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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]

June 24, 2010

Peacock-feather SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE jeweled binding

[BROWNING, Robert] [SANGORSKI, Alberto, calligrapher and illuminator.] “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” [London: for the Grolier Society, ca. 1905-1912]. 24 cm x 18 cm. in a stunning jeweled opal binding by SANGORSKI and SUTCLIFFE.  22 leaves, plus 8 blanks, superbly illuminated floral borders and a full page miniature of Rabbi Ben Ezra.  Colophon statement: recto “The poem of Rabbi Ben Ezra executed by the Grolier Society London, London.” verso “This copy of Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning, was especially written out, illuminated, and bound by hand and will not be duplicated.” Phoebe A.D. Boyle – Anderson New York, 19-20 November 1923, lot 55.  [SOLD]

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]

June 24, 2010

UNIQUE c. 1794 FRENCH HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT

MAGNIFICENT WORK ON INSECTS

[HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT IN FRENCH]  Johann Kaspar Füssell. Archives de l’histoire des insectes, publiʹees en allemand par Jean Gaspar Fuessly. Traduites en françois. 4to.  26.5 x 20 cm.,  Elegant script throughout, contemporary binding as depicted, 408 pages. [s.l., s.d.], c. late 18th century and perhaps a pre-publication or fair copy of the published 1794 edition.  The magnificent 54 plates, the majority finely colored, are by JR Schellenberg, one of the most famous entomological illustrators of the 18th century and well known for his incredibly lifelike depictions.  [SOLD]

Ref:  See: http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/exhibits/herbal/roemer.htm

May 24, 2010

PRINTED 1497: A MEDICAL CASE-BOOK

VERY RARE: One of the Great Renaissance Medical Texts

The Book:

Bartolomeo Montagnana; Jacobus de Vitalibus. Consilia Bartholomei Montagnane : Tractatus tres de balneis Patavinis ; De cop̄ositione & dosi medicinarum ; Antidotarium eiusdem [Venice] : Bonetus Locatellus, for Octavianus Scotus, 2 August 1497. [8], 387, [1] leaves ; 31.5 cm. Later turn of the century binding with loss to spine as depicted. Internally, occasional minor browning, but overall a VERY FINE, WIDE-MARGINED AND COMPLETE COPY. Very Rare on the Market.

Bartolomeo Montagnana, a Doctor of Venetian origin, practiced in Padua as a teacher at the local and prestigious University of Medicine. He was a descendant of a long line of physicians, as well an an anatomist who had dissected as many as fourteen bodies, and thus played a major role in early anatomical investigation.

“A striking feature of clinical medicine in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the writing of “Consilia” or medical case-books, consisting of clinical records from the practice of well-known physicians and letters of advice written by them to imaginary patients or else to real pupils or country doctors, who appealed to their superior knowledge as consultants.” As personalized medicine, these personal clinical studies differed markedly from the lofty and erudite classics of Hippocrates and Aretsus. The work also has botanical interest, as the preparation of medicine required detailed explanations of the sources of the plants.
[ Ref: Garrison, F.H. An introduction to the history of medicine]