More than fifty rare books, first editions, ephemera, and two manuscripts, dating from 1630 to 1968, from John Taylor, the Water-Poet, to Edmund Wilson, the American author and literary critic, all acquired from various sources over the past ten months. The image above is a woodcut by Thomas Bewick printed by John McCreery using burned sugar obtained in the slave trade. See number 9.
Washington: [Privately Printed], 1907. First edition, privately printed. BAL 32. One of the most famous of all American autobiographies and the book for which Henry Adams is best known: a rich exploration of history and the writing of history told through Adams' life. Henry Adams published two great works of..... More
Washington: [Privately Printed], 1904. First edition, privately printed in an unknown number of copies. BAL 31. Henry Adams' “pilgrimage” into the history of medieval France, as seen through its great monuments, Mont Saint Michel, the cathedral Chartres, and the French culture of the 11th through 13th centuries that sustained them..... More
Philadelphia: Published for the Author by Crissy & Markley, 1852. First edition. Wright II, 2138. The third novel by Caroline E. Rush, who like many women authors of the 18th and 19th centuries, turned to writing to support her family. Rush’s fiction contrasts the squalor of the working classes in..... More
Utica, [New York]: Printed for the Authors by Seward and Williams, 1811. First edition. Stoddard & Whitesell 970; American Bibliography 24360; Hamilton, American Book Illustrators, 1294. A collaborative work of verse, in letters between Horatio and Alphonso, much of which is initially about the fair Laeititia, undoubtedly based on the..... More
San Francisco and New York: A. Roman & Co., 1863. Second edition, enlarged. Sabin 51211; Wagner-Camp 336n; Howes M-869. An early work on Arizona by speculator, miner and promoter Sylvester Mowry (1830-71), which was first published in Washington in 1859 as an effort to persuade Congress into designating Arizona a...... More
London: Printed by C. Ackers for J. Wilford and J. Clarke, 1734. First edition. ESTC T56391; NCBEL II, 798: "Doubtfully attributed to Ralph." A detailed travel guide to London's architecture, monuments, fashionable squares, and statues from "mere Gothic heaps of stone, without form or order" to the stately works of..... More
London: Printed for R. Hunter, Successor to Mr. Johnson, 1819. First edition. See Harry B. Weiss, "An Early Entomological Book for Children," in the Journal of the New York Entomological Society, vol. 47, 1939. A charming illustrated introduction to the world of insects, moths, caterpillars, spiders, et al., and the..... More
![Book ID: 29088 [Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier]. The History of Oracles and the...](https://brickrow.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/29088.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1744235680)
London: Printed in the Year and Sold by Most Booksellers, 1688. First translation into English. ESTC R23165; Wing F1413. Bernard Le Bouvier de Fontenelle's translation and adptation of Anton van Dale's De Oraculis Veterum Ethnicorum Dissertationes (1683), the influential work on the oracles and supernatural. Fontenelle's popular version was first..... More
Liverpool: J. M'Creery, Printer, 1802. Thomas Hugo, The Bewick Collector, 2354, who notes two impressions. The earliest known use of this Bewick woodcut was by Gregson Upholsterer on a trade card; a few years later the image was changed to include Gregson's partner, Mr. Bullen. In September 1802, there was..... More
New York: The Merwin-Clayton Sales Co., December, 1909 and February, 1910. First editions. Not found in OCLC; no copies located in the marketplace. The sale catalogue of the library of prolific California author Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909), who is best known for his novel For the Pleasure of His Company..... More
Chicago: Chicago Book & Art Auctions, Inc., 1932. First edition. OCLC records eight copies (Brown, Harvard, Chicago PL & Univ of Ill., Delaware, USC, Grolier Club, Rosenbach). The library sale catalogue of prominent Chicago author Henry Blake Fuller (1857-1929), replete with American literary association copies, unusual Chicago imprints, the majority..... More
New York: A. F. Bradley, [circa 1905-06]. A fine photographic portrait of one of the great men of American letters, William Dean Howells (1837-1920), by one of the prominent portrait photographers of New York society at the turn of the century, Alvin F. Bradley. Bradley (1862-1948) and his Bradley Studio..... More
Bristol: Printed by George Routh, for the Author, n.d. [circa 1800]. First edition. ESTC T222838, which records two copies: BL and South Hampton; JISC adds four: National Library of Scotland, St. Andrews, and Wellcome; OCLC adds one, NYPL (Phforzheimer, apparently the only copy in America); and see Jackson, Romantic Poetry..... More
London: Printed for J. Tonson, 1698. First edition, first issue without the advertisement and errata. ESTC R18926; Wing C5844; Lowe, English Theatrical Literature, 298. A famous response to clergyman Jeremy Collier’s Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), in which Collier cited aspects of four..... More
London: Richard Bentley, 1843. First English edition and first edition in book form. BAL 3903; Spiller, page 122; OCLC records 14 copies, to which JISC adds four. One of Cooper’s lesser known works, a venture into the popular 18th and 19th century genre of fiction narrated by an inanimate object..... More
London: Printed by and for J. Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1818. Second edition, edited by J. B. Nichols, with significant additions; the first edition was published in 1705. Lowndes, page 697; NCBEL II, 279. The autobiography of bookseller John Dunton (1659-1732), "one of the earliest examples of autobiography in English"..... More
London: Printed for M. Cooper, 1754. First edition. ESTC T63048. A notorious Norfolk autobiographical novel-roman à clef written by Richard Gardiner (1723-1781) under the pseudonym William Honeycomb, about the pursuit of a young wealthy heiress, Pudica, by Dick Merryfellow. Merryfellow’s estate was not in good order, and for practical purposes..... More
London: Printed for J. Hodges; Salisbury: B. Collins, 1754. First edition. ESTC N10688; NCBEL II, 998. An uncommon and significant satirical novel by Dr. John Shebbeare (1709-1788), a sometime practicing physician who was better known as a political pamphleteer with a quick temper. In The Marriage Act, one of his..... More
London: Printed for J. Tonson, 1728-1730. First collected edition, preceded by the edition in seven parts, published over four years. ESTC T113649; Foxon Y169; NCBEL II, 494. The first collected edition of seven popular satires by Edward Young, exploring the nature of the love of praise. They were originally published..... More
(Alençon: Imprimerie Venue Félix Guy et Cie), [for Charles Carrington, circa 1900-05]. Facsimile of the 1866 first published edition. Freeman, Biblio Fictiva, 751; Chew, Byron in England, pages 173-74 & 177-78; and see Louis Crompton, "Don Leon, Byron, and Homosexual Law Reform" in Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 8, Spring 1983..... More
London: Printed for A. Millar, 1754. First separate edition. ESTC N10381; Cross, page 325; NCBEL II, 929. One of the great works in the literature of roguery - a satirical novel written under the guise of the biography of a famous criminal. Fielding's account of Wild (1682-1725) first appeared in..... More
Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Alderbrink Press, 1919. First edition. BAL 6478; Smith, American Fiction 1901-1925, F-461. The story of a year in the life of young Bertram Cope, an instructor of English at a suburban Chicago university, and of his conflicted affections for another man. Fuller's New York publishers would..... More
London: Printed for J. Dodsley and Richardson and Urquhart, 1775. First edition of this translation. ESTC T128394. A fine translation of Aristotle's famous treatise on the nature of poetry, with an introduction about Aristotle by the unidentified translator, preceded by the first translation into English of extracts from the works..... More
London: Printed for A. Bettesworth and W. Mears, 1720. Second edition; the first was published in 1717. ESTC T128848; cf. Case, English Poetical Miscellanies, 299(b), for a later issue dated 1724. In 1716 the prominent London bookseller Jacob Tonson announced a forthcoming edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, edited by Samuel Garth..... More
Cambridge: Printed by J. Archdeacon Printer to the University, 1773. First edition. ESTC T134568. 17 letters in the form of informal essays on classical subjects, primarily Greek and Roman poets and their work, followed by similar sketches entitled "Classic Amusements." Among other matters, Prescot argues that the Homer referred to..... More
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1870. First edition, first issue of the advertisements with only three earlier titles in the series listed. Sadleir, Trollope, 35; NCBEL III, 883. Anthony Trollope's fine edition of the Commentaries of Caesar, and the fourth in Blackwood's series of Ancient Classics for English..... More
London: Printed for J. and T. Tonson, 1756. First edition. ESTC T97706. A clever collection of maxims, interwoven with short character sketches (Camilla, Melissa, Praxiteles, Flora, etc.) and reflections, written in collaboration by Fulke Greville and his wife, the poet Frances Macartney Greville. Fulke Greville (1717-1806) was handsome dandy, an..... More
London: Printed for C. Parker, 1772. First translation into English. ESTC T60642. A colorful collection of portraits, part factual and part fiction, of legendary courtesans who were also influential women, by French writer and translator Anne de La Roche-Guilhem, first published in French in 1675. La Roche-Guilhem (1644-1710) was herself..... More
London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1799. First translation into English. ESTC T90076. A clever and engaging work of fiction by French writer and playwright Etienne François de Lantier (1724-1826), first published in Paris in 1798. The Travels of Antenor was written under the guise of being..... More
Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co.; London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1904. First edition. An anthology of 29 contemporary Mexican authors in English translation, with brief biographies of each writer, accompanied by a vignette woodcut portrait. In the preface the compiler and translator Frederick Starr explains his method and intention: "It..... More
Edinburgh: Printed by Mundell and Son, 1805. First edition. An interesting critical survey of fiction in literature, beginning with its origins, the types ("species") of fiction, the authors (French, Spanish, and English), etc., followed by brief treatments of numerous prominent authors, including Fenelon, Le Sage, Rousseau, Voltaire, Glenis, Richardson, Fielding..... More
London: At the Unicorn, VII Cecil Court, 1903. First edition. A collection of more than 35 poems by the Japanese-American poet, Yone Noguchi, published in London shortly after he moved there, where he quickly befriended - as he had previously done in San Francisco, Chicago and New York - the..... More
[Tokyo, 1905]. First edition translated into Japanese. An unusual novel by Yone Noguchi, the prolific cross-cultural Japanese author who was the first native Japanese to write and publish poetry and fiction in English. Noguchi (1875-1947) moved to San Francisco as a precocious teenager, where he first worked for a newspaper..... More
London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, 1795. Second edition, the same year as the first which was issued in an unwieldy large, think single-volume quarto format; this second edition was reset in a two-volume octavo format and thus is the first practical edition. Robinson, Wayward Women, pages 290-91;..... More
London: Printed for J. Tonson, and A. and J. Churchil, and R. Simpson, 1700. First edition. ESTC R14603; Wing T461; Teerink 469. The first substantial published work by Jonathan Swift, preceded only by an ode in fifth volume of John Dunton's Athenian Gazette (1692). Swift spent nearly ten years as..... More
Mexico City: Imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido, 1849. Second Mexican edition, preceded by an edition of 1834, translated from the French (of which OCLC records one copy, at the Biblioteca Nacional Mexico); OCLC records three copies of this edition (Columbia, SMU and Pittsburgh). A profusely illustrated Mexican edition of Swift's famous..... More
London: Printed by J. B. for James Boler, 1630. First edition. ESTC S117734; STC 23725; Pforzheimer 1006. The collected works of a colorful member of the London literary scene in the late 16th and early 17th centuries – not a major figure, but an extraordinary one. John Taylor (1578-1653) moved..... More
[Rome, Italy, circa 1740]. A manuscript pocket notebook that records in detail visits to the prominent sights in Rome and describes the works of art encountered and their attributions. The anonymous travelers conscientiously visited not only the seven major pilgrim churches but also a large number of lesser churches. They..... More
New York: American News Company, 1867. First edition. BAL 2134, binding D (no established priority). An introduction to Walt Whitman, his life and poetry by his friend the poet and naturalist, John Burroughs. This was Burroughs' first book (of 25) and the first book about Whitman, to which Whitman was..... More
[Talcottville, New York, 1968-69]. ¶ In the late 1960s, the legendary critic and man of letters, Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), began work on his final book, Upstate, a history and memoir of the part of New York State where his mother’s family had lived and where Wilson spent the better part..... More
Paris: Delaunay, Mongie, Lenormand, L'Huillier, 1818. First edition. The travel memoirs of French composer, librettist, writer and woman of many thespian talents, Amelie-Julie Candeille (1767-1834), who left France for exile in England following Napoleon's return from Elba. She recounts musical events in Brighton and London and writes about English horses..... More
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892. First edition. Wright III, 1073; Ricks, Alaska Bibliography, page 65. Susie C. Clark was a prolific Boston author, who was published by Arena Press, among others. Her most widely read work was the travel narrative The Round Trip from the Hub to the Golden Gate..... More
London: Charles J. Skeet, 1861. First edition. Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 95; OCLC records seven copies, only one in the US. Kate Crichton was a promising young singer who studied under Manuel Garcia at the Royal Academy of Music, and in 1852 made her debut as Princess..... More
Belfast, Maine: [N.p.], 1929. First edition, privately printed. OCLC records three copies (University of Oregon, Washington, and HEH). An engaging series of letters by Isabella Kimball Dinsmore, resident of Belfast, Maine, about her travels, mostly by train, through the American south, across to Texas, down to Mexico, back up to..... More
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1888. First edition. Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 162. A thorough examination of Transylvania by English novelist Emily Gerard (1849-1905), who lived there for two years. She writes extensively of the culture and society, the mix of races (particularly the gypsies)..... More
London, New York, Montreal: The Abbey Press, (1901). First edition. Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 298. One of two travel narratives by writer Ida Dorman Morris in which she detailed the journeys with her husband by train and automobile. During their Pacific Coast Vacation, they traveled to Alaska..... More
London: Methuen & Co., (1912). First edition. One of several scholarly studies of Greece and Turkey by Mary Mills Patrick (1850-1940), founder of the Istanbul Woman's College, the earliest institution in the Middle East for the higher education of women, which at the time of its establishment seemed like an..... More
London: Printed for C. & J. Rivington, 1823. First edition. Colbert, Women Travel Writers, 1780-1840; OCLC records eight copies, all in Europe; JISC adds eight in UK and Irish libraries. Ann Deane (1770-1847) married a distant cousin, Capt. Charles Meredith Deane, of the Light Dragoons, and joined him on two..... More
London: Saunders and Otley, 1844. First edition. Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 149; Sabin 1693; Ragatz, Caribbean History, page 224. An exceptional account of Antigua, and the political, cultural and social life there by a Mrs. Lanaghan (or Flannigan), an English woman who was a resident of Antigua..... More
London: Printed by Wm. Clowes & Sons, 1912. First edition, one of 65 copies, privately printed. BAL 23483. Elinor Wylie's first book, an anonymously published collection of 25 poems written between 1902 and 1911, privately printed in a small edition with the encouragement and support of her mother and husband..... More
London: Printed for E. Williams and Sold by All Booksellers, 1806. Second edition, enlarged; the first was published over 20 years before in 1783. A scarce collection of essays, letters, and a dialogue on conduct and philosophy by Juliana Yonge, about whom little is recorded. She wrote on theological subjects..... More