OCLC locates only one U.S. institutional holding of this novel.

•  Manne, Nouveau dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, 162; Le Mayeur, Les Belges, 340.   Contemporary plain paper-covered boards, spine with hand-inked volume label; binding stained, spine rubbed with small insect hole. Vol. I only. Inner margin of title-page repaired with loss of first letter of publisher's information line. Faint spotting and staining; trimmed closely, often shaving pagination and signatures. As interesting to see how this was produced, as it is frustrating to be unable to finish the story!  (26937)

This became, apparently, a Broadway play and then a film starring Charlie Chaplin's brother Syd Chaplin!

Binding: Signed binding by Margaret Armstrong: Publisher's blue-green cloth, front cover and spine pictorially stamped in light green, cream, and black, with “MA” on front cover.

•  Gullans & Espey, Checklist of Trade Bindings Designed by Margaret Armstrong,158.   Binding as above, cocked; extremities and front panel mildly rubbed. Pages and plates clean. An entertaining novel in an attractive presentation.  (35662)

Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover with double iris design stamped in green, white, and violet.

•  Binding as above, minimal rubbing only. Pages and plates clean. A beautiful copy.  (28613)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Henry Tschudy, depicting an angel bearing a book.

•  Brooks 1305.   Later morocco-backed pastepaper-style paper–covered boards, spine label of tobacco-colored leather with gilt-stamped author and title; very minor rubbing to extremities only. Pages with a few very faint spots of foxing, in factvery notably clean and fresh.  (40206)

The edition in hand is printed in roman and italic, with factotum initials and a handful of woodcut tailpieces. The title-page in the first volume is printed in red and black, and black only in the second, with both volumes featuring the printer's device of an armillary sphere: mark of the Elzevirs, who printed the 1678 edition in Amsterdam?

•  On Marino, see: DBI online.   Quarter calf over paper-covered boards, recently rebacked with original spine leather laid down; spine tooled creating compartments accented with gilt center ornaments, author and title gilt on black morocco spine in second one. Scuffed, chipped, and soiled but sturdy; foxed throughout though never more than moderately; edges uncut.  (30910)

A woodcut headpiece opens each story in this printing, which is now uncommon: WorldCat findsonly one U.S. institution reporting a copy (Princeton) and just a handful of other locations, all in France.

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  Gumuchian 2337.   Appropriate plain lilac paper wrappers not original to the chapbook, these a little worn and chipped; old stitching holes in gutter margins and one signature separated. A clean, pleasing copy of a seldom-seen item. (40712)

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:  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine pictorially stamped in orange, black, and tan with an image of Uncle Walt holding forth; the orange title lettering is LARGE and the image fills the entire cover.

•  Bound as above; minor wear to black portions of front cover, extremities slightly rubbed. Dust jacket lacking, as is typical; page edges untrimmed. Text age-toned, otherwise clean and crisp.  (41338)

•  Sewn as issued, with pages untrimmed. Front fly-leaf with inked and pencilled numerals and with pencilled initials; lower corners bumped, upper corners of last few leaves creased, final text leaf with short tear from outer margin. An interesting essay, in its unaltered original state.  (37047)

Provenance: From the collection of Brian Douglas Stilwell, sans indicia.

•  Brooks 1183; Brunet 16403.   Bindings as above; minimal shelfwear overall, one spine head chipped. Vol. I: first few leaves with very light waterstaining across lower corners, not approaching frontispiece image or type; last few leaves with lightest imaginable waterstaining to lower halves . Vol. III: short tear in oute margin of one leaf. Vol. V: title-page with sprinkling of tiny spots; one page with small ink smear. A clean and handsome set.  (40203)

•  Brooks 1182; Brunet, III, 1562.   Original “Bodoni” orange paper–covered boards with printed paper spine labels, rubbed (notably at extremities) and dust-soiled with spines mottled; vol. II rebacked (supplying hand-inked facsimile of original spine label), and some volumes variously lacking free endpapers (vol. II front, vol. III both, vols. IV and V rear), vol. V with publisher's advertisement, including prices, on front pastedown. Old cataloguing slip laid in. Scattered, minimal foxing only; pages untrimmed and overall pleasingly clean. A desirable quintet from this press. (40202)

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 discussesVespucci (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)

Following the Omaggio poetico is the first appearance of Valperga di Caluso's Libellus carminum, 15 poems in Latin including one to his friend Alfieri, published (as was the former item) under the pseudonym the author preferred for his literary works.

According to Renouard's 1794 catalogue of Bodoni imprints, the edition of Omaggio poetico was limited to 210 copies; it is now relatively uncommon in the U.S., with the Turin-printed Libellus carminum even more so — a search of WorldCat fails to locateany American institutional holdings of the latter.

Binding:  Contemporary mottled calf; spine gilt-extra, with gilt-stamped red leather title-label, board edges with distinctive gilt roll. Stone pattern marbled paper endpapers; all edges carmine.

•  Brooks 458; De Lama, II, 74; Giani 28 (p. 44).   Bound as above: spine with spots of worming and head chipped, these affecting appearance remarkably little; otherwise light wear, small scuffs. Front and rear free endpapers with pencilled bibliographical annotations. One leaf with paper flaw in outer margin, not touching text. Of interest both for Bodoni's usual elegance in printing and for the contents' connections to some of the most eminent figures of Italian belles-lettres of the day. (40151)

An extremely popular work (it went through 25 editions after its first appearance in 1771), the work describes the adventures of an unnamed man, who, after engaging in a heated discussion with a philosopher friend about the injustices of Paris, falls asleep and finds himself in a Paris of the future.

Though condemned by French and Spanish authorities andforbidden by the Inquisition, the work was nonetheless a roaring success in Europe, going through numerous editions in multiple languages — and serving as a groundbreaking, genre-defining example of a futuristic paradise set in a real-world location. The present example is an unidentified imprint of the greatly expanded three-volume text of 1786, followed by Mercier's allegorical L'homme de fer. Wilkie suggests that this “nouvelle édition avec figures" was printed by Changuion in Amsterdam; each of the three books of the main work opens with its own tipped-in engraved plate, making thisone of the earliest illustrated editions.

•  Wilkie, Mercier's L'An 2440, 1787. Not in Brunet, not in Graesse.   Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title-label, and gilt-tooled compartment decorations; spine and edges much rubbed, with spine extremities chipped. Front and back pastedowns with traces of red wax adhesions; endpapers with offsetting from turn-ins. Minor age-toning throughout; one page with early inked annotation. Though battered, a solid, early, nicely illustrated example of this landmark work.  (38525)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Edward Chapman, head of Chapman & Hall.

•  NCBEL, III, 637; NSTC 2M24993.   Publisher's violet cloth, front cover with blind-stamped frame and gilt-stamped decorative title in a lozenge, spine with gilt-stamped publication information; spine and board edges sunned to tan, extremities slightly rubbed. Mild age-toning and scattered light spotting.  (39671)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with ownership inscription of Theodore H. Swan.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine stamped in dark brown and gilt; very slight rubbing to extremities, otherwise clean and fresh. Pages faintly age-toned. One leaf with chip in upper margin; one leaf with tear from upper margin, extending into a few lines of text without loss. A solid, pleasing copy.  (41297)

•  Two Decades of Hamady & the Perishable Press, 49.   Publisher's paper wrappers as above, with over-wrapper a little sun-darkened along spine. A fresh, unworn copy.  (30932)

According to Miller's bibliographers, the 1945 printing uses the same plates as the 1938 edition, explaining why the copyright reads “Reprinted October 1938,” confusing this with the second Obelisk printing. “The actual date of publication is 1945 and is documented in a letter Miller wrote to Ben Abramson in August of that year” (Shifreen & Jackson). Like the copy seen by Shifreen and Jackson, the present copy's leaves vary in size, so that many are shorter than others.

Jack Kahane founded the Obelisk Press at Paris in 1929 to publish illicit English-language books like this free from legal censure.

•  Shifreen & Jackson A12e.   Publisher's steel gray wrappers with white boxes lettered in black; faded and shelf-worn, paper on the lower spine cracked to reveal quires beneath. Age-toning resulting from poor paper quality, as usual for this edition; sewing brittle. Far from pristine; definitely showing evidence of its readership.  (30196)

•  Publisher's quarter teal morocco and cream cloth–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title, in original dust jacket (printed on both sides) and printed cork–covered slipcase; slipcase with corners a little rubbed, jacket with spine and extremities chipped, volume's spine a tiny bit rubbed and sunned at extremities; the volume itself in all, fresh and lovely. A nice copy of this remarkable first edition.  (35851)

“I start tomorrow on the Paris book: first person, uncensored, formless — fuck everything!” So wrote Miller to Emil Schnellock in 1931. Three years later, after some financial difficulty, Jack Kahane published Tropic of Cancer at Obelisk in Paris with money Anaïs Nin borrowed from a psychoanalyst. It is the story of Miller's first year in Paris, living hand-to-mouth as a struggling writer.

This edition is the same as the fourth edition in all but wrappers (and the same as the third in pagination, except for necessary variations on the copyright page: “Fifth printing” and “Reprinted January 1939"); our copy'sbinding is blue and white, lettered in black, not the light green wrappers lettered in darker green called for by Shifreen & Jackson.

Jack Kahane founded the Obelisk Press at Paris in 1929 to publish illicit English-language books like this free from legal censure.

•  Shifreen & Jackson A9h.   Binding as above; wrappers faded and creased along the spine, upper joints cracking. A copy that clearly was read more than a few times.  (30191)

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)

Provenance:   Front pastedowns with armorial bookplate of James Wiseman of Glasgow; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabels (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Contemporary bindings, joints and extremities mildly rubbed, vol. II spine a little sunned; vol. I in pebbled dark red roan and vol. II in red morocco but with all tooling done to match — covers framed in gilt double fillets, spines with gilt-ruled bands, gilt-stamped titles, gilt rolls at head and foot, all edges gilt. Bookplates and labels as above; vol. II half-title with early pencilled ownership inscription. Mild to moderate foxing to plates (more noticeable to vol. I frontispiece and titlte.-page) and surrounding leaves. Not quite a perfectly matched set, but rather fascinatingly close; an engaging and attractive pair with a pleasing provenance.  (41049)

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover black- and gilt-stamped, spine simply gilt-stamped, binding gently worn with minor spotting to spine and lower edge of front cover. Ownership inscription to front free endpaper. A nice copy.  (2901)

•  Recent quarter calf, round spine; raised bands accented with gilt beading, gilt center devices in spine compartments, and two green spine labels. Combed-pattern marbled paper sides. Lacks the half-title, only; occasional light foxing. A very good copy of an interesting and now uncommon book.  (22228)

This poem celebrating the works of God in the Creation is written in dactylic hexameter and employs much classical vocabulary, while at the same time showing the influence of liturgical Latin — not an uncommon stylistic combination at that time. The text is printed in roman with guide letters and the pages are lightly ruled in red; the title-page displays Pope Julius III's coat of arms surrounded by a Latin epigram.

Provenance:  Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 8539 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882). Embossed stamp of the Theological Institute of Connecticut on final leaf; deaccessioned to Pitts Theological Library at Emory; deaccessioned again 1998; later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

Searches of COPAC, OCLC, and the NUC revealno U.S. libraries holding this fragment or the larger work.

•  EDIT16 CNCE 40108.   Modern boards covered in a 16th-century leaf of Eusebius with text in Latin and Greek; gilt black leather spine label with misdate of 1521, new endpapers. Moderate age-toning with a handful of stains, provenance markings as above.  (37825)

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers; spine and edges gently sunned, edges with minor shelfwear. Half-title with pencilled (relevant) annotations; pages crisp and clean.  (29718)

•  Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, 915.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spine gilt extra; overall rubbed, front cover with small nick to upper edge and short tear from joint now repaired, spine leather cracked with gilt rubbed yet stillvery nice to look at. Front pastedown with printed paper label (owner's name in blackletter) affixed, front free endpaper excised. Intermittent light spotting and staining, some pages browned.  (26907)

Provenance:  Pastedown and front free endpaper with bookplates of Brian Douglas Stilwell and Robert Wayne Stilwell.

•  Brooks 312; De Lama, II, 40; Giani 31 (p. 92); Graesse, III, 592.   Bound as above, corners and spine extremities rubbed not reducing handsome effect. Title-page with light offsetting from frontispiece and light smudges in outer margin; otherwise, scattered spots of light foxing and a few small stains, some leaves with faint creasing. A clean and attractive copy. (40131)

In 1806, Bodoni printed the six existing cantos (the proposed second and third parts of the poem were never published) in three forms: folio, quarto, and octavo, with the present octavo examplenicely displaying the press's typical restraint and grace.   None of the three Bodoni editions are common; only two U.S. institutions report holding copies of this octavo format (UC-Berkeley, Southern Methodist).

•  Brooks 999; De Lama, II, 171; Giani 176 (p. 71); Graesse, IV, 592.   19th-century treed paper–covered sides with red morocco shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title and decorative bands; small scuffs to sides, spine with small chip and extremities/edges rubbed with edges lightly sunned; front hinge (inside) opening across paper in part but volume strong. Front pastedown with traces of paper adhesions. An unusual Bodoni item, with pleasingly wide margins. (40190)

•  Brooks 998; De Lama, II, 170; Giani 176 (p. 71).   19th-century brown calf–backed marbled paper–covered boards, spine tooled in gilt and blind with gilt-stamped coronet-surmounted coat of arms at foot (appears to incorporate the arms of Tobarra, Spain); moderate rubbing to spine, joints, and edges. Hinges (inside) with sections showing insect damage, but holding. Page edges uncut. A few instances of light foxing, confined to margins and less than might be expected. An attractive example.  (40189)

•  Publisher's quarter cream parchment paper and blue paper sides, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped leather title-labels, in original blue-gray paper dust jacket with black-stamped title and edition information; binding in beautiful condition, jacket with small edge chips and spine head splitting. Pages clean. A nice copy.  (29707)

Signed binding:  Publisher's striped cloth, predominantly seen in the 1840s and never common: Brown ripple-textured cloth thinly striped in light blue, covers each with blind-stamped frame and gilt-stamped harp and shamrock vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title and strapwork; front free endpaper with pressure-stamp of the Benjamin Bradley company. All edges gilt.

•  On binding cloth: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, Rip3.   Binding as above, cocked, corners rubbed, spine extremities chipped, short stretch of insect damage in front joint; overall more attractive than these notes suggest. Front hinge (inside) tender. Pages gently age-toned; a few leaves of preface with light staining along inner margins. A very popular work, here in an unusual and distinctive binding.  (30344)

Binding: Contemporary straight-grain black morocco, covers framed and panelled in gilt and blind, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-framed compartments, spine compartments blind-tooled in foliate designs, turn-ins with gilt double fillets. All edges gilt.

•  NCBEL, III, 264.   Bound as above, edges and extremities with minor rubbing, bottom spine compartment with small crack, leather (only) starting at front joint (joint itself strong). Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription. Moderate foxing, more pronounced to first and last few leaves; two pages with offsetting from dried plant matter laid in. A lovely volume.  (24906)

The ballad is hereillustrated with two handsome woodcuts: the title-page features a large vignette of Dick and John at their loom, and the final text page displays the patterned carpet itself.

Provenance:  From the chapbook collection of American collector Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  ESTC T052020.   Disbound from a nonce volume, with early inked numeral in upper outer corner of title-page. Title-page foot with faint shadow of pencilled annotation; pages with very minor foxing.  (41145)

Provenance:  Small signature in ink of J.E. McKinley, M.D., on title-page along top edge; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Kraus, Italia, 192; EDIT16 CNCE 47029; Brunet, III, 1904; Graesse, Trésor de Livres Rares, IV, p. 608. Not in Adams.   20th-century full calf, spine with raised bands double-ruled in gilt with daisy stamps in compartments, covers framed in gilt double-fillets, all edges gilt; spine gently sunned. Light age-toning and staining with the occasional spot; of several different paper stocks with a few uneven fore-edges and later repairs. Provenance markings as above. Attractive.  (38107)

Provenance:  Author’s inked inscription “A mon bon ami, Amand Lemire [/] E. Morice” on front free endpaper. From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Printed paper over boards imitating 16th-century strap-work and panelling on covers, with gilt lettering on otherwise plain spine and four gold dots at the corners of the covers’ inner panels; rubbed with some paper chipped, front upper corner and hinge cracked, front free endpaper reattached with paste and chipped at bottom. Light to moderate age-toning and foxing throughout; colors and illumination remarkably bright. A pretty little thing with plenty of charm.  (37895)

•  Publisher's tan cloth, stamped in brown, terra cotta, and gilt, in clear light wrapper. Dust jacket lacking. Volume crisp, fresh, and clean.  (40897)

Provenance:  Inscribed by the author: “To Richard Wood from W.A. Mühlenberg [indecipherable location] — Xmas 1856.” Beneath that is another early inked inscription, “L.A. Nichols, from Misses Wood.” Mühlenberg was atthe University of Pennsylvania at the same time as George Bacon Wood, son of Richard Wood and Elizabeth Bacon; the present inscription appears to be a dedication to the father of his classmate.

•  Publisher's brown straight-grained cloth, covers framed in blind roll, front cover with gilt-stamped title; minor wear to extremities, back cover with small light spots. Pages very faintly age-toned with occasional spots of light foxing. A nice little book with nice provenance.  (35366)

The French humanist Muret (1526–85) has long been recognized as the best Latin prose stylist of the Renaissance, and his works were used as a model for students. Greatly admired for his excellent understanding and interpretation of classical texts, he was dubbed “le meilleur orateur du temps” in Italy and France by Montaigne, whom he tutored; and Scaliger mused that Muret “satirised the Ciceronians and at the same time expressed himself in a thoroughly Ciceronian style.” LIke most of Muret's published work, these Variae are based on his academic lectures; however the scholar Lambinus accused Muret of plagiarism, and indeed it seems Muret “borrowed” bits from his work without permission. (In retaliation, Lambinus published their personal correspondence.)

Muret's personal life was fraught with tribulation stemming from multiple accusations of homosexuality in various cities where he resided. From 1559 till his death, however, he lived in Rome under the protection of at least one cardinal and a pope.

The text is in Latin and Greek, printed in roman and italic, with decorative headpieces and floriated initials. A letterpress diagram on p. 547 shows the Greek alphabet corresponding to numerals.

Provenance:  John Saltar (19th-century adolescent's signature, front pastedown); Henry Johns Gibbons, Rittenhouse (Philadelphia), 1923 (signature, front fly-leaf verso).

•  Adams M1971. On Muret, see: Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, II, pp. 148–52.   Contemporary vellum with evidence of four ties and trace of oval stamp to front cover center, ink title to spine and bottom edge; soiled, with worm to spine/ pastedowns, hinges (inside) cracked, textblock starting to loosen. Paper age-toned and foxed, with small holes from natural flaws on two leaves (and two others partially uncut); Hymni dampstained in lower inner portions (not horribly). A few early ink annotations present.  (30146)