
“HOW-TO”
A-L M-Z
[
]
A Military Manual for Troops Serving under a BRITISH OFFICER in the Peninsular Campaign
PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED
(ARMY HOW-TO). Spain. Army. Reglamento para el exercicio y maniobras de la infantería. De las evoluciones de línea. [colophon: Cadiz: en la Imprenta Tormentaria á cargo de Juan Domingo Villegas, 1813]. 8vo (21.5 cm; 8.125"). [2], 281–385, 15 pp., fold. plts. numbered xxxix –lxviii.
$1800.00
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At the base of the title-page of this infantry manual is printed “Reimpreso por disposicion del . . . señor don Carlos Doyle, teniente general de los reales exercitos.”
That is, Lt. Gen. Charles William Doyle (1770–1842) ordered this work to be printed.
Doyle was an Irish-born British lieutenant-colonel who in 1808 was ordered to Portugal to help fight Napoleon in the Peninsular Campaign. He very successfully aided the Spanish army in instilling discipline and organizing light infantry and was made a lieutenant general in the Spanish army. In 1811 Britain ordered him home, but when he reached Cadiz, Sir Henry Wellesley convinced him to command a camp at which a new army was being organized for action in the south of Spain. Again he was highly successful in his military instruction of new troops, and as a result was promoted to full colonel in the British army; he remained in Spain till the end of the war in 1814.
The present work, extracted from the larger one of the same title printed at Madrid by the Imprenta Real in 1808, was clearly printed for the instruction of Doyle's southern army.
At the rear of the volume are
30 folding plates setting forth various dispositions and movements of infantry troops; clear, careful, verbal explanations of these precede them.
Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and the CCPBE locate
only three copies worldwide (all in Spain).
Provenance: Contemporary signature of “Velez” on title-page.
Not in Palau. On Doyle, see: DNB online. Dark brown speckled calf, black gilt-lettered title-label (a little chipped) to gilt-ruled spine, marbled endpapers; binding lightly rubbed. Age-toning and general light soiling, occasionally a dog-ear or a spot, all plates clean, well-attached, and whole at folds.
A very sound, very good copy. (36362)



UNexpurgated by the Mexican Inquisition
MS Notes in NAHUATL/AZTEC in Addition
Avila, Francisco de. Arte de la lengua mexicana, breves platicas de los mysterios de n. santa fee catholica, y otras para exortacion de su obligacion a los indios. Mexico: Por los herederos de la Viuda de Miguel de Ribera Calderon, 1717. 12mo. [13], 36, [1] ff.
[SOLD]
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Mexico saw a major rebirth of scholarly interest in Nahuatl during the first half of the 18th century, and Fr. Avila was a contributor to it. In his introduction here (“Al pio lector”), he explains why, despite the existence of the works of Molina, Carochi, Ribera, and Manuel Perez (whose enthusiastic endorsement [“Sentir”] is part of the preliminaries), he has decided to write and publish this grammar: “solo quitar algunas dificultades, que he reconosido [sic] en los que aprenden por el discurso de veinte anos.” The work achieves this aim well. Moreover, Fr. Avila's extremely notable introduction has much to say about the physical and spiritual condition of the Indians at the beginning of 18th century and about the economic and social debt of the Spanish population to them. Sra. Leon-Portilla points out that among the “chats” (i.e, “platicas”) that form the appendix, “las destinadas a lograr una buena confesion” are of
“gran importancia.”
This copy
escaped the Inquisition censors who after its publication insisted that the section on folio 34r-v, “Instruccion para ensenar lo que se resive [sic] en la Hostia” be lined through.
Evidence of Readership? Or, frugal management of paper? Or, something else entirely?? A singular quality of this among all the copies that we have ever seen is the presence of
two additional leaves (four pages) at the end containing
18th-century manuscript notes in Nahuatl for a sermon on the theme of “they who acquired divine happiness” and on conducting a confession.
Provenance: Sold by the Linga Library of Hamburg as a duplicate. Pencil notes of a Spanish bookseller.
Medina, Mexico, 2478; Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 9; Vinaza 271; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl 18 (incomplete, lacking title-leaf); H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 240. Recased in modern vellum with button and loop ties, some few leaves strengthened at inner margins. Last leaf of text torn in lower margin and expertly repaired, costing small portion of two letters; a bit of staining at some edges, particularly in early part of volume. Small round old stamp “BS” to front free endpaper, leaves filled with manuscript annotation at end as above.
Very good, and very interesting. (34576)
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Apiculture for Everyone — Including Women
Bagster, Samuel, the Younger. The management of bees. With a description of the “Ladies' Safety Hive.” London: Samuel Bagster & William Pickering, 1834. 8vo (17.1 cm, 6.75"). Col. frontis., xx, 244 pp.; illus.
[SOLD]
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First edition: A carefully and effectively summarized overview of beekeeping, utilizing not only the author's practical experience but also his familiarity with the writings of both older and more contemporary experts. Chapter titles include “On the Simplification of the Process of Managing Bees,” “Natural History of the Bee,” “Cottage System Explained,” On Swarms,” “The Old and New Methods of Unionizing Stocks Explained,” “The Ladies' Safety Hive Examined and Explained” (a new invention prompted by the author's wife's concern over being stung), and “General Directions for the Extraction of Honey and Wax.”
Printed by the author's father (a successful printer-bookseller known for his polyglot Bible), this volume opens with
a hand-colored frontispiece realistically depicting hive denizens in both magnified and life sizes, while the text is illustrated with wood engravings by D. Dodd after drawings “executed . . . from life” (p. ix) by Charles M. Curtis; the title-page is printed in red and black, and features a vignette of three ladies (in everyday dress) opening a beehive.
Provenance: Front pastedown with early inked inscription of H.G. Monro; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
NSTC 2B2258. Contemporary ribbon-embossed green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; spine sunned to olive, rubbing with front joint just starting from head and foot, front cover showing faint circular imprint. Pages gently age-toned with occasional small spots and smudges, some corners faintly creased.
An appealing copy of the first edition, in original binding. (41127)
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“Come, Let Us March”
Bascom, E.H. The school harp: a collection of pleasing and instructive songs. Music and words, original and selected. Designed for the use of schools and singing classes. Oblong. Boston: Morris Cotton, (Stereotyped by A.B. Kidder), 1855. 12mo. viii, 96 pp., [2] ff.
$30.00
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Sole edition. A fine school music text, with several pages of instruction; some of the music is simple but a good deal is moderately complicated, in three or four parts and in keys like E flat.
Publisher's quarter leather over printed boards, respined with cloth tape and with covers dustsoiled; interior age-toned with occasional old foxing or staining (most notable to first few leaves).
A solid copy, overall clean. (3612)
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Romance, Sex, & Procreation:
HOW-TO's for Two out of Three
Becklard, Eugène; Philip M. Howard, transl. Physiological mysteries and revelations in love, courtship and marriage; an infallible guide-book for married and single persons, in matters of the utmost importance to the human race. New York: Holland & Glover, 1844. 16mo (11.5 cm, 4.52"). [2 (blank)], 256, [2 (blank)] pp.; 16 plts.
[SOLD]
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Early U.S. edition of
a popular guide to human sexuality written for a broad audience, here “translated from the third Paris edition, with the revision and additions of the sixth Paris edition.” This curious work skips back and forth between matters of the heart and of the body, covering a wide range of topics connected to love and marriage; there are sections that focus at length on specific concepts, and sections offering snippets of a few lines apiece on seemingly randomly selected items, with one such section offering
“Love Matches,” “Double Uterus,” “Disease,” and “Courting” all on one page. Addressed to both men and women, these “revelations” are often scientifically questionable, at best: spicy food and vigorous dancing will prevent conception, pregnancy resulting from rape is physiologically impossible, and an infant will most strongly resemble the parent “whose orgasm was highest” (p. 165) during congress — but the author does acknowledge good reasons why women might want to avoid pregnancy, defends the idea that women not only can experience sexual pleasure but are entitled to expect it, and points out “the very unjust usages of society” regarding demands of female vs. male continence, as well as providing actual contraceptive techniques like sponges for women. Details on intercourse go no further than warnings against “all attitudes of enjoyment but the natural one” (p. 40).
Paginated continuously with the first work and displaying the same running header (“Becklard's Physiology”) is Onanism and Its Cure, “an infallible text book for the cure of all diseases in the male or female, produced by over indulgence in onanism, or masturbation” according to its separate title-page, which notes that the work was translated by James Guierson from the French of Henriot, Tissot, Deslandes, and Becklard. It includes directions on what foods to eat following immoderate coition, as well as recommending quinquina and cold baths for remedying passions. The two works together are illustrated with
a total of 16 wood-engraved plates, including one labelled “Terrors of Absolute Continence” and a remarkable image of
a couple occupied with their pets rather than with each another, captioned “Offspring Prevented.”This is the second New York printing of the Physiological Mysteries, following the first of 1842, and
the first edition both to append Onanism and to add the plates.
Provenance: Front free endpaper with early inked inscription of William H. Harriman.
American Imprints 44-583; Hoolihan, Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine & Health Reform, 266. Publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth, spine very attractively gilt with title and decorations; edges and extremities lightly rubbed. One leaf with lower outer corner torn away, not touching text; intermittent spots of mild to moderate foxing.
Plates on yellow paper, perhaps partly for easy finding? (41243)

The First Lady of
Fly Fishing?
Berners, Juliana. The treatyse of fysshynge wyth an angle. London: William Pickering, 1827. 8vo (18.1 cm, 7.2"). Frontis., [2], xiii (pagination skips v–viii), [1], 41, [1] pp.; 4 plts.
$650.00
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First Pickering edition of the first known English work on fishing. Reprinted from the Boke of St. Albans, the famed sporting book originally published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, this essay on angling is generally attributed — although not certainly so — to Dame Juliana Berners (or Barnes), supposed prioress of Sopwell nunnery circa 1450. If that attribution is correct, this is not only the earliest printed English work on fishing, but also one of the earliest published English works by a female author. Regardless of its source, it seems to have served as an inspiration both to Izaak Walton and to William Pickering, who printed several editions of Walton, including a particularly lavish production in 1836.
The volume is printed with the original language and spelling preserved, and is illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece of a fisherman taken from de Worde's 1518 edition that is cited as the earliest known depiction of an angler fishing with a rod, as well as with six woodcuts (provided at the back of the volume in the form of four plates) showing types of poles, hooks, etc. The title-page proclaims this as printed with the types of John Baskerville, making it one of the last such printings done in England, and most cataloguing follows suit; but Kelly identifies the font used as the elegant "Fry" Baskerville variant developed by typefounder Isaac More.
Evidence of Readership: A later hand has helpfully added pencilled marginalia clarifying archaic or obscure terms and suggesting subject headers.
NSTC 2B20037; Keynes, Pickering, 42; Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering, 1827.1 (p. 21). Later half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-decorated raised bands, and gilt-stamped fishing creel devices in compartments; spine label with small edge chips and mild rubbing to paper. Pencilled annotations as above, pages and plates otherwise pleasingly clean. (28566)
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Printed Using “Fry” Baskerville Types — Uncut Copy
Berners, Juliana. The treatyse of fysshynge wyth an angle. London: Printed ... for William Pickering [by Thomas White], 1827. 8vo (19 cm, 7.5"). Frontis., [2], xiii (pagination skips v–viii), [1], 41, [1] pp.; 4 plts.
$750.00
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As above, but:
This copy uncut and in original boards: RARE THUS.
NSTC 2B20037; Keynes, Pickering, 42. Beyond the scope of Gaskell, Baskerville. Publisher's dun-colored light boards. Uncut copy. Light overall rubbing; spine with minor loss of paper. Old bookseller's description affixed to front free endpaper; small oval stain to corner of half-title and frontispiece, a bit of light offsetting from plates. A very nice copy in a later open-back cardboard slipcase. (30461)
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GAMES, PUZZLES, SPORTS, &
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The Reference Book for
The Counterculture
Brand, Stewart, ed. The next whole Earth catalog. Sausalito, CA: Point, 1980. Folio (36.5 cm, 14.4"). 608 pp.; illus.
$75.00
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Stated first edition, first printing of the revised version — after a long gap in printing — of a legendary guide to tools for “individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested.” More than a catalogue, this is a compendium of reviews, extensive excerpts, and analyses of some of the most empowering books and products of the 20th century, leavened with bits of poetry, meditations, and musings on modern life. The preface here notes that only 11% of the material here is repeated from the Last Whole Earth Catalog, and that about 975 items are reviewed here for the first time.
Publisher's printed paper wrappers; spine and lower front corner creased, edges showing mild shelfwear. Lower margin of first page with faint rubber-stamped numeral. Pages gently age-toned, otherwise clean, with all tear-out cards still present. Outstanding both as sociological insight and as general reading. (32344)

“Good Shooting is a Very Necessary Ingredient in the
Making of Good Dogs”
Dobson, William. Kunopaedia. A practical essay on breaking or training the English spaniel or pointer. With instructions for attaining the art of shooting flying. In which the latter is reduced to rule, and the former inculcated on principle. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely & Jones by C. Whittingham, Chiswick, 1817. 8vo (23.4 cm, 9.25"). Frontis., xliv, 235 pp.
$200.00
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A Regency-era guide to training bird dogs and bird hunting, written in two “letters” by William Dobson (1750–1813) to a Scottish friend, with further material added for general readers in response to the recipient’s urging publication. Dobson’s guides never received the thorough rewrite he intended, which is a good thing according to his editor; the material would have otherwise lost its charm. (This is the second edition, Dobson having died a year before publication of the first; the “charm” includes a certain amount of “period” cruelty to the canine trainees.)
Kunopaedia is
one of the earliest books on bird dog training and bears a small wood-engraved frontispiece depicting a man and his dog opposite the title-page.WorldCat locates only eight copies of this second edition, including one in the library of the American Kennel Club.
Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Not in Ing. Publisher’s quarter olive paper over blue boards, with paper spine label; edges rubbed, corners bumped, and spots/soiling to boards. Page edges untrimmed. Minimal, faint spotting to interior; pages mildly cockled; semi-puncture to margin of pp. xi–xvi, corner of one leaf folded in twice.
A solid and pleasant copy, in unaltered guise, of this early dog training manual. (37913)
CRANBERRIES
Eastwood, B. A complete manual for the cultivation of the cranberry, with a description of the best varieties. New York: C.M. Saxton, Barker, & Co., 1860. 8vo. Engr. t.-p., 120 pp; 9 plts.
$125.00
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Early reprint, following the first edition of 1856.
Publisher's embossed cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; corners and spine extremities showing minor wear, with gilt oxidized. Front free endpaper with pencilled inscription; some page edges with small blotches.
Binding very handsome in its subtle way. Impossible! to get a good image of! (12986)
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Gout? or Scarlet Fever? BOTH Are Covered Here
Endter, Christian Ernst. Ausführlicher Bericht, von denen schmertzhaften Glieder-Kranckheiten, als nemlich: Gicht, Podagra, Chiragra, Gonagra, Malo ischiatico ... Mit noch einer Zugabe, von denen Ursachen eines kurtzen oder langen Lebens derer Menschen, und dassalle Kranckheiten anfangs, mit leichter Mühe, ohne, oder durch wenige Kosten zu curiren sind ... Franckfurt: No publisher/printer, 1741. Small 8vo (17.3 cm; 6.875" ). 189, [1 (blank)] pp., lacks final blank leaf. [bound with] Johann Pelargus Storch. Practischer und Theoretischer Tractat vom Scharlach-Fieber, wie solches von etlichen und zwantzig Jahren her, als eine etwas seltsame, jedoch zuweilen grassirende Kinder-Kranckheit, aus vielen zur Hand gekommenen Casibus kennen gelernet. Gotha: verlefts Christian Mevius, 1742. Small 8vo (17.3 cm; 6.875"). [4] ff., 280, [3] pp., lacks final blank leaf.
$875.00
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Endter (1693–1783) was a mostly self-educated medical man who started in the humors tradition and partially embraced the new approach of the Enlightenment. Among his patients were a few minor nobles but his practice was chiefly among the middle and lower classes, and his books were written for them. The present one deals with treating gout, arthritis, and nerve-related pains.
Storch (1681–1751) was a well-respected physician and 1735 he was appointed to serve as such at the Russian court; he later left Russia to become the chief military doctor in Gotha. The present work on scarlet fever contains
studies of 190 cases, then presents conclusions on causes and proposes new treatments.
Provenance: Ownership inscription dated 1762 of “R.P. Eugenius Peters” on front free endpaper. Two names inked of old on title-page, one “Jacobus Cramer” and another not deciphered, with a third entry inked over.
Contemporary half vellum with marbled paper sides; soiled, worn, and rubbed with loss of much paper on rear board. General age-toning, occasional faint waterstaining in some margins, title-page with small spot of paper lost at the end of that “deleted” inscription; overall, very good copies of the texts, in a solid but used binding. (34734)
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Teaching Teachers & Mothers the Basics of
Pediatric Health
Faust, B.C.; J.H. Basse, trans. Catechism of health: For the use of schools and for domestic instruction. London: For C. Dilly, 1794. Tall 12mo (20 cm, 7.88’’). Frontis., [2], [viii], 190 pp., lacking B5 and last (blanks) as usual.
[SOLD]
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The first edition of the English translation of B.C. Faust’s famous Der Gesundheits-Katechismus, an early German manual for popular medicine and well-being. Faust conceived its composition in 1792–94, while working as personal physician to the Princess Juliane zu Schaumburg-Lippe; their conversations on these matters were indeed an important inspiration. The manual was translated into numerous languages and swiftly printed also in America, becoming a success there — perhaps due partly to a recommendation from Philadelphia physician (and signer of the Declaration of Independence) Benjamin Rush. The English translator J.H. Basse dedicated his work to the Duchess of Cumberland.
The Catechism was especially addressed to schoolmasters, showing them how to teach through his work “how Man from his infancy ought to live, in order to enjoy a perfect State of Health,” with the preface explaining how the text should be read in class and the subject explained. Then come sections on health and the duty (to God, among others) of preserving it, followed by questions and answers addressing very practical, everyday issues, such as how old clothes, especially woolen ones, when “infected by unwholesome perspiration, are very injurious to health”; whether children’s shoes should have heels; the importance of bathing regularly and having a balanced diet, etc. The second part discusses illnesses, good and bad popular remedies, when to call a physician and what information he will need in order to provide proper treatment, etc.
The illustrations include a woodcut frontispiece of a standing child and in-text woodcuts show the “order of the human teeth,” shoe lasts, and the Arcuccio, an instrument used by Italian mothers to protect their babies from “all injury and danger” when they take them to bed. Shoes and teeth (milk and lasting) in fact appear to be points of special interest, the volume offering interesting discussions of the measurement of shoes in relation to the feet along with tables concerning the periods for dental growth and shedding; not forgotten are notes on wine, weather including how to behave in a thunderstorm, and “the entire Extirpation of the Small-pox and measles.” (Faust's passages on
individual and community responsibility for the communication of communicable diseases may perhaps, just now, perhaps, be particularly interesting.)
Provenance: 20th-century bookplate of the Detroit collector and physician Dr. Otto Orren Fischer.
The work is surprisingly little held in this first edition in U.S. libraries.
ESTC T121431; Wellcome III, 12. Modern quarter calf over marbled boards, spine with raised bands, gilt devices in compartments, and gilt-lettered red morocco label. Untrimmed copy with rough edges often a little dusty/soiled and with widely varying degrees of mostly marginal waterstaining almost throughout; some signatures carelessly or ineptly opened.
A sound, usable, frankly fascinating little volume. (41343)
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Learn to Speak
ARAUCANIAN
Febres, Andrés. Arte de lengua general del reyno de Chile ... y ... un vocabulario hispano-chileno, y un calepino chileno-hispano mas copioso. Lima: en la calle de la Encarnaçion, 1765. Small 8vo (14 cm; 5.5"). [15] ff., 682 pp., [1] ff.
[SOLD]
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First edition of this important book for the study of the Araucanian language (i.e., Mapuche or Mapudungun) of Chile. The contents are a grammar, a dialogue in Araucanian, a short Spanish-to-Araucanian dictionary, the Araucanian alphabet and dipthongs, and Catholic prayers, doctrine, and a brief catechism in Araucanian, plus extended Spanish–Araucanian and Araucanian–Spanish dictionaries. Febres, a Jesuit, was a native of Cataluña who arrived in Chile at a young age. His work among the Araucanian Indians led to his acquiring a great command of their language, and this work still stands as a monument to his erudition. Medina's researches discovered that when the Spanish authorities made their inventory of the Jesuits' library in Chile in 1767, only 255 copies of this book were found, leading him to suppose that the total press run was only 500 copies.
The title-page and the rest of the initial half-signature of the copy in hand are
printed in red and black, but according to Harper (American Iberica, item 476A) some copies do exist printed in black and gold (!), while Medina (Bibliotheca hispano-chilena) says he has seen copies printed in black and green, or perhaps just green. The final leaf here displays a typographic sampling of the press's fonts. There are a few tailpieces — one unusual and a charmer.
Medina, Lima, 1228; Medina, BHC, 461; Viñaza 345; Palau 87065; Sabin 23968; Vargas Ugarte 1923; DeBacker-Sommervogel, III, 576. On Febres, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal e Iberoamérica, fiche 309, frames 216–49. Contemporary stiff vellum, lacking ties; a bit warped. Title-page expertly restored along outer margin and several letters of the title now present in good facsimile, with the leaf backed. Front hinge (inside) starting but strong. Interior generally clean with the odd spot or old stain only. (37564)
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CORNERSTONE for an
AMERICAN SPORTING LIBRARY
“Gentleman of Philadelphia County, A” [i.e., Jesse Y. Kester]. The American shooter's manual, comprising such plain and simple rules, as are necessary to introduce the inexperienced into a full knowledge of all that relates to the dog, and the correct use of a gun; also a description of the game of this country. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1827. 12mo (18.5 cm; 7.125"). [2] ff., pp. [ix]–249, [1] p., [1 (errata)] f., [3 (ads)] ff.; frontis., 2 plts.
$1800.00
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The first American illustrated sporting book and the first American sporting book written by an American. Only one sporting book published in America preceded it: The Sportsman's Companion (NY,1783; later editions Burlington [NJ], 1791, and Philadelphia, 1793), “by a gentleman, who has made shooting his favorite amusement upwards of twenty-six years, in Great-Britain, Ireland, and North-America.”
Kester deals almost exclusively with game birds and waterfowl native to the Delaware Valley that surrounds Philadelphia: wild turkeys, partridge, snipe, quail, grouse, and ducks. With regard to rifles and guns he addresses cleaning, powder, wadding, etc. And when writing about dogs, in addition to notes on training and conditioning them, he offers recipes for common ailments and gun-shot wounds.
The plates are signed “F. Kearny,” an artist born in Perth Amboy, NJ, who studied drawing with Archibald and Alexander Robertson and engraving with Peter Maverick. From 1810 to his death in 1833 he practiced engraving in Philadelphia.
There are two states of gathering “U”: this copy has the typographical error “tibbon” with the stop-press correction to “ribbon” on p. 235.
The volume ends with advertisements for several sporting and fishing goods suppliers.
Shoemaker 27838; Howes K108; Henderson, American Sporting Books, 6; Phillips, Sporting Books, 21; Streeter Sale 4084; Bennett, Practical Guide, 60–61. On Stauffer, American Engravers, I, 148–49. Publisher's sprinkled sheep with simple rope roll in blind on board edges, some abrasion to leather; round spine with gilt double rules forming “spine compartments,” black leather title label. The usual light and scattered foxing noted in all copies, nothing more.
A very nice copy. (28553)
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Polenta before It Was Made with
“Turkey Wheat”
& Woodcuts from the
Moretus Press
Gerard, John. The herball, or, General historie of plantes. London: Printed by Adam Islip, Joice Norton & Richard Whitakers, 1636. Large folio (35.5 cm; 14"). [19 of 20] ff., 1630 [i.e., 1634] pp., [24 of 25] ff. (without the initial and final blank leaves).
$13,500.00
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“When reading Gerard we are wandering in the peace of an Elizabethan garden, with a companion who
has a story for every flower and is full of wise philosophies” (Woodward, p. viii). And indeed, Gerard's herbal is written in “glorious Elizabethan prose, [with] the folk-lore steeping its pages'” (Woodward, p. vii), these factors going a long way towards making it one of the best-known and -loved of the early English herbals. The “herbs” surveyed include plants aquatic and terrestrial, New World and Old, embracing shrubs, plants, and trees, each with a description of its structure and appearance, where it is found (and how it got there), when it is sown and reaped or flowers, its name or names (often with engrossingly exotic etymologies), its “temperature,” and its “vertues” or uses (often curious).
The story is famous: John Norton, Queen's printer, wished to bring out an English language version of Dodoen's Pemptades of 1583 and hired a certain “Dr. Priest” to do so, but the translator died with the work only partially done. A copy of the manuscript translation made its way into John Gerard's hands and he seized the opportunity, reorganizing the contents, obscuring the previous translator's contribution, incorporating aspects of Rembert and Cruydenboeck's works, and commandeering the result as his own.
Gerard abandoned Dodoen's classification, opting for l'Obel's instead, and, in a stroke of ambition and brilliance, illustrated the work with
more than 2500 woodcuts of plants. Many of these are large and all are attractive but more than a few were of plants he himself did not know, thus leading to considerable confusion between illustration and text in the earliest editions, this being third overall and the second with Thomas Johnson's additions and amendments. For both Johnson editions
a large number of the woodcuts were obtained from the famous Leyden printing and publishing firm of Moretus, successors to the highly famous firm of Plantin. As Johnston notes: “Most of the cuts were those used in the botanicals published by Plantin, although a number of new woodcuts were added after drawings by Johnson and Goodyer” (Cleveland Herbal . . . Collections, #185).
The large thick volume begins with a handsome engraved title-page by John Payne incorporating a bust of the author, urns with flowers and herbs, and full-length seated images of Dioscorides and Theophrastus and of Ceres and Pomona. Replacing the missing initial blank is a later leaf on which is mounted a large engraving of Gerard. The text is printed in italic, roman, and gothic type.
There is, to us, a surprising and very interesting section on grapes and wines. The first part of our caption delights partly in discovery that maize, the “corn” of the U.S., is here called “turkey wheat” — with further note that you can make bread of it, but that the result is pleasing only to “barbarous” tastes! The entry as a whole shows
Gerard at his characteristic best, at once scientifically systematic and engagingly discursive.
Provenance: Neatly lettered name of “W. Younge” at top of title-page; it is tempting to attribute this to William Younge, physician of Sheffield and Fellow of the Royal Linnean Society, whose online correspondence shows him to have been an eager collector of botanical books.
STC (rev. ed.) 11752; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 636/25; Nissen, Botanischebuchs, 698n; Pritzel 3282n; Johnston, The Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections, 185; Woodward, Gerard's Herball: The essence thereof distilled (London, 1964). On the source of the blocks, see: Hunt Botanical Catalogue and Bowen, K. L., & D. Imhof, The illustration of Books Published by the Moretuses (Antwerpen, 1997). For “Turkey Wheat, “ see: Gerard, p. 81; for polenta, p. 71. Late 17th-century English calf, plain style; rebacked professionally in the 20th century, later endpapers. As usual, without the first and last blank leaves. Three leaves with natural paper flaws in blank margins. A very good copy. (34500)
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Children, Build Your Own Paradise in the Woods
Jauffret, Louis François. The little hermitage, a tale; illustrative of the arts of rural life. London: Pr. for Richard Phillips (by W. Heney), 1805. 12mo (13.5 cm, 5.3"). 72 pp.; 2 plts.
[SOLD]
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English translation of this delightful story focusing on both natural history and basic homesteading. Three farmer's children learn herein how to create their own little idyllic retreat, taught by a wandering beggar eventually revealed to be an educated man temporarily down on his luck. Joseph talks the brothers (their only sister does visit, but does not take part in the labor) through building a log cabin surrounded by a vegetable garden and willow palisade, enlivened by semi-tame birds and squirrels. Other instructions include well-digging and fruit-tree grafting, as well as discourses on the workings of gravity and sound waves, and an introduction to botanical classification — although none of the latter terms are used in the text.
This is an early printing, following the first of the previous year. The present copy is in wrappers bearing a slightly altered subtitle, “Illustrative of the Arts of Rural Life,” and a publication line crediting Tabart & Company's “Juvenile and School Library.” The text is illustrated with
two copper-engraved plates, one showing the first meeting with the “beggar” and his dog, and one the cabin-building in process. This edition is uncommon, with a search of WorldCat finding
only one U.S institution reporting ownership of this imprint.
Provenance: Title-page with inked gift inscription from Belinda Crooke to Mary Arnold Hearn, dated 1821. Most recently in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.
Gumuchian 3181 (describing this as the first ed.); Osborne Collection, 899–900 (for 1804 ed.). Publisher's printed paper wrappers; worn, faded, and stained, front wrapper with faint pencilled inscription, spine with early hand-inked title. Inscription as above. Waterstaining, age-toning, and mild foxing throughout; a copy that got itself wet, but otherwise clearly was used with care (and still was cared for after the wetting).
Scarce and fascinating. (41031)
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Choose
“The Right Game for the Right Time”
Kohl, Marguerite, & Frederica Young. Games for grown-ups and others. London: Faber & Faber Ltd., (1952). 8vo (20.7 cm, 8.125"). 176 pp.
$25.00
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A 1950s handbook of
162 party games, “simple or ingenious, quiet or active, long or short, sober or foolish,” to create an engaging house party. Each game lists how many players are needed and how long the game may take as well as thorough instructions. From classics like hangman and charades to “fun but foolish” games such as “Our Cook Doesn't Like Peas” and “My Grandmother,” an entertaining party is guaranteed!
This is the second impression.
Publisher's orange cloth with red lettering to spine; edges rubbed, boards warped, top edge of boards faded. In original red and green–checkered dust jacket with white lettering, this edge-worn and age-toned with small tears at extremities, pencil marks on front flap. Fore-edge and endpapers foxed, interior otherwise clean.
All sorts of fun! (38222)

Giving Engraving “Due Rank & Consideration Among the Fine Arts”
Landseer, John. Lectures on the art of engraving, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme (pr. by J. M'Creery), 1807. 8vo (21.4 cm, 8.42"). [2], xxxviii, [2], 341 (pag. skips 3/4), [1] pp.
$165.00
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First edition: Landseer (ca. 1765–1852), Associate Engraver of the Royal Academy, makes his case for the value of engraving as an art form. He also has strong words regarding certain other critics' and artists' statements — and in some cases their “wretched bungling” engraving efforts (p. 303), particularly as connected to their conning money out of unsuspecting subscribers and purchasers.
The lectures cover both contemporary and historical techniques of engraving, and include descriptions of ancient gems and coins.
Provenance: Ex–Franklin Institute copy with title-page and one other perforation-stamped, first preface page with its 19th-century rubber-stamp; early inked checkmark in upper margin of title-page and small inked numeral in lower margin of first preface page.
An interesting provenance as the Franklin Institute's original mission was the “Promotion of the Mechanic Arts.”
NSTC L398. Recent plain black cloth, spine with printed paper label. Printshop offsetting onto one sectional title; pages age-toned with light to moderate foxing throughout, a few signatures more heavily foxed.
A very solid, usable copy. (41475)
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At Least It's
NOT Eye of Newt
Langham, William. The garden of health: containing the sundry rare and hidden vertues and properties of all kindes of simples and plants. Together with the manner how they are to bee used and applyed in medicine for the health of mans body, against divers diseases and infirmities most common amongst men. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1633. 4to in 8s (19 cm; 7.5"). [4] ff., 702 pp., [33] ff.
$3400.00
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Preparing for a trip from England to Virginia or Massachusetts in the 1630s or 40s, one would have been well advised to make sure someone in the party was bringing a copy of Langham's work. Once in America, one would have made good use of the herbal remedies for some of the more common ailments the newly arrived would have suffered, and one would have had greater access to the “exotic” American sarsaparilla and guaiacum that Langham discusses.
This precursor to the “Physician's Desk Reference” is a practical compendium of medicinal and other plants arranged alphabetically from “acacia” to “wormwood” with a strong emphasis on plants that “can be gotten without any cost or labour, the most of them being such as grow in most places and are common among us” (folio [2]).
Langham's organization is this: “He devoted a chapter to each plant, describing its parts and their uses, the different processes such as distillation that could be applied to it, and how the resulting products could be used for particular diseases. To every item of information he added a number and at the end of the chapter there is an index or table of conditions with the numbers that were in the main text. The reader can thus see at a glance that one herb could be used in a wide variety of conditions, and whether a specific illness could be helped by a particular drug” (Wear, pp. 82–83).
This is the second edition, “corrected and amended,” the first having appeared in 1597. We are sure the reading public, which was sufficient to support a second edition, would have been helped rather more if the work had had illustrations, but that would have increased the cost of the work dramatically and a
wide audience was sought. The text is printed chiefly in gothic type while the end of chapter “indices” are in roman. This herbal was not printed during a period of good English typography, so the pages are dense with little white space or appreciation for making the text on the page easy on the eye rather than wearying.
ESTC S108241; STC (rev. ed.) 15196; Alden & Landis 633/67; Huth Library 817. On Langham, see Andrew Wear, Knowledge & Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680. Contemporary English calf, boards modestly ruled in blind at edges; rebacked in high quality goat. Age-toning or old soiling, especially at the edges of margins and with offsetting from binding to title-page; some light marginal waterstaining especially at end in index; some tears (one shown here) with last leaves' edges chopped and final two with edges strengthened.
Overall, an unsophisticated copy that has been spared being washed, pressed, and gussied up. (34545)
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“A Short & Easy Method with the
Deists”
Leslie, Charles. A short and easy method with the deists: wherein the certainty of the Christian religion is demonstrated, by infallible proof from four rules, which are incompatible to any imposture that ever yet has been, or that can possibly be. In a letter to a friend. Windsor, VT: Pr. by T.M. Pomroy, 1812. 12mo. 168 pp.
$150.00
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The “friend” is Charles Leslie himself. This work also includes the author's Defense of Episcopacy, and parts of his trial in Boston, where he was found guilty of libel for his defense of episcopacy against presbyterianism and congregationalism.
Provenance: Property, in 1836, of Henry G. Hubbard of Detroit.
Shaw & Shoemaker 25848. Contemporary sheep. Spine with compartments divided by gilt rules. Leather much rubbed with a little chipping. Browning from turn-ins onto endpapers and title-page. Top margins closely trimmed with loss of page numbers in some places. Inked ownership inscriptions on recto of front free endpaper and title-page. (5442)

The “English Merlin” — His Foundational Text of Modern Astrology
Lilly, William. Christian astrology modestly treated of in three books. The first containing the use of an ephemeris, the erecting of a scheam of heaven; nature of the twelve signs of the zodiack, of the planets; with a most easie introduction to the whole art of astrology. The second, by a most methodicall way, instructeth the student how to judge or resolve all manner of questions contingent unto man, viz. of health, sicknesse, riches, marriage ... The third, containes an exact method, whereby to judge upon nativities; severall wayes how to rectifie them; how to judge the generall fate of the native by the twelve houses of Heaven, according to the naturall influence of the stars ... London: Pr. by Theo. Brudenell for John Partridge & Humph. Blunden, 1647. 4to (19.4 cm, 7.64"). [46], 25–832, [12 (cat.)], [8 (index)] pp. (frontis. lacking; last four [index] leaves in facsimile); illus.
$1000.00
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First edition: the most important work from the famed English astrologer, and in its time the most influential such treatise
printed in English rather than Latin. Lilly (1602–81), whose prediction of the King's defeat at the Battle of Naseby made his name as a professional fortuneteller, became deeply involved in politics, only to see his influence wane after the Restoration; at one point, he was accused of involvement in setting the Great Fire of London, which he had predicted a number of years before. His writings — which included a series of almanacs issued under the banner of “the English Merlin” — lived on, and have in modern times regained much of their former authority in the field of horary astrology.
In addition to
a full, detailed guide to Lilly's astrological practices and school of thought, the work at hand provides a “Catalogue of most Astrological Authors now extant, where Printed, and in what year”: an extensive
bibliography of astrology texts still of use to scholars today. The third book has a separate title-page (noting publication in 1658 by John Macok, but with pagination and signatures continuing uninterrupted from the first two books), and the text is illustrated with
numerous diagrams and sample star charts throughout.
Even a quick browse here uncovers points of interest beyond the astrological. This thick book lays before us a full array of the common as well as the cosmic reasons people consulted astrologers in the 17th century: How to tell if a woman be “honest” (or with child)? Whether and when to move home, between houses or villages. Whether a stolen horse will be recovered, whether a medical procedure will succeed or fail, whether and when to enter upon a lawsuit, whether a desired patronage will really come to benefit, when or whether a woman whose husband is at sea may expect his return or hear of his death. . . . There is a section on “Terrible Dreams,” and a casting is given that will determine whether one is Bewitched.
Evidence of Readership: An early hand has corrected some of the errors in pagination, and one outer margin bears an 18th-century inscription.
Provenance: Title-page with early inked ownership inscription of Samuel Tennant.
Wing (rev. ed.) L2215; ESTC R4033. Not in Coumont, not in Caillet. Recent period-style quarter speckled brown calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with green leather title and author labels, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped fleuron decorations in compartments; small binder's ticket on back pastedown. Frontispiece lacking and final four leaves (index) supplied in facsimile; title-age with inner margin and short tears to lower portion repaired, several other leaves with margins repaired, and two contents leaves with outer margins trimmed very closely; otherwise, general browning, old staining, and occasional short tears or small holes this book was used. Title-page with inscription as above and with small inked annotation in lower margin.
A landmark of astrological thought, in a copy priced to reflect its history of use and its mishaps more than its allure. (40587)
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