
EGYPT
[
]
When Undergrads Could Understand & Translate Demotic
When It Could Seem Sensible to Them to Produce a WHOLE BOOK by Lithography
. . . *&* with CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY Plentifully Present . . .
(A REMARKABLE EXERCISE). University of Pennsylvania. Philomathean Society (Henry Morton, Charles R. Hale, Samuel Huntington Jones). Report of the committee appointed by the Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania to translate the inscription on the Rosetta Stone. [Philadelphia: The Philomathean Society], copyright 1859. Small 4to (23 cm; 9"). 152 pp., [4] ff., 6 plates. [also bound in] Catalogue of members of the Philomathean Society ... Philadelphia: Ringwalt & Co, 1859. Small 4to. 24 pp.; and tipped-in lithographed copyright notice.
$1100.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Probably the most famous
American all-lithographed book of the 19th century, with
chromolithographic illustrations and embellishments that lavishly enhance the whole. In his already classic study of 19th-century American color plate books, Stamped with a National Character, William Reese writes of this work: “The first full translation of the Rosetta Stone, undertaken by three members of the University of Pennsylvania . . . [student body], provided the basis for a notable display of chromolithographic book illustration by the Philadelphia lithographer, Louis Rosenthal. The entire book was lithographed, presumably to better accommodate the hieroglyphs, but Rosenthal went far beyond necessity. He created hundreds of crude but exuberant chromolithographs intermingled with the text, showing scenes from Egyptian life or elaborate borders in quasi-Egyptian motifs. It is one of the few American books printed entirely by lithography” (p. 99).
The genesis of the work was the arrival at the Philomatheans' building of a donated cast of the Rosetta Stone. Three Philomatheans — Henry Morton, Charles R. Hale, and Samuel Huntington Jones — worked out a plan to translate the stone and produce the book here offered. Hale undertook to transcribe and translated the Greek and Demotic texts, Jones produced the historical introduction, and Morton supplied the hieroglyphic inscriptions, drawings, and other illustrations. The first edition of the finished work appeared just before Christmas, 1858, in an edition of 400 copies and sold out immediately.
In late January 1859, the Society wished to print a second edition of 600 copies; but because no lithographic establishment could afford not to reuse lithographic stones, all stones save those for the last 20 or so pages of their work had been ground down. Thus in the second edition, i.e., the edition offered here, the artistic embellishments are “largely a new work,” in the words of Randolph G. Adams (“The Rosetta Stone,” in Bibliographical Essays, A Tribute to Wilberforce Eames, p. 234).
In some very few copies of this second edition, p. 6 bears the signatures of the three Philomatheans who produced the book. This is, unfortunately, not one of those few, hence the lower price. But this copy does have the oft-missing copyright notice at the rear.
Reese, Stamped with a National Character, 91; Bennett, American Color Plate Books, p. 93. On the story of the production of the book and for a chart showing which pages of the second edition are restrikes from the first, see: Randolph G. Adams, “The Rosetta Stone,” in Bibliographical Essays, A Tribute to Wilberforce Eames, pp. 227–40. Publisher's dark green cloth, covers stamped in blind with a gilt center device of a sphynx; spine also stamped in blind but with two gilt-stamped vertical lozenges and the title in gilt. About six small areas of loss of cloth on spine or board, some probably silverfish damage. Bookseller's description of a different copy pasted to rear pastedown. A good++ copy well worth having. (35384)

Grammars & Language Studies
Alting, Jacob. Jacobi Altingi ... Fundamenta punctationis linguae sanctae, cum necessariis canonum, locorum S. Scripturae & vocum irregularium indicibus. Francofurti ad Moenum: Sumptibus viduae beati Knochii et J.G. Eslingeri, 1746. 8vo (18 cm; 7.25"). 3 parts in 1 vol. I: [8] ff., 385, [1] pp., [3] ff., [1], 7 pp. [30], [24] ff. II: [2] ff., 122 pp. III: [8] ff., 31, [1], 32, 88, 57–176 pp.
$325.00
Click the images for enlargements.
A marvelous volume containing studies or grammars of Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Ethopic, and Samaritan languages: “Editio nona. Simili Institutionum Samaritanarum, Rabbinicarum, Arabicarum, Aethiopicarum et Persicarum synopsi, a Georgio Othone ... auctior.” The two authors, Atling (1618–1679) and Georg Otho (1634–1713), were respectively a Dutch philologist, theologian, and professor at the University of Groningen; and a German librarian and professor of oriental languages.
The volume has divisional title-pages for “Jacobi Altingi Synopsis institutionum Chaldaearum et Syrarcum” dated 1747; and “Georgii Othonis ... Synopsis institutionum Samaritanarum, Rabbinicarum, Arabicarum, Aethiopicarum et Persicarum,” dated 1735.
This edition not in VD18. Modern light brown paper-covered boards with paper spine label. Ex-library with faint blind-pressure stamp on title- and one other leaf and librarian's pencil notations on verso of title-page. Scattered foxing, occasional stray stain. Overall a good, solid, clean copy. (33597)

An American Unitarian in India & Beyond — Very Early Account of Travelling the Suez Canal
Dall, Charles Henry Appleton. From Calcutta to London by the Suez Canal. Calcutta: The “Englishman” Press, 1869. 12mo (16.2 cm, 6.35"). [6], 272, xxii pp.
$1000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The Maryland-born, Harvard-educated Rev. Dall, who established several schools in Calcutta as part of his work with Hindu reformers, was for 30 years the sole Unitarian missionary to India. This volume focuses primarily on his travels rather than his religious and educational work: it collects the letters he wrote as “Roving Correspondent” to the Englishman. These observant, engagingly written accounts were “fresh from the localities indicated” (p. [v]) — including the Suez Canal, which Dall explored from end to end in 1868 and again in 1869, making this a very early account of that modern marvel, for the canal officially opened on November 17, 1869.
The letters cover politics, culture, commerce, and tips on travelling in “far” places.
This is the uncommon first edition; WorldCat and NSTC locate
only five hard copies in U.S. institutions.
NSTC 2D970. Publisher's gray-blue paper wrappers; front wrapper with tiny hole, spine creased with one chip, edges and corners rubbed. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean.
A solid, clean copy of a scarce item. (36558)

Plenty of Stories in
Plenty of Places
Frewen, Moreton. Melton Mowbray and other memories. London: Herbert Jenkins Limited, 1924. 8vo (21.6 cm; 8.5"). viii, [4], 311 pp., [16] plts.
$240.00
Click the images for enlargements.
A very opinionated autobiography recounting Frewen's numerous adventures throughout England, the United States, Egypt, the Balkans, and India, from his childhood as part of the English gentry to tales of bison used as snow plows in the Wyoming Territory.
Howes notes ten chapters are dedicated to Frewen's “disastrous cattle enterprise on Powder river.”While suffering from financial difficulties throughout his life, Frewen continually worked with influential people, many of whom are here discussed in detail, including his wife Clara Jerome, aunt of Winston Churchill.
One way and another there is plenty of huntin', shootin', and fishin'; and there are plenty of politics.
Provenance: A tantalizing “Wealdside 1924” in ink on the front pastedown. The Weald is of course of huge extent, and there are therefore potentially a number of possible “Wealdsides”; but it is notable that the Frewen family dates back to Elizabethan times in East Sussex — and, perhaps, that Moreton Frewen died in 1924.
Howes F380; Graff 1442. Light green publisher's cloth, cover ruled and lettered in black, spine and back also stamped in black; gently rubbed and text slightly cocked, with a thumbnail-sized pink stain along the edge of the back cover and speckling the bottom edge. Light age-toning with offsetting to fly-leaves; inscription as noted.
A good read in a good solid copy. (37037)

A QUITE
Luxurious & Useful Production
Jacquemart, Albert. Histoire de la céramique. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1873. 4to (26.5 cm, 10.43"). [2] ff., 750, [2] pp. 12 pls.
$425.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Canvassing
ancient
Egypt to the Italian Renaissance and modern times, this
monograph on ceramic art distinguishes classes and styles of pottery, is illustrated
with
200
wood-engraved figures by Hercule Catenacci and Jules Jacquemart,
bears
12
full-page engraved plates by the latter, and tells how to identify
many works' makers, cataloguing
1,000
marks and monograms. Each full-page plate is protected by a guard
sheet with a brief letterpress description.
Jules Jacquemart (1837–80) was but in his mid-twenties when he began drawing from the renowned art collection of his father, Albert, an art historian. The Jacquemarts' first book on the subject was the Histoire de la porcelaine, followed shortly by this, its companion, in 1873, when Jules was “at work again on his own best work of etching.” He also made the etchings for Techener's Histoire de la bibliophilie (1860–64) and, in 1864, received an important commission from the French crown for Gemmes et joyaux de la couronne (1865).
The monograph's original
color-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)

Grynaeus's Edition Three Maps
Justinus, Marcus Junianus; & Pompeius Trogus. Justini ex Trogo Pompeio historia diligentissime nunc quidem supra omnes omnium hactenus aeditiones recognita, et ab innumeris mendis - vetusti exemplaris beneficio purgata. Huic accessit commentariolus. Basilae: apud Michaelem Isingrinium, 1539. Small 4to. [16] ff., 319, [1 (blank)] pp.
$2875.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Justinus (3rd century A.D.) is known solely by his Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, which he describes in his preface as a collection of the most important and interesting passages from the voluminous, but now lost, Historiae pillippicae et totius mundi origines et terrae situs, that Pompeius Trogus wrote during the era of Augustus.
This very nice Renaissance edition was edited and has a preface by Simon Grynaeus. In addition to the text, there are an extensive index, four full-page woodcut maps of parts of the ancient world, and Grynaeus's extensive commentary. The main text is printed in roman with a good scattering of woodcut historiated initials and is accompanied on the same page by Grynaeus commentary and notes in a smaller italic. His preface is printed in a larger italic face.
Evidence of Readership: This copy has interesting, early, but now somewhat faded marginalia in a red or sepia ink. The marginalia is scattered and is at times heavy, other times light; in some sections, it is non-existent.
VD16 T2056. Full rich brown calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt rule; author and title lettered on cream-colored spine label; fillets in blind extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils with blind double fillets beyond. Small rent in upper inner area of title-page with a very old and good repair on verso. Library name stamped on lower edge of closed book. (24808)
Lenormant, François. Les premières civilisations études d’histoire et d’archéologie. Paris: Maisonneuve & Cie., 1874. 8vo (22.5 cm, 8.85"). 2 vols. I: viii, 401, [11] pp. II: [4], 437, [3] pp.
$175.00
Sole edition: Collection of essays on prehistoric archeology, focusing in the first volume on Egypt and in the second on Chaldea, Assyria, and Phoenicia. The author was raised virtually from birth to follow in the footsteps of his archeologist father, Charles Lenormant; among his contributions to classical scholarship was his identification of the language now known as Akkadian.
Contemporary quarter black morocco with paper-covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped title and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; bindings clean and solid with only very minimal edge and corner wear. Front pastedowns and free endpapers each with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings). Pages slightly age-toned; a few leaves unopened.
Handsome. (19294)
Ancient Dress. 51 Copper-Engraved Plates.
Lens, André Corneille. Le costume ou essai sur les habillements et les usages de plusieurs peuples de l’antiquité, prouvé par les monuments. Liege: Aux dépens de l’auteur, chez J.F. Bassompierre, 1776. 4to (24.9 cm, 9.8"). xxxi, [1], 411, [1] pp.; 51 plts
$1750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition: Treatise on ancient dress among the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Jews, and Romans, among other peoples. The author, a Flemish artist also known as Andries Cornelis Lens, came to the study of antiquarian clothing by way of his classically inspired focus in painting. Illustrated with 51 copper-engraved plates done by Pitre Martenasie, this is an “Ouvrage estimé” according to Brunet (who seemingly mistakenly cites 57 engravings as opposed to the 51 given by von Lipperheide, described in institutional holdings, and present here).
Brunet, III, 980; Von Lipperheide, Katalog der Freiherrlich von Lipperheide’schen Kostumbibliothek, 105. Contemporary calf, rebacked in complementary style, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; original leather acid-pitted and cracked over edges and extremities. Front pastedown with small bookseller’s ticket from Albany, NY; free endpapers with a few stray pencilled notations. Dedication page with institutional rubber-stamp in lower margin. (19415)
Lucanus,
Marcus Annaeus [Lucan]. Lvcans Pharsalia: Or the civill warres
of Rome, betweene Pompey the great, and Ivlivs Cæsar. The whole tenne bookes,
Englished by Thomas May...the second edition, corrected, and the annotations inlarged
by the author. London: Thomas Iones (pr. by Aug. Mathews), 1631. 8vo (14.5 cm,
5.75"). π1a8A–S8T2; engr.
frontis., [146] ff. [with]
May, Thomas. A continvation of the subiect
of Lucan’s historicall poem till the death of Ivlivs Cæser the 2d
edition corrected and amended. London: James Boler, 1633. 8vo. A–K8(-K8);
[79 of 80] ff.
$2000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Second edition of May’s esteemed English verse translation, following Thomas Jones’s first printing of 1627. Lucan (A.D. 39–65), born in Cordoba, Spain, and raised in Rome, was the grandson of the elder Seneca, nephew of the younger Seneca, and the brother of the Gallio mentioned in Acts 18; he published the Pharsalia in A.D. 62 or 63, but it seems likely that his poetic talent aroused the jealously of the vain Nero, as he forbade him to write or even plead in the courts, and then later compelled him to commit suicide for alleged treason.
The editio princeps of the Pharsalia was printed in Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1469; Christopher Marlowe published the first English translation of any part of the Pharsalia, his rendition of the first book, in 1600, with a 1614 effort by Sir Arthur Gorges being the only other such to precede May’s standard-setting 1626 English version of books one through three.
In the present volume, this great epic poem in May’s translation is accompanied by its translator’s English rendition of his own sequel, originally written in Latin verse. This Continuation advances the action through Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar (May depicts the Egyptian queen with “snowie necke” and “golden tresses”), the death of Cato, and various additional battles before arriving at Caesar’s death. At the time, May’s work was thought highly enough of that Charles I allowed the Continuation’s dedication to bear his name.
Pharsalia: STC 16888; Schweiger, II, 567; ESTC S108868. Continuation: STC 17712; ESTC S108892. 20th-century black morocco in imitation of early, severe style, with raised bands from which blind-tooling extends onto covers; spine with gilt-stamped title and date, and turn-ins elaborately tooled in blind. Moderately worn, spine faded not unattractively, and leather rubbed over joints. Front pastedown with bookplate, inked date of 1986; front free endpaper with inked gift inscription dated 1944. T1-2 trimmed differently and possibly surviving from another copy; A3 of the continuation also possibly supplied. Occasional instances of very minor staining; mostly clean.
Pleasant on shelf and in hand. (7101)

A Good BAV Title — Macclesfield Provenance
Mela, Pomponius. Pomponii Melae De orbis situ libri tres, accuratissime eme[n]dati. Lutetiae Parisiorum: [Chrétien Wechel], 1530. Folio (34 cm; 13.25"). [14] ff., 196 p., [1] f., [28] ff. (without the fold. map, if one was actually issued with it).
$1450.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Mela's work De orbis situ libri tres (a.k.a., De chorographia) is, of course, a standard and famous work of ancient geography and, dating from the first century A.D., is the oldest surviving geographical text written in Latin. It enjoyed readership for centuries in manuscript and was first printed in 1471 with eight subsequent incunable editions, while in the 16th century to 1530 there was virtually a new edition every other year: Clearly, it was
a book of interest and importance for the Renaissance.
It is a short work; the Petit printing of it in 1513, for example, occupies only 60 pages. In this edition, however, Mela's text (printed in roman) is surrounded by
extensive commentary in italic by Joachim Vadianus (1484–1551), thus extending the whole to 196 pages. The volume ends with an appendix, “Loca aliquot ex Vadiani commentarijs summatim repetita, & obiter explicata,” consisting of Vadian's study of Mela's work and attempting to address inconsistencies and problems in it.
Printer Wechel has arrayed the commentary around the text here with
notable attractiveness, he has supplied quite a number and variety of attractive initials, and both his main title-page and the sectional one for the “Loca aliquot” are dramatically presented with the same
elaborate multipart woodcut title border.
Although Mela's work is solely concerned with the world as known by Greeks and Romans, one should remember that their world did encompass portions of Africa and a knowledge of India. Additionally the appendix, originally written in 1521 and first appearing in the 1522 Basel printing of Mela, has a coda consisting of a 1515 letter of Vadian’s to Rudolph Agricola, the younger, that briefly discusses
Vespucci (X5v) and the New World (Y1r) when discussing the Spanish empire.
This is the third edition of Vadian's Mela, taken from the second edition (1522), but only the second with Vadian's appendix. Graesse comments, “Second éd. . . . fort changée et corrigée sur des mss.”
Whether all copies of the work were issued with a map has been long discussed and is without resolution: What we do know is that some have a map, most do not.
Provenance: Macclesfield copy with the bookplate and handsome pressure-stamps.
Evidence of readership: Scattered minor (usually one or two words) marginalia.
Harrisse, BAV, 157; Renouard, Paris, 2210; Alden & Landis 530/30; Sabin 63958 (not calling for a map); Graesse, V, 401 (not calling for a map). 18th-century quarter vellum with blue-green paper–covered sides, author's name in old ink to spine. Title-page lightly soiled, light discoloration or inkstains in some margins, light occasional foxing; pinhole-type worming in text of some pages with no loss of text, and a corner of last leaf torn away without loss of text; on pp. 170–96, a light waterstain across upper gutter not touching text and another across upper outer corners impinging on it. As usual, without the map found in only a few copies. Macclesfield pressure-stamps and marginalia as above.
A good, sound, and soundly pleasing old folio. (34114)

“Improved Taste of Modern Time Must
Question the Crudities of Former Days”
Rocco, Sha [pseud. of Abisha Shumway Hudson]. The masculine cross and ancient sex worship. New York: Asa K. Butts & Co., 1874. 8vo (19 cm, 7.75"). 65, [7 (adv.)] pp.; illus.
$200.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition: A study of cruciform sexual symbolism in ancient religions, touching on Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, and other mythological connections to the shape of the cross. The volume is illustrated with in-text engravings of statues, relics, and other items, including the final chapter (“The Phallus in California,” about the results of the author's antiquity-hunting expedition in Stanlislaus County, CA), which features a representation of what the author says is misidentified as an “Indian pestle.”
Hudson was a Massachusetts-born physician and one of the founders of the Keokuk Medical College; his publisher here was the notable freethinker and
contraception advocate Asa K. Butts, who has supplied several pages of advertisements for some of his other publications.
Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and fish vignette with blind-stamped decorative borders; spine slightly darkened, small spots of light discoloration, extremities rubbed. Sewing just barely starting to loosen but holding; pages clean.
A more than decent copy of this interesting and, shall we say, “highly personal” work. (35139)
“A Voyage to Abyssinia” — A GOOD, Lively, & Readable Account
Salt, Henry. A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels into the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British government, in the years 1809 and 1810; in which are included, an account of the Portuguese settlements on the east coast of Africa .... Philadelphia: M. Carey; Boston: Wells & Lilly (pr. by Lydia R. Bailey), 1816. 8vo (23.5 cm, 9.25"). 24, 454 pp.; fold. map., illus.
$1250.00
First U.S. edition and printed by Lydia Bailey, following the London first of 1814. Salt, a British traveller and
Egyptologist, first visited Ethiopia in 1805, and returned in 1809 on a diplomatic mission intended to promote ties between the British government and the Emperor of Abyssinia. The Voyage gives Salt’s observations of Ethiopian customs, manners, dress, cuisine, and music, along with the factual details of his diplomatic achievements — or lack thereof, in terms of concrete agreements — followed by an appendix comparing vocabulary words from various languages spoken along “the Coast of Africa, from Mosambique to the borders of Egypt, with a few others spoken in the Interior of that Continent” (p. 395).
This is an untrimmed copy in original boards, with
24 pages of advertising for Carey publications bound in at the front of the volume. The preliminary map, engraved by John Bower, has hand-colored border lines; this American edition does not call for the plates found in the English first, but does include in-text depictions of several “Ethiopic inscriptions.”
Shaw & Shoemaker 33864; NSTC 2S3118. Publisher’s quarter tan paper over light blue paper–covered sides; front cover detached and back joint cracked, binding spotted, paper cracked and split along spine, spine label now absent and replaced with hand-inked title, spine with later paper shelving label. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1829. Half-title with portion of outer margin torn away (not touching text) and laid in. Map lightly foxed, with two short tears along folds. Pages age-toned, with occasional spots of foxing. (19413)

Everything Victorians Knew about Ancient Egypt, COMPILED — Illustrated in Color
Wilkinson, John Gardner; Samuel Birch, ed. The manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians. London: John Murray (pr. by William Clowes & Sons), 1878. 8vo (23 cm, 9"). 3 vols. I: xxx, 510 pp.; 12 plts. (of which 5 col. & 6 fold.), illus. II: xii, 515, [1] pp.; 5 plts. (of which 2 col. & 2 fold.), illus. III: xi, [1], 528 pp.; 12 plts. (of which 2 col. fold. & 10 fold.; full-page illus. incl. in pagination), illus.
$400.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition of this revised and corrected version of
the work that helped launch Egyptomania among the 19th-century English masses. A dedicated traveller and independent scholar, Wilkinson (1797–1875) was at the forefront of British Egyptology — as was editor Birch (1813–1885), keeper of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum — and this massive, detail-packed study of ancient Egyptian history and culture, first printed in 1837, brought him both general fame and a knighthood.
This three-volume set is
extensively illustrated with hundreds of in-text wood engravings as well as the 72 remarkable plates, many based on Wilkinson's own drawings. (Please note that this total follows the publisher's practice, which includes in the count of plates a number of the third volume's full-page illustrations with printed text on the reverse.)
Nine of the plates are printed in color, and 19 are oversized folding images.
Contemporary speckled calf rebacked some time ago with original spines laid on, covers framed in gilt roll; spines gilt extra with acanthus motifs and with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; marbled endpapers and all page edges marbled. Joints rubbed (edges less so) with joints also dry; spine leather of all volumes dry and variously rubbed/chipped; vol. I with volume label chipped and back joint starting from head — priced according to faults yet with all volumes “holding” and more attractive than some of this detail would suggest. Interior very bright and remarkably unfoxed, with a very few scattered spots only; clean and crisp.
Desirable, as an example of this important work. (41532)
Click here
for a database including 
not in PRB&M's
illustrated catalogues . . .
keyword,
e.g. = EGYPT . . .

Or, GO TO
OUR NEWEST ARRIVALS!
All material © 2021
The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company, LLC
 |
PRB&M/SessaBks |
 |
PLACE AN ORDER | E-MAIL US | GO (BACK) TO TOPIC/INTEREST TABLE