Category: Rare Books

August 1, 2010

PRINTED 1684: ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS ENGLISH EMBLEM BOOKS

VERY RARE: A 17th century Interactive Book with a Spinning Lottery Wheel

EXTREMELY RARE. NO COPIES SOLD IN THE AMERICAN AUCTION RECORDS FOR 30 YEARS

[Burton, Robert’ Crouch, Nathaniel] Delights for the ingenious, : in above fifty select and choice emblems, divine and moral, ancient and modern. Curiously ingraven upon copper plates· With fifty delightful poems and lots for the more lively illustration of each emblem, whereby instruction and good counsel may be promoted and furthered by an honest and pleasant recreation. To which is prefixed an incomparable poem, entituled Majesty in misery, or an imploration to the King of Kings. London : Printed for Nath. Crouch, at his shop at the sign of the Bell in the Poultry, 1684. Written by His late Majesty K. Charles the First, with his own hand, during his captivity in Carisbrook Castle, in the Isle of Wight, 1648. With an emblem. Collected by R.B. author of the History of the wars of England, Remarks of London, and Admirable curiosities, &c. [24], 207, [9] p. : ill. (metal cuts, woodcut) ; 14 cm, 12mo. With “A “Lottery Wheel” pointer lacking, as always, on 207. 19th century fine mottled calf and gilt, raised bands, browned throughout as usual, some slight unobstrusive burn marks to some upper margins.  Overall, a COMPLETE and VERY GOOD copy. R.B. = Robert or Richard Burton, the pseudonym of Nathaniel Crouch. Running title reads: Choice emblems, divine and moral. “Majesty in misery”, not in fact by Charles I, is sometimes erroneously attributed to George Wither. Provenance: Ex-libris Printer’s mark bookplate, likely from the personal collection of Leo S. Olschki, the great Italian antiquarian bookseller and publisher. The B.M. catalog cites this as ” the rarest of all Burton’s tracts” Ref: See: Art—A User’s Guide: Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance, http://interactive-prints.com/B.pdf ; 199.  [$2400]

Cotton Mather, the great defender of the Protestant tradition, famously lashed out against the lottery wheel of Crouch’s Delights which taught “fortune telling”

posted in: Rare Books

August 1, 2010

VERY RARE 1868 ROYAL OCTAVO EDITION OF MCKENNEY’S HISTORY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES

One of the most famous and magnificent colored plates books issued in the United States up to its publication.

McKenney,Thomas L. History of the Indian tribes of North America : with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs. Philadelphia : Rice, Rutter & Co., no. 525 Minor Street, 1868. THREE (3) VOLUMES. Royal Octavo. approx, 26 x 18 cm., Publisher’s original brown blind-stamped morocco bindings, edges gilt, some light rubbing as depicted, plates with some occasional minor staining, light spotting and soiling. Overall, a VERY GOOD, HANDSOME AND COMPLETE COPY with 16 more plates than called for by the title page. See: Howes M-129; Sabin 43411   [Sold]

McKenney’s History of the Indian Tribes stands as one of the most famous and magnificent colored plates books issued in the United States up to its publication.

Thomas Loraine McKenney (1785–1859) was a United States official who served as Superintendent of Indian Trade from 1816–1822, under Presidents Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Jackson, until Jackson dismissed him for maintaining a belief that “the Indian was, in his intellectual and moral structure, our equal.” The hand-colored prints are almost entirely portraits painted from life after Charles Bird Kig, who painted Native American delegates coming to Washington D.C. as commissioned by government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. Rice & Hart published the first royal octavo edition in 1848–1850, and the firm, after the subsequent addition of Rutter, continued to produce lavish Royal octavo editions, some very slightly redacted, to satiate the demand of wealthier American customers in the economic boom following the Mexican War and the the California Gold Rush.

This particular edition of 1868 appears to be among the rarest of all the Royal Octavo editions with WorldCat citing only 1 Institutional copy (OCLC 85518)

posted in: Rare Books

August 1, 2010

PRINTED 1675: A FINE FOLIO EDITION OF THE FIRST AND BEST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF DON QUIXOTE

“THE FIRST MODERN NOVEL” (PMM)

The Book:

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de, [The History of the Valorous and Witty-Knight-Errant, Don-Quixote, of the Mancha. Translated out of the Spanish; now newly corrected and amended.]. R. Scot, etc.: London, 1675. Prefixed to pt. II is a title page bearing the imprint: Printed by Richard Hodgkinson, An. Dom. 1672. 2 VOLS in 1. FOLIO, 28 cm. 273 pgs; [8], 137; [5], 138-214, 216-244, 244-273 lvs., small marginal tear to leaf 6 not affecting text, some very occasional spotting, otherwise a VERY GOOD AND COMPLETE COPY. Blind-ruled full period style calf, armorial bookplate. Provenance: Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley, 1st Baron Stuart of Wortley PC (15 September 1851 – 24 April 1926), the British Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1916. Lord Stuart of Wortley married Beatrice, daughter of Thomas Adolphus Trollope and niece of the author Anthony Trollope, in 1880. She died in July 1881 and Stuart married as his second wife Alice Sophia Caroline Millais (1862-1936), daughter of the artist John Everett Millais.  [SOLD]

Thomas Shelton (fl. 1612-1620) was the English translator of Don Quixote. Shelton’s was the first translation of the novel into any language. This 1675 edition, the third appearance, is one of the earliest obtainable translations.

“In the dedication of The delightfull history of the wittie knight, Don Quishote vjd (1612) he explains to his patron, Lord Howard de Walden, afterwards 2nd Earl of Suffolk”, that he “Translated some five or six yeares agoe, The Historie of Don-Quixote, out of the Spanish tongue, into the English … in the space of forty daies: being therunto more than half enforced, through the importunitie of a very deere friend, that was desirous to understand the subject.”[2] Shelton did not use the original edition of the First Part of Cervantes’ masterpiece, but a version published in the original Spanish in Brussels in 1607.[3] Shelton’s translation of the First Part of the novel was published while Cervantes was still alive. On the appearance of the Brussels imprint of the Second Part of Don Quixote in 1616, the year of Cervantes’s death, Shelton translated that also into English, completing his task in 1620, and printing at the same time a revised edition of the First Part. His performance has become a classic among English translations for its racy, spirited rendering of the original… ” [Ref: Wikipedia]

posted in: Rare Books

July 8, 2010

PRINTED 1597: ORIGINAL ELIZABETHAN LAW BOOK

A TUDOR WOMAN PRINTER

CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT EARLY ENGLISH PROVERBS

The Book:

Perkins, John. A profitable booke of Master Iohn Perkins, Fellow of the Inner Temple Treating of the Lawes of England. Londini, Yetsweirt, 1597.  Signatures: A-B, B-P¹²;   p., 168 l. 128 mm,  A TALL WIDE-MARGINED COPY.   BLACK LETTER, contemporary limp vellum,  wear and minor loss to upper right corner of vellum, lightly browned throughout, some staining, ownership marks.  Elizabethan rhyming couplet to verso of last flyleaf.

This fascinating 16th century law book was prepared for students by John Perkins, a member of the Inner Temple.  The Inner Temple was so named because it was in earlier times occupied as the residence of the Knights Templars, which after the suppression of the order, was purchased by some professors of the common law, and converted into hospitia, or Inns of Court.

The book was published/printed by Jane Yetsweirt,  a notable Tudor woman letter-writer, showing that 16th century literate women were not solely found in the aristocracy.  However, as the 1879 Saturday Magazine remarks about her ‘ “Poor thing! She had trouble with the men, just as women do now who undertake to compete with them in business. “She got into trouble with the Stationer’s Company,” says the record, ” and her letters are extant complaining of the company’s ill usage of her.”[Ref: Perkins, Frederic Beecher (ed.),   The Saturday magazine, Volume 1., 1879, pg. 487]

Another fascinating point is that on the rear flyleaf is penned in contemporary manuscript  an Elizabethan couple: “Soone ripe, soone rotten /  Seldom seene and soone forgotten”.    Both are well known English proverbs, the first gnerally considered a coarse or vulgar proverb about the qualities of young marriageable women who soon turn barren.  The proverb in this form seems to originate early in the 16th century as there is recorded the 1546 phrase  “In youth she was towarde [promising] and without evill.  But soone rype sone rotten.  [Ref:  1546 J. Heywood Dialogue of Proverbs i. x. C4V] .   The second line of the couplet, “Seldom seene soone forgotten,” appears in elegies dating back to the 14th century.     [$4500]

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posted in: Rare Books

June 24, 2010

Printed 1786: “One of the great, popular, yet overlooked collections of British satire.”

PRINTED 1786:   COMPLETE SETS ARE VERY RARE; None have appeared at auction since 1988 according to ABPC.

Published by the radical bookseller John Almon

The Set:

The new foundling Hospital for wit. Being a collection of fugitive pieces, in prose and verse, not in any other collection. With several pieces never before published. A new edition, corrected… In six volumes. London : J. Debrett, 1786. Compiled by John Almon. The six volumes were first published serially, 1768-1773; the title alludes to “The foundling hospital for wit”, another poetical miscellany, possibly compiled by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, published in 6 parts, 1743-1749. This volume is an enlarged edition of the 1784 edition, also designated “A new edition, corrected and considerably enlarged”. 18th century calf and marbled boards. All boards present, but four separated and others weakly held by string ties; still the original and attractive boards, wear to morocco spine labels, internally some foxing as always, but generally very good and wide-margined.  COMPLETE SET ARE RARE. NO COPIES AT AUCTION SINCE 1988.  [SOLD]

“The New Foundling Hospital for Wit is one of the great, popular, yet overlooked collections of British satire. Its editors knew how to make audiences crave more in the way of the scandalous, salacious and outrageous… Few copies survive and no UK research library holds the full run of the first edition. ” [Additional Info here: http://www.pickeringchatto.com/major_works/the_new_foundling_hospital_for_wit_1768_1773]

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posted in: Rare Books