries reporting ownership.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Donal Baxter MacMillan; later in the collection of Bowdoin College.

•  Lande, Moravian, 71; Evans, Masinahikan, 314; Banks (rev. ed.), Books in Native Languages, p. 78.   Contemporary dark purple cloth modestly tooled in blind, binding lightly rubbed at extremities; lacking front free endpaper, front hinge (inside) tender and starting, no library markings. Occasional light staining in some foremargins.  (33320)

Provenance: Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 6554 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882).

•  Adams M866. 17th-century sprinkled calf, plain sides, round spine, raised bands, gilt spine extra. Leather worn. Old dust-stain on title-page. A library's blind pressure-stamps; properly deaccessioned with no additional stamps. Speckled edges. A very good copy.  (3825)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper of vol. I with inked inscription: “Presented to the 'German Society Library of the State of Pennsylvania' by the Compiler,” signed “Wm. M'Carty.”; same to vol. III. Vol. II from a second 19th-century Philadelphia subscription library!

•  American Imprints 42-3093; Sabin 42997.   A married set. Vols. I & III: Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind, spines with gilt-stamped title and two different vignettes; corners and spine extremities chipped (foot of vol. I revealing printed music beneath the cloth). Ex–social club library with remnants of shelving labels on spine heads, 19th-century bookplates and call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages. Vol. II (Naval) sometime rebound in navy leather over blue cloth, leather edges blind-tooled, spine with gilt-stamped leather title label; spine sunned, rubber-stamp of a different 19th-century library on title-page and a number of other pages, small repair to dedication leaf of vol. II. All volumes with occasional short marginal edge tears or corners chipped away; some pages lightly age-toned. All meaty, all sound for use, all evocative; despite “mixed” nature, a very pleasant set.  (3283)

Although Mela's work is solely concerned with the world as known by Greeks and Romans, one should remember that their world did encompass portions of Africa and a knowledge of India. Additionally the appendix, originally written in 1521 and first appearing in the 1522 Basel printing of Mela, has a coda consisting of a 1515 letter of Vadian’s to Rudolph Agricola, the younger, that briefly discussesVespucci (X5v) and the New World (Y1r) when discussing the Spanish empire.

This is the third edition of Vadian's Mela, taken from the second edition (1522), but only the second with Vadian's appendix. Graesse comments, “Second éd. . . . fort changée et corrigée sur des mss.”

Whether all copies of the work were issued with a map has been long discussed and is without resolution: What we do know is that some have a map, most do not.

Provenance:  Macclesfield copy with the bookplate and handsome pressure-stamps.

Evidence of readership: Scattered minor (usually one or two words) marginalia.

•  Harrisse, BAV, 157; Renouard, Paris, 2210; Alden & Landis 530/30; Sabin 63958 (not callin for a map); Graesse, V, 401 (not calling for a map).   18th-century quarter vellum with blue-green paper–covered sides, author's name in old ink to spine. Title-page lightly soiled, light discoloration or inkstains in some margins, light occasional foxing; pinhole-type worming in text of some pages with no loss of text, and a corner of last leaf torn away without loss of text; on pp. 170–96, a light waterstain across upper gutter not touching text and another across upper outer corners impinging on it. As usual, without the map found in only a few copies. Macclesfield pressure-stamps and marginalia as above. A good, sound, and soundly pleasing old folio.  (34114)

Evidence of readership: Front fly-leaf with early 20th-century inked note regarding edition and portrait, signed “E.J.S.”; a few instances of light early underlining; eight pages with early inked shouldernotes in Latin (ink color differing from above underlining).

Provenance:  Unidentified 16th-century collector; “B.G.C.” on the binding. Later in the Library of the Pacific School of Religion (properly deaccessioned).

•  VD16 M 2890; this ed. not in Adams.   Binding as above, rebacked with similar black calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and blind-ruled raised bands; original leather edges worn and chipped, edges and extremities refurbished, new endpapers. Ex-library (properly released): front fly-leaf, title-page, and one other page with old rubber-stamps. Annotations and underlining as above; front fly-leaf with chipped portion of paper bookplate adhered to upper outer corner. One leaf with small chip in upper margin; pages age-toned with occasional small smudges, otherwise clean. An attractive, interesting example of this important work.  (36726)

Binding: Signed binding (with Bilbao’s ticket on front pastedown) of oxblood morocco, front and back covers framed in a wide gilt roll surrounding gilt-stamped coat of arms of Francesco de Assisi de Bourbon, Duc de Cadiz (consort to Isabella II of Spain); spine with four raised bands, compartments gilt extra, with author, title, and date gilt-stamped. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls; all page edges gilt; blue moiré endpapers.

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate of Maria Christina, Queen of Spain.

•  Palau 350495. Binding as above, showing light wear, spine slightly faded; pastedowns with some offsetting, endpapers with spots of foxing. Rare and attractive.  (5876)

Provenance:  Cortlandt F. Bishop, with his elegant red leather bookplate.

Binding:  Signed binding by M. Lortic: red morocco, gilt extra with accents of black; original wrappers bound in. Board edges with gilt double fillet; wide turn-ins with richly gilt; marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

The prospectus is bound at the rear.

•  Binding as above, joints unobtrusively repaired, very faint traces of shelfwear to lower edges. Pages gently age-toned. A beautiful volume.  (3390)

Provenance: Bookplate of Ventura Gómez Alatorre, late-19th-century citizen and official of Tepatitlán.

•  Contemporary acid-stained sheep with elegant gilt spines, with scuffs, stains, and a decorative design lightly etched into one cover, all this attractive; evidence of blue wrappers at inner margins of each volume, all edges yellow. Some mild old foxing and spotting; first volume's first leaves with crescent of dampstaining across top of gutter margin and second volume with deeper arc of same to first and last leaves; a very good set.  (31180)

•  Publisher's quarter teal morocco and cream cloth–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title, in original dust jacket (printed on both sides) and printed cork–covered slipcase; slipcase with corners a little rubbed, jacket with spine and extremities chipped, volume's spine a tiny bit rubbed and sunned at extremities; the volume itself in all, fresh and lovely. A nice copy of this remarkable first edition.  (35851)

Provenance:  Ink signature of Enoch Ponder dated 1841; later in the Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  ESTC W30543; Evans 34118; Howes M-650; Sabin 49321; on vol. 2, see: Shaw & Shoemaker 4659.   18th-century acid-stained calf with attractive gilt black and red leather labels and gilt triple ruling on spine, board edges stamped in blind, all edges speckled blue; moderate rubbing, one volume's hinges and joints cracked, the usual glue action on endpapers, two torn, one partially detached. Marked and ex-library as above; call number labels on spines, bookplates, pencilled call numbers on title-page versos. Moderate age-toning with offsetting from binding, some foxing, and the occasional spot; one leaf repaired of old, a few with creased corners.  (36430)

This volume, curiously, does not sport any of the expectable types of title-page that were common by its time. Instead, it simply reads: Andreae / Mocenici / P.V.D. / Bellvm / Came / racense. This bare title-page is printed in roman type, while all else is printed in a very bright, crisp italic. Several woodcut criblé initials are used in text.

Provenance:  Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 8534 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882); later part of the Theological Institute of Connecticut Library.

Evidence of Readership: Several notes and marked passages, in ink.

•  Not in Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 525/11; Adams M1518.   18th-century mottled English calf, raised bands and modest gilt tooling, all edges speckled red; hinges (inside) partially open with spine pulled at top and some leather lost at cover corners; holding. Marked as above, some bug-spotting on title-page; two pinhole wormholes in binding extending into lower margins of early signatures; limited waterstaining, typically marginal, and a few other pages with stains or soilings. Ex-library as above: paper shelving label on spine, inking and pencilling on endpapers, embossed institutional stamps on six leaves. A good and serviceable copy with a happy provenance.  (36660)

Signed binding: Publisher's striped cloth, predominantly seen in the 1840s and never common: Brown ripple-textured cloth thinly striped in light blue, covers each with blind-stamped frame and gilt-stamped harp and shamrock vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title and strapwork; front free endpaper with pressure-stamp of the Benjamin Bradley company. All edges gilt.

•  On binding cloth: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, Rip3.   Binding as above, cocked, corners rubbed, spine extremities chipped, short stretch of insect damage in front joint; overall more attractive than these notes suggest. Front hinge (inside) tender. Pages gently age-toned; a few leaves of preface with light staining along inner margins. A very popular work, here in an unusual and distinctive binding.  (30344)

Morse (1791–1872), son of influential American geographer and Calvinist minister Jedidiah Morse, was a painter before working with others to invent the single-wire telegraph system and Morse code following his wife's unexpected death — of which he, travelling, received news “too late.”

Provenance:  Signature of William Ingraham Kip dated on April 1836 on front pastedown; a later bookplate notes he donated the volume to the Parish Library of St. Peter's Church in Morristown, NJ.

•  American Imprints 33142 (wrong page count); Sabin 50961.   Publisher's hunter green pebbled cloth with printed paper spine label; rubbed, cloth splitting on front joint, some loss of paper. Ex-library and provenance markings as above, Morse's name added to the title-page in pencil; a few leaves spotted, pages unevenly cut, light age-toning and moderate foxing.  (36840)

Binding:  Contemporary cream-colored sheep, covers framed in gilt floral roll, spines with gilt compartment decorations and gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; turn-ins with gilt roll of a vine design, blue endpapers, all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Front pastedowns each with rather attractive 19th-century institutional bookplate, rubber-stamped “withdrawn”; title-page rectos each with rubber-stamped numeral. The set isfrom the collection of noted historian and military critic John Watts de Peyster: the title-page versos (or, in two cases, the contents pages) bear his affixed printed curriculum vitae.

Evidence of Readership:  In vol. I, two (helpful!) inked notes or reminders of where to look for pages bound in out of order; vol. II's front pastedown with inked inscription from Petrarch, “Solo e pensoso i piú deserti campi,” and its back free endpaper with first four lines of Gaetana Passerini's “Genova mia.”

•  ESTC T107371.   Bound as above, spines rubbed and darkened with labels variably chipped and one compartment variably lightened from now-absent shelving label; sides scuffed, edges and extremities rubbed. Pastedowns and title-pages as above; some endpapers showing light waterstaining; back endpapers with old paper adhesions; age-toning throughout. Vol. I: one leaf with lower margin repaired, not affecting text; a number of leaves from pp. 100–20 bound in out of order (see above); final text page with lower margin neatly excised. Vol. II: Inscriptions as above, back pastedown with a pencil sketch. Vol. III: small area of worming to final portion of volume, obscuring a few letters on some pages. Vol. IV: title-page with old staining; small areas of worming to front endpapers and to inner and outer portions of some pages with loss of a few letters. Vol. VI: title-page with small area of offsetting from affixed slip on reverse. A respectably (even endearingly) aged, complete set of interesting provenance.  (33397)

Provenance:  Title-page and several others stamped by the Birmingham Law Society; title-page with inked ownership inscription of Hamilton Stuart, dated 1755.

Evidence of readership: Several instances of corrections and marginalia in Stuart's hand, including two substantive annotations; occasional underlining.

•  ESTC T95792; Sweet & Maxwell 347.   Period-style quarter calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, raised bands, and blind-tooled compartment decorations. First leaf of contents with closed tear at center; one leaf with tear from outer margin, not touching text. Scattered spots of faint foxing, with varying degrees of age-toning; a clean copy. A solid and distinguished-looking copy, with additional interest in its evidence of readership.  (35368)

Provenance:  Final blank leaf with inked inscriptions reading “Tho.s. Scupholme His Book 1740" and “Henery Collier His Book 1759.”

•  ESTC R267; Wing (rev. ed.) M3050; Smith, Anti-Quakeriana, 305.   Period-style calf, covers framed in blind double fillets, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages age-toned and spotted; one leaf with tear from lower margin into text, sewn by hand some time ago.  (26004)

Provenance:  Inscribed by the author: “To Richard Wood from W.A. Mühlenberg [indecipherable location] — Xmas 1856.” Beneath that is another early inked inscription, “L.A. Nichols, from Misses Wood.” Mühlenberg was atthe University of Pennsylvania at the same time as George Bacon Wood, son of Richard Wood and Elizabeth Bacon; the present inscription appears to be a dedication to the father of his classmate.

•  Publisher's brown straight-grained cloth, covers framed in blind roll, front cover with gilt-stamped title; minor wear to extremities, back cover with small light spots. Pages very faintly age-toned with occasional spots of light foxing. A nice little book with nice provenance.  (35366)

The French humanist Muret (1526–85) has long been recognized as the best Latin prose stylist of the Renaissance, and his works were used as a model for students. Greatly admired for his excellent understanding and interpretation of classical texts, he was dubbed “le meilleur orateur du temps” in Italy and France by Montaigne, whom he tutored; and Scaliger mused that Muret “satirised the Ciceronians and at the same time expressed himself in a thoroughly Ciceronian style.” LIke most of Muret's published work, these Variae are based on his academic lectures; however the scholar Lambinus accused Muret of plagiarism, and indeed it seems Muret “borrowed” bits from his work without permission. (In retaliation, Lambinus published their personal correspondence.)

Muret's personal life was fraught with tribulation stemming from multiple accusations of homosexuality in various cities where he resided. From 1559 till his death, however, he lived in Rome under the protection of at least one cardinal and a pope.

The text is in Latin and Greek, printed in roman and italic, with decorative headpieces and floriated initials. A letterpress diagram on p. 547 shows the Greek alphabet corresponding to numerals.

Provenance:  John Saltar (19th-century adolescent's signature, front pastedown); Henry Johns Gibbons, Rittenhouse (Philadelphia), 1923 (signature, front fly-leaf verso).

•  Adams M1971. On Muret, see: Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, II, pp. 148–52.   Contemporary vellum with evidence of four ties and trace of oval stamp to front cover center, ink title to spine and bottom edge; soiled, with worm to spine/ pastedowns, hinges (inside) cracked, textblock starting to loosen. Paper age-toned and foxed, with small holes from natural flaws on two leaves (and two others partially uncut); Hymni dampstained in lower inner portions (not horribly). A few early ink annotations present.  (30146)

Provenance:  Title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper margin reading “Liber Guilielmi Kedden”; inked calculation of the age of the book dated 1702 (in Kedden's hand?). Motto in 18th-century hand on title-page: “Disce mori mundo vivere disce Deo.” In the 20th century in the Charles Holbrook Library of the Pacific School of Religion (properly released, with bookplate laid in).

Binding:  Period-style mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped title and author labels and blind-ruled raised bands; preserving original wastepaper endpapers of its previously totally deteriorated binding, which are reused leaves from a 16th-century blackletter work by Jacobus Perez de Valencia (at the front) and a large portion of a 1692 royal proclamation “for a General Fast” (ESTC R38082, Wing W2574) at the back.

•  Brunet, IV, 39 (for 1593 ed.); STC (rev. ed.) 18355; ESTC S113083.   Binding as above; lacks the initial blank leaf (only). Front fly-leaf with early inked annotation in upper margin describing publication; title-page and one other rubber-stamped as above; title-page also with inkings as above. Pages faintly age-toned with edges slightly ragged. Two leaves torn across; one leaf with closed tear, without loss. Retained elements of earlier binding as above. An intriguing copy of this important post–Scottish Reformation exegesis.  (36388)

Binding: Taupe burlap cloth printed with black geometric design and “graphic arts” on front cover.

Provenance: Signed by Sarah Neblett on front free endpaper in black ink.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPACfail to locate any copies.

•  Bound as above, front endpaper separating from text, but holding. Contains designs on paper and cloth in various colors, with only one image detached (but present) of the nine pasted down.  (35935)

The Rev. Norris (1657–1712), rector of Bemerton near Salisbury (“Sarum” as the title-page fashions it), was an Anglican divine, a poet, a Platonist, and a prominent disciple of Malebranche, and a noted opponent of Locke and critic of philosophical writings.

Provenance:  From the Ambrose Swasey Library (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School) with library stamp on verso of title-page and bottom edge of text block.

•  Wing (rev. ed.). N1274; ESTC R32226; Smith, Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana, p. 340; on Norris, see: DNB (online).   Recent marbled paper–covered boards with gilt black leather label, new endpapers, all edges speckled red. Marked as above, light to moderate age-toning and occasional wormwork, almost completely in margins; one leaf with some paper torn away at foremargin. Avariety of pieces from a prolific theological writer.  (36098)

DePol also provided thenumerous wood engravings that enhance the text. This is copy 303.

Presentation copy from DePol: “For Morris Gelfand, old friend, with warm regards . . . John DePol December 3, 1991.” Gelfand was the proprietor of The Stone House Press.

•  Publisher's red cloth shelfback, boards covered with DePol's gray and white illustrated paper. A very nice copy.  (35832)