Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

BINDINGS. - Ronald Sutherland GOWER. Thomas Gainsborough. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903. First edition, 8vo (208 x 123mm.) Numerous plates, folding facsimile letter. (Mild toning.) Near contemporary blue half morocco over blue cloth-covered boards bound by Truslove & Hanson with an art nouveau design to spine, t.e.g. (slight sunning to spine). - And a further nine volumes (including Elisha Kent Kane's 'Arctic Explorations in Search of Sir John Franklin', 1885, 8vo, and a signed copy of Victorien Sardou's play 'Fernande', 1870, 8vo) (10).

BACON, Francis. The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral with the Wisdom of the Ancients. London: Bell & Daldy, 1857. Inscribed by the novelist Samuel Butler to his sister Mary, 8vo (168 x 103mm.) (Some staining to preliminaries.) Original red cloth, mounted paper label to spine (wear to spine ends, fading to the label). Note: the inscription reads: 'M. Butler, from her affect. brother, S.B.' Provenance: Mary Butler (gift inscribed to on the front blank). - And a further ten volumes associated with and inscribed by the Butler family (including 'A Short and Plain Instruction for the Better Understanding of the Lord's Supper', 1829, 8vo) (11).

[JOBERT, Louis. - Roger GALE (translator).] The Knowledge of Medals. London: E. Curll, 1715. Second edition, 12mo (168 x 90mm.) Half-title, title, folding engraved plate. (Near contemporary annotation to margins, corner loss to title-page, browning and spotting throughout, soiling to A3.) Contemporary calf, a later paper label to spine (rubbing to all extremities). - And a further twenty-seven volumes relating to commerce and political and civic history (including Thomas Bond's 'A Digest of Foreign Exchanges', 1795, 8vo, and a defective copy of Nathaniel Crouch's 'Historical Remarques, and Observations of the Ancient State of London and Westminster', 1681, 12mo) (28).

[CURZON, Henry.] The Universal Library: Or, Compleat Summary of Science Containing Above Sixty Select Treatises… with Divers Secrets, Experiments and Curiosities Therein. London: for T. Warner, 1722. 2 vols., second edition, 8vo (194 x 114mm.) A folding pedigree of the family of Curzon in volume 2. (Browning and spotting throughout.) Contemporary panelled calf, brown morocco lettering pieces to the spines (rubbing to extremities, some surface loss). Note: a compendium of contemporary knowledge, with sections on metaphysics, astrology, and 'Mathematical Magick'. - And a further forty related volumes (including John Trusler's 'Chronology: or, the Historian's Vade-Mecum', 1792, 8vo) (42).

W. PARSON and T. BRADSHAW (publishers). Staffordshire General & Commercial Directory, Presenting an Alphabetical Arrangement of the Names and Residences of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Inhabitants in General. Manchester: W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, [1818.] 12mo (170 x 93mm.) Folding hand-coloured map of Staffordshire. (Toning, lacking blanks?) Contemporary marbled calf, gilt lettering to spine (rubbing to spine panel). Note: comprises four divisions. The third division being the names of the residents of the principal villages. Provenance: The Marquis of Stafford (armorial bookplate to front pastedown). - And a further two volumes (including Robert Rawlinson's 'Report to the General Board of Health… into the Sewage, Drainage, and Supply of Water, and the Sanitary Condition…of the Borough of Plymouth', with 5 folding charts, 1853, 8vo) (3).

[TUTCHIN, John.] [A New Martyrology, or the Bloody Assizes: Now Exactly Methodized in One Volume. London: for John Dunton, 1689.] Third edition, 8vo (173 x 97mm.) Title supplied in contemporary calligraphic manuscript hand on a front blank, 1p. publisher's advertisement to rear. (Newspaper article mounted on front pastedown, name erased from front blank, browning throughout, minor soiling, small paper repair to Hh2.) Contemporary calf (lacking lettering piece, rubbing, upper cover weakening). Provenance: William Whitchurch (name inscribed to front blank); Gulielmus de Albo Monasterio (name inscribed to front blank); M. Collins (name inscribed to front pastedown); W.E. Collins (name inscribed to front pastedown). - And a further two volumes (including 10 parts of 'The Whole Proceedings on the King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London', 1787-1788, 4to, and a defective copy of Nicholas Cox's 'The Gentleman's Recreation', 1697, 8vo) (3).

MACQUOID, Percy. - George ALEXANDER. The George Alexander Birthday Book. London: John Lane, 1903. Signed and inscribed by George Alexander to Percy Macquoid, 8vo (189 x 120mm.) Photogravure portrait frontispiece, several names signed under their birth-date with their own signatures, including that of George Alexander and Percy Macquoid. (Toning, browning to title-page.) Original cream cloth, pictorial gilt to upper cover (minor soiling to covers). Note: George Alexander was an actor and manager of the St. James Theatre. He produced two Oscar Wilde plays as well as Henry James' less successful, Guy Domville. Provenance: Percy Macquoid, author and artist (name inscribed to on the front-free endpaper). - And a further six volumes owned by or related to Percy Macquoid (including Henri Dethauny's [Repertoire de Couleurs pour aider a la determination des Couleurs des Fleurs, des Feuillages et des Fruits, 1905], 8vo, which has a mounted paper label on the upper cover and in manuscript hand the words: 'Percy Macquoid, not to be taken under any circumstances', and also Lewis Carroll's 'Sylvie and Bruno', 1889, 8vo, inscribed to Percy Macquoid by his parents) (7).

BINDING. The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments. London: George E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, 1847. 24mo (138 x 78mm.) (Toning, minor spotting, marginal creasing.) Near contemporary black gutta percha binding (upper hinge broken). Provenance: Arabella Williams (name inscribed to title-page). - And a further six unrelated volumes (including the first edition in book form of Charles Dickens' 'Little Dorrit', 1857, 8vo) (7).

HALL, Michael (editor). The London Mystery Magazine. London: Hulton Press and Norman Kark, 1949-1981. 125 vols. 8vo (187 x 129mm to 176 x 100mm.) Numerous illustrations by various artists, including Austin Spare, Mervyn Peake and Ronald Searle. (Toning, occasional spotting, browning.) Original card covers (some volumes with wear to spine ends, browning, some spotting). Note: a near complete run of the magazine, lacking numbers 2,3,7,11,15,28 and the last one, number 132. The Magazine changed its name to 'The London Mystery Selection' from volume 36 onwards. For the first 15 issues the address of the magazine was the famous 221b Baker Street. The Abbey Building Society - who were working from that address at the time- allowed Michael Hall to use it as the address for his new magazine on the basis that he answered all the mail that arrived for Sherlock Holmes, something that a Building Society employee, the worthy Samuel W.G. Morton, had been doing until that time (125).

LEWIS, Wyndham (editor). The Enemy. [London:] The Arthur Press, January [February] 1927. Vol. 1. 8vo (281 x 186mm.) Several illustrations by Wyndham Lewis, including 1 in colour. (Toning.) Original wrappers (lacking lower cover, spine worn, chipped). Note: the first volume of Lewis's new magazine. The second and last issue of 'Blast' was published in 1915. The Enemy lasted for two years. But like 'Blast', its publication was delayed. Lewis explains this is in a note: 'The Enemy' was to have appeared in January, as indicated on the cover; but owing to a miscalculation as to the time required to prepare it, it is appearing in February instead'. - And a further twenty-four volumes of literary magazines and poetry pamphlets (including the 2nd and 7th issues of 'Transition', May-Oct 1927, small 8vo, and the first three issues of Jon Silkin's poetry magazine, 'Stand', 3 vols., 1952, 8vo) (25).

CHAMBERS, Copthall. The Cricket Match, a poem. [London:] John Such, Budge Row, 1859. 8vo (178 x 114mm.) (Toning, some corner creasing and minor soiling.) Original green card covers (fading, abrasions). - And a further ten volumes relating to cricket (the John and James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion, 5 vols., for the years 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, and also James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual, 5 vols., for the years 1882, 1883, 1886, 1887 and 1898) (11).

WISDEN, John (publisher). Cricketers' Almanack. London: John Wisden and Co. and Sporting Handbooks, 1888-1967. 34 vols., 8vo (158 x 94mm.) Advertisements, numerous illustrations, photographic plates for the earliest volumes (up to 1915). (Toning, lacking plate for 1904, occasional spotting.) Later cloth, original cloth for 1946 onwards, original card wrappers for 1955 (discolouring to spine of 1903 and wear to 1913, fading), dust-jacket for 1965. Note: comprises almanacks for the years 1888, 1892, 1900, 1902, 1904-1915, 1920, 1922, 1924-1933, 1946, 1950-1951, 1955, 1965, 1967. - And two related volumes ('An Index to Wisden 1864-1943', 1944, 8vo, and a duplicate of the 1928 volume) (36).

BIBLE, In Greek. - Robert HOLMES (editor). Vetus Testamentum Graecum cum Variis Lectionibus. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1798-1827. 5 vols. in 4 vols., folio (343 x 266mm.) Text in Greek, notes in Latin, elaborate presentation plate in gilt to the front pastedown of volume 1, includes Apocrypha in volume 5. (Toning, occasional minor spotting.) Near contemporary purple morocco, blind-tooled with Bishop's mitre in gilt to all covers, gilt turn-ins, g.e. (rubbing to all extremities, some discolouring). Provenance: Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (presentation plate to the front pastedown of volume 1) (4).

MARTIN, John (illustrator). - John MILTON. Paradise Lost. London: Septimus Prowett, 1827. 2 vols. Limited edition, being one of 50 'Imperial' quartos with 'Proof' plates, 4to (363 x 255mm.) Half-titles, 24 mezzotint plates with touches of drypoint, each one lettered 'Proof', tissue-guards, section title-pages to the poem with 'Argument' verso. (Spotting to most plate margins and to all tissue-guards and preliminaries, 2 plates heavily browned, occasional spotting to text.) Near contemporary straight-grain morocco, scrolling foliate gilt borders, g.e. (heavily rubbed, surface loss) (2).

BONAPARTE, Lucien. Charlemagne; ou L'Église Délivrée. Poème Épique en Vingt-Quatre Chants. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1814. 2 vols., folio (383 x 235mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece, 1 engraved plan of Rome. (Spotting to preliminaries and all margins.) Contemporary calf, g.e. (covers detached, worn). Provenance: Samuel Butler, novelist (bookplate to front pastedown, pencil name to initial blank). - And a further five volumes (including the English translation of the same work, 2 vols., 1815, folio, and 'Choix de Gravures A L'eau Forte, d'Aprés Les Peintures Originales et les Marbres de la Galerie de Lucien Bonaparte', 1812, folio) (7).

LONDON. - A. Keith JOHNSTON. Handy Royal Atlas of Modern Geography. Edinburgh and London: W. & A.K. Johnston, 1879. New edition, folio (364 x 235mm.) 46 engraved double-paged plates with hand-coloured outlining, 102.pp index to rear. (Lacking rear blank, toning, spotting to preliminaries and lightly verso the plates.) Original green half morocco over buckram-covered boards, gilt lettering to upper cover, g.e. (sunning to spine, rubbing to all extremities).

SALKELD, William. Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench: with Some Special Cases in the Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas and Exchequer. London: In the Savoy by Henry Lintot, 1742. 2 vols. in 1. Fourth edition, 4to (298 x 193mm.) (Toning, damp-stain to rear blank, a few corner creases, lacking front blank.) 20th century half brown calf, red morocco lettering piece to the spine (endpapers replaced, minor soiling). - And a further six volumes (including, without the maps, Malachy Postlethwayt's 'The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce', 2 vols., 1766, folio) (7).

FACCIOLATI, Jacapo. Totius Latinitatis Lexicon Consilio et Cura. Padua: John Manfrè, 1771. 4 vols., folio (373 x 250mm.) Title in red and black, engraved initials and headpieces. (Toning, occasional wave and creasing to the text-block, browning.) Mid-19th century green half morocco over green buckram-covered boards, gilt lettering to spines (rubbing to all extremities, tear to cloth of lower cover of volume 4, some fading). Note: a significant work of scholarship in which Facciolati's pupil, Egido Forcellini, played a significant part. It was said that if Latin were to die as a language then it could be reconstituted from these four volumes (4).

L'ESTRANGE, Roger (translator). The Works of Flavius Josephus: translated into English… I. The Antiquities of the Jews, in Twenty Books. II. Their Wars with the Romans, in Seven Books. III. The Life of Josephus written by Himself. IV. The Book Against Apion. V. The Martyrdom of the Maccabees. As also; VI. Philo's Embassy from the Jews of Alexandria to Caius Caligula. London: Richard Sare, 1702. Folio signed in 4s (384 x 238mm.) Engraved frontispiece, 2 engraved plates, 2 folding engraved maps, irregular pagination. (Frontispiece loose, heavily chipped and creased, damp-staining throughout, last leaf torn, initial blank loose.) Contemporary calf (worn). Provenance: Charles Hamerton (name inscribed to title-page); Dorking Museum (small stamp to front pastedown). - And a further three related volumes (Anthony Farindon's Sermons, 3 vols., 1647-1672, 4to) (4).