Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

THE NOVELIST’S MAGAZINE. – M. Galland (translator). Arabian Nights Entertainments; consisting of One Thousand and One Stories. London: for Harrison and Co., 1785. 4 vols. in 1, 8vo (208 x 123mm.) 16 engraved plates. (Toning.) Contemporary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards, tan morocco lettering piece to the spine (minor insect-damage to upper cover).

ATLAS. – Benjamin BAKER (engraver). Maps of the Several Counties and Shires in England, with the Principality of Wales, &c. London: Darton and Harvey, 1804. 8vo (213 x 139mm.) Title, 46 county and regional engraved maps with hand-colouring, contemporary bookseller’s ticket (‘H. Reeler’) to front pastedown. (Some dust-soiling and finger-marking, several maps with short tears along crease, ‘Lincolnshire’ chipped and creased at corners, a tear to ‘North Riding of Yorkshire’ and loss to its second page, occasional marginal damp-stain.) Contemporary red morocco-backed marbled paper-covered boards, paper label to upper cover (extremities heavily rubbed). Note: the 2 ‘West Riding of Yorkshire’ maps and the 2 Wales maps are signed by engravers ‘Laurie and Whittle’ and dated 1803. Provenance: William Seargale (ink name inscribed to title); George Dartis, Boston West, Lincoln (name inscribed to rear pastedown).

BEATTIE, William. The Waldenses or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Dauphiny, and The Ban de la Roche. London: George Virtue, 1838. First edition, 4to (270 x 203mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece, additional engraved title, 70 engraved plates, folding map. (Toning, some marginal spotting.) Contemporary green diced morocco, maroon morocco lettering piece to the spine, g.e. (some fading and scuffing to extremities). – And a further volume (N. Bailey’s ‘An Universal Etymological English Dictionary’, 1783, 8vo) (2).

ATLAS. Leigh’s New Pocket Road-Book of England and Wales: Containing an Account of all the Direct and Cross-Roads. London: Leigh and Son, 1835. Fifth edition, 12mo (139 x 85mm.) Frontispiece of ‘Table of the Price of Posting’, additional decorative title, 55 engraved county maps, engraved folding map of England & Wales to rear with outline hand-colouring. (Toning, occasional marginal spotting, some tape repairs to folding map.) Original green morocco, gilt lettering to upper cover (rebacked with original spine laid-down, extremities rubbed).

MANUSCRIPT. [A Persian manuscript in two parts, the second part based on Abu Yahya Zakariyya al-Qazwini’s ‘Aja’ib al-Makhlukat’ (The Wonders of Creation). N.p.: Kashmir, circa 1820.] 164pp., manuscript, 8vo (241 x 114mm.) 2 parts, being 16pp. and 148pp. in calligraphic Nastaliq in black ink on vellum paper, 17 lines to a page with 2 large decorated headpieces in blue, red and gilt to the first section, and 17 lines to a page and also 205 water-colour and ink illustrations with gum arabic to the second part. (Browned to margins.) Original blind-stamped limp calf (extremities rubbed, some loss to base of spine). Note: al-Qazwini compiled ‘The Wonders of Creation’ in Arabic in the 13th century. It was an entire cosmography containing information about the heavens, the earth, minerals, plants, birds and animals as well as imaginary and hybrid creatures as illustrated here. Provenance: Alfred Hutton, soldier, writer, fencer and antiquarian (ink name to front and rear blanks). Hutton was serving with the British cavalry in India in the early 1860’s.

MANUSCRIPT. – Jonathan PEEL. Youthful Reminiscences, a Memoir. [A hand-written account of the early years of the life of Jonathan Peel. N.p.:]1879. 228pp., 8vo (228 x 186mm.) A mostly legible account in manuscript divided into nineteen chapters with numerous literary epigraphs, several blank leaves to rear. (Mild toning.) Original black cloth (extremities rubbed). Note: Jonathan Peel came from the ‘4th Branch’ of the Peel family. Thankfully, Jonathan outlines early on the geography of the many Peels in Lancashire and around Accrington. It’s a thoughtful and ruminative journal of a privileged, if repressed Victorian upbringing. He is tortured by the death of his younger brother, imagines him burning in hell because he died before being baptised. His mother (‘a truly devout woman’) inspires some morbidity, too (‘every day, every hour, nay every minute she used to tell me somebody was dying somewhere’). Nevertheless, there are stories of bull-baiting, cock-fighting, schoolboy japes and accidents (‘being dangled by an arm and a leg’ over a bridge on the Leeds-Liverpool canal). Somewhat sickly, he was given ‘incessant doses of James’ Powder, rhubarb, sulphur and treacle’ to strengthen him. However, it was a particular phial in the bathroom to which he was drawn (‘even to this day I delight in the scent and taste of opium… I could easily have become an opium-eater’). Eventually, he makes it to Cambridge. He married his cousin Anne and they had five children. – And a further twenty-four volumes relating to the Peel family, mainly diaries, [1857-1917], but also another journal of 44pp. in Jonathan Peel’s hand which has a pencil note at the front (‘Far far into the past I look’), two passports, and a ‘Family Record, 1835’, with genealogies in manuscript, and several letters loosely-inserted (25).

MANUSCRIPT. – J. WILKINSON. My First Trip to London, and Neighbourhood. [N.p.:] London: 7th- 15th July 1862. 47pp., manuscript, 8vo (181 x 115mm.) 24 leaves of clearly legible hand-written diary entries relating the experiences of a young woman and her sister visiting London by train from Liverpool, and her thoughts on seeing the ‘Great Exhibition’ in Crystal Palace and the ‘Great London Exposition’ of 1862, plus a trip to Brighton. (Toning.) Original card wrappers, title in manuscript to upper cover (some corner creasing, browning). Note: an evocative travel journal that lends a different perspective on the ‘Great Exhibition’. On seeing statues of the engineers that were three or four times life size the writer wonders if this is to emphasise the ‘great minds’ of these ‘great men’. They see the trees, the sugar cane, the endless ‘Picture Galleries’, the ‘figures of all the nations’ (‘from the Indian savage down to the civilised European’), and the model of the hugely symbolic ‘Koh-i-noor’ diamond, but it’s the sheer vastness of the industrial technology that renders her speechless. The following day, ‘the thought struck me that there is as much care taken, if not more, in making anything for the destruction of life and property, than for the preservation of the same’.

ASIA. – William Montgomery McGOVERN. To Lhasa in Disguise, a Secret Expedition Through Mysterious Tibet. New York and London: The Century Co., 1924. First edition, signed by William Montgomery McGovern, 8vo (223 x 144mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original blue pictorial cloth (slight fading). Note: signed by McGovern to the lower edge of the frontispiece: ‘With best wishes, and in pleasant memories of Boston, love W.M. McGovern, 1926’. Thought to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones, McGovern was, perhaps, even more impressive. He was reputed to speak twelve languages. He was a war correspondent during the Second Sino-Japanese war, did secret work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Second World War, he was an adventurer and a writer and - having studied in Berlin, Oxford and at the Sorbonne - was an academic for many years.

ASIA. – Charles A. SHERRING. Western Tibet and The British Borderland. London: Edward Arnold, 1906. First edition, 8vo (247 x 152mm.) Photogravure frontispiece, photographic illustrations, some full-page, 5 maps including 2 large folding colour maps of Western Tibet. (Toning, one folding map loose.) Original blue cloth, pictorial gilt (extremities rubbed, small stain to upper cover).

ASIA. – Perceval LANDON. Lhasa, an Account of the Country and People of Central Tibet and of the Progress of the Mission Sent There by the English Government in the Year 1903-4. London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd., 1905. 2 vols., first edition, 8vo (239 x 163mm.) Half-titles, 7 maps, including 1 large folding colour map to rear of vol. 2, numerous photographic illustrations. (Toning, light spotting to half-titles.) Original russet cloth, gilt lettering (some fading to gilt, spine ends rubbed). Provenance: R. Colenutt (ink stamp to front pastedowns). – And a further two volumes (L.A. Waddell’s ‘The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism’, 1934, 8vo, and Marco Pallis’ ‘Peaks and Lamas’, 1946, 8vo) (4).

SANSON, Henry (editor). Memoirs of the Sansons, From Private Notes and Documents [1688-1847.] London: Chatto and Windus, 1876. 2 vols., first edition, 8vo (194 x 122mm.) Half-titles, 32pp. publisher’s catalogue to rear of vol. 1. (Toning, occasional light spotting, endpapers replaced.) Original red blind-stamped cloth (rebacked, some staining to covers, extremities rubbed). Note: scarce. The Sansons were a seven-generation dynasty of executioners. The last executioner in the family was Henri Clémont and he held the official position from 1840 to 1847 at which point the hundred- and fifty-nine-year-old dynasty came to an end (2).

PAYNE-GALLWEY, Ralph. The Book of Duck Decoys, their Construction, Management, and History. London: John van Voorst, 1886. First edition, 4to (247 x 181mm.) 14 colour lithographic plates, including 2 folding. (Toning, occasional scattered spotting.) Original teal cloth, gilt lettering to upper cover and spine (minor marks to lower cover). Note: plates complete as collated. Provenance: John Neston Diggle (bookplate to front pastedown). – And a related volume (J. Whitaker’s ‘British Duck Decoys of Today, 1918’, 1918, 8vo) (2).

HARVEY, William Henry. Phycologia Britannica: or, A History of British Sea-Weeds. London: Reeve and Benham, 1846-51. 4 vols., first edition, 4to (254 x 147mm.) 358 hand-coloured plates. (Mild toning, gutta-percha perishing in vols. 1 and 2 with many leaves loosening.) Original blind-stamped cloth, gilt lettering to spines (spines sunned, lightly bumped extremities) (4).

MOUNTAINEERING. – Walter Dwight WILCOX. The Rockies of Canada, A Revised and Enlarged Edition of ‘Camping in the Canadian Rockies’. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1906. 8vo (238 x 156mm.) 25 photogravure plates, captioned tissue-guards, 3 maps in rear pocket. (Mild toning.) Original green cloth, pictorial gilt to upper cover, t.e.g. (lightly rubbed extremities, hinges slightly weakened). – And two related volumes (Hugh E.M. Stutfield and J. Norman Collie’s ‘Climbs and Exploration in the Canadian Rockies’, 1903, 8vo, and James Outram ‘In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies’, 1905, 8vo). Provenance: from the estate of the late David Sadler (3).

ZOLA, Émile. Piping Hot! (Pot-Bouille) … translated from the 63rd French edition. London: Vizetelly & Co., 1885. First English edition, 8vo (189 x 121mm.) Engraved plates, 2pp. publisher’s advertisement at front and 17pp. publisher advertisements at rear. (Browning and light scattered spotting, tape repair to hinges.) Original blue cloth with pictorial gilt, red and black (fading to spine and upper cover gilt, slight warping to covers and crease to lower cover, rubbed). – And a further twelve volumes by or about Émile Zola (including ‘His Masterpiece? (L’Oeuvre.) Or, Claude Lantier’s Struggle For Fame’, 1886, 8vo, and ‘How Jolly Life Is!’, 1886, 8vo) (13).

FLINT, William Russell. Appreciations… a Précis of Appreciations During Half a Century. London: Charles Skilton Ltd., 1963. Limited edition, being number 366 of 750 copies, inscribed by William Russell Flint under the portrait frontispiece, 8vo (246 x 179mm.) Portrait frontispiece. (Mild toning.) Original white cloth, gilt lettering, glassine dust-jacket. – And a further ten volumes (including ‘Pictures From the Artist’s Studio’, signed by William Russell Flint, 1962, 8vo, and Margot Coatts’ ‘Portable Pleasures’, 1992, 8vo, and Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Cockney’s Farming Experience’, 1972, 8vo) (11).

RACKHAM, Arthur (illustrator). – William SHAKESPEARE. A Midsummer-Night’s Dream. London: William Heinemann, 1908. First trade edition, 4to (251 x 181mm.) 40 tipped-in colour plates with captioned tissue-guards, numerous black and white illustrations. (Spotting to endpapers, mild toning.) Original beige cloth, pictorial gilt to upper cover (lightly bumped extremities). – And a further four volumes illustrated by Arthur Rackham (including William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, 1926, 4to, and Richard Wagner’s ‘The Ring of the Niblung’, 1939, 4to, and Robert Browning’s ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’, 1934, 8vo, and Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’, 1933, 8vo) (5).

RACKHAM, Arthur (illustrator) and James STEPHENS. Irish Fairy Tales. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1920. First trade edition, 4to (209 x 162mm.) Half-title, 16 colour plates with captioned tissue-guards, black and white illustrations in the text. (Mild toning.) Original green cloth, gilt to upper cover (fading to spine gilt). Provenance: ‘Miss. Guggenheim’ (ink inscribed to on the front-free endpaper). – And a further six illustrated volumes (W. Heath Robinson’s ‘Bill the Minder’, 1912, 4to, and John Witt Randall’s ‘The Fairies’ Festival’, illustrated by Francis Gilbert Attwood, 1895, 4to, and Charles Kingsley’s ‘The Water Babies’, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, [1919], 4to, and Alice Talwin Morris’ ‘Old Friends and New Fables’, illustrated by Carton Moorepark, 1916, 4to) (7).

WYSS, Johann David. The Swiss Family Robinson. London: Humphrey Milford at Oxford University Press, 1936. 8vo (231 x 162mm.) 20 tipped-in colour plates on green card by T.H. Robinson, illustrated endpapers. (Mild toning, contemporary gift inscription to half-title.) Original red cloth, pictorial gilt, t.e.g., dust-jacket (toning to spine), original slipcase (toning).