Dec 11, 2017 - www.philological.bham.ac.uk/speude/trans.html). RIC 112 .... each canto; a beautiful copy, entirely uncut
THE COIN WHICH INSPIRED THE ALDINE ANCHOR
1. [ALDUS MANUTIUS.] Silver Denarius of Titus. Rome, AD 80. Silver denarius; obverse: IMP TITUS CAES VESPESIAN AUG P M with laurated head of Titus, facing right; reverse: TR P IX IMP XV COS VIII P P with dolphin coiled round anchor; weight approximately 3.37g, diameter 18 mm, struck on a broad flan, a few light fissures in the surface, but in near extremely fine condition. £800 Silver denarius of the Emperor Titus (AD 79-81) featuring the dolphin and anchor which inspired Aldus Manutius to create his iconic printer’s device. This example is unusual, with a much wider and more elegant curvature of the anchor arm than any of the examples in the BM catalogue, and is in excellent condition. ‘From the ancient coins minted by Titus Vespasian we can easily gather that this same proverb [Festina lente] pleased him, too. Aldus Manutius showed me a specimen, a silver piece of old and clearly Roman workmanship, which he said was sent to him as a gift by the Venetian nobleman Pietro Bembo, who honoured the youthful Aldus as an example of the foremost students and diligent investigators of literary antiquities in his time. The impression stamped on the coin was like this. On the obverse was the portrait of Titus Vespasian with his titles; on the reverse was a dolphin curving around and embracing the shank of an anchor. This device means exactly the same thing as the saying of Augustus Cæsar, σπεῦδε βραδέως, and the evidence is in the monuments written in hieroglyphic letters. … Aldus has taken as his own this same device which once so pleased Titus Vespasian. He has multiplied it and made it not only famous, but also most beloved by everyone everywhere in the world who understands and loves
literature. I do not believe that this symbol was so illustrious when it was stamped on the imperial money and carried around to be rubbed by the fingers of merchants, than now when it has been printed on the title-pages of books of all sorts, in both languages, among all nations, even those beyond the borders of Christendom. It is known, loved, and praised by all who cultivate the sacred studies of the liberal arts, and especially by those who despise turgid and barbaric dogma and aspire to the true ancient learning’ (Erasmus, Adagia, II.i.1. Translation from www.philological.bham.ac.uk/speude/trans.html). RIC 112; BMC 72.
From our copy of Ammonius, Porphyrii commentarius, Venice 1546.
A PRESENTATION MANUSCRIPT BY THE ‘CUMBERLAND BARD’
2. ANDERSON, Robert. Autograph manuscript volume of ‘Poems, Songs &c’. Wood Bank, July 13th, 1825.
‘Cumberland ballads’ – ‘The Hivverby House-warmin’, ‘The Hivverby Hau’rels’ and ‘Dolly ov Dawston’.
8vo, pp. [22], a fair copy in a fine, neat hand; with an index at the end; old repair to tear in one leaf, else in very good condition in the original stiff paper wrappers, bound into later cloth covers. £1200
The ‘Mrs Harrington’ to whom Anderson dedicates this volume is presumably the wife of the calico printer James Harrington, of Woodbank near Carlisle. In 1825 Harrington went into partnership in the printworks at Woodbank with William Wilde and Robert Robley – Anderson was perhaps seeking patronage from a successful local, or knew the Harringtons from his earlier years in the trade.
An attractive manuscript by Robert Anderson (1770-1833), dedicated ‘To Mrs Harrington, of Wood Bank; With the Author’s sincere wish, she may long enjoy Peace, Plenty, Wealth, & Happiness’. None of the fifteen poems included here appeared to have been published. A textile-worker turned poet much inspired by Burns, Anderson (1770-1833) is best known for his Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect (1805), though he also wrote verse in standard English. He was ‘much feared for his personal attacks; he had a keen eye for the ludicrous, and pictured with fidelity the ale-drinking, guzzling, and cock-fighting side of the character of the Cumbrian farm labourer’ (ODNB). Having begun life as a pattern drawer in the calico industry, he moved to London for further training (his first songs were sung at Vauxhall Gardens), before taking up a post in Belfast. On his return to Carlisle he was given a civic welcome, but he later fell into poverty, which the publication of his Poetical Works (1820), was an attempt to relieve. Subscribers to the latter included Southey and Wordsworth. He was buried in Carlisle Cathedral and a monument erected to him. The present collection post-dates Anderson’s Poetical Works and includes a ‘Sonnet on the death of David Garrick, Junr, Esq’ (who had overseen the publication of that collection). Among the ‘songs’ (‘Wellington and Waterloo’, ‘Poor little Fanny’) is one in Scots dialect (‘The Banks of Clyde’), and the manuscript closes with three
SHE’S DEAD, ALAS!
3. ARWAKER, Edmund. A Pindaric ode upon our late soveraign lady of blessed memory, Queen Mary. By Edward [sic] Arwaker, author of The vision of the death of King Charles. London, for Rich. Parker, 1695. Fol., pp. 12; title within black mourning border, price at end ‘four pence’; a very good copy, disbound. £150 First edition of this ode on the death of Mary II (1662-1694) by the Irish poet and clergyman Arwaker (c.1655-1730), printed with a thick black mourning border to the title. Mary, who had jointly ruled England, Scotland and Ireland with her husband William III since 1689, died of smallpox at the age of 32. She was widely mourned in Britain. Arwaker begins by calling upon Britannia to mourn and imaginatively pictures a tearful Belgic lion (‘Till from the Flood-gates of her Eyes, Her Land is more in danger to be drown’d, Than by the Tides that at her Sluces rise’). He refers to the ‘fatal and ... loath’d Disease’ to which Mary succumbed, and imagines the king’s fear at her approaching death – he who had often faced death himself (‘Among loud Cannon and their roaring Balls’). The poem ends with a rallying cry ‘To scourge the haughty Insolence of France’. A graduate of Kilkenny College, chaplain to the Duke of Ormond, and archdeacon of Armagh, Arwaker also penned poems on the death of Charles II and ‘on the excellent and useful invention of making sea-water fresh’, as well as a selection of fables done into English verse. ESTC R11733; Wing A3910.
UNRECORDED
4. CALVET, sieur de. L'arithmétique nouvelle, dans sa véritable perfection, où l'on peut en très-peu de temps, facilement et même seul, apprendre à compter, chiffrer et calculer sans maître, toutes sortes de sommes... et traité de la nouvelle orthographe, contenant la manière d'écrire correctement les mots ordinaires; modèles de promesses, de quittances et autres actes sous seing privé; de modèles de lettres missives pour instruire la jeunesse. Sur la copie imprimée à Paris, chez P.D.R. ruë de la Huchette, au Pillier verd, [ca. 1785]. 12mo, pp. 31, [1]; light uniform toning, but a very good copy, stitched as issued in the original printed wrappers with woodcut coat of arms of Louis XVI (1754-1793) on both covers. £380 Unrecorded edition, the earliest known, of a manual for merchants rare in any version, which includes arithmetic instructions as well as specimens for the correct styling of letters of exchange, promissory notes, receipt notes etc., with a brief appendix on more general letter-writing. Two copies of two later editions are held at the BNF and the Sorbonne.
THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD
5. CANAYE, Jean (editor). Recueil de letres (sic) des plus saincts et meilleurs esprits de l’antiquité, touchant la vanité du monde. Paris, Sebastien Cramoisy, 1628. 8vo, pp. 108, [4], 423 (i.e. 407), [1]; engraved title-page by Jean Picart; paper slightly toned, but a very good copy, bound in contemporary French vellum, gilt, somewhat stained along the joints, small areas of loss of vellum to foot of spine and lower board; gilt edges; nineteenthcentury ownership stamp ‘H. Tribout’ to front pastedown. £750 First and only edition, extremely rare, of a collection of letters of the Fathers of the Church on the vanity of the world. It includes St. Cyprian’s letter to Donatus, St. Jerome’s letters to Heliodorus and Demetrias, St. Augustine’s letter to Licentius and St. Eucherius’ letters to his cousin Valerian and St. Hilarius, each preceded by an introductory note by the editor and translator Jean Canaye (Jesuit scholar, 1594-1670). The collection is dedicated with a long letter by Canaye to PhilippeEmmanuel de Gondi (1580-1662), count de Joigny who, following the death of his wife in 1625, joined the Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus. COPAC records one copy only, at Lambeth Palace. OCLC records 3 copies, all in France (Toulouse, Sainte-Geneviève and BNF).
AN ITALIAN POPULAR PRINTING OF A MIDDLE ENGLISH LEGEND
6. [CHIVALRY.] Vita, e morte di Buovo d’Antona, nella quale si tratta delle gran battaglie, e fatti d’Arme, che lui fece. Venetia, Padoa, et in Bassano, Per Gio: Antonio Remondini [c. 1700]. 8vo, pp. 144; woodcut of jousting knights to title page and 22 somewhat crude small woodcuts in the text, one at the beginning of each canto; a beautiful copy, entirely uncut, bound in slightly later plain brown boards, slightly worn at edges. £850 Rare Italian popular printing of this chivalric poem recounting the trials and triumphs of Bevis of Hampton, son of the Count of Hampton and his young wife, the daughter of the King of Scotland. The Remondini of Bassano had a large section in their catalogue devoted to this sort of popular publication, described as ‘libri da risma’ (literally ‘ream books’), not folded nor bound, cheaply printed to satisfy the growing demand from less well-off classes and religious and secular schools, often marketed by street vendors and book peddlers directly employed by the printers. OPAC records only 2 copies in the USA, at Grinnell College and University of Minnesota. COPAC lists 2 copies, at Cambridge and the British Library (giving c.1650 as date of publication). As usual with popular prints, various issues exist, with the title page set in different ways or with spelling variations (‘Bvovo’ instead of ‘Buovo’, for example). Brunet, I, 1397-1398; Melzi-Tosi, p. 207; see also M. Infelise, Libri ‘popolari’ e libri da risma, in Remondini: un editore del Settecento, pp. 304-9.
ETHIOPIAN MISSIONARIES
7. CONGREGATIO DE PROPAGANDA FIDE. Alphabetum Aethiopicum sive Gheez et Amhharicum cum oratione dominicali salutatione angelica symbolo fidei praeceptis decalogi et initio evangelii S. Iohannis ... Rome, typis Sac. Congreg. de Prop. Fide, 1789. 8vo, pp. 32; printed in Latin and Ge’ez, woodcut device of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide to title; a little light foxing; a very good uncut copy in blue/grey wrappers. £350 The second edition (first 1631) of this attractive work from the press of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, giving the Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, Apostles’ Creed, and opening of St John’s Gospel, among other texts, in interlinear Latin and Ethiopic, prefaced with an interesting introduction by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi (1740-1792), the distinguished philologist and superintendent of the Congregatio’s press. Founded by Gregory XV in 1622, the Congregatio began printing in 1626 and remained active until 1907. ‘To propagate the faith, the Propaganda printed sacred and other texts in non-Roman alphabets. At its peak it owned 50 alphabets, enabling it to print in all known tongues ... Its output was primarily catechisms, grammars, liturgical books, apologetics, and ephemeral works in pamphlet form, distributed free of charge’ (Oxford Companion to the Book). Smitskamp Philologia Orientalis 213.
IN PRAISE OF OBNOXIOUS SHREWS
8. [COQUELET, Louis (attributed author)]. Eloge de la méchante femme, Dédié à Mademoiselle Honesta. Paris, Antoine de Heuqueville, 1731. 12mo, pp. [8], 49, [1]; woodcut title vignette, headpieces and initial; a very good copy in contemporary calf-backed red boards, flat spine filleted in gilt, gilt red morocco lettering-piece; extremities a little rubbed. £1450 First edition of a rare feminist tract, a hearty paean to strong-headed women written on an irresistible stylistic tightrope of parody and bluff misogyny. Bored with the ‘sheepishness’ of female specimens populating the salons and streets of contemporary Paris, the author celebrates the idiosyncratic, amoral virtues of a fictitious dedicatee, M.lle Honesta, an uncompromising force of nature who does not submit to the millennial paradigm of subdued womanhood, and strides through life as a bold, unfettered, often abusive and, as the title says, obnoxious shrew. Credulous and easily-led men have for centuries lapped up the superstitious fear of strong women just as they have embraced dozens of spurious little beliefs related to bad luck, reinforced by a plethora of male authors’ literary version of the same myth (with a list of citations provided). The truth, the author says, is that Socrates was right in crediting his nagging Xantippe as the person who turned him into a philosopher: an obnoxious shrew for a wife will keep one sober,
faithful, liberal, lean, and especially patient – she is the greatest find in a man’s life. Barbier attributes this work to Louis Coquelet, author of numerous ‘eulogies of…’. He was responsible for an earlier, shorter work with a similar title, La Méchante Femme, 1728. An alternative proposed attribution is to Léonor Jean Christine Soulas d’Allainval. Barbier II, 81; Gay-Lemonnyer II, 88; Cioranescu 21126; OCLC locates 4 copies, of which 2 in the US (Harvard, UCLA).
9. COURTRY, Charles. Boutet embêté par Courtry. Préface de Léon Maillard. Paris, Bibliothèque artistique et littéraire, 1896. 4to, pp. [4], viii, 104, [4], with a half-title, two dry-point etchings by Henri Boutet, each in three states, and two engravings (including the cover) by Courtry (one after Boutet), each in two states; numerous comic illustrations throughout by Courtry; a fine copy, uncut and largely unopened; slightly shaken, in the original illustrative paper wrappers, slightly rubbed, spine neatly restored. £450 First edition, scarce, number 14 of 50 copies on Japon imperial and with the plates in multiple states, from a total edition of 400 copies. Boutet embêté is a work of playful epistolary verse and comic illustration addressed to the fin-de-siècle Parisian artist Henri Boutet (1851-1919), by his fellow engraver Charles Courtry (1846-97), ‘l’un des meilleurs aquafortistes du XIXe siècle’ (Bénézit). Boutet, known as ‘le Petit Maître au corset’, was best known for his candid drypoints of young Parisian women, of which several examples are included here. In a knowing parody of a lover’s complaint, Courtry reproves the absent Boutet in the hope of finally being given a promised work in pastels, and thus being permitted to create an etching of his work – the final result, a drawing of a young woman’s back dedicated ‘à mon ami Ch. Courtry’ and etched by Courtry is found here. The poetry moves through many different (often uniquely francophone) forms, including rondeaux, ballades and Petrarchan sonnets, accompanied by Courtry’s many comic sketches, with some in strip format resembling the bande dessinnée. These include tableaux of Boutet suffering from flu while trying to draw his models; Courtry summoning the ghosts of Caesar and Napoleon to pay homage to
Boutet (here depicted as Helios); several scenes offered in potential exchange for the pastel (Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise etc.); and, having been unable to obtain the artwork, Courtry threatening suicide ‘en Japonais’. OCLC locates six copies (not specifying which limitation): Bibliothèque nationale, Staats und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, National Library of Scotland, Université de Montreal, New York Public Library, and Pepperdine University.
A REDISCOVERED SIXTEENTH-CENTURY IM PRINT
10. DIONIGI, Francesco. Devota rappresentatione de i martirii di santa Christina vergine, e martire di Giesu Christo. Fano, Pietro Farri, 1612 (but 1592). 8vo, ff. [viii], 92; woodcut arms of Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci (the dedicatee) on title page; worming to the inner gutter of a few pages towards the middle of the book, not affecting text; some light scattered foxing, but a very good copy, recased in eighteenth-century vellum; early eighteenth-century bookplate of Francesco Martino Vespignani (d. 1717) to front pastedown. £1500 First edition, extremely rare, of a religious drama, in hendecasyllables and heptameters, in five acts, by Francesco Dionigi, a clergyman active in the late sixteenth century in the town of Fano, near Urbino, on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The work, a combination of hagiographic tragedy and pastoral drama which fits into a popular genre that flourished during the CounterReformation, tells the legend of the martyrdom of Saint Christina of Bolsena, also known as Christina of Tyre. Christina, a young virgin born from a wealthy family of Bolsena, following her conversion to Christianity is tortured first by her father Urbanus, the local governor (first three acts), then after his death by his successor Dion (fourth act) and finally, after Dion’s death, by the new governor Julian (fifth act). Christina survives various gruesome tortures, often graphically described in the text, such as flagellation, drowning, boiling oil, breast mutilation, having her tongue removed and assault by snakes, and finally succumbs shot by arrows, while the people around her, amazed by the miracles, convert to Christianity.
Franco Longoni, in his study Una cinquecentina fanese misconosciuta, speculates on the book being actually printed in 1592 rather than 1612, a theory now accepted by various bibliographers and book historians. Longoni based his assumption on various pieces of evidence, such as the dedicatory letter being dated 1592, the work being dedicated to Cardinal Rusticucci who died in 1603, the personal histories of the printer and the author, the type employed and, finally, the fact that on the only known copy preserved in an Italian library the date has been corrected to ‘1592’ by a contemporary hand. 1612, therefore, would simply be a typographical error where the X in ‘MDXCII’ was mistakenly shifted one place to the right, turning the date into ‘MDCXII’. (See: Franco Longoni, Una cinquecentina fanese misconosciuta, in ‘Nuovi Studi Fanesi’ xxi (2007), pp. 219-25). No copies listed on COPAC. OCLC records 2 copies, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and Harvard (both giving 1612 as publication date); EDIT16 records 1 copy only, at the Biblioteca comunale Paroniana in Rieti (where the date 1612 has been corrected to 1592 by a contemporary hand). Biblioteca Picena, IV, p. 6; see also: Franco Battistelli, Francesco Dionigi da Fano. Profilo di un letterato tra commedia pastorale e tragedia agiografica, in ‘Fano, Supplemento al notiziario 1972’ (1973), pp. 36-42.
SCARCE LEWIS CARROLL ITEM
11. [DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge.] Curiosissima curatoria by “Rude Donatus”. Printed for private circulation. Oxford, printed by G. Sheppard, 1892. 8vo, pp. [8], 47, [1 blank], with erratum slip tipped in at p. 1; some browning and a few marks to half-title, small closed tear at head of p. 1, lower inner corners slightly bumped; overall a good copy with original printed upper wrapper (detached, chipped at edges, and with a few marks); wanting lower wrapper and most of spine; faint ink stamp of ‘Reginald W. Macan University College’ to foot of upper wrapper. £450 First edition, a rare Dodgson item, printed for private circulation in only 75 copies on the occasion of his resignation as curator of the Christ Church Common Room. ‘Most of the Resolutions passed by Common Room and its Committees between 1859 and 1892 are recorded, and a great deal of interesting and solid information is given, some details reaching back to 1818 ... The humour is generally latent’ (Lewis Carroll Handbook). ‘Even in carrying out the humdrum tasks of curator of senior common room (which tedious job he held for almost ten years), he introduced wit into his frequent memoranda and three reports (Twelve Months in a Curatorship, 1884: ‘at once financial, carbonaceous, aesthetic, chalybeate, literary and alcoholic’; Three Years in a Curatorship, 1886: ‘Airs, glares and chairs’; and Curiosissima curatoria, 1892: ‘A curatorial parting gift’)’ (ODNB). Provenance: formerly in the possession of the classical scholar Reginald Walter Macan (1848-1941), Fellow and later Master of University College, Oxford, and also a Fellow of Christ Church.
DEATH OF A JACOBITE - AN ILLICIT PUBLICATION
12. DYING SPEECH (The) of James Shepheard: who suffer’d Death at Tyburn, March the 17th, 1717/18. Deliver’d by him to the Sheriff, at the Place of Execution. [London, n.p., 1718]. Folio broadside; worn and creased at edges, lower corner torn away touching two words at the foot (sense recoverable). £750 One of at least five printings of this ‘speech’, some adding a hymn. Its inflammatory content makes it very unlikely that it was in fact delivered. Not to be confused with his highwayman namesake and contemporary, James Shepheard was an eighteen-year-old apprentice coach-painter of Jacobitical tendency, who, having been influenced by certain pamphlets published during the 1715 rebellion and being a ‘great frequenter of Jacobite conventicles’, planned the assassination of George I to coincide with an invasion by the exiled James III (the Old Pretender). Shepheard revealed his intentions to a non-juring minister, but said clergyman brought him to the authorities, where he willingly (or naively) embraced martyrdom by repeating his plans. Jacobites carefully stage-managed the affair for maximum impact – a non-juring priest gave Shepheard absolution on the scaffold, and ‘a dying speech purported to have been written by him was passed around at his execution scene but the government forbad its publication’. In spite of this, they ‘managed to circulate broadside copies of it throughout London’ (Manuel Schonhorn, ‘Defoe and James Shepheard’s Assassination Plot of 1718’ in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 29:3, 1989). Defoe penned a number of pro-Government works on the matter including Some Reasons why it could not be expected the Government wou’d permit the Speech or Paper of James Shepheard to be printed. ESTC records Harvard only (cropped) of this printing.
13. [ECONOMICS. VALENCIA.] REAL SOCIEDAD ECONÓMICA. Instituciones economicas de la Sociedad de Amigos del Pais, de la ciudad, i reino de Valencia. Primera parte [all published]. Valencia, Benito Monfort for the Society, 1777. 8vo, pp. lxxiii, 208; with allegorical engraved vignette on the title; a clean, crisp, very attractive copy in contemporary vellum, flat spine with ink titling. £950 Rare first and only edition of the prospectus, statutes and plans of the Valencia Royal Society of the friends of the Country. The Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País were private associations established in various cities throughout Enlightenment Spain, and to a lesser degree in some of Spain’s overseas territories including the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guatemala, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, and elsewhere to stimulate the economic and intellectual development of Spain. The brainchild of a group of seven local promoters well aware of the Europe-wide movement for the improvement of economies from the point of view of agriculture, husbandry, industry, the professions and arts as advocated in the (here quoted) Ami des hommes and other works by the French Economistes, the Society obtained permission to constitute itself as quickly as the Madrid sister-group. This elegant publication, dedicated to the King himself, reflects the lofty, yet practical purposes and lively intellectual engagement of the members. The allegorical vignette, featuring crops and a ship and the motto ‘Fert omnia tellus’ is clearly more than a nod to the Economistes’ realm of commitment. No copies recorded in the US. One in the UK (British library).
CASUALTY OF CHINESE RITES CONTROVERSY
14. [FATINELLI, Giovanni Jacopo.] Relazione della preziosa morte dell’eminentiss. e reverendiss. Carlo Tomaso Maillard di Tournon prete cardinale della s. r. chiesa commissario, e visitatore apostolico generale, con le facoltà di legato a latere nell’impero della Cina, e regni dell’Indie Orientali, seguita nella città di Macao li 8. del mese di Giugno dell’anno 1710 ... Rome and Bologna, Costantino Pisarri, 1711. 3 parts in 1, small 4to, pp. 70, [2]; woodcut title ornament and initials; some spotting to title and first few quires; a very good copy in later brown wrappers. £400 Scarce edition of this account of the death of cardinal Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon (1668-1710), papal legate to the East Indies and China whose attempts to abolish the so-called Chinese rites led to his imprisonment and death at Macau. The first edition was printed at Rome by Francesco Gonzaga in the same year. The text, attributed to Tournon’s deputy in Rome, Fatinelli (1653-1736), is followed here by Verba per ... Clementem Papam XI habita ... 14 Octobris 1711 de obitu Cardinalis de Tournon (pp. 43-49) and by Oratio habita in sacello pontificio V. Kal. Decembris A.D. MDCCXI in funere ... Caroli Thomae Maillard de Tournon ... a Carolo Majello (pp. 51-70). Appointed by Clement XI as legate to the East Indies and Qing Empire of China, Tournon arrived in India in 1703 and promptly forbade Catholic missionaries from permitting the practice of the Malabar rites. Arriving in China the following year, Tournon was initially welcomed by the Kangxi emperor, but his 1707 decree obliging missionaries under pain of excommunication to abolish the Chinese rites among the native Christians displeased the emperor and Tournon was imprisoned at Macau. Following his death, Clement XI praised him for his courage and loyalty to the Holy See.
Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 913-914 (Gonzaga edition). OCLC finds copies of this edition at Princeton and Cleveland only, outside Italy.
15. FORD, Richard (Ian ROBERTSON, editor). A hand-book for travellers in Spain, and readers at home. Describing the country and cities, the natives and their manners; the antiquities, religion, legends, fine arts, literature, sports, and gastronomy: with notices on Spanish history. Foreword by Sir John Balfour. Edited and with an introduction by Ian Robertson. [Arundel and London,] Centaur Press, [1966]. Three vols, 8vo, pp. xviii, [ii], 481; viii, 483–1032; viii, [1033]–1507, [1, errata]; with a frontispiece in each volume and two folding maps; occasional very pale foxing or light spotting along fore-edges, but essentially as new; original dark blue cloth, spines lettered in silver, top edges stained blue. £120 The Centaur Press reprint of Richard Ford’s classic Hand-book for travellers in Spain, with an introduction by Ian Robertson and a revised index. Ford’s knowledge of Spain was based on his experiences there from October 1830, when he and his family moved to Seville for the sake of his wife’s health, to just before the outbreak of the First Carlist War in 1833 when they returned to England. ‘During his three years in Spain, Ford made numerous excursions throughout Andalusia, and three longer expeditions: in spring 1831 to Madrid, Talavera, and Badajoz; in autumn 1831 via Valencia, Barcelona, and Saragossa to Madrid and back; and in summer 1832 on horseback via Mérida, Yuste, and Salamanca to Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo, León, Burgos, and Bilbao. While on these journeys, of which he remarked that a riding expedition for civilians in Spain was ‘almost equivalent to serving a campaign’ – referring to those of the Peninsular War, several battlefields of which he visited – many notebooks were filled with descriptions of the monuments and works of art he saw, and he also made over 500 drawings and watercolours, largely devoted to Seville and Granada’ (ODNB).
Within days of the work’s first publication in 1845, ‘Ford was being lionized as the perceptive and articulate author of a most comprehensive and accurate account of that country, and one unlikely to be ever superseded. Although opinionated and occasionally acerbic, his perennially fresh descriptions and observations appear here at their most spontaneous, and stimulating. As later affirmed by Sir William Stirling Maxwell, “So great a literary achievement had never before been performed under so unpretending an appellation”, which “took its place among the best books of travel, humour, and history, social, literary, political, and artistic, in the English language” (The Times, 1858), and that judgement holds. The influence of this masterpiece, reprinted in 1966, has been profound’ (ibid.).
CRIMINAL JUS TICE IN THE F RENCH ARMY
16. FRANCE, Ministère de la Guerre. Compte général de l’administration de la justice militaire pour l’année 1843. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, Mai 1846. Folio, pp. 42; with tables of statistics, woodcut device to title; light offsetting to inner margins of pp. 22-23 from blue silk bookmark; a very good, crisp copy in contemporary gilt- and blind-stamped red morocco attributed in a pencil note to Thouvenin, gilt-lettered spine, gilt edges, patterned cream endpapers; faint abrasion to lower cover. £1100 A handsome copy, perhaps bound for presentation, of this statistical report on military justice in the French army in 1843, dedicated to king Louis-Philippe by Alexandre Moline de Saint-Yon (1786-1870), a veteran of Waterloo who served as France’s Minister of War between 1845 and 1847. The first such Compte appeared in the early 1830s soon after Louis-Philippe’s accession, becoming an annual series thereafter. Out of an army of 334,091 men, the report notes that 3488 were prosecuted for crimes including desertion, insubordination, theft, selling army equipment, murder, and rape. While 90 men were condemned to death, the majority of the offenders were imprisoned, other punishments including forced labour and the ball and chain. Among a wealth of statistical data, the malefactors are analysed according to how they joined the army, their rank, length of service, and by the branch of the army to which they belonged. Consideration is also given to the cost of criminal trials. We have been unable to trace any copies in UK or US institutions.
FROM THE LIBRARY OF POLYDORE VERGIL’S GREAT-NEPHEW
17. GUAZZO Stefano. Dialoghi piacevoli… novamente da lui corretti, et in molti luoghi ampliati. Dalla cui famigliare lettione potranno senza stanchezza, et satietà non solo gli huomini, ma ancora le donne raccogliere diversi frutti morali, et spirituali. Venice, Antonio Pinelli, 1610. 8vo, pp. [xl], 608; a beautiful copy, clean and crisp, bound in contemporary limp vellum; contemporary ownership inscription of Marc’Antonio Virgilio Battiferri (see below) to front free endpaper, with his manuscript monogram at foot of title and annotation on p.193; later in the library of William Stirling-Maxwell, with his crest embossed to front board, monogram to lower board, bookplate to front pastedown and label ‘Proverbs - Keir’ to rear pastedown; spine covered in nineteenth-century brown morocco lettered gilt and original pastedown covered in nineteenth-century marbled paper, as often with the books from Stirling-Maxwell; bibliographical annotation in the hand of Stirling-Maxwell to front free endpaper. £550 A beautiful copy, with compelling provenance, of the only Pinelli edition (first 1576) of an extremely popular conduct book for both men and women, in the form of twelve dialogues on various subjects, with particular attention to the moral education of princes, which influenced Montaigne, Edmund Spenser and John Florio among many others. Of particular interest is the fifth dialogue on emblems and impresas, especially considering that Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593) studied law in Pavia under Andrea Alciati, the ‘father’ of emblem books. Guazzo’s works soon enjoyed great popularity in the whole of Europe; his Civil conversazione (1574) was translated into Latin, French,
German and English (in 1581), while Dialoghi piacevoli appears in the list of works read by Florio for compiling his A Worlde of Wordes.
Marc’Antonio Virgilio Battiferri (canon and later archdeacon of Urbino cathedral) was a great-nephew of Polydore Vergil who actively tried to rehabilitate and restore Vergil’s good name, especially in his native Urbino, after his De inventoribus rerum was condemned and included in the 1559 Index Librorum Prohibitorum (see: Catherine Atkinson, Inventing Inventors in Renaissance Europe: Polydore Vergil’s De inventoribus rerum, p. 253). Stirling-Maxwell, An essay towards a collection of books relating to proverbs…at Keir, p. 43 (this copy).
GERMAN JESUIT?
18. [HAGIOGRAPHY.] Theatrum patientiae humanae exhibens achis duodecim scenas in sengulis circiter triginta exemplis duorum patientium et S.S. Patrum Sententiis illustratas. [Germany, 18th century]. 4to, ll. [182]; manuscript in Latin in a clear italic hand; engravings pasted in collage to final quire; small ms illustrations; offsetting to first and last leaves; slight worming especially to last two quires but a good, clean copy in contemporary sheep, fleurons to corners, clasps intact, rubbed, head of spine chipped; library stamp of the St. Andreas Church in Rüngsdorf to first leaf. £1750 A manuscript calendar year of short hagiographical lives, one for each day of the year, with some days given over to important feast days. The author reveals their Germanic salt by repeated use of Thomas à Kempis. Other exempla patientia include Jesuit figures of the previous century. The manuscript’s fluency in Latin – one might expect to read hagiography in the vernacular – and the numerous references to Jesuits likely indicate Jesuit membership or aspirations on the part of the author. Their wide frame of reference also includes classical authors (Epictetus, Seneca) and the early Church fathers. The manuscript gives evidence of strong personal devotion, with Catholic imagery providing focal points for the author’s thoughts: manuscript drawings of a palm tree, the sacred heart and the milites Christi. Even more exciting are the collages of engraved images: the ‘rose among thorns’; Christs’ wounds; and the clock of the Passion. Rather imaginatively the points of the clock-face emanate in an exuberant fashion from the wound in Christ’s side (usefully added in ink) like streams of blood.
The author probably undertook this manuscript as a spiritual and learning exercise. Latin was essential, as was the discipline required to record a saint for every day of the year. The model would likely have been the Acta Sanctorum of the Jesuit Bollandistes, first published in 1643 in two volumes covering January’s saints, and still largely incomplete by the time of our author’s century. The emphasis here is on suffering saints, hence the title Theatrum patientiae or ‘Theatre of endurance’. What better example of this (besides Christ Himself) than Ignatius Loyola? The author has noted the anagram for Loyola’s name and Francis Xavier’s: gavisi sunt vexari; ‘they rejoiced in suffering’.
TYPHUS: A MEDICAL-MARITIME-NAPOLEONIC APPROACH
19. HERNANDEZ, Joseph François Didace. Essai sur le typhus ou sur les fièvres dites malignes, putrides, bilieuses, muqueuses, jaune; la peste; exposition analytique et expérimentale de la nature des fièvres en general … Paris, Cellot for Méquignon-Marvis, 1816. 8vo (213 x 132 mm), pp. xiv, 479, [1 blank]; very occasional light spotting or creasing; half title; original marbled-brown paper wrappers, printed title label on spine, all edges uncut, partially unopened; extremities lightly rubbed and creased, upper joint with very short split at the top, nonetheless a very fresh, crisp copy in the original wrappers; provenance: Librarie de V[euv]e Bergeret, Bordeaux (contemporary printed bookseller’s label on upper wrapper). £950 First edition. Hernandez (1769-1835) was a professor of physiology and pathology, Chair of Hygiene and chief of the clinic at Toulon; marine medical doctor at Toulon, Rochefort and other French port cities; the first president of the Académie in the south-eastern French province of Var (where he was also politically active); and a knight of Napoleon’s Légion d’Honneur. In Essai sur le typhus he rejects traditional book learning (especially humoral theories) and proposes an empirical approach – long-term observations and studies for reproducible, reliable results – for investigating the origin, epidemiology, contagion patterns and treatment of inflammatory and ‘intermittent’ fevers, and typhus – a disease with especially devastating epidemics during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Hernandez’ references are both historical and firmly situated within the fabric of the Napoleonic Wars, often based on his own professional experience, and informed by his wide-spread interests in hygiene and epidemiology. In the historical and medical parts of his narrative,
Hernandez refers to typhus, yellow fever and plague epidemics in, among other places, Europe and Russia (Toulon, London, Constantinople, Moldovia, Moscow), the Caribbean (West Indies, Guadeloupe), North America (including Halifax, Nova Scotia, Charlottetown, New York, and, notably, Philadelphia, with references to the College of Physicians, which had been founded in 1787 – Benjamin Rush is mentioned); names a large number of contemporary doctors and their predecessors, and assesses their approaches to these diseases; and identifies ships and seamen (and thus implicitly wars, trade and exploration) as the cause of the international movement of epidemics.
Hernandez was also a participant in the medical controversies of his time: a contemporary review (Journal de médecine… de Montpellier, 1816, p. 150) comments on Hernandez’ affinities with the Brunonian system of medicine; this had been developed by John Brown, a student of William Cullen’s at Edinburgh, whom Hernandez refers to on the half-title (‘Essai sur le Typhus de Cullen, ou Fièvre Asthénique’), and Brown’s theories on typhus had been particularly acutely discussed during the German typhus epidemic of 1813-14. Interestingly, Hernandez was attacked in Toulon for promoting Brown’s controversial theories of physiological irritability, excitability, and disease, and attempts were made to remove him from his posts. Wellcome III, p. 254.
JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
20. JAN VAN DER LINDEN. Heerelycke ende geluckige reyse naer het heyligh landt ende stadt van Jerusalem ... in het jaer ons heeren 1633 ... Den lesten druck, van nieuws oversien ende op vele plaetsen verbetert. Het eerste deel. Brussels, Weduwe G. Jacobs, 1744. [Bound with:] Het tweede deel ofte weder-keeren van de heerelycke ende geluckige reyse naer het heyligh landt ende de stadt van Jerusalem ... Den lesten Druck van nieuws oversien. Brussels, G. Jacobs, [n. d.]. Two parts in one vol., 4to, pp. 80; 64; text in roman, blackletter and civilité, title to first part in red and black with woodcut Jerusalem cross, woodcut of comet to title of second part, headpieces; first and last pages slightly dusty, short closed tear at title fore-edge, corners to first few leaves a little worn, cut a little close at head margins; overall a very good copy in later vellum boards, spine label; some wear to
spine and joints; book label ‘Ex legato d. Zenonis de Viron’ (1856) to front pastedown. £750
Scarce later edition (first 1634) of this popular account of Jan van der Linden’s journey to Jerusalem in 1633, printed in roman, blackletter and civilité types. Prior of the Alexian convent in Antwerp and plague master of the city, van der Linden (d. 1638) travelled with Jacob Pussenius, the father confessor of his convent, through France to Genoa and thence to the Holy Land, where he visited the holy places in and around Jerusalem. His account, interspersed with prayers and hymns, contains a number of interesting passages relating to Cyprus. The work served as a schoolbook to generations of children well into the nineteenth century: the title pages bear the instruction ‘Leest, begrypt, ende onthout’ (‘Read, understand, and remember’). cf Röhricht p. 250-1; Tobler p. 101. Not on COPAC; only the Hamilton College Library copy in the US on OCLC.
MODEL OF A CALCULATING MACHINE
21. JEVONS, William Stanley. ‘Preliminary account of certain logical inventions’, communicated March 19th, 1866 [in: Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. During the fifty-fifth session, 1865-66. No. XX]. London, Longman …, Liverpool, Marples, 1867. 8vo, pp. ii, 173-232; a clean copy, in recent wrappers; stamp of the Geologists’ Association, London. £350 First edition of the account of Jevons’ communication on the ‘logical abacus’ and the ‘logical machine’, a precursor of his later ‘logical piano’. Jevons had experimented with different forms of
teaching aids before creating his logical piano. On this occasion, early in his career, Jevons (pp. 177-179) organized a practical demonstration and set forth the purpose and functions of his newly devised calculating and logical machine – a comparatively simple device consisting of a number of marked blocks of wood that could be manipulated on a series of shelves to produce the solution to a logical problem. He considers his work within the tradition of ‘mechanical logic’, from Aristotle to Babbage. Inoue and White 66; not in Letters and journal.
MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WORLDVIEW
22. [MANUSCRIPT.] A treatise on world geography. Italy, c. 1760. Manuscript on paper, in Italian, 4to (225 x 185 mm), pp. 320 (including index at end); neatly written in brown ink in two distinct hands, c. 33 lines per page, French verses at end in different 18th-century hand, a few corrections and crossings-through, table headed ‘tavola de climi’ to p. 18; occasional small ink stains and marks; very well preserved in contemporary calf, gilt decoration and label to spine, red edges; some wear to extremities, a few marks to covers, upper joint repaired. £3500 A thorough, methodical, and highly interesting manuscript treatise on the physical, political and religious geography of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, apparently unpublished, providing an important insight into the mid-eighteenth-century western European conception of the world. The latest event referred to within the text is the 1756 battle of Minorca, putting its composition – by an anonymous Italian author – to around 1760. The absence of information on Australasia also indicates a date prior to Cook’s voyages. The treatise opens with an overview of cosmography and geography in general, including an interesting glossary of terms employed in natural geography (e.g. desert), civil geography (e.g. state), and moral geography (e.g. paganism). The author then discusses maps, including scale and representing natural and man-made features, as well as selecting the best maps. He then considers, for example, longitude and latitude, calculating the distance and time difference between two places, the rising, setting and declination of the sun, the constellations, stars and planets, and terrestrial and celestial globes (with reference to Nicolas Bion’s Usage des globes).
In his subsequent analysis of European, Asian, African and American geography, the author works down from the macro to the micro level, beginning with a general account of each continent (giving consideration to languages and the general characteristics of their inhabitants) before describing each country in turn (giving latitude, longitude and extent), its regions, cities and island possessions, physical features (e.g. rivers, mountains and lakes), natural resources, religions, and government. There is much of historical interest – references to numerous treaties for example – as well as details on agriculture, commerce, and European colonialism.
The author is understandably Eurocentric, devoting the greatest part of the manuscript (to p. 240) to the European continent. Beginning with Spain, he works through western, central, and eastern Europe, including the European possessions of the Ottoman empire (with a short passage on Islam), ending with Russia, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. Showing a not unnatural bias, he refers to Italy as ‘no ha che invidiare a qualunque altra parte dell’Europa’, and also comments on the cold, humidity and absence of wine growing in England. The author divides Asia into 6 parts, comprising Turkey, Russia, Tartary, Persia, India, and China (‘vastissima regione’) and begins by stating that the Middle East was the first region to be populated by mankind and the birthplace of the arts and sciences. Discussion of China is followed by that of Asian islands including Japan. The section on Africa includes references to slavery and to European possessions on the continent. Opening with mention of Vespucci and Columbus, the section on the Americas covers significant rivers and mountains (describing the Andes as ‘i piu alti di tutto il mondo’) as well as commerce in cocoa, tobacco and precious metals, before examining North America (‘la Nuova Francia, l’America Inglese, la Florida, il vechio e nuovo Messico e la California’) in detail, and then South America, with references to European colonisation. A final brief section is devoted to the Arctic and Antarctic, ‘una parte del mondo poco o nulla conosciuto’, ending with reference to the 1739 discovery of Cape Circoncision. The French verses at the end, ‘Vers artificiels pour aprendre aisement, et retenir par coeur la geographie universelle’, include the names of countries, regions, cities, and rivers across the globe – with a particular focus on France – and are perhaps derived from the Jesuit author Claude Buffier.
A LOVELY SET OF A RARE EDITION
23. MANZONI, Alessandro, and M. G[OSSELIN] (transl.). Les Fiancés, histoire milanaise du dix-septième siècle; par Alexandre Manzoni. Traduit de l’italien par M.G. Paris, Dauthereau, Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1828. Five parts in three vols, 32mo; with the half titles and initial editor’s note; a very good copy in contemporary half-calf, marbled boards with gilt-stamped flat spines and gilt lettering-pieces, speckled edges; extremities lightly worn. £650 First edition of the first or second French translation (two appeared in the same year) of the most important and widely-read Italian novels of the age. Inspired partly by Walter Scott’s works, I Promessi sposi was quickly established in Italy not just as the exemplary historical fiction, capable, according to the author’s poetic, of achieving closeness to the historical truth better than history itself; it also became (in its definitive form) the template for modern Italian language prose. Another French edition came out in the same year, by a different translator, and not as rare as this. The translator of our edition has been identified as M. Gosselin, archivist at the dépôt des fortifications. No copy recorded in COPAC. OCLC locates three copies in the US (Oxford, Wellesley, Louisiana State).
PRESERVING THE FENS
24. [NORFOLK, Commissioners of Sewers.] The great law of marsh land. [King’s Lynn?, c. 1714]. 4to, pp. 22, [2 blank]; title from p. 1; first and last pages dusty with a few marks; a very good copy, stab-stitched; inscription ‘C. S. Ives’ in red ink at head of p. 3. £200 Rare first edition of this work relating to the preservation of drained Norfolk marshland. The first part comprises an order by the Commissioners of Sewers, following a meeting at King’s Lynn on 1 June 1714, detailing urgent repairs to various local ditches (‘gooles’), drains, and banks which had been ‘very much broken and torn’ ‘by the late storms and violent rages of the tides’, which had almost resulted in ‘a fatal and general inundation from sea’. The order also calls for the printing and strict application of ‘the ancient great Law of Marshland’, dating from the time of James I, and this appears here as the second part (pp. 6-22), detailing the appointment and duties of surveyors and dike reeves, and penalties for negligence. ESTC N70468; Goldsmiths’ 5101. We have only traced 3 copies (British Library, Trinity College Cambridge, and Senate House Library). No auction records.
25. [PLACE, Francis]. An essay on the state of the country, in respect to the condition and conduct of the husbandry labourers, and to the consequences likely to result therefrom. [London], printed by Innes, [1831]. 8vo, pp. 16; a very good copy in modern marbled boards. £500 First edition. The author, who has been identified as the social reformer Francis Place, concludes his analysis with observing that, with current low profit margins, squeezed by a large variety of duties, tithes and taxes as well as rent, farmers were unable to increase labourers’ wages. A further increase to taxes levied on landlords would only generate the inevitable and lethal consequence of reducing their capacity for investment. In his youth, Place had moved through the essays of Hume and the works of Locke and Adam Smith to the teachings of Paine, Godwin and others (from which he and other radicals had drawn their inspiration for universal education). This finally delivered him to the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill which provided the philosophic bridge between education and parliamentary reform. Though slim, this pamphlet offers a coherent and exemplified view of Place’s understanding of economic dynamics, including wages, prices, rent, as well as illustrating contemporary social conditions and labour-related disputes. Goldsmiths’ 26920; Kress C2910.
AN UNICUM, PRINTED ON VELLUM
26. RINUCCINI, Ottavio. La Dafne. Livorno, (Gaetano Poggiali) co’ i tipi di Didot il Maggiore, 1802. 8vo, pp. [4], 24; a beautiful copy, printed on vellum, bound in contemporary blue silk over boards, spine worn. £1350 A unique copy of Rinuccini’s Dafne, extracted from the Drammi musicali published in Leghorn in 1802 and printed on vellum specially for Count Giulio Bernardino Tomitano (1761 – 1828), renowned bibliophile from Oderzo, as stated on the first leaf (‘Unico esemplare impresso in cartapecora della sola Dafne per la raccolta de’ Libri di Lingua del nobilissimo ed eruditissimo Signor Conte Giulio Bernardino Tomitano di Oderzo’). Giulio Bernardino Tomitano’s large collection of books and manuscripts was dispersed after his death, and in 1840 some 100 manuscripts were sold by his heirs in London, where many were purchased by Guglielmo Libri. In 1884, 65 volumes of correspondence of Tomitano returned to Italy when the Italian Government repurchased some 2000 manuscripts stolen in Italy by Libri and sold by him to Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham; they are now in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Gamba 844 (‘Pubblicatasi dal Poggiali sin dall’anno 1802 una raccolta de’ Drammi musicali di Ottavio Rinuccini [...] fece imprimere a parte della sola Dafne un unico esemplare in pergamena, posseduto da Giulio Bernardino Tomitano di Oderzo’).
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVER
27. SINCLAIR, John, Sir, first baronet. A sketch of the improvements, now carrying on by Sir John Sinclair, Bart. M.P. in the county of Caithness, North Britain. London, W. Bulmer and Co., 1803. Large 4to, pp. [2], 16, with 4 engraved plates (2 folding); a little creasing at corners, some loss at fore-edge of first plate affecting engraved text; a very good copy stab-stitched in contemporary marbled paper wrappers; ‘From the author’ at head of title. £850 First edition, presentation copy, with attractive engravings showing a ‘Plan of the new town of Thurso’, an ‘Improved elevation and plans of Janet Street in the new town of Thurso’, a ‘Plan of certain farms on the river Thurso ... intended partly to be let in small lots on improving leases to new settlers’, and ‘Sketch of the fishing village of Brodiestown intended to be created at Sarilet’. Agricultural improver, politician, and president of the Board of Agriculture, Sinclair (1754-1835) was educated at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Oxford, inheriting his father’s Caithness estates in Scotland. A sketch details Sinclair’s various schemes for improvement, including sheep farming at Langwell, the adoption of a ‘fen system of husbandry’, the creation of new small arable farms, and the establishment of two new villages of Halkirk and Brodiestown and of a new town of Thurso, an attractive Georgian suburb. But as Sinclair here notes, his improving zeal was checked by the prospect of renewed hostilities with Napoleonic France and the financial uncertainty this brought. ‘He held to most of the standard views of improving
landowners – their enthusiasm for enclosure, for instance, hostility to commons, and readiness to experiment with new crops ... As with most improvers many of his experiments were expensive failures’ (ODNB). Goldsmiths’ 18635. COPAC records 5 copies (BL, NLS, Edinburgh, Senate House Library, Southampton). OCLC apparently records only the Yale copy in the US. Rare on the market (no auction records).
ASK NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR WOMEN …
28. TOUZELLI, Bénoit (also Benedetto TOSELLI). Apologie des femmes, ou, Vérités qui font triompher le beau-sexe. Turin, printed by Soffietti and sold by Morano, 1798. 12mo, pp. 107, [1]; a very good copy in contemporary paste-paper wrappers; edges rubbed. £1000 First edition of a very rare tract on the dignity of women. One of the most original eighteenth-century voices keen to establish the foundations for the recognition of women’s dignity, the author wrote that, while his predecessors rightly stressed the importance of the physical and moral reinstatement and education of women, it was now time to take a step forward and show that women have the attributes and qualities that are necessary to cooperate with men, and contribute to carry the ‘burdens of social life’; they are fully equipped, he states, to ‘bring the most palpable advantages to humanity in all kinds of virtue and literature’. Women therefore ought ultimately not to be the object of men’s condescending homage or earnest patronage, but rather to be men’s partners in the running of a modern society. Little is known about the author; his name, as would have been quite common in the literary milieu of Turin at the time, is the French version of the original Italian Benedetto Toselli, under which a nineteenthcentury translation of this work was eventually published. Gay I, 246; OCLC lists four institutional copies in North America: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA.
PRINTED AT THE LODIANA MISSION PRESS
29. UPRETI, Ganga Datt. Proverbs & folklore of Kumaun and Garhwal. Lodiana (Ludhiana), Lodiana Mission Press, 1894. 8vo, pp. iv, iv, ix, [i], viii, 413 (i.e. 415), [1]; a beautiful copy, exceptionally well preserved, bound in the publisher’s black cloth, title gilt to spine, red edges; bookplate of Victor de Guinzbourg to front free endpaper. £850 First edition, rare, of a large collection of proverbs and idiomatic expressions, thematically arranged in over 200 categories, in the dialects of Kumaon and Garhwal, two regions in the Sub-Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in northern India. Each proverb is recorded in the original Devanagari script, accompanied by the Romanised transliteration, the English translation and an explanation, sometimes lengthy, of the meaning in relation to social context and folklore, as well as the customs and manners out of which each proverb arises. The author was ‘induced to collect and translate the proverbs, maxims, sayings, and phrases and to illustrate the folklore of these hills, during a course of years in the service of Government as a Deputy Collector in Garhwal and Kumaun, where [he] sought and obtained [his] information from old men of respectability and knowledge. [The author] hastened to collect them as [he] was told that a good deal had already been lost… These proverbs give an insight into the character, habits, customs and traditions of the people who inhabit the districts of Kumaun and Garhwal’ (Preface, pp. i,iii).
Both Garhwali and Kumaoni are now listed in UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger as languages in the ‘unsafe’ category, requiring consistent conservation efforts. OPAC records one copy only, at Harvard. COPAC adds SOAS, British Museum, British Library, Royal Asiatic Society, National Library of Scotland and Oxford.
ILLUSTRATED BY FÉLICIEN ROPS, THE PLATE IN THREE STATES
30. VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM, Auguste, Comte de. Akëdysséril. Paris, M. de Brunhoff, 1886. 8vo, pp. [6], 67, [5]; with a half-title, a frontispiece photogravure portrait of the author, a striking aquatint plate by the symbolist artist Félicien Rops (in three states – blue, sanguine and bistre), engraved initials (one printed in red) and two head- and tail-pieces by Georges Rochegrosse, with the latter in a second state (in red) on two plates at the end; a fine copy, bound retaining the original waxed paper front cover (title printed in red) in half silver morocco and blue decorated boards. £950 First edition in book form, no. 190 of 250 copies, of an oriental fable by the French symbolist writer Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1838-1899). It is a work ‘d’une majesté de marbre monumental’ (Verhaeren), printed on velin, with a fine illustration by the Belgian artist Félicien Rops. Originally published in La Revue contemporaine in 1885, Akëdysséril takes inspiration from Indian culture, and specifically Vedic literature, as T.S. Eliot would do almost four decades later. Although lesser known than the author’s seminal Axël, which Edmund Wilson would later champion as the definitive text of the symbolist movement, Akëdysséril is one of the earliest texts to perform the modernist union of symbolism and orientalism. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam brings together these twin threads in the work’s eponymous principal, Akëdysséril, Queen of Benares, ‘une énigme inaccessible’ [an unknowable mystery] used to absolute obedience. Returning from war at the head of her army she confronts the guardian of the temple of Shiva, a man whose memory reaches into the depths of Indian mythology.
‘In Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s hands one sees late-nineteenth century orientalism become a vehicle for the occult mystery of literary symbolism, making the text a fascinating document of nascent modernism’s heavy – and often unacknowledged – debt to visions of the colonial East. The work’s dream-like prose (‘avec son aspect de songe’) gave it a Wagnerian cast that was noted at the time by Dujardin, though according to him it was ‘less simple, less precise, less grand than the art of Wagner’ (quoted in Hertz, The Tuning of the Word, p. 53). ‘Akedysseril est un sujet parnassien, mais tandis que les plus célèbres de ses émules s’attachaient à realiser les gestes, physionomie, les milieux fabuleux seulement, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam pénètre jusqu’à l’âme des pays et peuples séculaires. Dans Akedysseril, c’est la pensée de l’Inde qu’il nois dévoile’ (Emile Verhaeren in L’Art moderne, 7 November 1886). Carteret, II, 472; Vicaire, VII, 1091.
Four Antarctic Years in the South Orkney Islands is one man’s fascinating record of four winters in NEW PUBLICATION Four Antarctic Years in the South Orkney Islands: an Annotated Translation of ‘Cuatro Años en las Orcadas del Sur’, by José Manuel Moneta
the Antarctic during the 1920s, the period of transition from the isolation of the Heroic Age to the beginnings of radio communication with the world outside.
Editor: R. K. Headland Translators: Kathleen Skilton and Kenn Back José Manuel Moneta’s account of the South Orkney Islands was originally written in Spanish and published in twelve editions from 1939 to 1963. This is the first English translation of what is still the only autobiographic account of the South Orkney Islands. For this edition, R. K. Headland has added copious supplementary material ranging from maps and notes to a bibliography and an index.
R. K. Headland is a Senior Associate of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. In 1984 he was decorated with the Polar Medal. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Institute for Historical Research, Arctic Club and Antarctic Club. Publication date: 11 December 2017 – ISBN 9780995519206 – 440 pages (including 84 illustrations, 4 maps and 2 plans) – softback.
Offered at the introductory price of £40 until 31 January 2018. The full price is £50.
Philosophy Politics, Statecraft, Mirrors of Princes Photographic Miscellany 100 Books from the Library of Lord Olivier Economics
CATALOGUES: 1436 Travel, Natural History and Scientific Exploration 1435 Music 1434 Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts
Cover illustrations: item # 9 Courtry.
