The History of Playing Cards and Card-Conjuring. Les Cartes a Jouer et la Cartomancie par P. Boiteau D'Ambly. (Illustrated with forty curious woodcuts.)

12mo: [ii] + ii + 390 pp. In contemporary quarter-binding with burgundy leather spine ('CARTES A JOUER' in gilt) and red paper boards. Top edge gilt. Binder's ticket of Bone & Son, Fleet Street. Tight copy, on aged and spotted paper, in worn binding with damage and loss to spine. In French, with Boiteau's preface dated 'Juin 1854'. Evidently the sheets of the French edition, with Hotten's new title-leaf. An interesting and informative work, with attractive engravings in text by Coppin. Scarce: the only copies on COPAC at the British Library and the National Library of Wales.