•  Publisher's quarter (wide) vellum and brown sueded cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped coat of arms, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; covers slightly bowed, suede rubbed down to cloth along edges and in small spots on sides, vellum showing minor soiling. Pages faintly age-toned. Inscriptions as above; small piece of paper with inked annotations re. two Guadagnini instruments, laid in at the Joannes Baptista Guadagnini page. A useful and authoritative work in and of itself, with remarkable connections to three different prominent musical families.  (39715)

•  Binding as above; back cover with one scuff, front cover with small unobtrusive area of darkening towards upper outer corner. Offsetting to edges of free endpapers from turn-ins. Pages and plates clean and fresh. A striking, elegant volume, of surpassing interest for music historians and aficionados.  (39690)

•  Bound as above and in lovely condition; extremely minor spots of rubbing and scraping to boards, one raised band with a short cut(?) and a sliver of leather lost. An overall wonderful copy of this beautiful reprint.  (37923)

Signed binding: Contemporary brown morocco, front pastdown stamped “J. Wright Binder.” Boards with triple fillet gilt border at edges; center panel on each board composed of a triple fillet outer border with a floral/vine gilt roll within; gilt corner devices with elements extending along the outer edges of the center panel. Board edges with double fillet rules, turn-ins with same gilt roll as in the center panels of the boards, cream calendared endpapers. All edges gilt.

Evidence of readership: 20th-century notes relating to the text on rear free endpaper.

Provenance:  Large engraved armorial “Kimmel Park” bookplate of Hugh Robert Hughes of Kimmel (1827–1911), Co. Denbigh, and his small library shelf label to top of front pastedown. His signature in full, dated “June 11th 1855,” on front fly-leaf. “G.L.D. 1937" on front free endpaper.

•  NSTC 2H30539; McLean, Victorian Book Design, pp. 94, 174.   Binding as above; joints (outside) abraded, so too lower edges of boards and corners. 20th-century notes as mentioned above; shelf label largely obscured by a later blank one; a very few dog-ears or short edge tears; age-toning with some foxing and other spotting, especially towards beginning and end. A remarkable, wonderful book.  (37188)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of George Henry Cherry; front fly-leaf with early stamped inscription (strongly resembling handwriing) of Vernon J. Watney, Cornbury (author of Cornbury and the Forest of Wychwood).

•  Brooks 494; Giani 37 (p. 46); Schweiger, II, 413. Not in Brunet, not in De Lama.   Binding as above; joints, spine, and extremities lightly rubbed, sides with a few small spots of minor darkening. First and last pages mildly foxed. One of Bodoni's most neoclassically restrained productions, in a rather less restrained binding. (40156)

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, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

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)

Binding:  Gorgeous 19th-century acid-stained autumnal binding: Covers framed with a gilt floral roll and brilliantly crossed with bands of walnut brown, ochre, deep green, russet red, black, and grey, allvery bright. Spines gilt extra with compartment devices and multiple interesting rolls, and bearing black leather gilt labels; board edges touched at corners with gilt; marbled endpapers.

Provenance:  Signature of Sam Baird on front endpaper and title-page of vol. I and half-title of vol. II.

As described in the BAL, signature sign 6 is not present on p. 41 in vol. I and the last page of vol. III is unnumbered.

•  BAL 10124.   Bound as above, bindings moderately rubbed with one sliver of leather lost at a joint and a small patch lost near the bottom of one back cover. Age-toning, foxing, and some other spotting; some corners creased (some corners improperly trimmed during manufacture. Inscriptions as above, light pencilling on endpapers of one volume; map wrinkled with some old light staining and a tear repaired some time ago from back, with cloth tape — folds strong. A classic semi-historical work most strikingly bound.  (36170)

The monograph's originalcolor-painted beaux-arts wrappers are bound in at the front and back here, including the spine in front (rubbed and faded, hinting at original splendor). The title-page is printed in red and black. An extensive index appears at the end.

Binding: Three-quarter evergreen morocco bordered with gilt fillets over bubble gum and mint marbled paper boards; spine with raised bands, gilt-framed compartments containing author, title, date, and appropriate devices in gilt; endpapers matching marbled boards and top edge gilt.

•  For J. Jacquemart, see: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. IX, pp. 681–90.   Leather lightly scuffed at extremities and sunned to a woody green on spine and upper front cover; offsetting from turn-ins onto endpapers. Mild to (occasionally) moderate foxing throughout and old water damage on a few leaves only.  (30132)

First published in 1587, this popular work found an audience among both Protestants and Catholics, and went through a number of editions in not only the original French, but also several other European languages as well as Latin. The present early French printing is handsomely accomplished, with nice head- and tailpieces and decorative capitals. WorldCat findsno U.S. institutional holdings of this edition.

Binding:  Later dark blue Jansenist-style morocco: spine with raised bands and gilt-stamped title and date, board edges with double gilt rules, and turn-ins with particularly elegant gilt dentelles. All edges gilt.  Signed binding done by Hans Asper, with Asper's minute rubber-stamp on the front free endpaper.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Swiss theologian, historian, and professor Gaspard Ernest Stroehlin (1844–1907), a notable scholar of Protestantism. Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Index Aurel. 164.928; Pettegree, French Vernacular Books, 34461. This ed. not in Adams, not in Brunet.   Binding as above, spine showing very slight sunning, lower back outer corner bumped. Bookplate as above, with small paper adhesion over one corner. Pages gently age-toned with scattered small, faint spots, otherwise clean. A striking copy, with notably apropos provenance.  (38345)

Provenance:  On the front pastedown, the bookplate of Brian Douglas Stilwell.

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership of this edition (Harvard, Kansas, University of Texas-HRHRC, Princeton Theological).

•  Brooks 507; Giani 44 (pp. 47–48).   Binding as above, rubbing to extremities and to spine/joints; somewhat noticeable scrape to length of front board and bump to bottom edge, very small spot of discoloration to top edge of front board, small scrape to rear board and rubbing to fore-edge. Without the initial and final blanks (i.e., two blank leaves total). Provenance marks as above; occasional light foxing to leaves, interior otherwise in very nice condition.  (40159)

This is Baskerville's second printing of Lucretius and the first in twelvemo format: The 1772 first printing had been a quarto. The text is printed using his Bourgeois font and the Greek seems to be Caslon's Long Primer. Gaskell tells us that following Baskerville's death, 980 copies were remaindered in 1775.

Provenance:  Bequest to Yale University of Norman Holmes Pearson, properly deaccessioned.

Binding:  18th-century red morocco with a gilt roll forming a border on the perimeter of the boards; round spine divided into compartments using a roll featuring chain links, with author's name gilt in one compartment and the five others each with the center device of a lyre, Greek key roll in gilt at base of spine. Board edges tooled in gilt with a rope design; turn-ins tooled using two rolls, one of which is dentelles. Green stone-pattern endpapers and all edges gilt.

•  Gordon 20A; Gaskell 50; ESTC T50366.   Binding as above. Front joint (outside) cracked, abraded, and with loss of most leather; scuffing to both joints and to spine ends. Library bookplate on front pastedown, discreet deaccession stamp on verso of title-page. A “decent” copy of a good press book.  (39839)

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)

Binding:  Full green calf, covers elaborately blind-embossed using the same plaque for both covers. Round spine with gilt ruling, gilt title, and gilt center devices in compartments; all edges marbled.

•  Palau 156283.   Binding as above, a little rubbed, some loss of gilt; front free endpaper with a patch of abrasion. Signature on verso of title-page. The usual scattered foxing.  (28726)

Binding:  Contemporary red morocco, spine gilt extra with green leather gilt label and elegant tooling to top and bottom, bands, and compartments; covers with similarly elegant, well-composed gilt borders and with board edges and turn-ins gilt in complementary fashion. All edges gilt, silk bookmarker present.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Brian Stilwell.

•  Brunet, Supplement, 981; Graesse, IV, 439.   Bound as above in excellent condition with only the lightest shelfwear and a very short tear (not advancing) at head of spine; wide-margined leaves very clean with only the lightest sort of normal foxing. A treasurable copy.  (40323)

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. An advanced Spanish collector has observed to us that “the tool that decorates the covers is very similar to the one used by another great Spanish bookbinder, Pedro Pastor” — but, neither he nor we can confirm an actual connection between them!

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)

Binding:  Contemporary black or very dark navy morocco, covers framed and panelled in gilt triple fillets with floral and fan-shaped corner decorations, surrounding a (blank) cartouche; spine with gilt-stamped title and arabesque decorations, board edges with gilt roll, gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  Binding as above with a few small scuffs, back cover with areas of faint discoloration and light scrapes. Pages clean. Very giftable.  (29151)

A full list with pagination and illustration information as well as ESTC and Gaskell numbers is available on request.

•  All volumes uniformly bound in 18th-century polished calf, spines with raised bands, gilt ruling, and gilt lettering on leather labels;  a beautiful “long shelf of short books” with spines slightly faded, slightest rubbing, occasional instances of a bit of leather lost to old worm along a joint or an abrasion to a spine or cover; all edges speckled red. Offsetting from turn-ins onto endpapers, pencil annotations in one volume, touch of ink at foremargin of three leaves of another; signatures trimmed closely on third volume of Virgil, first volume of Milton's Paradise Lost “bookmarked” with two paper scraps bearing manuscript annotations, skeleton frontispiece of Young's “Night Thoughts” with an inch-long internal, closed tear to background with no loss, and the maps to Pope's Iliad and Dryden's Virgil in excellent condition. A handsomely bound, sturdy, and appealing representative collection of the Foulis Press.  (35997)

Binding: Contemporary treed calf; spines with gilt-stamped decorative bands and compartment devices, and with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels. Edges gilt-rolled. All page edges stained yellow.

•  Bindings a little rubbed over joints and extremities, with a few instances of pinhole-type worming to back cover of vol. I; upper and outer edges dust-soiled. Some instances of light foxing. An attractive set.  (11404)

Binding:  Contemporary Venetian red goat, boards nicely and somewhat richly tooled in gilt with rolls, fillets, and sizable corner devices, board edges with a simple gilt roll, and each spine compartment with a gilt center device and defined by gilt fillets and a gilt roll. Stone pattern–marbled endpapers. All edges gilt and gauffered.

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

•  Brunet, I, 60.   Binding as above; a dozen small pin-type wormholes in spine not extending into text, sides with small spots of discoloration. Lower board edges a little scuffed. Lacks the free endpapers. Foxing, sometimes heavy, in text; still, a desirable copy.  (38967)

“Nicholls died on the continent in want and, probably, depression, most likely in 1584. He has been condemned by biographers for his want of constancy in what are assumed to be genuine, if bewildering, changes of faith and profession. Yet it may have been the case that there was a kind of cynical consistency in his animal sense of self-preservation, one actively encouraged by the systems of religious repression and polarization under which he managed for a while to operate with some success” (ODNB). He was clearly one of the most troubled figures in the history of Recusancy.

This copy of his Declaration has setting 2 of the title-page, setting 1 of leaf N1r, and setting 1 of L1r (see ESTC). The title-page has a handsome, elaborate woodcut frame/border in a typical “Barker” style; the prefatory “epistola” is printed in italics, the preface in roman, and the text in gothic (i.e., black letter).

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and ESTC locate only seven U.S. libraries reporting ownership of this, not one a Catholic institution.

Binding:  Signed binding by Bedford. Full sprinkled calf, round spine, raised bands, gilt spine extra. Gilt triple-rule border on both boards; gilt double-rule on board edges; gilt turn-ins including a gilt dentelle rule and a gilt floral vine roll. Red French swirl marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 18533; ESTC S113205; Franks 6551. Apparently beyond the scope of Allison & Rogers (rev. ed.).   Excellent 19th-century binding as above, lightly rubbed along the joints (outside). Very good.  (37208)

Although the Sylva’s title-pages call for “121 fine plates,” there are actually 131 here. The three volumes are illustrated with an abundance of lithographic plates of delicately rendered images of leaves, branches, and fruits, done by the famed Pierre Joseph Redouté, Bessa, G. West, J.T. French, J.B. Butler, E.D. Long, and others, with highly skilled hand-coloring supervised by T.R. Jones. Tragically, the original lithographic stones that were prepared to accompany the text by Sinclair of Philadelphia were lost to a devastating fire. After that 1856 fire, editions of Nuttall bear illustrations different from those found here and in the other pre-fire editions.

As per their title-pages, these exquisite volumes were a three-volume supplement to Andrew Michaux’s work on the same topic and were issued with the three volumes of his work. But they also stand alone on their own for they contain the sylva “not described in the work of F. Andrw Michaux.” For example, they contain “all the forest trees discovered in the Rocky Mountains, the territory of Oregon, down to the shores of the Pacific, and into the confines of California, as well as in various parts of the United States.”

All three volumes are written in the first person and offer, beyond their botanical data, engaging vignettes and vistas of myriad American localities; further, by way of both professional and personal notes of thanks for specimens and observations, they document a grand network of corresponding scientists active in exploring and mapping the continent. We hear of a giant buttonwood measured “twenty years ago” by General Washington, and are told that fine chestnut furniture may be found at “Mr. Crout's cabinet warehouse in Sixth Street,” in Philadelphia . . .

Bindings: Publisher's deep green striped ribbed cloth; predominantly seen in the 1840s, never common, andparticularly unusual for volumes of this size. Front covers each with gilt-stamped morning glory vignette surrounded by a simple blind-stamped border and back covers with same entirely in blind. Spines each with gilt-stamped title, author, and volume number.

•  Sabin 56351; Reese, Stamped with a National Character, 21 (for 1850–51 ed.); Allibone 1445. On striped bindings, see: Krupp, Making a Case for Cloth, p. [11].   Bindings as above, corners with minor rubbing, vol. II with spine head pulled. The plates are slightly age-toned but otherwise in beautiful condition, save for one plate in vol. I with a small area of paper adhesion. Vol. II with intermittent mild foxing. A striking set of this classic of science, art, and American place-lore. (25305)