Cabanès (1862–1928) was a medical doctor, historian, and successful writer of a goodly number of works of fiction and history, with a subspecialty of historical medical mysteries. Carrington was a leading British publisher (“abroad”) of late-Victorian and Edwardian pornography/erotica for “bibliophiles,” much of it flagellatory; there have been significant essays on him and his works, butWikipedia provides one irresistible sentence: “Carrington went blind as a result of syphilis and the last few years of his life were spent in poverty as his mistress stole his valuable collection of rare books.”

The chapters in this publication are: A youthful indiscretion of Louis XIV, The fistula of a great king, The maladies of Louis XV, The semi-impotency of Louis XVI, The first pregnancy of Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI in private life, One of the judges of Marie-Antoinette: the surgeon Souberbielle, What was Marat's disease, Talleyrand and the doctors, The accouchement of the empress Marie-Louise, The ancestors of Marshal Mac-Mahon, and Gambetta's eye.

Nicely printed, with title-page in black and red and text block issued untrimmed, this is a copy of the trade edition: There was a deluxe issue on Japan vellum limited to 30 copies.

Provenance:  “Virginia Pritchard Hilton-Green, my father's book.”

•  Publisher's blue cloth stamped in blind. Minor rubbing; small tear at base of front joint (outside). Inside clean.  (35372)

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine pictorially stamped in red and gilt, signed as above.

•  Bound as above; corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing, front cover with unobtrusive small, faint area of discoloration. Front free endpaper with inked inscription of Walter White, dated 1905. Pages clean; last few leaves opened somewhat roughly, with short edge tears. A handsome book and a tear-jerker of a story. (41337)

•  Publisher's red cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, in original dust jacket; jacket lightly dust-soiled, price-clipped. A beautiful clean copy of a beautifully done book.  (24833)

AT ONCE a great basic resource and a rewarding volume for browsing or bibliophilic pleasure-reading, this classic work by John Carter contains over 490 alphabetical entries offering definitions and analysis of technical terms as well as the jargon of book collecting and bibliography — with ampleexamples now including illustrations and much enhanced coverage of the implications of the internet.  Carter's ABC, first printed in 1952, was last revised, expanded, and given a new introduction by Nicolas Barker, his friend and the respected editor of The Book Collector, in 2004.  This new, 9th edition co-revised by Barker and Simran Thadani is a book that no purchasing collector or cataloguer should think of as a frivolous expense, and a book that as a gift to a collector or cataloguer cannot fail to please.

• Complete with printed dust-jacket; new. (39930)

•  Fine copy in a very good dust jacket, jacket with minor chipping to lower area of spine, one long split at spine repaired on verso, and lower corner of ifront flap cut off; volume very clean and nice, top edge gilt. In a green cloth chemise with red leather author, title, and date labels on the spine, in an open-back slipcase.  (33426)

The colophon says only that “a few copies of this book” were printed; the back pastedown here bears a very small inked numeral 44, which may indicate this copy's number.

•  Publisher's red cloth, without the original glassine dust wrapper and with darkening around the bottom and fore-edge of front cover; page edges and endpapers also affected (especially the back one). Not pristine but nice.  (17863)

Provenance:  An armorial bookplate of Samuel Edward Herrick with the motto “virtus omnia nobilitat” appears on the front pastedown of both volumes with the inked note “Gift of Jno. M. Fiske Xmas 1892" at the bottom (Fiske and the Rev. Herrick were both members of the City Missionary Society of Boston); a one-page letter from Fiske to a Mr. Doer written on Boston Custom House Stationary and tipped into the first volume notes, if he already owns the set, “I have the assurance of friend Bartlett of Hornhill that he will exchange it for something not already on your shelves.” Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  NSTC 2C12319. On Cavendish & Singer, see: DNB (online).   Half red roan in imitation of morocco and Papier Tourniquet paper–covered boards, spines lettered and compartments stamped in gilt, overprinted marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, others uncut; gently rubbed, hinges (inside) starting to crack. Light age-toning with the very occasional stain, light foxing or offsetting around plates. Provenance and readership indicia as above, some pencilled notes very faint. A nice edition of an influential work.  (39444)

This copy is undated and has no illustrations on p. [2] and [3] of the wrappers, unlike other the copies dated 1840 cataloged in WorldCat. Page [4] of the wrappers has this advertisement: “Babcock's moral, instructive, and entertaining toy books.”advertisement, p, [4] of wrapper.

•  Publisher's printed yellow paper wrappers (other copies known in green and blue); sewn with straight pin still present behind threads, gently worn and separating at spine. Two markings from a rusted paperclip on front wrapper and title-page, light bookseller pencilling on back wrapper; light age-toning.  (36536)

•  Publisher's half-tone color-printed paper wrappers as above, with a river scene glowing in the “eye” of one of the pansies; spine rubbed, one tiny spot of staining or fading near front upper edge. Pages gently age-toned. A patent medicine give-away not, originally, meant to be much less ephemeral than the little flower it celebrates.  (36568)

Sole edition.

Binding:  Publisher's white linen with blue leaf and flower vine pattern; paper title-label on front board.

WorldCat locates only eight libraries worldwide reporting ownership (Universities of Delaware, Iowa, Missouri, and North Carolina; Vanderbilt, Indiana, and Texas Tech Universities; and Swarthmore College).

•  Bound as above, very elegantly; volume clean, virtuallypristine.  (40439)

The first volume is illustrated with12 plates each offering four rows of small portraits, some intriguingly expressive; each volume opens with an engraved frontispiece portrait of a royal George.

•  NSTC 2C23867.   Recent textured maroon cloth, spines with gilt-stamped black leather title and volume labels; title-pages institutionally pressure- (not rubber-) stamped. Scattered light spots of staining, pages generally clean; first few leaves of voI. \ II with outer margins chipped. A hefty, substantive evocation of Georgian life and times.  (30012)

•  Very good image.  (33873)

•  Nearly New. Bound in brown paper boards, printed in black. In a protective box that is lightly chipped and with a spot or two of fading/discoloration; book in fine condition.  (35756)

This inexpensively printed pamphlet has two pages of text reversed, with a large portion of “The Exciseman Outwitted” incongruously replacing the second verse of “The Daughter of Israel”: “I weep, land of Judah, for thee. [/] Your hogs to a fine market you've brought . . .”

This ephemeral songster is seldom seen outside of the U.K. WorldCat findsno U.S. institutional holdings of any imprint.

•  NSTC 2C37950.   Removed from a nonce volume; title-page all but separated. First leaf with outer margin creased. Pages slightly age-toned. An interesting and uncommonly encountered item, incidentally presentinga fine example of “things that can go wrong in the printshop.”  (37242)

First printing. The diary has been reduced in length by about one-third for publication and edited by Colin Franklin. It covers a low point in Craig's life, but is detailed and tells of his friends Beerbohm, Isadora Duncan, Lovat Fraser, and others; the more offensive anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi comments were omitted.

“Three hundred fifty copies of this book have been printed at the Bird & Bull Press in March 1982. The text is composed in Baskerville types by Mackenzie-Harris Corp., printed on mouldmade Bugrabutten paper and bound by Gray Parrot. This is copy No. 149.”

FYI: Original publication price was $160. And it's still a lovely book.

•  Heaney, Thirty years of Bird & Bull, A34.   Publisher's quarter tan goat with tan and white paper sides. Clean and fresh.  (36133)

•  Forster 32; Toy 156.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers stamped in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities slightly rubbed, spine with small spots of discoloration. Pages faintly age-toned, otherwise clean; a nice copy.  (33301)

Binding:  Publisher's terra-cotta cloth, front cover stamped with gilt rose and ribbon design, spine with similar motifs; front coversigned “G.W.E.” — George Wharton Edwards.

•  BAL 4200.   Binding as above, gently faded overall, slightly cocked, edges and extremities rubbed. Top edge gilt. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription. A few scattered faint spots, pages overall clean.  (35835)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover and spine stamped in dark blue, in original color-printed dust jacket; volume extremities very slightly rubbed, back cover with small scuff, jacket gently sunned with a few short edge tears and inside spine foot reinforced some time ago. Front free endpaper with “Elizabeth” in pencil. Pages faintly age-toned, otherwise clean and fresh. A nice copy. (37510)

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

•  Publisher's quarter very light grey linen and printed paper–covered sides; small faint spot of staining at lower edge of front cover, otherwise clean and unworn. Pages age-toned (not unattractively or indeed inappropriately!). A thoroughly delightful production in a very nice copy.  (41201)

Signed Binding: Publisher's teal pebbled cloth, front covers with striking chariot and armorial scene in light blue, tan, and gilt. The “Cibeles” statue found in Madrid's Cibeles Plaza and the coat of arms (and gilt monogram) of the city of Madrid appear with de la Cruz's name stamped in gilt below; spines offer gilt-stamped title and black-stamped griffin decoration. Cover of vol. II is signed “J. Orba.” All page edges are stamped in a Greek key pattern in blue and gilt.

Provenance:  Half-titles each with old-fashioned rubber-stamp of José Carmona y Ramos.

•  Palau 65340.   Bindings as above, edges and extremities showing minor shelfwear, back cover of vol. I with small spots of faint discoloration, front joint of vol. II rubbed. Collector's stamp as above, each front pastedown with small paper label bearing hand-inked numeral. Pages age-toned; edges slightly embrittled, occasionally with small chips or short tears. Scattered light smudges in vol. I; vol. II with mild to moderate foxing. A peacocky set.  (29262)

Binding:  Publisher's light green cloth with gilt lettering to spine and front board. The front board is divided into four compartments by single-ruled black borders; a scene of a man walking along a railroad track stamped in blue, black, and gilt decorates the top section.

•  Wright, III, 1331.   Binding as above; extremities a bit rubbed, spine faded not unattractively. Small waterstain to top edge of about a dozen leaves, minor dirtying and finger-smudges to a handful of pages; overall very nice.  (37534)

Binding: Original brown cloth with beveled edges, stamped in gilt and black with gilt lettering to front board and spine; gilt vignette of the Academy to front board.

Provenance: Cunningham, an affectionate and appreciative graduate of the Academy, has inscribed the front free endpaper“With the compliments of the author, 6/22, '83.” Later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Extremities lightly rubbed, minor bumping; gilt bright on spine and brighter on cover. Very nice, clean copy “personalized” by the author.  (37760)

•  In orange wrappers with white lettering; spine gently faded.  (36063)

“Title page and decorations by I. Sanders, sculptor. Lettering by Theodore Mehrer. Composition by I. Marlin. Cover and interior stock supplied by The Japan Paper Company” (verso of title-page).

Davidson (1895–1971) was an American poet, writer, publisher and longtime secretary of the Poetry Society of America.

•  Original green stiff wrappers with lettering and design in gold on front cover. Fine copy. A very elegant little production.  (39837)

Michael Davidson (b. 1944) was the first curator of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego, where he has taught American Literature since 1988.

•  Stitched in orange paper wrappers with matching orange paper jacket, title and author printed in light brown surrounded by black ornamental frame on front cover. Fine, in a mylar slipcase.  (30796)

•  Publisher's green cloth–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped title, clean and fresh; dust jacket sunned and lightly worn with spine head minorly chipped. Pages age-toned and a few with instances of light staining. An unusually nice copy.  (41474)

•  Publisher's plain paper wrappers. Clean and fresh.  (29721)

•  Sabin 19078; Hamilton 692. On Dearborn, see: Stauffer & Fielding, American Engravers, v. 1, 62–3.   Black paper–covered boards imitating leather, gilt ruling/stamping/lettering on spine, covers framed in blind with floral stamps at corners; well-rubbed with paper flaking on spine to expose some gatherings. Provenance marking as above, light age-toning with very occasional light staining, foxing, or corner creases, one plate with chipped edges, all folds strong. A fun read and lots of VERY engaging illustration.  (37071)

Signed binding: Teal cloth, front cover with village scene stamped in dark green, terra cotta, and white, marked with the distinctive intertwined capital Ds of Decorative Designers (Henry and Lee Thayer).

•  Binding as above, slightly cocked, spine dimmed, front panel lightly rubbed. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription of Lottie Ellis. One piece of dried plant matter laid in.  (35665)

•  Publisher's very colorful (bright pink and bright green) printed paper wrappers; slightly cockled, small spot of staining to foot of front wrapper. A nice piece of political ephemera.  (34158)

The translator, W. Kenneth Thompson, selected thirteen episodes from Bassi's text, and illustrations includingone double-page plate and twelve miniatures, reproduced from photographs of the manuscript in five-color facsimiles printed by offset lithography at The Meriden Gravure Company in Meriden, CT. Giovanni Mardersteig designed the text in his own Monotype Dante on Manunzia paper, and oversaw production with his son Martino at the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy. The edition was limited to 1950 copies, of which this is no. 164, as written in ink below the colophon.

•  Bound as above, spine very lightly sunned with light pencil smudge; case with one side a little soiled and a limited patch of staining. Text very fresh and clean.  (30549)

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover and spine decoratively gilt-stamped; spine, lower edges, and corners a touch rubbed. Top edge gilt. A few leaves and plates with waterstaining to lower outer corners, scattered spots of light foxing.  (18409)

“Harry Duncan was also a distinctive though not prolific poet and translator; a stylist as eloquent and elegant in prose as in speech and bearing; a fine italic penman; and husband of Nancy, whose genius, separate but equal, was of the theater, though still imprinted in the memories of fellow actors and audiences, especially children.

“The Inner Tympan brings together every published piece of Duncan's writing that could be found, and constitutes thus a self-portrait; not one consciously planned, certainly not one he helped to gather, but neither is it one he would have rejected.”

Duncan (1916–97) is “considered the father of the post-World War II private-press movement” (Ray Anello, “Reading the Fine Print,” Newsweek, August 16, 1982, p. 64). He operated the Cummington Press beginning in 1939 in Cummington, MA, later at Iowa City after becoming director in 1956 of the typographical laboratory at the University of Iowa's School of Journalism, and later still in 1972 in Omaha, NB, where he created the University of Nebraska's fine arts press, Abattoir Editions.

The first edition of The Inner Tympan was printed in 2005 in an edition of 30 copies by Juan Pascoe — Duncan's last apprentice, then and now a master hand-printer in Mexico — for his friends and those of Harry and Nancy Duncan, the Cummington Press, and the Taller Martín Pescador. This second edition “was set in Enrico, a digital version of the 12-point type cut and cast in 1600 by Enrico Martinez in Mexico City, and drawn by Gonzalo Garcia Barcha in the final years of the twentieth century” (colophon).

•  Publisher's illustrated hardcover binding. New. With a four-page pamphlet of “Some memories of the Cummington Press” by Gloria Goldsmith Gowdy, printed by Juan Pascoe in 100 copies “with HD's pressmark & PWW's drawing for The Winter Sea,” laid in.  (40713)

Binding:  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title. Cloth is ribbed and fits Krupp's Rb3 pattern.

Evidence of readership: One pencilled footnote, arguing that capital punishment is the will of the divine.

•  American Imprints 55455. On the binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, p. 40.   Binding as above; spine and board edges gently faded, extremities rubbed. Mild to moderate foxing throughout. An interesting book in a good example of an early American cloth binding.  (34765)

The volume was designed by Vincent Torre; this isone of 500 copies printed.

•  Publisher's gray-green cloth, front cover with black-stamped vignette, spine with black-stamped title. Minimal wear to lower outer cover corners, otherwise a crisp, lovely copy.  (36864)