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PRESSES / TYPOGRAPHY
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D-F
G-I
J-L
M-Q
R-S
T-Z
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Henri II of France, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, & the Sultan of the Turks
[Danès, Pierre]. Apologia cuiusdam regiae famae stvdiosi: qua caesariani regem Christianiss. arma & auxilia Turcica euocasse vociferates, impuri me[n]dacii & flagitiosae manifestè arguuntur. Lvtetiae: Apud
Carolum Stephanum, 1551. 4to (22 cm; 9"). [22 (last blank] ff.
$975.00
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Schreiber summarizes this work nicely: “A defense of . . . Henri II of France, on whom publicists writing for the Emperor of Germany had cast the blame of having betrayed Christian Europe by soliciting the help of the Turkish sultan against Charles V.” Danès (1497–1577) was Regius Professor of Greek and the French ambassador to the Council of Trent; one of his students of Greek was Henri Estienne.
The work also appeared in 1551 in French from the same press.
Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate fewer than ten North American libraries reporting ownership.
Renouard, Estienne, 102, no.5; Goellner, II, 904; Schreiber, Estiennes. 128; Cioranesco 7375. Bound in modern boards, paper of spine chipping off; old paper shelf label inside front cover and multiple “generations” of bibliographical pencilling to front endpapers. Once upon a time bound in a sammelband as evidenced by the 17th-century manuscript folio numbers (29–49, 30 repeated); some lacing to paper due to iron gall ink. Some browning/foxing of the paper; still, paper and sewing strong. A good copy. (37770)
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SONGS in Prose & Verse
Davidson, Gustav. Songs of adoration. New York: The Madrigal, 1919. 12mo (18 cm, 7"). [4] ff., 13-37 pp, [1] f.
$38.75
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition. One of 333 numbered copies for sale on untrimmed “San Marco hand wove deckle edge paper” (colophon); this is number 323 of 500 total.“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)
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“STUMPED & the KITTENS Are Everywhere”— One of 26 Special
Copies
Davidson, Michael. Two views of pears. Berkeley, CA:
Sand Dollar, 1973. 8vo (20.1 cm, 7.9"). [10] ff.
$80.00
Click the images for enlargements.
A collection of poems on various subjects, with an especial emphasis on
art
history. The title-page is lettered in sky blue and black, with a small blue sand dollar ornament.
376 copies comprise this limited edition printed by Wesley Tanner at the
Sand Dollar Press,
including
26 on Wookey Hole paper and signed by the poet, of which this is number 14.
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)
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Wine as a “Necessity of Life” — Curwen Press in Dust Jacket
Davis, J. Irving. A beginner's guide to wines and spirits. London: Stanley Nott Ltd. (pr. by the Curwen Press), 1934. 12mo (19 cm, 7.48"). [10], 93, [1] pp.; illus.
$75.00
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First edition and in the uncommon dust jacket: an appealingly opinionated introduction to wine connoisseurship from the Curwen Press, with spirits addressed in briefer fashion at the back of the volume. Wines “of the British Empire,” the U.S.S.R., Africa, the Americas, and “The Rest of the World” are included, as is a glossary; the text is illustrated with drawings of bottles and wineglasses and with six
very attractively rendered maps showing the wine territories of Europe.
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)
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Hague & Gill Bibliography — “Observing Eric Gill's Centenary”
Davis, James. Printed by Hague and Gill a checklist prepared in conjunction with the exhibit A Responsible Workman observing Eric Gill's centenary. [Los Angeles]: Regents of the University of California, © 1982. 8vo. [2], 48, [2] pp.; illus.
$20.00
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Dropmore Press — Unopened Copy
De Quincey, Thomas. Revolt of the Tartars or flight of the Kalmuck Khan and his people from the Russian territories to the frontiers of China. London: Dropmore Press, Ltd., 1948. 4to (26.8 cm, 10.6"). [10], 96, [4] pp.; illus.
$65.00
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Fine press production, first edition with these illustrations, sole Dropmore Press printing: An evocatively written account of a Tartar migration under threat by Russian soldiers, by the author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater — who was generally considered to have accomplished a greater feat of literature than of history with this work. The full-page illustrations and chapter headers were done by Stuart Boyle.
This is
numbered copy 119 of 450 printed. The volume was set in Monotype Poliphilus and printed by hand on hand-made paper by Hodgkinson of Wells, with the binding done by Evans of Croydon.
Publisher's half brown morocco and terra cotta cloth, front cover leather with gilt-stamped horse and rider vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title between two raised bands; corners bumped, spine foot and lower raised band slightly rubbed. Signatures unopened. (35218)

An Academic Ephemerum
Printed on Blue-Green SILK
Díaz de la Vega, José María. Broadside. Begins, Juxta. Crucem. Jesu. Stanti Ast. in Cruce. Ipsa ... Angelop[oli] [i.e, Puebla]: Petri de la Rosa, 1816. Folio (38 cm; 15"). [1] p.
$3500.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
On 24 April 1816 Díaz de la Vega stood to defend his Bachelor degree and this letterpress broadside on silk is the official announcement of that. It is handsomely printed using several point sizes of roman and italic, with center justification in the top portion and full justification below.
Degree defense broadsides were an important source of income for Colonial-era printers in Latin America and the printers offered “package deals” to the families of the graduate and post-graduate degree postulants; the packages were geared to the students' families economic means. Broadsides could be large (folio) or small (8vo), have an engraving or not, have a border of type ornaments or not, and be printed on standard paper or colored paper (usually blue); if one splurged, one could get the announcement printed, as here, on silk. The usual total number of copies printed for each candidate is unknown at this time, but is likely to have been only one or two dozen, and we also don't know if more than one silk copy was printed when that top option was in fact ordered. In extravagant cases, one can imagine one for the degree candidate, one for the parents, one for each godparent, etc.; still, such cases would probably have been few.
Certainly, the printers would have been willing to rake in as much money as possible, on each happy occasion, and the richly beautiful silk mementos — doubtless proudly displayed for years going forward in homes or offices — would have been excellent ongoing advertisements. Equally clearly, however, the number of copies of all of the defense broadsides surviving is small, and the survival of those on silk is
very small.
No copies of this broadside are traced via the usual bibliographies, nor via NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, KVK, CCILA, CCPB, or the OPACs of CONDUMEX, the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, and the national libraries of Spain and Mexico.
Not in Medina, Puebla; not in Palau; not Ziga & Espinosa, Adiciones a la imprenta en Mexico; not in Garritz, Impresos novohispanos; not in Gavito, Adiciones a la Imprenta en la Puebla. Blue-green silk with braided edges using gold and silver metallic thread, and with blue tassels incorporating silver thread and fittings attached on all corners. Minimal wear and
stunningly attractive. (34730)
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Herculean Efforts — A Beautifully Produced Book
Di Bassi, Pietro Andrea. The Labors of Hercules. Barre, MA: Imprint Society, 1971. 4to (27.9 cm, 11"). 89, [3] pp.
$75.00
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To redress his having killed his own wife and children during an episode of insanity, the Greek hero Hercules was ordered to serve King Eurystheus for twelve years and to complete twelve seemingly impossible feats. This English version of his Labors is the first translation made of an Italian manuscript in the Philip Hofer collection at Harvard's Houghton Library, written by Pietro Andrea di Bassi for Niccolo III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, before 1435.
The translator, W. Kenneth Thompson, selected thirteen episodes from Bassi's text, and illustrations including
one 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)

Judith & Holofernes — A “Last-Era” Bodoni
Di Calboli Paulucci, Francesco. La Giuditta: Canti del marchese Francesco di Calboli Paulucci fra gli Arcadi Euricrate Acrisioneo; membro ordinario Dell'Accademia Italiana, ecc. Parma: Co' Tipi Bodoniani, 1813. Large 4to (31.9 cm, 12.56"). [8], xiii, [3], 207, [1] pp.
$425.00
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First edition: A lengthy verse retelling of Judith's triumph in a large handsome font, two verses to a broad page, dedicated to Maria Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Massa. Bodoni began the preparation of this edition, and Luigi Orsi finished it after his death; one of his final works, this impressive large quarto embodies
the later, absolutely unadorned Bodoni aesthetic.
A search of WorldCat finds only seven U.S. institutions reporting ownership.
Brooks 1146; De Lama, II, 218–19. Contemporary speckled paper–covered boards, framed in single blind roll, spine with later gilt-stamped red leather title and publisher labels; spine darkened, edges and extremities chewed, back joint starting from head and foot. Front pastedown showing small line of adhesion from now-absent affixed label. A very few faint spots of foxing only, indeed happily few as Bodoni productions can go; internally, an attractive, wide-margined example, with its page edges untrimmed. (40201)

Congo Mission Press Hymnal — LONKUNDO
Disciples of Christ Congo Mission. Bonkanda wa nsao ya Nzakomba. Bolenge, Congo Belge: Disciples of Christ Congo Mission, 1918. 12mo (28 cm; 7.125"). 231 hymns.
$275.00
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The fifth edition of the Disciples of Christ Congo Mission's Lonkundo Hymn Book. The Disciples of Christ Congo Mission (DCCM) arrived in the Congo in 1889 with the intention of developing an indigenous church that would provide change to the whole Congo social order. After developing a written form of the local language, Lonkundo, the DCCM began publishing hymnbooks and educational pamphlets, although Eva Nichols Dye, an early DCCM missionary, would later lament the inaccuracy of their understanding of the language.
From the preface: “This fifth edition of the Lonkundo Hymn Book is a result of the joint labor of the missionaries and the native Christians.” One of those missionaries was “Alice Ferren Hensey, 190731, a talented musician and poet . . . [she] translated many hymns and songs, and taught them to new Congo Christians” (Smith).
This is a mission press production and was actually printed in Bolenge.
On the Disciples of Christ Congo Mission, see: Fifty Years in Congo by Herbert Smith. Publisher's green cloth-covered light boards, spine sun-faded. Some dust-soiling and dog-earing, but withal, a nice copy. (40440)
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More Than 1000 Illustrations by
Pieter van der Borcht
& with Evidence of Readership
Dodoens, Rembert. Remberti Dodonaei Mechliniensis medici caesari Stirpium historiae pemptades sex sive libri XXX. Antuerpiae: Ex officina
Christophori Plantini, 1583. Folio (36 cm; 14"). [10] ff., 860 pp., [13] ff., illus.
$8500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Written and printed during the second decade of the Dutch Golden Age (1570–1670), this
first edition of Dodoens' Stirpium historiae pemptades sex is coveted today by collectors of printing for the excellent typography of the Plantin Press, by collectors of early illustration for van der Borcht's detailed woodcuts, and by collectors and scholars of natural history for the important contributions to botany that the author incorporates.
Hunt says of this that it is the “First edition of Dodoens' last and most comprehensive botanical work, incorporating material from a number of his earlier books, including the Cruydeboeck”; it was the basis for Gerard's famous English herbal.
Rembert Dodoens (1517–85), a Flemish physician and botanist, was fully immersed in the Renaissance method of pursuing knowledge, whether derived from ancient texts or from new discoveries and personal observation, or combining the best elements of both streams. That is what he did with his Cruydeboeck and with Stirpium historiae pemptades sex.
Coming as it does during the first hundred years after the discovery of the New World and concomitant knowledge of New World plants, the Pemptades illustrates and discusses such new discoveries as maize, tobacco, mechoacan, and mpnopal. The
1298 woodcut illustrations here were commissioned by Plantin from the Flemish artist Pieter van der Borcht (1545–1608), a pupil of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Thomas Gloning (Rembert Dodoens und sein Cruyde Boeck) says van der Borcht is held to be one of the most gifted botanical painters of the 16th century.
Provenance: College of Pharmacy of the City of New York.
Evidence of readership: A reader of the late 16th century has corrected some of the text and has added interesting marginalia in Latin that expounds or expands on sections of it. A later reader, probably of the late 18th or early 19th century, has labeled some of the woodcut illustrations with the plant names using Linnaean and post-Linnaean taxonyms. For example some have “W” at the end of the Latin name, for Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765–1812), others “Schmidt” for F.W. Schmidt (1764–96), most just have an “L” at the end, for Linnaeus.
Pritzel 2350; Nissen, Botanische Buchillustration, 517; Hunt Botanical Catalogue 143; Nissen 517; DSB, IV,138–9. Voet, Plantin Press, 1101; Adams D722; Arents, Adds., 74; Alden & Landis 583/23; Index Aurel. 154.557; Bibliographia Belgica D117. Recent quarter mottled brown calf with green and red stone-pattern marbled paper sides; raised bands, each accented above and below by single gilt rule and with gilt center devices in five spine compartments. Library stamp as above on title-page and three other pages. Minor worming in some, a very few, margins, most notable in upper margins of pp. 260–89; gently age-toned, and a few leaves with browning or foxing; overall
a crisp, clean, decidedly desirable copy. (34549)
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Bodoni Poetry
Doricleo, Silvino [pseud. of Giuseppe Bonvicini]. Pensieri poetici. Parma: Co' Tipi Bodoniani, 1797. 4to (31 cm, 12.25"). [8], 31, [1] pp.
$300.00
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Uncommon first edition: 28 poems from a Parma lawyer, in
a large, handsome Bodoni quarto with the verses set in elegant italics.Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplates of Robert Wayne Stilwell and Brian Douglas Stilwell.
Brooks 672; De Lama, II, 124; Giani 102 (p. 59). Modern quarter brown morocco and marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped title; traces of wear to front joint and extremities. Title-page with spot of staining affecting final two letters of epigraph from Vergil, carrying through to first dedication leaf; foxing in the variable degrees typical of so many Bodoni productions. Clean and solid; page edges untrimmed. (40177)

The Art of the Printed Book
Duncan, Harry. Doors of perception: essays in book typography. Austin, TX: W. Thomas Taylor, 1983. 8vo (23.2 cm, 9.2"). [2], 99, [3] pp.
$150.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition: Essays on book design and printing by a famed typographer, book designer, and hand-printer. This is one of 325 copies (300 for sale) printed; the edition was designed by Carol J. Blinn at Warwick Press, printed by Daniel Keleher at Wild Carrot Letterpress, bound by Sarah Creighton and C.J. Blinn in quarter olive Niger goatskin and paste paper–covered sides (paper made by Blinn), and
signed at the colophon by the author.
Binding as above, in
original terra-cotta paper–covered slipcase; leather very gently sunned, slipcase with lower edge rubbed and each side with a small unobtrusive spot/mark or two to paper, otherwise clean.
Informative and attractive. (30560)
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“The Father of the postWorld War II Private-Press Movement”
Duncan, Harry; Juan Pascoe, comp. & ed. The inner tympan: The collected verse and prose of Harry Duncan [compiled by Juan Pascoe]. Tacámbaro: Taller Martín Pescador, 2015. 8vo (23.5 cm, 9.25"). 305 pp., illus., ports.
$85.00
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From the book's rear cover, extensively: “Harry Duncan was a major Master Printer, from whom many younger workers learned enough that legions of poets can be forever grateful to have had their work presented so appropriately that the material particulars, text and all, will melt way, vanish into thin air, leaving the work — the POEM — imprinted in the reader's brain, as if an electronic chip had been implanted: as some crafty publisher might attempt some day, hoping to equal the impact of a Harry Duncan book.
“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)
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W.A.D. 1880 – 1980
(Dwiggins, William Addison). Strand, Julia, ed. A tribute to W.A. Dwiggins on the hundredth anniversary of his birth. New York: Inkwell Press, 1980. 8vo (24 cm, 9.5"). Frontis., 153, [3] pp.; illus.
$35.00
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Eleven essays on the innovative typographer/artist/author, plus a letter from him to Alfred A. Knopf regarding colors for book cloth. Featuring numerous examples of Dwiggins's designs, lettering, and illustration work, this volume was privately printed for friends of Hermann Püterschein (“Püterschein” being Dwiggins's sarcastic, self-mocking alter ego).
The volume was designed by Vincent Torre; this is
one 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)

“Pithy, Ironic, Pen Portraits” of the
1630S
Earle, John. Micro-cosmographie, or, A piece of the world discovered in essayes and characters. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, England: Golden Cockerel Press, 1928. Small 4to (27 cm; 10.5"). vi, 73, [1] pp.
$100.00
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Earle (1601?–65) published this work anonymous but his authorship was soon well known. The work fits well into “the craze for characters — pithy, ironic, pen portraits of social
or moral types, often with a didactic moral purpose” that was prominent in the 1620s and 30s (DNB online; Earle's biography).
This edition reprints the text from the first complete edition of 1633. And as the colophon clearly states: “This book was printed by Robert Gibbings at the Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, and completed on January 10th, 1928. Compositors: A. H. Gibbs and F. Young. Pressman: A. C. Cooper. The edition is limited to 400 copies, of which 150 are for the United States of America.” This is copy 249.
Chanticleer (1921–36) 55. Publisher' red cloth, spine slightly sunned; slight bubbling of cloth, possibly from glue action. Without the d/j. Fore- and bottom edges untrimmed.
A very good copy of a very nice and typical Golden Cockerel. (36985)

One of 75 Printed — Hand-Colored Illustrations
Ehrmann, Paul. Saving graces. New York: Oliphant Press, 1969. 12mo (20.4 cm, 8"). [24] pp.; illus.
$300.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Attractive little volume: six poems from the author of the play “My Bugatti Story.” This is numbered copy 32 of only 75 printed, done on heavy paper with deckle edges and with
four interestingly conceived illustrations (three hand-colored) done by Phyllis Goodwin.
Publisher's black paper-covered boards with white paper shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title; board edges sunned, outer corners rubbed. Pages crisp and clean. (33334)

Nonesuch Tribute: Ellis's Essay with
Numerous Chapman “Excerpts”
Ellis, Havelock. Chapman. Bloomsbury: Nonesuch Press, 1934. 8vo (26 cm, 10.25"). 146, [2] pp.
$550.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Nonesuch Press commemoration of the tercentenary of the death of poet and dramatist George Chapman. The volume was designed by Meynell, set in Centaur and Arrighi, and printed by the Cambridge University Press on Van Gelder paper watermarked “Nonesuch,” with the endpapers displaying bright examples of the Curwen Press unicorn watermark; the title-page bears a vignette in bistre and brown, and the chapter numbers are embraced by typographical ornaments. This is
numbered copy 2 of 700 printed and one of 75 specially bound in full niger, with a contemporary inked annotation recording it as a “Special Binding by Meynell” (date of “20.6.1934" and cost of “£2:7:6") on the back free endpaper recto.
Provenance: Front pastedown with calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books, and with large armorial bookplate of John Roland Abbey (1894–1969), English collector extraordinaire; the purchase notes are the latter's as “J.A.”
McKitterick/Rendall/Dreyfus 93. Natural niger morocco, spine with gilt-stamped title and series of gilt-ruled raised bands, top edge gilt on the rough; corners slightly rubbed, sides with small spots of discoloration, back cover with light scuff and free endpapers with offsetting from pastedowns.
A solid and attractive copy with very nice provenance. (32041)

Reviving a Man
Who “Had Long Lived in Dignified Obscurity”
Ellis, Havelock. Chapman. Bloomsbury: Nonesuch Press, 1934. 8vo (26.7 cm, 10.5"). [4], 146, [2] pp.
$100.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Nonesuch Press commemoration of the tercentenary of the death of poet, classicist, and dramatist George Chapman. The volume was designed by Meynell, set in Centaur and Arrighi, and printed by the Cambridge University Press on Van Gelder paper watermarked “Nonesuch”; the title-page bears a vignette in bistre and brown, and the chapter numbers are embraced by typographical ornaments. This is
numbered copy 227 of 700 printed.
Binding: Boards fetchingly covered with red-brown Curwen patterned paper by Enid Marx with a gray paper cover label, all edges untrimmed; housed in red-brown paper–covered chemise with patterned doublures matching the binding and a gray printed spine label — all in a gray paper–covered slipcase.
Provenance: Front pastedown with calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.
Dreyfus, History of the Nonesuch Press, 93. Bound as above, offsetting to fly-leaves from pastedowns, slipcase lightly dust-soiled and rubbed at corners with title and author pencilled on spine. Volume with a few light marginal spots (possibly from paper manufacture), otherwise clean. (37125)

Biography of a Nice, ORDINARY Guy
(by an
Extraordinary One)
Espinosa, Isidro Félix de. El cherubin custodio de el arbol de la vida, la Santa Cruz de Queretaro. Vida del Ve. siervo de Dios Fray Antonio de los Angeles, Bustamante. Mexico: Por Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, 1731. 4to (20 cm; 7.75"). [12] ff., 216 pp., plt. ( port.).
$5000.00
This is the first published work by Espionsa, the great Franciscan chronicler of the middle third of the 18th century. He was born in Queretaro, Mexico, in 1679, was educated there, and on 19 March 1697 began his career as a Franciscan; he took holy orders on 17 December 1703. Between 1709 and 1721 he participated in several expeditions to Texas: those of Captain Pedro de Aguirre, Domingo Ramón, Martín de Alarcón, and the Marques of San Miguel de Aguayo.
While Espinosa is most famous for his writings on Texas and his fellow Texas missionary Antonio Margil de Jesus, this biography is of Fray Antonio de los Angeles Bustamante, the beloved porter of the Franciscan monastery in Queretaro. Fray Antonio was a lay cleric, a Spanish immigrant who arrived in Mexico as a boy and as an adult had a successful career in business which he abandoned to enter the monastic life.
A full biography of such an “ordinary Joe” in the 18th century is most unusual.
The volume offers an
excellent copper-engraved portrait by Joaquín Sotomayor of Fray Antonio with the keys of his office and the symbols representing his responsibility of giving bread and water to those begging at the monastery door.
The book is from the press of master printer Hogal, considered to be the Ibarra (or Baskerville) of Mexico.
Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate fewer than a dozen copies in U.S. libraries.
Medina, Mexico, 3173; Ayala Echavarri, Bibliografía histórica y geográfica de Querétaro, 423; Palau 82700; Sabin 22895. On the engraver of the portrait, see: Romero de Terreros, Grabados y grabadores de la Nueva España, pp. 537–38. Contemporary stiff vellum with remnants of ties, recased; new endpapers. The occasional stain or wormtrack, never serious; one leaf with small tear at inner gutter affecting a few letters.
A handsome book in a very good copy. (23508)

Catherine, the RUINER
Estienne, Henri; Théodore de Bèze; Jean de Serres, attributed authors. Discours merveilleux de la vie[,] actions & deportemens de Catherine de Medicis Royne mere; declarant tous les moyens qu'elle a tenus pour usurper le gouvernement du royaume de France & ruiner l'estat d'iceluy. No place: Selon la copie imprimée à Paris, 1649. 8vo (14.3 cm, 5.625"). 201, [1] pp.
$450.00
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A scandalous life of Catherine de Medici, expanded from a pamphlet titled Sympathie de la vie de Catherine et de Jésabel, avec l'antipathie de leur mort and here followed by a section titled “Exhortation a la paix, aux François Catholiques.” The pamphlet was first printed in 1574 and the extended version in the following year, with more than a few subsequent appearances in the 16th and 17th centuries. The present example is one of two editions printed in 1649; the other has only 138 pages (although the two contain similar content). Perhaps these 1649 editions were inspired by the overthrow of English King Charles I, and anxiety “around” monarchy?
The title-page here is decorated with a small printer's device of a snail, perhaps making haste slowly, and the text features shouldernotes for ease of use.
Evidence of Readership: A past reader has added a few paragraphs of commentary in French on the verso of the front endpaper as well as two marginal notes in pencil and one in ink.
Provenance: 19th-century “Ex libris Lebers” in ink on verso of front free endpaper. Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Barbier 4030. 19th-century quarter brown morocco and brown, tan, and yellow marbled paper–covered boards, spine lettered and stamped in gilt, stormont marbled endpapers, all edges stained red; lightly rubbed with some loss of paper and leather. Provenance and readership markings as above, light age-toning with a few spots; a few leaves with waterstaining at corners, two short marginal tears, and one marginal repair. (38054)
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History of Rome in Both Latin & Italian —Bodoni Press
Eutropius; Giuseppe Bandini, trans. Il compendio della storia romana di Flavio Eutropio recato di latino in italiano. Parma: Dalla Tipografia Ducale, 1828. 8vo (22.6 cm, 8.9"). xxii, 354, [2 (errata)] pp.
$250.00
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First edition of Bandini's Italian translation of the Breviarium historiae romanae, Eutropius's widely read history of Rome, as well as the first appearance from the Bodoni-run ducal press, at the time of this printing under the supervision of
Margherita Dall’Aglio, Giambattista Bodoni's widow. The text, which includes the original Latin set in italics beneath each section of Italian, is crisply printed on notably heavy paper — “molto bene stampato,” as Brooks puts it.This Bodoni production is now uncommon, with searches of WorldCat finding
only three U.S. institutions (University of Illinois, University of Kansas, Yale) reporting holdings.
Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplates of Brian Douglas Stilwell and Robert Wayne Stilwell.
Brooks 1298. Contemporary quarter brown morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and acanthus motifs; binding rubbed. Very minor spots of foxing to title-page, wide-margined pages otherwise clean. (40205)
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By the MENTOR, about the MENTEE — Signed Binding by Hayday
Evelyn, John. The life of Mrs. Godolphin. London: William Pickering, 1848. 16mo (17.5 cm, 6.875"). xviii, 291 pp.
[SOLD]
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Here in a delightful signed binding, this affectionate account of Mrs. Godolphin's life, by writer and diarist John Evelyn (1620–1706), was passed down through his family until 1847 when Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt allowed its publication with the assistance and editorship of Samuel Wilberforce. Margaret Godolphin (1652–78) was a British courtier married to one of the leading politicians of the time, Sidney Godolphin. She chose Evelyn as a mentor and paternal figure; they remained close until her early death due to complications from childbirth.
The volume, one of the third edition, is illustrated by a
pensive engraved frontispiece of Mrs. Goldophin,by William Humphreys, from an original painting by Matthew Dixon. The work also includes five genealogical tables.
Binding: Black morocco–covered boards with beveled edges, covers framed by two sets of blind double-rules and with an embossed center medallion; spine with raised bands, gilt lettering, blind-stamped devices in compartments, and blind rules extending from bands onto covers. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
Signed by Hayday.
Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering, 1847.5 (not noting the 1848 reprints); Keynes, William Pickering (rev. ed.), 65. Bound as above. Minor rubbing to spine-ends and joints, scuffs and faint scrapes to boards, corners bumped. Light stains to very edges of frontispiece, offsetting to title-page, and gutter crack to p. 290.
Lovely and sturdy overall. (37862)
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“This Kind of Composition Is Not So New to Our Language
as It Has Been Considered”
Fennor, William. Cornu-copiae. Pasquil's night-cap: Or, antidot for the head-ache. [London]: [colophon: C. Whittingham, at the Chiswick Press, 1819]. 8vo (20.2 cm, 7.9"). viii, 119, [1] pp.
$175.00
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Chiswick Press reprint of a delightfully filthy and humorous English poem discussing adultery, originally attributed to Nicholas Breton or Samuel Rowlands. This edition's text comes from a combination of those printed in 1612 and 1623, whose differences the introduction notes are “little more than corrections of orthography and punctuation.” A printer's device appears on the final page.
Provenance: Armorial bookplate of Ezra Otis Swift on the front pastedown; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
NSTC 2B47098 & 2P5931. Quarter black roan in imitation of morocco and dark pink paper–covered boards, gilt lettering on spine; rubbed with some loss of leather and paper. Edges uncut. Light age-toning with a handful of marginal stains. Bookplate and label as above; bookplate offsetting onto free endpaper.
A scandalous historical poem from a respectable press. (39422)

“Sweet Love, Do Not Frown, But Put off Thy Gown”
Floethe, Richard, illus. Cupid's horn-book: Songs and ballads of marriage and of cuckoldry. Mt. Vernon, NY: Airmont Publishing, 1936. 8vo (25.8 cm, 10.125"). 150, [2] pp.; illus.
$50.00
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“Written by various hands and embellished with cuts by Richard Floethe”: Merrily bawdy verses, progressing from the sensual aspects of wedded bliss to the riskier pleasures of extramarital affairs. Only 390 copies were printed — by Peter and Edna Beilenson of the Peter Pauper Press, in modest disguise — of this celebration of lawful and lawless carnality.
Publisher's quarter floral-patterned paper with woodgrain-patterned paper–covered sides, spine with black leather title-label stamped in silver, in original matching slipcase; one corner bumped and spine extremities with small chips, slipcase showing moderate shelfwear and with one upper edge split and repaired with archival tissue. Pages clean. Internally very appealing despite minor external wear. (39805)

ALL the ACTUAL PRINTER'S BLOCKS for the *47* Illustrations
of Zoeth Skinner Eldredge's
The Beginnings of San Francisco
Francis, Walter, illus., et al. For Eldredge's The beginnings of San Francisco, the 47 California-themed printing blocks used to produce the volume’s illustrations. San Francisco: Pr. John C. Rankin Company (New York), 1912. 37 half-tone plates (on copper), 10 zinc cuts, all on their wood blocks; plus 3 additional plates on copper and another zinc cut, similarly mounted.
$2500.00
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A FULL SET of the printer's blocks prepared of the illustrations for Zoeth Skinner Eldredge's The Beginnings of San Francisco (1912), being 37 photographic half-tones on copper and 10 zinc cuts, all on wood blocks, ranging generally in size from approximately 2.5" square to 14" square, with oblong maps measuring up to 20" across. A number of the half-tones were done after drawings by Walter Francis, a California artist and illustrator who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle; a few blocks offer images of photographs, some identified as taken by W.C. Mendenhall of the U.S. Geological Survey or Captain D.D. Gaillard of the Boundary Commission; other images are said to be from paintings and a daguerrotype held privately, with another being the facsimile of a document in the John Carter Brown Library; and, indeed, some are simply “after” images in other books (e.g., The Annals of San Francisco and “Bartlett's Narrative”). The images include a dozen California maps and plans; photographic views of the Colorado Desert and an artistic sketch of “the Trail on the Gila”; portraits of prominent early Californians; several “military moments” and a plan of the Presidio in 1820; plus, notably, scenic and historic “views” including renderings of “the Palo Alto,” the ports of Monterey and San Diego, Yerba Buena, and a number of street and bay scenes depicting San Francisco proper.
Eldredge was a New York–born banker and amateur historian of California whose Beginnings of San Francisco, though possibly self-published, is listed in Cowan & Cowan and described there as “of great historical value.”
In addition to the 47 images/blocks from that work present here, we offer four others that seem to be “related” but which we have not identified beyond establishing that they do not seem to be from the same author's History of California (1915). We must wonder, were they images prepared for the Beginnings and not used? The additional zinc-cut image of a document signed by Gaspar de Portola and two of the three additional half-tones on copper (Portola sighting San Francisco bay and the Spaniards marching to Monterey) were found as online images without clear attribution as to their physical sources; and the last, a western scene not identified, has not yet been “matched” at all.
Most blocks from the Beginnings are still in or with
wrappers showing the images printed from them, as would have been convenient for the printers — these marked (as the backs of the blocks themselves sometimes are) identifying the images and/or showing that the work was completed. (The additional blocks are unwrapped and unmarked.)
In sum, this
complete array of the blocks used for printing a substantial and well-regarded Titanic-era book looks like something that was put on a printing house shelf one afternoon in 1912 at the end of an ordinary project for the pressmen and simply stayed there.
Seeing it on its present PRB&M shelf, coherent and unmessed-with more than 100 years later, is like walking up to that shelf through one of time's “wrinkles.”
On the Beginnings, see: Cowan & Cowan, Bibliography of the History of California, 193. For a list of all its images and notes on their origins, see: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hbbegidx.htm. The paper wrappers present are variously just fine or age-toned or browned, chipped, torn along folds.
ALL the blocks are in good condition; this is not a sort of thing easily damaged! (29741)
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EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY
in
Late 14th-Century France, Spain, Portugal, & England
Froissart, Jean. Le premier [second, tiers, qvart] volvme de l'histoire et croniqve de Messire Iehan Froissart. Lyon: Par Ian de Tovrnes, imprimevr dv roy, 1559–61. Folio extra (35 cm; 13.75") 4 vols. in 1. I: [10] ff, 462 pp., [17] ff. II: [6] ff, 314 pp., [3] ff. III: [6] ff., 363, [1] pp., [2] ff. IV: [6] ff., 350 pp., [3] ff.
$1200.00
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Froissart (1338?–1410?) was a poet and court historian and is best remembered for his famous late medieval chronicle of the house of Valois in France in the 14th century and British history of the same era. The work circulated in manuscript for decades and was first printed in 1499; this mid-16th-century edition is “reveu & corrigeé sus diuers exemplaires, & suyuant les bons auteurs, par Denis Sauuage de Fontenailles en Brie, historiographe du trescrestien roy Henry IIe de ce nom.”
These large and lengthy volumes present Froissart's mostly firsthand narrative of weddings, funerals, and notable events including battles from shortly before his birth to 1400. Information for the period before his birth and reaching maturity is based on Flemish writer Jean le Bel's Vrayes Chroniques. Vol. II chronicles events in Flanders down to the Peace of Tournai in 1385. Vol. III moves us from France and Flanders to address events in Spain and Portugal, while IV deals with events leading up to the Battle of Poitiers and Froissart's visit to England.
Each volume has its own title-page with the printer's device and its text is preceded by a “table des chapitres” (and errata in vols. I and II), ending with several pages of notes. The text is printed in roman with handsome
historiated, exquisitely executed woodcut initials. The printed marginal notes are in italic. The head- and tailpieces exhibit the same high quality of cutting as the initials.
Provenance: The Pacific School of Religion (properly released).
Adams F1066; Grässe, II, 638; Brunet, II, 1405. 18th-century calf with modest gilt triple rule border on boards, rebacked and forecorners of the boards restored; new endpapers. Oval library stamp (as above) on title-page and in the margins of a few text pages only; stamping is minimal. Fore- and bottom margins with old, light dampstaining; upper margins of a few leaves with a small semicircular brown stain; otherwise, an occasional spot or smudge only. Overall, a rather good copy of a standard and still important work
handsomely printed by the royal printer. (36777)

Didot Prints Mililtary Strategy
Frontinus, Sextus Julius. Strategematicon libri tres. Lutetie: [François Ambroise Didot] apud Guilelmum De Bure, 1763. 12mo (14.5 cm, 5.75"). [1] f., xvii, [1], 212 pp., [2] ff.
$575.00
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Frontinus’ classic first century work on military art and science here printed apparently for the first time by Didot. The colophon reads, “E typographia Fr. Ambr. Didot” and Schweiger calls the edition, “Sehr sauber.” The text was informed by the author's success as a general under Domitian, when he commanded forces in Roman Britain, and on the Rhine and Danube frontiers.
Binding: Contemporary full red morocco, plain style. Side-combed nonpareil endpapers.
All edges gilt. Silk place marker.
WorldCat locates only five U.S. libraries (Society of the Cincinnati, University of Chicago, Library of Congress, University of Pennsylvania, University of Cincinnati) reporting ownership.
Schweiger, II, 369; Graesse, II, 639; Brunet, II, 1409. Bound as above; interior as “clean” as the edition. Very good copy. (40322)

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