TWENTY for TUESDAY (IX)

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Brunet: “Belle Édition” — Sole Italian Estienne — Tall Copy

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•  First edition of Alamanni’s “famous didactic poem on the care of fields and gardens” (Schreiber, Estiennes), inspired by Virgil’s Georgics. The author was a Florentine-born humanist, poet, and diplomat who spent much of his life in the service of Francis I and Henry II of France, and who — possibly as a peace offering for having once participated in a conspiracy against her father — dedicated the present work to the Dauphine, Catherine de’ Medici.

Set in Simon de Colines’s Great Primer Chancery Italic, this poetic tribute to agriculture isthe only work Estienne printed in Italian. Schreiber notes that the tallest copy he had seen measured 8 1/4", with the current example coming very close to that; the dedication, errata, and privilege are all present here.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplates of Fratelli Salimbeni (with shelving number) and of “G.P.C.” (with woodcut image of Pegasus and motto “Nec adversa retorquent”); front fly-leaf with early inked annotation “H.III.161" and lined-through (still partially legible) inscription “Bibliotheque Vallicellane”; title-page with early inked inscription “Petri Salvati - V.” surrounding printer’s vignette, and obscured inscription in lower portion. Later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Adams A409; Brunet, I, 125; Renouard, Estienne, 68:22; Schreiber, Estiennes, 88.   Later vellum, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label and gilt-stamped blue leather publication label; vellum with minimal dust-soiling and traces of wear to extremities, two bottom-most spine compartments with later replacement (blank) vellum “labels,” one now starting to peel slightly. All edges stained blue. Bookplates and inscriptions as above; front free endpaper with later pencilled annotations (one giving incorrect Adams reference). One early inked marginal annotation. Pages gently age-toned, with intermittent minor foxing to margins; final leaf with small paper flaws in lower margin. An attractive copy of an interesting and significant volume.  (37916)

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One Poem on an “Air Balloon” & a *FUNNY* One Called
“A Receipt for Writing a Novel”

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• First edition:  Published posthumously and edited by Joanna Hughes, this includes poetry, brief essays, and dramatic bits quite variously religious, political, and/or social-satirical —— with also a few riddles and charades!  Here with preface, but lacking list of subscribers.

Provenance: Title-page with early inked name “Timothy Tynell” in upper margin and ink smear to inner margin; early inked gift inscription (“J. Sadler given to him by W. Clanton”) between verses on p. 3.

•  ESTC T86344.   19th-century half calf over marbled paper, much worn and abraded with covers detached, last few leaves starting to separate, and leather partially lost over spine; an ex-library, reading copy worthy of rebinding — covers pressure-stamped by a now-defunct institution, title-page and several others rubber-stamped, back free endpaper with pocket. Lacking extensive (25 pp.) subscribers' list (only). Pages with light to moderate spotting and a few short edge tears, not touching text.  (17696)

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A Different Take on Cromwell vs. the King

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•  Rare version of Cromwell's life and military successes: WorldCat and Copac findno institutional holdings of this sole, separately-printed edition. The biography is attributed to “A Gentleman of the Middle Temple,” but the text is for the most part adapted from of A Short Critical Review of the Political Life of Oliver Cromwell by John Bancks (or Banks, 1709–51), a bookseller, poet, and biographer; there seems to have been some confusion with the Restoration-era playwright John Banks (d. 1706).

The present rendition was excerpted from the first eight chapters of the Critical Review, and closes with a discussion of Cromwell's burial; much of Bancks's editorializing regarding the conduct of the king and other political matters has been removed, providing an interesting contrast to the original work. According to the DNB, the work in its first state earned Bancks accusations of being an enemy of the monarchy due to its sympathetic tone towards Cromwell — a major difference from all previous biographies.

This edition features a wood-engraved frontispiece done by Turnbull after Harper.

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

•  Not in NSTC (CD version). On Bancks, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent light blue paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Frontispiece recto (back) with rubber-stamped numeral and pencilled annotation, no other markings. Pages age-toned with spots of minor staining, edges slightly ragged, corners bumped. An intriguing oddity.  (38654)

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Noah Webster Revises the Language of the Bible
for Americans

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•  First edition of the Bible in English (Authorized Version) tailored for American readers by Noah Webster (1758–1843). “His purpose was to remove obsolete words and those offensive to delicacy” (Rumball-Petre), Webster himself further stipulating, “To avoid giving offense to any denomination of christian [sic], I have not knowingly made any alteration to the passages of the present version, on which the different denominations rely for the support of their peculiar tenets” (Preface, p. iv). Webster further explains that the purpose of his revisions is to make the language clearer and purer so as to not “divert the mind from the matter to the language of the scriptures, and thus, in a degree, frustrate the purpose of giving instruction” (Preface, p. xvi).

Webster considered his work on the revision of the Bible more important than that on the dictionary and was sorely disappointed at the Bible's poor reception among all levels of readers.

Provenance:  19th-century ownership signatures of Luther P. Hubbard (undated) and R.T. Hall (1894); after ca. 1954 in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Darlow & Moule 1793; Hills 826; Rumball-Petre 197.   Publisher's sheep, spine dry and tending to flake; front board once detached and resecured with a cloth tape repair at the hinge (inside). Foxing as usual. Priced to encourage better repair to its binding, this is a complete, sound copy.  (33830)

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THREE Classics with COMMENTARY in aPRIZE BINDING

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•  The works of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius were first published together in 1472. The first part here contains a section for each of these Roman poets, each with copious notes by Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540–1609); the second part is divided into14 chapters of commentary by Muretus, Statius, and others as per the title-page. The volume's text is in Latin with some Greek, printed in roman, italic, and capital letters, with the main text single-column above Scaliger's notes, printed smaller and in double columns; the separate commentaries, paginated continuously but quite erratically, are also in double-column. Dotted throughout are attractive woodcut initials of floral, historiated, and factotum designs; ornaments and head- and tailpieces; a small woodcut diagram; and a few inscriptions printed in capitals, including one set lengthwise on a full page. The title-page features the printer's large device and is preceded by an added engraved title-page.

Binding:  Contemporary vellumprize binding paneled in gilt on each cover with fleurons at corners, this surrounding thecoat of arms of Rotterdam, i.e., two gilt lions supporting a shield of four lions passant above a pale charge, crowned by a ducal coronet with a fleur-de-lis at the helm. Spine blind-ruled with a single floral ornament blind-stamped in each compartment, title written in early ink (now faded).

Provenance:  Two different bookplates of Lebanese lawyer, writer, and translator Camille Aboussouan (b. 1919), former UNESCO ambassador to Lebanon who founded the cultural review Les Cahiers de l'Est. Pressure-stamp of Jean-François Jolibois (1794–1879), a priest at Trévoux, France, who was a member of the légion d'honneur and various literary societies. Ink inscription in French dated 25 February 1863 at Lyon, shelf number in same hand on front pastedown, and price in ink on front free endpaper.

•  Schweiger, II, 81; Dibdin, I, 377; Graesse, II, 87 (“fort rare”).   Binding as above, with four green ribbon ties; prize assignment lacking and engraved title-page reattached; lightly soiled, gilt rubbed in places, some staining to edges of text block. Mild to moderate foxing, occasionally; a few inkstains or smudges and small dampstains; two small holes from natural paper flaws not affecting text and one sectional title-page with same taking “A” from CATULLUS; two short marginal tears. Overall, indeed, clean and crisp and pleasing.  (31362)

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DARWIN onHow & Why Plants Twine

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•  First edition of Darwin's examination of the mechanisms of motion in flowering plants, a follow-up to his work on climbing plants — based on experiments conducted with the assistance of his son Francis Darwin, and mentioning natural selection as a possible explanation for plants' ability to bend towards or away from environmental stimuli (pp. 569/70). The volume is illustrated withnumerous in-text engravings of circumnutation patterns, plant structures, diurnal and nocturnal leaf positions, tropisms, etc. This is the first issue of the first edition, with two lines of errata on p. x and publisher's advertisements at the back dated 1878.

•  NSTC 0174363.   Publisher's textured green cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; faint discoloration to outer edge of front cover and lower outer corner of back cover, tiny spots of insect damage near joints (one carrying through about 60 pp., not touching text). Hinges (inside) tender, as is often seen with this book, with pastedowns and free endpapers showing evidence of past dampness in lower portions, not affecting interior; two leaves with corners lost away from text. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper portion, first text page (only) with pencilled marks of emphasis; pages clean. British bookseller's invoice from 1983 laid in. A pleasing copy.  (30671)

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TrueCLASSIC in Its Field: MAGIC

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•  One of the two best known 16th-century treatises on magic, Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex was first printed 1599–1600 and is the magnum opus of Martin del Río (1551–1608), a Jesuit scholar. Amulets, incantations, demons, spells, alchemy, prophecy, divination, and many other topics are surveyed. The tome was designed as a ready reference book for priests and ecclesiastical judges. And yes, there aresections on exorcism.

This ediiton (“nunc secundus curis auctior longè, additionibus multis passim insertis: correctior quoq(ue) mendis sublatis”) begins with a title-page with a rather fascinatingengraved border composed of eleven vignettes, all portraying scenes from Exodus. The text is printed with side- and shouldernotes and has woodcut head- and tailpieces.

Provenance:  Stamps of two U.S. Redemptorist libraries (one in Ilchester, MD; the other in New York state).

•  VD17 1:001581Y; DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1899; Robbins 283; Graesse, Magica, 47; Coumont, Demonology and Witchcraft, D45.3.   Contemporary limp vellum with slightly yapp edges, evidence of now-lacking ties; vellum soiled, front joint (outside) with excellent repair, new endpapers. Scattered waterstains; discoloration in some margins from from old damp; some gatherings and individual leaves browned, as in all other copies seen. Title-page trimmed at top, not quite into plate; without the folding table in Book II; old library stamps in some margins and an old sticker. A solid, satisfying copy.  (33026)

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ALiterary “Washington'ianum”

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•  First edition of what was likely the first volume of verse printed in Washington (according to Wegelin), and one of the first anthologies compiled by an American. Richard Dinmore, editor of the National Magazine, selected the widely ranging pieces present here, including a sprinkling of poems by the Della Cruscan Robert Merry and some poems by Americans (and others that evoke American feelings and situations).
     Among the American authors is Tom Paine writing on Gen. Charles Lee, whom a 19th-century reader has identified in pencil as “A traitor to [the] American cause.” A few of the U.S. pieces are anonymous, e.g. “The People’s Friend,” which was “sung at Philadelphia, 4 July, 1801.”
     Three pages bear subscribers’ names.

•  Wegelin 932; Shaw & Shoemaker 2148. Period-style quarter tan cloth over light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Title-page torn, with outer corner chipped, resulting in loss of four letters from end of title; now mounted. One contents leaf with edge tear extending into text; last leaf with short edge tears. Some light to moderate foxing, with pages age-toned; final page with shadow of pencilled “Finis” and p. 80 with pencilled comment as above.

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First ENGLISH TRANSLATION — Deluxe Binding

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•  First edition in English of Flaubert's first finished literary work: a melancholy tale of erotic longing followed by ennui and decline. The novella appears here translated by Frank Jellinek, with an introduction by John Cowper Powys and both full-page and in-text illustrations by Hortense Ansorge.

This isnumbered copy 71 of 1250 for sale in England.

Binding: Special signed binding of brown morocco, covers with leather bird inlays and gilt-stamped line of falling leaves, spine with blind-stamped leather title and author labels between raised bands. The back pastedown bears a blind-stamped omega, dated 1955.

•  Binding as above, corners and joints lightly rubbed. Inside, fresh and clean. An elegant volume.  (33519)

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Beautifully Bound & Illustrated FRENCH Edition
“Tr. by Mme. Bachellery”

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•  Edition limited to 220, thisone of just 10 copies on papier du Japon.

Illustrated with “eaux fortes” by Lalauze.

•  Bound by Lortic Frères in red morocco with filigree gilt tooling on covers and in spine compartments; a gilt rose also in each spine compartment. Blue morocco doublures, turquoise watered silk endpapers, and marbled fly-leaves; very wide turn-ins with gilt dentelles. Imperceptibly rebacked with the original spine retained. All edges gilt over marbling. In a crimson morocco-edged slipcase.

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“Why, All the Cats Had Come to Tea”

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•  First edition: The beloved Victorian illustrator's inimitable combination of sweet verse and winsome illustrations, with intimation that naughtiness will not end well, here color-printed by frequent collaborator Edmund Evans. Ray notes that the size of this volume, larger than Greenaway's previous efforts, “led the artist to a variety of decorative arrangements that she had not tried before” and that the “spacious pages particularly suit the horizontal panels that she favored.”

Provenance:  Half-title with inked inscription reading “Ruth Allison [/] March 14th 1889,” and pencilled purchase notation (giving a price of 49¢). Later in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Ray, Illustrator and the Book in England, 256; Thomson, Kate Greenaway: A Catalogue of the Kate Greenaway Collection, 83; Schuster & Engen, Printed Kate Greenaway: a catalogue raisonné, 135.   Publisher's color-printed green glazed paper–covered boards with plain maroon cloth shelfback; sides showing small scuffs, edges and extremities rubbed. Olive green endpapers; all edges stained yellow. Signatures just starting to loosen slightly. A very nice copy.  (39414)

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More than One Lifetime's Worth of Adventure & Interesting Ideas

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•  Autobiography ofone of the founders of the Thames police, a clever and independent mariner who went adventuring around the world before settling down to become an Essex justice of the peace and eventually Resident Magistrate of the Thames River Police (a.k.a. the Marine Police Force, sometimes called England's first official police force). Here he looks back on his remarkably varied youthful escapades, including travelling in the merchant-service, visiting “the Savages in North America,” meeting the King of Denmark, serving in the East India Company's military service, and narrowly escaping such dangers as tigers, poisonous snakes, floods, fires, and scamming fathers-in-law. If the narrator is to be believed, the two issues that caused him the chiefest distress in life were pecuniary difficulties and other people's unchivalrous treatment of women. He also has much to say about law and business in the New World and the Old, slavery in America, forcible incarceration in private madhouses (with excerpts from a first-person account of such), and the nature of farming in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as the state of affairs in Washington, DC, and, of course, the history of the creation of the Thames police.

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author, done by Henry Cook after Hervé; vol. III is illustrated with an oversized, folding plate of a water-engine intended for millwork, devised by the author, and a plate of another of his inventions: the automated “chamber fire escape”, which enables anyone to lower him- or herself from a high window. This is the third edition, following the first of 1807.

•  NSTC H625; Sabin 30461.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; vol. I with joints and extremities refurbished, vols. II and III with spines and edges rubbed, old strips of library tape reinforcing spine heads. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, vols. II and III with paper shelving labels at top of spines (vol. I showing signs of now-absent label). Vol. I title-page with offsetting from frontispiece; vol. III with pp. 69–72 excised (two leaves of a rather long religious-themed letter from Harriott to his son) and with upper portion of one leaf crumpled, reinforced some time ago. Some light age-toning, intermittent small spots of foxing and ink-staining, pages generally clean. Utterly absorbing.  (30651)

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Pennsylvania Charitable Cooking

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•  A Knox Gelatine–sponsored fundraising cookbook with a photographic reproduction of the Maiden Creek Union Church on its front wrapper and a great deal of local advertising inside, plus one color-printed promotion for Swans Down Cake Flour. Virtually all of the recipes here are attributed to members of the church, and are mostly intended for those who more or less already know what they're doing in the kitchen; cake recipes supply ingredients but no cooking temperatures or times, for example.

Evidence of Readership/Use: The space at the back for additional items has been used for pencilled recipes for “Mrs. Beaver pan cake” and nine other desserts.

WorldCat findsno institutional holdings, and this is unlisted by Brown. Our supplied date is based on information in the ads, as well as an advance notice of voting primaries to be held in 1927.

•  Not in Brown, Culinary Americana.   In original wrappers, stapled as issued; wrappers with edges chipped and spots of minor discoloration, front wrapper splitting along front joint and all but separated. Two pages with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item; pages evenly and gently age-toned with occasional small spots, otherwise clean and (despite those noted manuscript additions) showing no signs of kitchen use.  (38140)

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One of Indiana's Finest

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•  A story with drama and some romance about a young man about to inherit his late grandfather's Indiana estate, presented in a simple, decorated cloth binding and with six delicately colored plates (including the frontispiece) by American illustrator Harrison Fisher, known for his “Fisher Girl” (similar to “The Gibson Girl”).

Meredith Nicholson (1866–1947) was an American author and politician from Indianapolis who wrote several bestsellers during the early 20th century, the Golden Age of Indiana Literature.

Binding:  Publisher's teal cloth with gilt lettering and white-stamped vertical fence-like lines to spine; front board is lettered in gilt and stamped in white with vertical and horizontal lines suggesting a gate. A white tram or trolley car is daintily stamped within a wide teardrop-shaped opening in the “gate's” upper portion.

•  Smith, American Fiction, 1901-1925, N-84.   Bound as above; edges rubbed, corners bumped, spine slightly cocked, decoration to spine rubbed, minor staining to top-edge; in fact, binding quite attractive. Interior age-toned, foxing to plates and adjacent leaves (with frontispiece tissue guard separating), upper outer corners bumped or lightly creased across. Readable, and highly enjoyable as an artifact.  (37558)

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Incorporating the PHILADELPHIA Bank . . .

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READ ARTICLE XVIII!

•  The legislature enables the bank to come into existence and prohibits conflicts of interest by barring sitting governors and legislators from serving on the Bank's board of directors. This act of incorporation seems to be as rare as the Bank's Articles.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7007. Original light boards covered with marbled paper. Back cover and two leaves gnawed by a rodent, with loss of paper. (3512)

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Fictitious 17TH-Century Diary — Both Parts — Matching ZAEHNSDORF Bindings
SURELY a Unique Exercise! 

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•  As per the “Address to the Reader” of So Much of the Diary, etc. “the style of Printing and general appearance of this Volume have been adopted by the Publishers merely to be in accordance with the design of the Author, who in this Work personates a lady of the seventeenth Century” — with “personat[ing]” being the key word, as this isthe diary of a real 17th-century woman as imagined, both deeply and extensively, by a Victorian woman who had immersed herself in the history and memoirs of the “diarist's” period. Published anonymously, it was on its first appearance often sincerely attributed to Elizabeth Cecil Willoughby, Baroness Willoughby (1606–61), perhaps helped on by the fact that Longman had gone so far as to commission a new font fromthe Chiswick Press, a recasting of Caslon Old Face, with “antique” headpieces and decorative woodcut initials, pages framed in double-ruled borders, and up-front woodcut coats of arms further employed to enhance the “journal's” verisimilitude. According to the DNB (online), the publication “fostered a minor vogue for first-person historical narratives in contemporary typefaces, notably Anne Manning's 1850 account of Mary Powell (Milton's first wife), and Thackeray's Henry Esmond (1852).”

Lady Willoughby's husband, Francis Willoughby, was a political intriguer who originally opposed the King, but later fell out with the Parliamentarians and joined the Royalists, fleeing to the Caribbean where he eventually became Governor of Barbados and established the short-lived colony of Willoughbyland (in what is now Suriname) before being restored to his estates in England. The diary entries attributed to his wife, which end shortly before Willoughby's departure for the islands, describe the major political and military events of the day against a background of her concern for her children, her love of her mother and husband, and her piety and devotion. Rathbone paid enough attention to detail to have “Lady Willoughby” offer a recipe against giddiness “given to mee by Mr. Gerard's Aunte” — the recipe being quoted in full directly from John Gerard's Herball of 1597 — but altered the course of historical events very slightly by extending the life of her daughter Diana about six years past her actual death and increasing the number of her deceased children!

So Much of the Diary, here in its 1845 second edition, was originally printed in 1844, while Some Further Portions is here in its first printing.

Binding:  Contemporarymatched bindings done by Zaehnsdorf, signed on each front turn-in: brown morocco, framed and panelled in gilt and black fillets with gilt-stamped fleur-de-lis corner fleurons, turn-ins similarly designed, and board edges with gilt roll; spines with gilt-stamped titles and volume labels, blind-stamped compartment decorations, and gilt-stamped fleurs-de-lis in compartments. Top edges gilt. Back pastedown of each volume with gilt-stamped example of Zaehnsdorf's oval medieval bookbinding apprentice device, from a design by Jost Amman.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf of second volume with a woman's tantalizingly not-quite-decipherable ownership inscription: “E[something] Anne Fan[something!]s [/] Farnley 1848.”  Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  NSTC 2R2740 & 2R2743; Ing, Charles Whittingham: Printer, 1795-1876, 32.   Bindings as above, variously rubbed to extremities; offsetting to endpapers from turn-ins. Vol. II with ownership inscription as above. Pages lightly age-toned with occasional minor smudges or spots; front fly-leaf of vol. II (only) more notably spotted. A handsome set of an intriguing Victorian — and feminine — perspective on the domestic side of this dramatic period in the 17th century.  (37855)

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The Bustle, Excitement, Culture, & NOISE of LONDON
Laid Out for Children

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•  First American edition. This look at multifaceted London, including city life, prisons, orphanages, booksellers, street vendors, hospitals, etc., is illustrated with six metal-engraved plates. Included are a description of Darton's bookshop (“Darton's Juvenile Library”) on pp. 82–87, and one of London street noises on pp. 164–65.

The Osborne Collection suggests Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson as author, while Moon gives strong evidence for Elizabeth Kilner.

WorldCat locates nine North American libraries reporting ownership.

Provenance:  Late 19th-century signature of Rebecca B. Miller; a later bookplate removed; 1954 gift inscription to Hope Cooper W. Patterson from her grandfather. Most recently in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 42802; Welch, American Children’s Books, 1393; Moon, Benjamin Tabart's Juvenile Library, 94.   Publisher's dark green quarter roan with tan paper sides; leather worn and starting to crack along the front joint. Inscriptions and booklabel as above. The expectable age-toning and light foxing to text and plates. A good++ copy.  (38918)

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A Bespoke Cedulario forUSE in New Spain & Guatemala

(Spanish Royal Decrees). 

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•  EXPLAINING WHY!? such manuscript cedularios as this were made in the era of the printing press is called for here, and the answer is simple: The number of copies that were printed of any given royal cédula tended to be smaller than the number of lawyers, clerks, judges, and other legal sorts who needed a copy. And within months of the issuance of the decree, no printed copies were available for love or money. Owning the various editions of the Recopilación de leyes de Indias was insufficient, for most cédulas related tospecific issues peculiar to one person, place, institution, or event, and such specificity is not included in the recopilaciones, though the royal decrees provided good, useful precedents to cite.

QED: Every colonial-era lawyer had to resort to maintaining his own cedulario.

This cedulario was assembled in Mexico during the 18th century, probably around 1778 or 1780, for the use of a lawyer before the audiencia, or perhaps for an audiencia judge or a judge's staff member. The decrees relate to a wide variety of topics: criminal cases, the army and navy, confiscation of property, the use of stamped paper, the royal treasury, royal officials in Nicaragua, cabildos, proselytization of Indians, commodities, dress codes, bigamy, and other social matters in the regions of Mexico, New Galicia, and Guatemala. Of the 43 items, 22 are printed decrees (all but one printed in Spain) and the remaining 21 are manuscript. Fifteen bear true (rather than stamped) royal signatures: six are signed by Felipe V, and nine are by Ferdinand VI. Of the 28 documents not signed by a king, 17 are printed and 11 are manuscript.

•  The documents are sewn and were once bound; binding removed some time ago. 18th-century numbering of documents shows that 10 documents were removed som time before the collection came into our hands. There are some stains, a few holes at folds, a few edges a little tattered — nothing worse. A sound and interesting collection.  (34851)

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BEWICK-Illustrated HERBAL

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• First edition: “A more complete and perfect herbal than has hitherto appeared . . . intended to unite the various advantages that have been derived to science from [Andrew Duncan's] 'Edinburgh New Dispensatory'” (p. vii). Compiled by an English physician and botanist remembered for his magnificent Temple of Flora, the present pharmaceutical treatise lists and describes the uses of 283 plantsillustrated with 261 wood engravings by Thomas Bewick. According to Johnston, this represents Bewick's “only attempt at botanical wood engravings,” based on designs by Peter Charles Henderson. Dr. Thornton was the author of A Grammar of Botany and The Philosophy of Botany, as well as The Temple of Flora,

In addition to the expectable lavender, chaste tree, burdock, lungwort, etc., also present here are discussions of Chinese smilax, coffee, tea, the Peruvian bark tree, ginseng, sarsaparilla, pimento (“Jamaica Pepper”), and tobacco.

Provenance:  Front cover with gilt-stamped armorial device of Dr. Alfred Freer of Stourbridge, Worcestershire: out of a ducal coronet, an antelope's head.

•  NSTC T941; Hugo, Bewick Collector, 253; Johnston, Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 745; Nissen 1954; Pritzel 9238; Rohde, Old English Herbals, 224 (listing Crosby ed. only).   Contemporary calf, covers framed in blind roll and single gilt fillet, spine with blind-tooled compartment decorations; binding rubbed and scuffed overall, spine label now absent with traces remaining, spine leather showing cracks and small chips, joints and extremities refurbished. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription (“C.M.W.”) dated 1912. Dedication tipped in. Pages gently age-toned with scattered foxing; small inkstain to upper fore-edge of first 30 ff., barely extending onto pages. One contents leaf with short tear (just touching text, without loss) and old repair in lower outer corner. A solid and distinguished-looking copy of a desirable pharmacopeiaexquisitely illustrated.  (36043)

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Signed by Both the Poet & the Artist — With Original Bearden Lithograph

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•  For this Limited Editions Club production, “distinguished artist Romare Bearden has culled his favorite representative pieces from Derek Walcott's output of the past twenty years.” The poems are chronologically arranged, witheach section opening with a vibrantly energetic double-page spread painted by Bearden, an award-winning African-American artist and writer. Joseph Brodsky supplied the introduction; the text was set in Monotype Bembo by Michael and Winifred Bixler and printed by the Anthoensen Press in Portland, Maine, while the illustrations were reproduced by the Seaboard Lithograph Corporation and the original lithograph (see below) was hand-printed on Rives paper at the Blackburn Studio, New York.

This is numbered copy 1063 of 2000 printed, signed by Walcott and Bearden at the colophon. An original Bearden lithograph (numbered 35/275) is included, laid in at the back of the volume. The appropriate LEC newsletter is also included.

Binding:  Caribbean-inspired linen with a sun and sea pattern combining warm reds and golds with cool blues and greens, created specifically for this volume by Bearden (marking the first time “an artist has designed his own fabric expressly for our edition” per the newsletter) and silk-screened in Italy by Ratti d.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 533.   Binding as above, in the original gray paper–covered slipcase with silver gilt spine title; slipcase with spine and edges sunned, volume in beautiful condition.Attractively crafted, and the performance of an all-star “cast.” (38924)

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“The Liveliest Pedestrian Environment in Los Angeles” — In Miniature

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•  Weber's miniature-format account of the famous Los Angeles market, established in 1934, opens with a National Grange 100th anniversary commemorative stamp as “frontispiece,” affixed to the half-title verso. This isone of 300 copies printed by Roger Pennels at the Junípero Serra Press.

•  Publisher's (appropriately) green morocco, front cover with gilt-stamped title and publication information. All edges gilt. A clean, tight copy.  (35703)

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