Pamphlets and Books

Urania; or, The Illuminé

Author: 
William Robert Spencer, playwright , poet and wit (DNB).
Publication details: 
London: Printed for J. Ridgway, 1802.
£125.00

Pp.[viii].38.[2], disbound, minor damage around stab-holes, foxing, mainly good condition. Scarce. INSCRIBED by the author (part in square brackets lost through trimming): "Countess of Harcourt - From the Au[thor]". A convict transport was presumably named after her ("Countess of Harcourt") - it mainly transported Irish convicts. Spencer was the source of "How noiseless falls the foot of time". "Urania" was "a burlesque of German ghost literature" (DNB).

Anno Vicesimo Octavo Georgii III. Regis. CAP. LXIII. An Act for charging several Estates in the Counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham, settled upon the late Charles Radcliffe deceased, for Life, with Remainder to his First and other Sons

Author: 
[Act of Parliament; Charles Radcliffe; Anthony James, Earl of Newburgh; Northumberland; Cumberland; Durham]
Publication details: 
London: Printed by Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan, Printers to the King's most Excellent Majesty. 1788.
£56.00

Folio: sixteen leaves on laid paper. Unbound and stabbed, with two staples (now rusted) added subsequently. Good, with first leaf lightly discoloured. Title-leaf, and text on next fifteen paginated 1131-1159.

Alexander von Humboldt : bibliographische Übersicht seiner Werke, Schriften und zerstreuten Abhandlungen.

Author: 
Julius Löwenberg [Lowenberg]
Publication details: 
Stuttgart: F.A. Brockhaus Komm.-Gesch. Gmbh. Abt. Antiquarium. 1960.
£56.00

8vo: 68 pp. In original printed wraps. Good, with light vertical crease to front wrap. Six copies on COPAC, but none at the British Library.

Ought France to Worship the Bonapartes?

Author: 
Ahriman I., pseud. [Napoleon Bonaparte]
Publication details: 
London: Robert Hardwicke, 192, Piccadilly. 1863. [W.H. Collingridge, City Press, 117 to 119, Aldersgate Street, E.C.]
£100.00

8vo: [iv] + 90 + [ii] pp. In original grey printed wraps. The answer to the question in the title is an emphatic 'No!', with the author's argument summed up in the conclusion: 'The publication of these remarks has been elicited by a feeling of indignation and surprise, on learning, that, in any part of the world, and especially of France, the man, whom a former generation cursed, should now be deemed worthy of being canonised.' The author puts his case forcefully and well, marshalling a number of quotations from classical and modern sources.

Fear. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," April 1914.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt and Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street.
£28.00

8vo: 8 pp. Stapled and unbound. In original grey printed wraps with rusted staples. Grubby and dogeared. Signed ('L. Conrad Hartley') presentation inscription dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint of this short story on COPAC.

The Neophyte and the High Priest. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," January, 1915.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt & Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street. 1915.
£28.00

8vo: 11 pp. Unbound and stapled. In original beige printed wraps. Grubby and dogeared, with rusted staples. Signed (L. Conrad Hartley') presentation, dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint off this short story on COPAC.

A Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, English and foreign, together with a Collection of Miscellaneous Prints, the greatest portion accompanied with concise biographical and descriptive notices. Part V. London.

Author: 
A. Nicholls, London printseller ('Upwards of 25 years Assistant to Messrs. Evans of 1, Great Queen Street, and 403, Strand.') [prints; engravings]
Publication details: 
London: A. Nicholls, 5 Green Street, Leicester Square, W.C. [no date, but post 1848] ['A. Munro, Printer, New Yard, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.']
£85.00

Octavo: 16 pp. Stitched and unbound. Grubby and a tad creased. Items, in alphabetical order from H (beginning with the Earl of Hardwick) to J (ending with Dorothy Jordan), with a few miscellaneous items on the last page, numbered 3002 to 3837. Interesting for the information it provides about minor English celebrities ('3651 JACKSON, Joseph, letter founder, nat. Old-street, 1733, res. Cock-lane and Dorset-street, London, ob.

Poemata, quae de praemio Oxoniensibus posito Annis 1806, 1807, et 1808, infeliciter contenderunt; non in publicum edita, amicis tantum privatim deferenda.

Author: 
[Abraham John Valpy (1787-1854); Pembroke College, Oxford; Trafalgar]
Publication details: 
[London] Londini: In Aedibus Valpianis, Pridie Idus Octobres, 1809. [A. J. Valpy]
£120.00

Octavo: [ii] + [41] + [1] pp. A little dogeared, on lightly aged paper, and with slight damp staining to one corner at rear. In worn and stained original grey wraps, repaired with strip of brown paper at spine. Three Latin poems by Valpy: 'Trafalgar', 'Plata Fluvius' and 'Delphi'. COPAC lists only three copies: at the British Library, the Bodleian and Durham.

Catalogue of Fourteen Thousand Portraits of Authors, Actors, Legislators, Ministers and Celebrated Men and Women of All Countries. The Largest Sale that has ever taken place in the United States. [...] by Edelinck, Lemperour, Bause, Schidt, Doo [...]

Author: 
Banks, Merwin & Co., Auctioneers, Broadway, New York [Auction Catalogue]
Publication details: 
New York: To be Sold at Auction [...] 8th, 9th and 10th of March, 1864, By Banks, Merwin & Co., At the Irving Buildings, Nos. 594 and 596 Broadway].
£100.00

Octavo: 18 pp. Unbound: stabbed and unstitched. First leaf and leaves with pp. 15/16 and 17/18 loose. Leaves with pp.3/4 and 15/16 half-separated. Paper discoloured and chipping at edges. Extends to 918 lots. The odd number of leaves implies the loss of a final leaf, possibly bearing text. Stamp of the Public Library Ford Collection. Docketing in pencil notes a duplicate at the New York Public Library. No other copy traced.

The Art of Fiction. A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on Friday evening, April 25, 1884 (With Notes and Additions).

Author: 
Walter Besant
Publication details: 
London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly. 1884. [Billing and Sons, Printers, Guildford.]
£28.00

Octavo: 39 pp. Stitched. In original orange wraps, with grey printed paper boards. On spotted, aged paper, with insect holes to a couple of leaves. Wraps stained and worn. First English printing of an essay noted for its coupling with Henry James's piece of the same name (not present here) in an American edition of 1885.

Catalogue No. 26: 'Early Newspapers | From 1625 to 1850'.

Author: 
Birrell & Garnett, Ltd., 30 Gerrard Street, London W.1 [booksellers' catalogues; bookselling]
Publication details: 
Harding & Curtis, Ltd., Somerset Street, Bath. [1929.]
£56.00

Octavo: 32 pp. Stapled and unbound. Rather worn, particularly at first and last leaves. A few pencil marks and notes, and slight ink staining at head of first leaf. Twenty illustrations. 168 items; three-part index on final page. Influential catalogue, the collection sold in its entirety to Duke University. One of Birrell & Garnett's managers was Graham Pollard, co-author of the book which unmasked T. J. Wise as a forger.

Types, Mints, and Mintmasters of the rare Coinage of the Normans and House of Blois. A.D. 1066 to 1154.

Author: 
Oliver Ratcliff [Coins and medals; Numismatics]
Publication details: 
Olney: Printed and published by Oliver Ratcliff. 1897.
£100.00

Octavo: [vi] + 24 pp. Stapled and unbound. Detached from original blue and pink printed wraps (advertising W. S. Lincoln & Son, coin and medal dealers of New Oxford Street, London). Several illustrations and tables. Good, though lightly aged, and with some wear and creasing to the wraps, which are blue on the outside and pink internally. Several other items by Ratcliff are recorded, but this item is rare, with no copy listed on COPAC.

Memories of A. E. Housman. From the Magazine of King Edward's School, Bath, The Edwardian, Vol. 17, No. 3, Sept., 1936.

Author: 
Mrs. E. W. Symons [A. E. Housman]
Publication details: 
Printer - J. Grant Melluish, 27 Broad Street, Bath. [1936]
£20.00

Octavo: 8 pp. Unbound, stapled pamphlet of six leaves. Dogeared, with rusted staples and with horizontal band of discoloration and two vertical closed tears (2 cm and 1 cm) at head.

Scenes from an unfinished drama, entitled Phrontisterion, or, Oxford in the 19th century.

Author: 
[Henry Longueville Mansel, Dean of St Pauls; University of Oxford; J. Vincent, publisher]
Publication details: 
Oxford: Printed and published by J. Vincent, and G. Bell, Fleet Street, London. Fourth edition, 1852.
£100.00

English philosopher (1820-71). 24 pages, 12mo. Very good, neatly bound in brown cloth binding. Bound in are the original grey printed wraps, affected with foxing, and with very slight damage from glue to front wrap. The rear wrap carries an advertisement of 'BOOKS LATELY PUBLISHED | BY J. VINCENT OXFORD.', including 'NINEVEH: the Best Newdigate for Years; therefore not recited in the Theatre, Oxford, July 3, 1851. 12mo. 1s.' A brilliant satire on academic reformers and German philosphers. Copac only lists copies of the third, fourth and fifth editions.

Life of Jack Sheppard, The Notorious House and Gaol Breaker.

Author: 
Victorian Chapbook [Newcastle; Provincial Printing]
Publication details: 
Newcastle-on-Tyne: Bowman, Publisher, Nuns' Lane. Price One Penny. [Slug on verso of title: 'Bowman, Publisher, 12, Nuns' Lane, Newcastle.'] Undated [1850, or between 1865 and 1875?].
£66.00

12mo: 24 pp. Leaf dimensions: 15.5 x 9.5 cms. Unbound. Good, on aged paper with fraying to extremities and a little light staining to title. Decorative title-page with vignette. On verso of title: list of twenty-three 'Penny Histories' ('Crown 12mo. Three or upwards sent post free to any address, on receipt of stamps to the amount') and nineteen 'Penny Song Books'. Heavily worn type and loss to text at foot of three pages due to faulty imposition. According to BBTI Robert Benson Bowman was active in Newcastle from before 1826 to after 1859.

[Pamphlet] Dissertatio Physica de Natura et Origine Presteris [Waterspouts]

Author: 
And. Dan. Lizell and Eric Arvid Lidell
WATERSPOUT
Publication details: 
Lundae [Lund], In Academiae Londini Gothorum, 24 Feb. 1798
£220.00
WATERSPOUT

Disbound, 27pp., cr. 8vo, plus one page of illustrations (four varieties of waterspouts (oceanic phenomenon like tornadoes), minor defects but mainly good condition. The text is mainly in Latin but one substantial footnote is a quotation from an English periodical, and the dedication and another substantial footnote are in Swedish. The footnotes reflect the paucity of material concerning this phenomenon, presumably not mentioning Benjamin Franklin's contribution to the study because it hadn't yet been published (?).

[VICTORIAN CLUBS AND SOCIETIES] List of the members of the club of "Nobody's Friends".

Author: 
[VICTORIAN CLUBS AND SOCIETIES] The club of 'Nobody's Friends'
Nobody
Publication details: 
[s. l. et a.] 'As existing on 1st January, 1878.'
£120.00
Nobody

See 'The club of 'Nobody's Friends' 1800-2000: a memoir on its two-hundredth anniversary' by Geoffrey Rowell (2000). Four-page bifolium. Good, on grubby, discoloured paper, with some creasing and wear at foot. Gives details of the election between 1820 and 1877 of fifty-nine Actual Members, and of eighteen Honorary Members. Includes the Rev. Charles Burney, the artist George Richmond and the publisher John Murray.

An account of the life and writings of Richard Dawes, A.M. late master of the Royal Grammar School, and of the Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin, in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Author: 
[PROVINCIAL PRINTING, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE] Rev. John Hodgson
Publication details: 
Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by T. and J. Hodgson, Union Street. 1828.
£125.00

4to. Pages: [4] + 30. Uncut and in large part unopened, in original plain grey wraps. Stabbed as issued, but with thread worn away and signatures loose within wraps. Grubby and with some offsetting, but overall a very good survival of a scarce and fragile item. A handsome production which does great credit to its place of origin. Half-title, with vignette of castellated building. Title-page with circular medal of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (before whom the work was read). Engraving on page one by Isaac Nicholson ('I. NICHOLSON, DEL.

Financial Reform Tracts. No. 1.

Author: 
Liverpool Financial Reform Association [Free Trade; Richard Cobden; economic history]
Publication details: 
[Financial Reform Association, Hargreave's Buildings, Liverpool, September, 1848.] Sold by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., London; and by the Printers, Smith, Rogerson, and Co., 44, Lord-street, Liverpool.
£56.00

12mo. 20 pages. Stitched and unbound. Creased, aged and somewhat dusty. Historic first publication of 'the most persistent and single-minded free trade lobby England has known' (W. N. Calkins, Economic History Review, 1960).

Stead's Wonders of Science Series. The Story of Flying Machines. The Conquest of the Air. With eleven specially selected illustrations.

Author: 
T. W. Scott [William Thomas Stead's Publishing House; Wonders of Science Series; aircraft; aeroplanes; aeronautics; ballooning]
Publication details: 
London: Stead's Publishing House, Bank Buildings, Kingsway, W.C.2. Printed by W. & J. Mackay & Co., Ltd., Chatham.
£76.00

Octavo, 48 pages. Stapled. In faded original orange printed wraps. Nine pages of illustrations, including three on wraps. Good, on aged high-acidity paper. Wraps a little stained. Unobtrusive ownership inscription at head of front wrap. Illustrations include two full-page balloons and 'A modern sea-plane: the Burgess-Dunne type'. Twelfth illustration (diving English biplane) on front wrap. Scarce: no copy on Copac.

The Constitutional Convention. The Constitution of New Hampshire as amended by the Constitutional Convention held at Concord on the first Wednesday of December, A. D. 1876: with the Several Questions involving the amendments proposed [...].

Author: 
T. J. Smith, Secretary to the Convention, et al. [New Hampshire]
Publication details: 
Concord: Edward A. Jenks, State Printer. 1877.
£50.00

Octavo: 31 pp. Stitched and unbound, with front of the original printed wraps, which bears the title-page, still present. Text clear and entire, on aged paper with some dogearing and chipping to top outer corner. Front wrap creased and lightly stained, with a little chipping, but with text clear and entire. Pencil ownership inscription in contemporary hand at head of title. Reproduces the proposed amended constitution and various resolutions regarding a referendum on the subject.

Thirty-one secondhand booksellers' catalogues (one a duplicate).

Author: 
Bickers; Alfred Cooper; W. Downing; T. Gladwell; W. George; Kerr & Richardson; C. Lowe; Uriah Maggs; J. Mathews; J. Neale; Parry & Hales; W. Paterson; Reeves & Turner; J. Roche; H. Sotheran; H. Young
Publication details: 
1880-1882; London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester.
£450.00

all octavo, in worn nineteenth-century binding, with front hinge loose, lacking spine. New endpapers. All items good, on aged paper with occasional foxing. An invaluable collection, providing a snapshot of secondhand bookselling in provincial Victorian England within an extremely short timescale. Several of the booksellers are not represented in the British Library collection, and others are only represented by catalogues of a later date. Of note are the two catalogues published by Sotheran's Manchester arm, the existence of which is not mentioned in Andrew Block's 'Short History' (1933).

A co-operative [booksellers'] catalogue' entitled 'Detective Fiction: A Century of Crime: First and Early Editions'.

Author: 
R. A. Brimmell; Boris Harding-Edgar (Charles Rare Books)
Publication details: 
Hastings and Hildenborough; [circa 1966].
£120.00

Forty-four pages, octavo, with two-page leaf of addenda loosely inserted. Four pages illustrating seventeen pictorial covers on art paper. In printed card wraps. A worn and creased copy of an influential catalogue, issued at a time when, as the introduction points out 'catalogues devoted to detective fiction [were] something of a rarity in the book trade'.

A Priced Catalogue of the whole stock of Theological Books, [...], of the late firm of Dickinson & Higham, together with the additions thereto made during the printing of the catalogue by the firm's junior partner and successor, Charles Higham.

Author: 
Charles Higham (1846-1920), London theological bookseller [Dickinson & Higham]
Publication details: 
London: Farringdon Street, E.C. 1878. [S. & J. Brawn, Printers, 13, Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.']
£450.00

Octavo, 216 pages. One of 'only fifty copies printed, on thick paper'. Title-page in red and black. Aged and a little stained, in recent half-leather rebinding. 9670 items listed, 'for the most part second-hand'.

Part II. - MDCCCXXV. A Catalogue of an Extensive Collection of Books in every department of literature and in various languages, selling at the very low prices affixed, by William Strong, 3, Clare Street, Bristol. [with five other Strong catalogues]

Author: 
William Strong (died 1846), Bristol bookseller; John Chilcott (died 1851?), Bristol printer]
Publication details: 
Parts II and III for 1825; parts I to IV for 1826. All printed by J. Chilcott, Printer, 6, High Street, Bristol.
£220.00

All items octavo. Bound together in contemporary leather half-binding with red label. Good, on aged paper. Front board beginning to split. Label and stamps of Newport Reference Library. Each title-page initialed in contemporary hand 'G. S. W.' Part 2, 1825: pp.[ii] + [103]-348, items 1666 to 6197. Part 3, 1825 ('Including the libraries of the late Rev. Dr. Ryland; J. Nott, M.D. of Clifton, Deceased; And other Collections, recently Purchased'): pp.v + 349-606. With two-page 'Brief Memoir of the late John Nott, M.D. of the Hotwells, Bristol', 'Extracted from Felix Farley's Bristol Journal'.

Antiquarian Book Monthly Review, vols. I-IV

Author: 
Ed. Elke Sadeghi and others.
Publication details: 
Feb. 1974- Dec. 1977, issues 1-44.
£750.00

Four vols, simply bound in variant colours, good condition. Ex lib (Public Library) but latterly from the Reference Library of Peter Eaton (Booksellers) Ltd, library stamp, and number on spine. The periodiocal which best informed booksellers and collecvors from its institution.

Catalogue of the Important Collections mainly of the Writings of Charles Dickens and of other XIX Century Authors forming part of the Library of Thomas Hatton . . .

Author: 
[ C.H. St John Hornby, printer (Ashendene Press, etc) and collector ] Sotheby & Co.
Publication details: 
30 Nov/ 1 Dec. 1931.
£250.00

Illustrated copy - Price Two Shillings. Green printed wraps, 40pp., 8vo, wear and tear, contents shaky (staples rusting), wraps worn and sl. soiled, contents partly stained but clear and complete. St J. Hornby's copy. INSCRIBED by St John Hornby "StJH" on front on which is stamped (some faded) "Please do not use in the press before 6 Nov. 1931" i.e advanced review copy for distinguished customer.

[CATALOGUE] Modern Publications, and New Editions of Valuable Standard Works, Printed for M. Carey . . ."

Author: 
M[atthew]. Carey, American bookseller and publisher
Publication details: 
121 Chesnut Street, Philadelphia, May 1816.
£580.00

[24]pp., 12mo, unbound (formerly bound into a book?), crude repair to spine, partly detached leaves, foxing, text clear and complete. Subjects; Voyages, Travels, Geography, and Topography; Miscellaneous; Divinity; Medicine, Surgery and Chemistry; Novels, Romances, etc.; Education (most substantial section); Books to be published. Note: I have yet to trace another copy but the major American libraries have microform copies, as does CUL, the only holding library listed on COPAC.

Book Culture, vol. 1, nos 1-4 [of 7, all published]

Author: 
Nathan Haskell Dole, editor.
Publication details: 
Boston, MA., Jan.-April 1899
£50.00

Pp. 16' 16; 32-56; 57-80, one coloured frontispiece.Some wear and tear, marking and sunning, fair condition, complete. Articles and advertising aimed at the book-collector (for example "A Prince of Collectors" (Jean Grolier)).

A file of material including a Catalogue issued by Thomas Arthur, bookseller,and correspondence

Author: 
Gillyatt Sumner, antiquary and collector, Beverley, Yorks.
Publication details: 
1860
£320.00

File of papers giving insight inot the buying and record-making procedures of an antiquary and collector.They are crudely sewn together, with some damage and staining, texts clear and complete except railway receipt (trimmed), collection comprising: a. Catalogue ("Part Fifty-Three", Feb. 1860, from Thomas Arthur, 45 Booksellers' Row, Strand, London, W.C. ( some items ticked by Sumner, including item 454 Ratsall's History of . . . .Southwell" which is also marked "Ordered"). b. Invoice from Thomas Arthur, 13 Feb.

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