We locate fewer than ten copies, one of which is now missing. The work was written to be a potboiler and was read to death in the German as well as the English editions.

•  Evans 30324; Sabin 19130 & 98450; Seidensticker, First Century of German Printing in America, 145; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 1045. Not in Wright, American Fiction.   Modern wrappers. Title-page and p. 82 with bug-spotting; text age-toned and with staining; fore- and upper margins of pp. 77–80 with short tears and some crumpling. Minor worming in some lower margins, not taking text. Pp. 81/82, and final leaf offering advertising, in excellent facsimile. Housed in a gray cloth clamshell case with red leather spine label.  (26968)

The present work opens with an oversized, folding view of the ruins of Persepolis, and includes a folding map of “Persia or iran” done by prominent engraver Samuel John Neele, as well as two small copper-engraved vignettes. The main text is given in Farsi and English on opposing pages; in addition to the portions of text taken from the Jahan-ara, Ouseley also provides “collateral illustrations from other manuscripts” (p. ii) and historical works. An errata slip is tipped in — this also, interestingly, containing instructions to the binder!

•  ESTC T97308; Lowndes 1741; Brunet, IV, 261; Allibone 1469.   Uncut copy. Publisher's paper shelf-back and plain boards, respined with similar paper; binding rubbed and soiled, spine head chipped, spine reinforcement with crack. Ex–social club: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, annotation on title-page covered over with slip of paper (pleasure and challenge of removal reserved for next owner), pressure-stamp on title-page. Frontispiece and map moderately waterstained, title-page with offsetting. Pages lightly age-toned, a few mildly foxed. Early inked corrections to a handful of words.  (26276)

Diego Bringas de Manzaneda y Encinas was a Franciscan and his epitome of Abad's work is written in “octava rima”: as such it holds an important place in Mexican colonial-era poetry, especially in the subgenre of Christian poetry.

The work's chief themes are the Immaculate Conception and the attributes of God, but it also delves into the relation of science and our understanding of the cosmos: Newton and Huygens are specifically mentioned in the section on knowledge.

•  Palau 258 & 35854; DeBacker-Sommervogel, I, 3; Medina, Mexico, 7400.   Contemporary vellum over light boards. All edges green. A very nice copy of a significant work of early Mexican poetry, religion, and, at points, science.  (29433)

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with paper-covered sides, corners the slightest bit rubbed; original slipcase, this sunned and abraded with “spine” broken. Danish copyright information lined through, volume otherwise clean and quite nice internally.  (24517)

These examples are numbered copy 238 of either 2000 or 2500 printed depending on the set (except for one trio out of the five, which is numbered 236); the appropriate LEC newsletter is present.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 193^1-3, 202^4-6, 203^7-9, 222^10-13, 228^12-15.   Publisher's cloth of various colors, eight volumes in the original glassine dust wrappers, all in publisher's red paper–covered slipcases with printed paper spine labels; some wrappers with tears or chips, slipcase spines gently sunned, slipcases showing light shelfwear overall with Aladdin set case dust-soiled, Emperor's New Clothes spine lettering rubbed. Ali Baba and a few other volumes with scattered spots of light foxing, overall most pages clean. Newsletter moderately worn. Complete sets are uncommon; this one shows no signs of having been in the hands of any actual child.  (30766)

Histoire de l'oeil was translated from the French as A tale of satisfied desire by “Audiart,” a pseudonym for Austryn Wainhouse (a.k.a. Pieralessandro Casavini), an American Harvard graduate employed by the Olympia Press in Paris who received the National Book Award in 1972 for his translation of Jacques Monod's Chance and Necessity. Adapted from Bataille's revised text, first printed in 1944 — the second version, and standard French edition — this translation appeared about the same time as the third French edition. Bataille worked on other projects with both Wainhouse and Maurice Girodias, founder of the Olympia Press, and probably knew of this translation.

The Olympia Press specialized in providing the types of books that would be automatically banned in Britain and the United States. The first to publish Nabokov's Lolita and Donleavy's Ginger Man, Olympia also printed numerous exuberantly pornographic works penned pseudonymously by members of the Paris expatriate community, as well as avant-garde and controversial works by prominent Beat writers including William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso.

Scarce: WorldCat locates just two copies in the U.S.

•  D. Cullen, ed., “Bataille's Eye & ICI Field Notes 4,” The Institute of Cultural Inquiry (1997), p. 25. On this work as censored, see: L. Sigel, International exposure: perspectives on modern European pornography, 1800–2000, pp. 129–30.   Publisher's mustard-colored wrappers printed in black, with white stars and bars; extremities rubbed, wrappers a little scuffed, inside like new.  (30200)

Honored to serve as the volume's sole U.S. distributor, we are ready to take your orders for both the regular issue and the deluxe one (priced at $1050.00).

•  New.  (32223)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of Alexander Oswald Brodie (not, please note, the American officer and governor of Arizona Territory); title-page with Brodie's inked inscription, dated 1839, Dresden.

•  Brunet, I, 604; Gibson, Bacon, 185b; Willems 1058. On Bacon, see: Dictionary of National Biography.   Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, spine with early inked title; spine lettering rubbed, back cover darkened. Both pastedowns lifted, front pastedown with bookplate beneath; free endpapers lacking. Title-page with inscription as above; pages with a very few small scattered spots, almost entirely clean. A handsome copy.  (30360)

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only five U.S. holdings.

Provenance:  Ownership “label” of George Williams (1814–78), who served as Vice-Provost of King's College (Cambridge) from 1854 to 1857.

•  Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped red leather title-label. Title-page with small affixed slip bearing ownership inscription as above. Occasional edge nicks and short tears, and a number of leaves with old creases or the odd smudge; last leaf with old, small repairs to margins, and one other leaf with very good repair from blank reverse to an interior tear (no text lost or even affected). (25368)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 5809. Recently rebound in period-style tan cloth over light blue paper sides, spines with paper labels. Contemporary ownership inscription to front fly-leaf in each volume. Map with light offsetting and short tear just starting along one fold. First 20 leaves of vol. II waterstained and last 10 foxed; scattered incidences of spotting in all volumes, pages generally clean. Nice-looking set, and still — as it always was! — a pleasant path to absorbing ancient history.  (2736)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, spine with gilt- and blue-stamped title; without dust jacket, spine slightly sunned, a clean, solid copy.  (24835)

Posthumous second edition in English, “translated from the French, with notes and engravings, illustrative and supplementary, by Andrew Ure.”

Uncut, partially unopened copy.

•  Uncut, partially unopened copy. Publisher's quarter cloth with paper covered boards; some discoloration to cloth, light chipping to board edges. Ex–social club library: paper label at top of spine, 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. A clean copy with the plates good and crisp; as noted above, an uncut, partially unopened copy.  (27388)

The work at hand was a widely read and respected history of the founding and history of Valencia, and Spain, through the 11th century, with the last chapters having much to say aboutEl Cid. The translation is the work of Alfonso de Ulloa, who translated a number of important Spanish texts into Italian.

Gabriel Giolito, the most prolific printer in Italy during the 16th century, printed about 850 books from the date of founding his press in 1539 to his death in 1578; he exercised great influence on his contemporaries and successors in the form and decoration of books. This work is printed in his italic type, has a woodcut printer's device on title-page and a different one on the verso of final leaf, woodcut head- and tail-pieces, and decorative and historiated woodcut initials. The preliminary matter containsa double-page woodcut map of Spain.

A curious aspect of the text is the claim that Spaniards fleeing the Moorish invasion settled in America in the Yucatan! What a fable!

Provenance:  17th-century private ownership stamp on title of a heart surrounding the letters COP; late 20th- and early 21st-century bookplate of Kenneth Rapoport.

•  EDIT 16 CNCE 5679; Index Aureliensis 118418; Palau 28828; Alden & Landis 556/6.   Contemporary limp vellum, evidence of lost ties. Tear in rear joint (outside), unidentified monogram stamp on title-page, light dampstaining in lower inner corner of early leaves. A complete copy with the sometimes missing map.  (31270)

One of the “Collector's Series in Science” publications.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth. In original slipcase, which is sunned (and pictured above). Very Good condition.  (22449)