Documenting anItalian-American Immigrant Success Story
(AMERICANA & “NOT-a-BOOK” ~ #1). Rosa, Giuseppe. Archive of manuscript and printed material, on paper, in Italian, English, and Spanish. New York City & elsewhere: 1902–18. $2200.00
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Here in the business archive of Sig. Rosa is the story of one Italian immigrant to the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century, helping other Italian transplants to learn a skill and secure a decent livelihood in their adopted land, and at the same time participating in Italian immigrant social and benevolent activities — and gaining an international reputation as a teacher and tailor.
Sig. Rosa (born 1873) was an émigré who operated a tailoring school and mail-order tailoring instruction company with the main operation on McDougal Street, NYC, and branches in Newark, NJ, and Chicago. In 1914, he published a bilingual pamphlet, L'arte del tagliatore; trattato italiano-inglese, tecnico, pratico, professionale, per disegnatori e tagliatori sarti / The Cutter's Art; an Italian-English, Technical, Practical and Professional Treatise for Designers and Cutters (New York [Nicoletti Bros. Press]), without a doubt to aid in establishing his credentials as a teacher of tailoring. Only two libraries worldwide (NYPL, UChicago) report owning a copy.
The present archive (0.4 linear feet) contains hundreds of letters addressed to Professor Rosa from students in the United States and Panama; other letters from professional tailoring associations and individual tailors in Italy, Panama, the U.S., and Argentina; manuscript tailoring diagrams; manuscripts of his instructional manuals; and printed advertising ephemera from his school. There are a small number of photographs, including one of Sig. Rosa and one that seems to be of a social club of which he was a member. In the non-business correspondence are letters of thanks to him fromthe White House, the mayor of New York, the Red Cross (for donations), etc.
While the correspondence is almost entirely in Italian, some pieces are in English or Spanish. The instructional material is all in Italian, as are the drawings' explanations. Curiously, the printed advertising items are in English.
This archive seems destined to be used not only by historians of Italian-American history but by historians of immigration generally, émigré culture at the beginning of the 20th century, fashion, self-help, education, advertising, and entrepreneurship, to mention but a few obvious areas of social research.
A few items quite worn, but overall generally only minor wear. Some items are on poor-quality paper of the era and thus brittle. A gathering fully ready to be worked with, and by multiple sorts of scholars. (39404)
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Enhanced by a Fan of St. John — In a Contemporary Binding & with78 Woodcuts
Aemilius, Georg. Evangelia quae consueto more dominicis et aliis festis diebus in ecclesia leguntur. Coloniae Agrippinae: Ad intersignium Monocerotis [Walther Fabritius], 1566. 8vo (16 cm, 6.3"). [176] ff.; illus. $2250.00
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Profusely illustrated juvenile lectionary edited by student of Melanchthon and Lutheran theologian Georg Aemilius (a.k.a. Aemylius or Emilius, 1517–69). Decorated with78 in-text woodcuts, a scarce few repeated, the Latin text is printed in single columns using an italic font with the occasional shouldernote in Greek and four historiated initials. First published in 1549, this text was extremely popular in its day, with at least nine different editions by 1579, though all editions are now uncommon and this one quite scarce; searches of WorldCat and NUC reveal only one U.S. institution reporting ownership.
Binding: Contemporary goat over thin beechwood boards, inked paper label on spine, raised bands surrounded by triple fillets; covers elaborately stamped with a frame of fillets and a medallion-portrait roll around repeated rows of three floral sprays.
Evidence of Readership: An early reader has underlined and added some marks of emphasis and words in an early hand to seven leaves of text, all excerpts taken from the Gospel of John.
Provenance: Two ownership and one duplicate release rubber-stamps appear on the title-page verso, the first from the Universitätsbibliothek München dated between 1800 and 1826; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
VD16 E 4570. Not in Adams; not in Index Aurel. Bound as above, rubbed and cracked with losses of leather and board extremities; bands and sewing tabs visible. No pastedowns; front free endpaper creased, front fly-leaf with pencilled note. Light age-toning with marginal and gutter waterstaining of varying darkness throughout; a few chipped edges, creased corners, or uneven edges; one short marginal tear. Provenance and readership indicia as above, else clean. Well used and in fact the more interesting for that. (38914)
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The First Lady ofFly Fishing?
Berners, Juliana. The treatyse of fysshynge wyth an angle. London: William Pickering, 1827. 8vo (18.1 cm, 7.2"). Frontis., [2], xiii (pagination skips v–viii), [1], 41, [1] pp.; 4 plts. $650.00
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First Pickering edition of the first known English work on fishing. Reprinted from the Boke of St. Albans, the famed sporting book originally published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, this essay on angling is generally attributed — although not certainly so — to Dame Juliana Berners (or Barnes), supposed prioress of Sopwell nunnery circa 1450. If that attribution is correct, this is not only the earliest printed English work on fishing, but also one of the earliest published English works by a female author. Regardless of its source, it seems to have served as an inspiration both to Izaak Walton and to William Pickering, who printed several editions of Walton, including a particularly lavish production in 1836.
The volume is printed with the original language and spelling preserved, and is illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece of a fisherman taken from de Worde's 1518 edition that is cited as the earliest known depiction of an angler fishing with a rod, as well as with six woodcuts (provided at the back of the volume in the form of four plates) showing types of poles, hooks, etc. The title-page proclaims this as printed with the types of John Baskerville, making it one of the last such printings done in England, and most cataloguing follows suit; but Kelly identifies the font used as the elegant "Fry" Baskerville variant developed by typefounder Isaac More.
Evidence of Readership: A later hand has helpfully added pencilled marginalia clarifying archaic or obscure terms and suggesting subject headers.
NSTC 2B20037; Keynes, Pickering, 42; Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering, 1827.1 (p. 21). Later half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-decorated raised bands, and gilt-stamped fishing creel devices in compartments; spine label with small edge chips and mild rubbing to paper. Pencilled annotations as above, pages and plates otherwise pleasingly clean. (28566)
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Gutbier's Labor of Love — Printed on theEditor's Own Press
Bible. N.T. Syriac. 1664. Novum domini nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum Syriace, cum punctis vocalibus, & versione Latina Matthaei ... plene & emendate editum, accurante Aegidio Gutbirio. Hamburgi: Typis & impensis authoris, 1664. 8vo (17.2 cm, 6.75"). [32], 218, 281–604 pp. $750.00
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First edition of Gilles Gutbier's acclaimed Syriac New Testament,produced at the author's own expense using types he cut himself. Gutbier (1617–67), a distinguished professor at Hamburg, was universally recognized as one of the leading Orientalists of his era. His work on this New Testament was based on all of the previously published Syriac editions and on two unpublished manuscripts, one of which had belonged to the emperor Constantine. Darlow and Moule note that Gutbier also includes the previously missing “five books, the 'pericope de adulter' and the 'comma Johanneum.'”
This copy has the additional engraved title-page (dated 1663) but is not one of the variant issues that include the supplementary pieces mentioned on that title. The printed title-page present here matches Darlow and Moule's state d.
Binding: Contemporary calf, round spine, gilt spine extra, handsome metal and leather closures with gilt tooling on the leather; very pretty, simple single gilt-roll border on each board. German floral paste-decorated endpapers and all edges red.
Provenance: Ownership signatures of I. Duvarus (1774); J.G. Drunnburg (1822) Johann O. Nordendam (1830) on front fly-leaf.
Darlow & Moule 8966; Graesse 103. Leather “shellacked” and shiny; volume now solid with front board reattached using the long-fiber method and areas of spine similarly improved. A sophisticated copy: four leaves of the prefactory matter (b1–4) are inserted from a small copy (possibly even a different edition). Some early underscoring; overallvery decent as a text and very attractive on shelf or in hand. (36974)
Beautifully Bound Bilingual Edition of Catullus, Tibullus, & Propertius
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. Catullo Tibullo e Properzio d'espurgata lezione tradotti dall'ab. Raffaele Pastore. Bassano: Tip. Giuseppe Remondini e Figli ed., 1823. 12mo (17 cm; 6.75"). 2 vols. in 1. I: [15], 4–297, [3] pp.; II: 317, [3] pp. $275.00
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Bilingual edition of the works of the famous trio of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, translated by poet Raffaele Pastore into Italian, here in the fifth edition. For easy comparison, the Latin original is in italic type on the left and the Italian translation is in roman on the right, with marginal notes added. The title-page notes this edition has been “ritoccata dal traduttore, accresciuta insieme e modificata in parte, e divisa in due volumi.”
Binding: Black morocco, spine lettered and tooled in gilt using six different rolls and a single and a triple rule; two compartments stamped in blind. Covers single-ruled in gilt around a frame of blind-stamped flowers with a blind-embossed “chipped” diamond design at center that incorporates two different texturings and a central circle-and-swirls motif; board edges and turn-ins gilt in zig-zag patterns. Marbled endpapers and all edges marbled in an identical design. Green ribbon place marker still attached.
Provenance: Presentation label noting “To Angelo C. Hayter, from his affectionate father, Sir George Hayter. 1864" on front pastedown; title-pages with barely legible rubber-stamp from St. Michele's in Bologna. George Hayter (1792–1871) was a noted English painter who served as Queen Victoria's Principal Painter in Ordinary. Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).
Bound as above, gently rubbed, tailband partially detached; provenance evidence as above, four examples of a chipped margin, trimmed corner, or tremoin. Light to moderate age-toning with a handful of spots. A clean and handsome copy. (37740)
Peregrino Becomes “PEREGRIN” — First French Appearance, ILLUSTRATED
Caviceo, Jacopo. [Libro de Peregrino] Dialogue treselegant intitule le Peregrin, traictant de lhonneste et pudicq amour concilie par pure et sincere vertu, traduict de vulgaire Italien en langue Fra[n]coyse... Paris: [Pr. by Nicolas Couteau for] Galliot du Pré, [1527]. 4to (25 cm, 9.8"). [8], 169, [1 (facs.)] ff.; illus. $10,000.00
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First French edition of Caviceo's best-selling, often translated, and widely influential romance. The author had a complicated life which included dropping out of law school shortly before he could be expelled, becoming a court historian and diplomat in Parma, being banished from that city for seducing a nun (and possibly more than one), voyaging in the Middle East and India, and embroiling himself in various political intrigues before working his way to the post of Vicar General in cities including Rimini, Ravenna, and Florence. His classically inspired novel, first published in 1508 and dedicated toLucrezia Borgia, is a romance in which Peregrin tells the ghost of Boccaccio all about his globe-spanning quest to satisfy his passion for the fair Genevre — with the plot incorporating the author's own travel experiences.
This first known French edition is uncommon: WorldCat reportsonly three U.S. institutional holdings. The translation from the original Italian was done by “Maistre Francoys Dassy” — François Dassi, secretary to Jean d'Albret, King of Navarre, and to Louise Borgia, Duchess of Valentinois. The text is printed in an elegant lettre bâtarde and ornamented with numerous decorative capitals, with the title-page printed in red and black. In addition, this printing features three large woodcuts: Opposite the first page of the first chapter is a split scene showing the lovers as a youthful pair in the distance and as a mature couple in the foreground (with the lady holding her angelic baby in her lap), while another scene shows the hero making preparations for pilgrimage, and the third shows his search throughout “tous les pays habitables” for his lost love. The final leaf, bearing the printer's device, appears here in facsimile.
Binding: 19th-century calf, spine with gilt-stamped title, raised bands, and small circular gilt-stamped decorations in compartments; board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls and covers framed and panelled in blind with gilt-stamped corner fleurons. All page edges stained red, red silk placemarker present and attached. Binding done by Koehler (with his stamp on front free endpaper).
Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).
Brunet, I, 1701-02; Index aurel. 134.656; Moreau, Editions parisiennes du XVI siecle, III, 1158. This ed. not in Adams or Mortimer, French 16th-Century Books. Bound as above, spine and edges rubbed, sides scuffed. Endpapers with pencilled annotations and with binder's small rubber-stamp as above; title-page with date faintly inked in an early hand. Final leaf (printer's vignette) in facsimile, title-page with lower outer corner with small loss of paper in blank area repaired via excellent leaf-casting, and a similar excellent leaf-cast repair to two inner areas of last text leaf with a few letters supplied in pen and ink facsimile. One leaf with small printing flaw affecting a handful of words without loss of sense; three leaves at back with small semi-circulr areas of worming touching a few letters, also without loss of sense. Pages very clean and type very clear. A scarce and desirable volume. (37747)
Pomp & Ceremony — Court Costume — Really ALL You Need to Know!
(Coronation of George IV). Sir Harry Herald's graphical representation of the coronation regalia; with the degrees and costume of different ranks. London: J. Harris & Son, 1824. 12mo (18 cm, 7"). 17, [1 (ads)] pp.; illus. [SOLD]
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Issued in conjunction with the 1821 coronation of George IV anddesigned for the juvenile readership, this engaging work introduces them to the regalia and costumes of the ceremony. Here in the fourth Harris edition, it was issued in the series “Harris' Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction.”
Thevery precise, very well done, very informative hand-colored wood-engraved illustrations fill the upper half of each page, with letterpress text below: text and images are printed only on one page of each of the 16 leaves.
Provenance: From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
All four editions are scarce; of this fourth one, NUC and WorldCat find only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership (UC San Diego, Yale, Princeton, and Brown).
Gumuchian 2206; Moon, John Harris's Books for Youth, 799(3). Publisher's printed and illustrated off-white paper over light boards, darkened to a light taupe; later oversewing; binding shows wear and soiling. Occasional spotting in margins of text with creasing variously across leaves; one small bit of one margin taken at edge. A good copy, with its colors as fresh as the day. (38810)
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The Beginning of the Greenaway Vogue
Greenaway, Kate. Under the window. Pictures & rhymes for children. London: George Routledge & Sons, [1878]. 8vo (24.1 cm, 9.5"). 64, [2] pp.; col. illus. $450.00
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Kate Greenaway's first book, and one of only two for which she provided both text and illustrations: a best-selling introduction to her inimitable, sweetly sentimental style. This is the first edition, here in a later issue, with the printer's ornaments on either side of Evans' name on the title-page.
Ray, Illustrator and the Book in England, 253. Publisher's printed paper–covered boards with cloth shelfback; moderately rubbed overall with minor discoloration to upper outer portion of front cover. Hinges (inside) tender; intermittent light foxing and last leaf (printer's colophon) separated but present. An ambitious production, with its ambitions achieved! (39009)
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Unusual and interesting ephemera, offering some insight into the design and printing process of the proprietor of the Perishable Press, as well as a nice example of his
inimitably quirky style: 10 proofsheets of Hamady's announcement of his daughter Laura's birth, reflecting the printer's experimentations with layout and color as well as his personal joy. Some of these proofsheets bear editorial marks in red ink, while one has the “Printer's Devil” header on an affixed slip of paper; several have the text printed in variant color schemes.
The sheets are printed on Plover Fineweave paper with the text set in Sabon Antiqua. At the head of each is a print of a nicely rendered pen-and-ink drawing of the Hamady farm (where “Mother Father & Daughter are well and thriving”), done by Jack Beal (“Laura's Uncle Jack”).
Not in Two Decades of Hamady & the Perishable Press. Sheets laid into a manila envelope labelled in Hamady's handwriting. Clean and crisp; some pages with markings as above. (31364)
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Narrow Escape! Dangerous Publication Surreptitiously Printed & a Pseudonym Used
Hotman, François. De furoribus Gallicis, horrenda & indigna Amirallij Castillionei, nobilium atq[ue]; illustrium virorum caede, scelerata ac inaudita piorum strage passim edita per complures Galliae ciuitates, sine vllo discrimine generis, sexus, aetatis & conditionis hominum: vera & simplex narratio. Edimburgi [i.e., London: Printed by Henry Bynneman], 1573. 8vo (15.7 cm; 6.125"). CCXII [i.e., 212] pp. $3250.00
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One of six different editions printed in 1573 describing the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre as told by an enraged French Huguenot jurist who unintentionally avoided it due to a teaching assignment at the University of Bourges. According to the ESTC, the six editions were produced by four printers, one edition in Basel by T. Guarin, one in La Rochelle by B. Berton, and four in London by Henry Bynneman or W. Williamson, all but one bearing a false location. This offering is an altered version of an earlier printing with two leaves reprinted and one reimposed to remove any mention of Bynneman.
Hotman here writes under the pseudonym of Ernestus Varamundus, although the work is also sometimes erroneously attributed to Théodore de Bèze and Hubert Languet. In England, Hotman was the main narrative source for the first, “historical” portion of Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris (Paul Kocher, PMLA {1941}, 349–68).
Binding: Early 19th-century speckled calf, spine compartments gilt-stamped and one with a gilt red leather label; covers with gilt double rules, board edges and turn-ins with gilt single rules, all edges gilt. Signed with stamp by Roger de Coverly, an apprentice of Zaehnsdorf. A very pretty “container” for some very un-pretty history.
Provenance: Armorial bookplate of the Marquess of Bute's Cardiff Castle on front pastedown; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard (sans indicia).
A rather uncommon edition, with searches of WorldCat, NUC, and COPAC revealing only one U.S. copy (Huntington Library).
ESTC S104240; STC 13845. Bound as above, gentle rubbing, leather a little flaking, joints refurbished and covers solidly attached. Bookplate as above; title-page dust-soiled with one small inked word, a faded ownership signature, one small pencil mark. Light pencilling and some chipping to endpapers, general light to moderate age-toning with an occasional spot and some pages unevenly trimmed; one gathering with very light, limited waterstain to lower margin. An important work in an unusual edition and an attractive copy. (37745)
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No More Betting the Estate on theOutcome of a Tennis Match
Ireland. Laws, statutes, etc. Acts and statutes made in a Parliament begun at Dublin the twenty first day of September, anno Dom. 1703. In the second year of the reign of ... Queen Anne ... and continued ... to the twenty third of June, 1707 ... And further continued ... until the twelth [sic] of July, 1711, being the sixth session of this present Parliament. Dublin: Printed by Andrew Crooke, 1711. Folio (29 cm; 11.5"). [4], 8, [2], 9–16, [2], 17–20, [2], 2–28, [2], 29–38, [1], 39–41, [2], 42–45, [2], 45–54 [i.e., 53], [1 (blank)] pp. $1875.00
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A scarce assemblage of acts, including granting the Queen “additional duty on beer, ale, strong waters,” and other things. Other legislation seeks to curb frauds “committed by tennants”; prevent “ingrossing, forestalling, and regrating of coals imported into this kingdom”; better prevent “excessive and deceitful gaming”; suppress lotteries; and regulate sheriffs and sheriffs' clerks.
Printed largely in black letter and each act preceded by its own title-page.
ESTC T193918. Near-contemporary brown calf, rebacked in caramel-colored calf with a red leather gilt title-label; modestly tooled in gilt on covers with a double-rule and a center rope rectangle with flower corner devices, gilt rolls on board edges. Some cockling of paper and discoloration of endpapers (from the tannin of the turn-ins, and occasional marginal thumb- or other soil from use. (34488)
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Miniature Designed by Bruce Rogers — About Miniatures — BEAUTIFUL Printing
Koopman, Harry Lyman. Miniature books. Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1968. Miniature (5 cm, 1.9"). [4], viii, [2], 103, [1] pp. $250.00
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This remarkably tiny treatise on miniatures was originally conceived by Bruce Rogers as what would have been his final work. Instead, it was printed twelve years after his death byGrabhorn-Hoyem of San Francisco from Rogers' original galleys, which had been set in letterpress type by Mackenzie and Harris. This is one of 400 copies printed.
The paper is of an extremely high quality, and near-vellum-like in its feel; the title-page and several others are given touches of red; every page bears a beautiful border of swooping vines printed in blue.
Bradbury 32. Publisher's limp vellum, spine with blue-stamped title; slightly (and unsurprisingly) sprung. A clean, crisp copy. (35731)
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Sugar
Castles &
Fruit Fantasias
Mata,
Juan de la. Arte de reposteria, en que
se contiene todo gènero de hacer dulces secos, y en lìquido, vizcochos,
turrones, natas: Bebidas heladas de todos generos, rosolis, mistelas, &c.
con una breve instruccion para conocer las frutas, y servirlas crudas. Madrid:
Josef Herrera, 1786. 4to. [2] ff., 208 pp. $1400.00
Single-click
any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.
Fourth edition, following the first of 1747, of a classic Spanish cookbook primarily
dedicated to sweets of all kinds, including fruits and their preparation. Mata was dessert chef to Philip
V and Ferdinand VI of Spain, and provides recipes for numerous extravagant concoctions in this, “the
earliest treatise on the art of confectionery published in Spanish” (Harrison).
Palau 157658; Bitting 316 (1st and 2nd eds.); Cagle 1220; Harrison, Une Affaire de Goût, 129.
Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title, housed in a quarter morocco
clamshell case with marbled paper–covered sides; some light staining to vellum, text block separated
from and loose in binding. Pages stained, with early bracketing and marks of emphasis in red and blue
pencil throughout; clearly, a copy that saw kitchen use! Floral sketch dated 1883 laid in.
(22354)
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“Yellow Bird's” English Poetry — Morocco Presentation Binding by Bosqui
Ridge, John Rollin. Poems. San Francisco: H. Payot & Company, 1868. 12mo (19 cm, 7.5"). Frontis. port., 137, [1] pp. [SOLD]
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Ridge's Poems is widely held to beamong the first published books of poetry by a U.S. native (i.e., indigenous) American in the English language. The author was the son of a chief of the Cherokee, who, with his white wife, went west with other dispossessed Indians in 1850, hoping to strike pay dirt in the gold fields — but didn't. Instead, he settled in San Francisco and launched a writing career with a series of articles on crossing the plains for the New Orleans True Delta. He later contributed many articles and poems for the Golden Era and the Hesperian under the pen name of “Yellow Bird,” the literal translation of his Indian name. Additionally he “owned or edited ten different papers, including the Sacramento Daily Bee, the Marysville Califonria Express, the Grass Valley Daily National, and the San Francisco Herald” (Reese & Miles). Today, Ridge is remembered primarily for his Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta [1854], which transformed the Mexican bandit into a noble Robin Hood.
Ridge's poems were collected posthumously and are here published by his widow, with a mounted albumen photograph of the author for the frontispiece; the preface includes a detailed account of the assassination of his father, John Ridge. The book was printed by Edward Bosqui & Co., considered San Francisco’s finest 19th-century printer.
Binding: Chestnut-brown morocco presentation binding with bevelled edges, covers framed in black rules, with author and title in gilt in nice frames on each board (gilt stamping the same as seen on the cloth binding). Binding by Bosqui, with that firm’s ticket.
Cowan p. 533; Graff 3504; Kurutz, California Books Illustrated with Original Photographs 1856–1890, 43; Miles & Reese, Creating America, 122; Norris 3270. Binding as above; rebacked, original spine somewhat unartfully reapplied, sides scuffed. Scratched markings on pastedowns; title-page and a few others with old stains. A very decent copy, with the presentation binding copies being rare. (39603)
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Black Sun Edition of aConnolly 100 Selection
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. Night flight. Paris: Crosby Continential Editions, 1932. Square 16mo (16.2 cm, 6.375") 189, [3] pp. [SOLD]
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American expatriates Harry and Caresse Crosby founded the Black Sun press in Paris in 1927 to publish their own work, originally under the name “Éditions Narcisse” and with “Crosby Continential Editions” as yet another of their imprints. The press published many of the Lost Generation of American authors; in the year that this work appeared, it also printed Kay Boyle's Year Before Last, Robert McAlmon's Indefinite Huntress, Hemingway's Torrents of Spring, Faulkner's Sanctuary, and Dorothy Parker's Laments for the Living. Its stable of writers was wide, however, and includedjust about anyone who was “modern” no matter the nationality.
Saint-Exupéry (1900–44) published Vol de nuit in 1931, based on his experiences as an airmail pilot and director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline. It was an instant bestseller and Stuart Gilbert's translation into English quickly followed in 1932. Here that translation carries a preface by André Gide, in the first Black Sun Press edition.
Cyril Connolly's The Modern Movement: One Hundred Key Books from England, France, and America 1880–1950 included Night Flight as one of four books for 1931.
Publisher's printed wrappers. A very good copy. (37910)
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A Look atTHREE Fine Presses
Sewell, Brocard. Three private presses: Saint Dominic's Press, the Press of Edward Walters, Saint Albert's Press. Wellingborough: Christopher Skelton, 1979. 8vo (26 cm, 10.25"). 54, [2] pp.; illus. [SOLD]
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First edition of this illustrated account, enlarged from the similarly titled 1976 exhibition catalogue. This isnumbered copy 213 of 250 printed, signed at the colophon by the author. Tucked into the pocket of the back pastedown is a facsimile copy of the marvelous color-printed, folding broadside invitation to the Ditchling Horticultural Society 98th Annual Show of 1920 that the Saint Dominic's Press originally produced.
Publisher's three-quarters green cloth, front cover with color-printed floral bouquet design on white paper, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title. Very slight traces of wear to lower front edge, otherwise a crisp, clean copy. (34436)
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Who Lives in Europe?. . . . .
. . . & What Do They Wear?
[Venning, Mary Anne]. A geographical present: Being descriptions of the several countries of Europe. Compiled from the best authorities. With representations of the various inhabitants in their respective costumes. New York: William Burgess, Juvenile Emporium [R. & G. Wood, Printers], 1831. 16m (15.5 cm, 6.125"). [2] ff., 140, 7 (adv.), [1 (blank)] pp.; 12 plts. [SOLD]
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Between 1829 and 1831 Burgess published four “geographical presents”: Asia, Africa, Europe, and “principal countries of the world.” For whatever reason, Europe is now the most uncommon. It is illustrated withtwelve hand-colored plates (including the frontispiece) of national costumes.
Provenance: From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
WorldCat locates only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership (UCLA, Yale, Dartmouth, Free Library of Philadelphia).
Not in American Imprints. Not in Osborne Collection, nor Rosenbach, Children's, both of which only list “principal countries of the world.” Contemporary half red roan in imitation of morocco with marbled paper sides, modest gilt ruling on leather on boards, spine gilt extra; binding slightly faded and rubbed, small area at base of spine pulled with loss of leather. Interior with the usual spotting and browning found in virtually all of the Juvenile Emporium books. A delightful little work. (38526)
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NAHUATL/AZTEC with an Overlay as Spoken in PUEBLA NOT Mexico City
Vázquez Gastelú, Antonio. Arte de lengua mexicana ... corregido ... por el Br. D. Antonio de Olmedo y Torre. Puebla: por Diego Fernãdez Leon y por su original en la Impr. de Francisco Xavier de Morales y Salazar, 1726. Small 4to (19 cm, 7.5"). [2], 54 [i.e., 53] ff. [SOLD]
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An uncommon and significant work on the language of the Aztecs and other speakers of Nahuatl; Vázquez, a native of Puebla, was a professor of the “Mexican language” (i.e., Nahuatl) at the Royal College of San Juan and San Pedro and his local “take” is discernible here. This is the third edition, the first having appeared in 1689 and a second in 1693; a third edition of 1716 is listed in several bibliographies, but it is a ghost: (The “2” in the date of this 1726 edition is often indistinct on the title-page, causing some to read it as “1716”).
Provenance: 19th-century signature “Torres” on recto of the front free endpaper, and in another 19th-century hand, “C.M. Puebla” on verso.
Viñaza 286; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 33; León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2786; Medina, Puebla, 361; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 1412; Ugarte, Obras escritas en lenguas indigenas de Mexico, 411. Contemporary vellum, minor wear, evidence of old ties. Small inkstain in upper inner corners of text and of binding; title-page tipped to front free endpaper; tears with loss of small pieces of paper to A1 and of a few words on C1, now supplied in good facsimile. Inside, minor worming and wear only; a very satisfactory copy. (39466)
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Owned by a Very Interesting Woman
Virgilius, Polydorus (Polydore Vergil). ... De rervm inventoribvs libri VIII. Et de prodigiis libri III. Amstelodami: Apud Danielem Elzevirium,, 1671. 12mo (13.3 cm, 5.25"). *12**8A–X12Y14Z12Aa–Ff12 (verso of F11 adhered to a blank, -F12 & -G1-6); [20] ff., 511, [1] pp., [3] ff., 100 pp., [41] ff. (without the index leaves to the Prodigies). [SOLD]
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The first and only Elzevir edition of Polidore Virgil's works on 1) inventions and 2) the natural and the supernatural, and whether credence should be given to such alleged phenomena as prodigious events and portents. While the three inventors depicted on the engraved title-page here includeGutenberg, most of the inventions and geniuses discussed are from classical times, chiefly Greco-Roman but with attention to Persia, Egypt, and the Arab world. The work was first published in the late 15th century and went through many subsequent editions.
Polydore Vergil (ca. 1470–1555) was an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest, and diplomat who spent most of his life in England.
Willems is not fond of this book, saying of it “L'ouvrage est assez peu recherché, et n'a qu'une valeur médiocre.” Its “middling value” in his day may have been due to its typography: Daniel Elzevir had the book printed in the shop of the heirs of Jan Elzevir in Leyden. Our copy is attractive, however, and the work is certainly an important one that was read, loved, and cited in its day with enormous enthusiasm.
With a particularly engaging engraved title-page, and with woodcut ornamental initials and head- and tailpieces.
Provenance: 20th-century bookplate of Elizabeth Wade White (1906–1994), an American poet, activist in progressive causes, and author of The Life of Anne Bradstreet: The Tenth Muse. In 1938 she had a brief affair with Valentine Ackland (1906–69, born Mary Kathleen Macrory Ackland, the English modernist poet). In 1939 White met Evelyn Virginia Holahan (1905–85) who became her life partner. With White's pencil note “August 1929. Bought at the Hague for 22 guilders.”
Binding: 18th-century crushed green morocco, spine with raised bands and a red leather spine-label; covers and spine-compartments double-framed in gilt, the latter with center devices. Gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt, silk marker.
Willems 1464; Copinger 4882; Goldsmiths'-Kress 01963. Binding as above, rubbed at joints (outside) and with spine rather attractively sunned to olive. Lacks the index leaves for De prodigiis; still, a text-complete handsome volume with a very interesting provenance. (39815)
Printed in GOLD within a Marvelously Elaborate ENGRAVED BORDER Printed in SILVER
Washington, George. Broadside. Begins: WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. New York: Pub. by C.C. Wright & Durand, [1834?]. Folio extra (57 x 46 cm; 23" x 18"). 1 p. [SOLD]
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As Washington came to the last months of his second administration, he reflected on the nature of government under the new Constitution, the nature of American citizenship, and the status of the nation in the community of world nations, offeringconsidered, informed, and sage advice to his fellow citizens. FOR EXAMPLE, he warns against “combinations or associations . . . [that] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community'; he further foresees that [though] now and then answer[ing] popular ends, [these combinations] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” On the diplomatic side, he urges that “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy,
humanity, and interest . . . “
This is a stunning printing of Washington's famous message. The text is printed in gold ink in four-column format within an elaborate engraved border printed in silver on bright white calendered paper. The firm of “Wright & Durand” is listed in the 1834–35 New York city directory as specializing in “specimens of xylographic engraving and printing in colours” and seems to have done a good business in labels for drug store bottles. An earlier incarnation of the firm “A.B.C. Durand, Wright & Co.” had specialized in banknote engraving as early as 1825, and certainly the border here is of that style and quality.
The firm was renamed in the 1835–35 city directory to “Wright & Prentiss.”
Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and the OPACs of the American Antiquarian Society and the Library of Congressfail to locate any other copies.
Date attribution based on admiring notice in an 1834 trade journal. Minor indications at some edges of the item having been pinned or tacked for display; faint instances of old staining at edges, in one case slightly into border.An excellent copy of an important and absolutely lovely production. (33580)