Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

JUNIUS. The Letters of the Celebrated Junius. A More Complete Edition Than Any Yet Published. London: [n.p.], 1783. 2 vols., 12mo (177 x 98mm.) (Toning, marginal insect-damage to preliminaries of vol. 1.) Contemporary calf, red and black morocco lettering pieces to the spines (minor scuffing to covers). Provenance: Susanna Sherrin (ink name to initial blanks). – And a further seven volumes (including H. Hammond’s ‘A Practical Catechism’, 1700, 8vo, and William Beveridge’s ‘Private Thoughts: In Two Parts Compleat’, 1720, 8vo, and an American hand-written liber amicorum ‘Leaflets of Friendship’, [circa 1850’s], 8vo) (9).

ORIGINAL ART-WORK. – Paul JAMES (editor). Birds of Sussex. Sussex: Ornithological Society, 1996. First edition, 8vo (228 x 149mm.) Photographic illustrations, black and white illustrations by John Reaney. (Mild toning.) Original brown cloth, dust-jacket, original box. – And with 7 original black and white drawings by John Reaney that are published in the book, framed and glazed (two panes cracked) (8).

INDIA. – L.F. Rushbrook WILLIAMS. Report of the Administration of Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy and Governor General of India, 1916-1921. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1921. 8vo (241 x 148mm.) (Light spotting to preliminaries.) Original red cloth (sunning to spine, spotting to upper cover). Note: rare. Lord Chelmsford and Edwin Montagu drew the initial outlines for a limited form of self-government for India in the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms which formed the basis of the Government of India Act in 1919.  However, Indian nationalists, especially having fought with the British in the First World War, thought the reforms were insufficient. Provenance: by descent, from the estate of Frederic Thesiger, Lieutenant General, Viceroy and Governor-General of India 1916-21.

SIGNED BOOK. – Robert Hamilton Bruce LOCKHART. Memoirs of a British Agent. London and New York: Putnam, 1934. Second edition, signed by R.H. Bruce Lockhart and Leslie Howard and Michael Curtiz and William Cargan, 8vo (217 x 139mm.) Photographic frontispiece. (Toning, label remains to front pastedown.) Original cloth (dust-soiled, spotting to upper cover, ink reference to spine). Note: signed on the half-title by the author and by Michael Curtiz, the director of ‘British Agent’, the 1934 American spy film based on Lockhart’s book. Leslie Howard and William Cargan starred in the film. The plot was based around Lockhart having apparently led a failed mission to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. He always denied the charge and eventually the ’Lockhart Plot’ was proven to be a Russian manoeuvre to discredit the French and English governments. Provenance: Battersea Public Library (label to front pastedown).

SUPERNATURAL. – Harry PRICE. Stella C. An Account of Some Original Experiments in Psychical Research. London: Hurst & Blackett Ltd., 1925. First edition, 8vo (183 x 116mm.) 16 black and white plates. (Toning, occasional light spotting.) Original blue cloth, dust-jacket (minor loss to extremities and top edge of upper panel). – And a further seven volumes by or about Harry Price and Borley Rectory (including Harry Price’s ‘Search for Truth’, 1942, 8vo, and ‘The End of Borley Rectory’, 1947, 8vo, and Harry Price and R.S. Lambert’s ‘The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap’, 1936, 8vo, and Harry Price’s ’50 Years of Psychical Research’, 1939, 8vo) (8).

GUILDFORD. – [Charles Austen JACQUES.] Sylvae; Or, a Collection of Poems on Several Occasions by a Young Gentleman of Chichester. Guildford: for the Author, 1776. First edition, small 4to (197 x 122mm.) Title, 2pp. ‘Preface’, 8pp. ‘List of Subscribers’. (Light browning.) Later green morocco-backed cloth (paper label to spine). Note: usually attributed to Charles Austen Jacques, but also previously attributed to a T. Farley, Thomas Bradford (author of a collection of poems ‘Poetical Pieces’ published posthumously in 1808) and Henry W. Batty. However, in the ‘List of Subscribers’ a ‘C. Jacques, Bookseller’ has ordered four copies of this book and it’s possible that he was the proud father of the author, his son, Charles Austen Jacques. Provenance: West Sussex County Council (bookplates to pastedowns).

SUSSEX. – William HAYLEY. The Triumphs of Temper, a Poem: In Six Cantos. Chichester: by William Mason for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1817. New edition, small 8vo (159 x 90mm.) Copper-engraved frontispiece in colours by T.B. Brown after George Romney. (Toning, offsetting to title, lacking rear blank?) Near contemporary brown full diced morocco (rebacked, paper label to spine, endpapers replaced). Note: Hayley’s influential poem that was reprinted many times after the first edition of 1781. Provenance: Sussex County Council (stamps verso the title). – And a further ten volumes of poetry, mostly Sussex related (including Charles Croker’s ‘The Vale Of Obscurity’, 1830, 4to, and Thomas Bradford’s ‘Poetical Pieces… to which are Added A Sonnet on His Death, and Epitaph, written by William Hayley, Esq.’, 1808, 4to, and Charlotte Smith’s ‘Elegiac Sonnets’, fifth edition, 1789, 8vo, and ‘Song Favours’ by C.W. Dalmon, limited edition, being one of 450 copies, 1895, 8vo, and Stuart Guthrie’s ‘The Death and Burial of Cock Robin, an Elegy’, 1932, 8vo) (11).

SMITH, William. The History of the Holy Jesus. Containing a Brief Account of the Birth and Life, the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Blessed Saviour. London: Eben Tracy, 1717. 12mo (138 x 87mm.) 11 woodcut illustrations in the text. (Last leaf G10, lacking last twelve leaves, G5-G6 loose, damp-stained A2-F.) Contemporary calf (partially lacking spine, heavily rubbed, lower cover loosened). – And a further seven volumes (including John Dryden’s ‘Original Poems’, 2 vols., 1756, 8vo, and, published by John Baskett, ‘The Book of Common Prayer’, [lacking covers], 1717, 8vo, and a manuscript ‘Confessions’ book, [circa 1882]) (8).

CULPEPER, Nicholas. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, to which Is Now Added, Upwards of One Hundred Additional Herbs, With a Display of Their Medicinal and Occult Qualities. London: Thomas Kelly, 1819. 4to (261 x 200mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece, 40 hand-coloured plates, 4pp. ‘General Index’. (Creasing to initial blank, illegible gift inscription verso frontispiece, front-free endpaper loosened and margins chipped, plate 37 with partial excision, occasional browning.) Contemporary calf (joints splitting, extremities rubbed).

DALYELL, John Graham. A Brief Analysis of the Chartularies. Edinburgh: William Aitken, 1828. 4to (229 x 131mm.) Half-title, frontispiece of the chartulary of Cambuskenneth, heightened with gold, tissue-guard. (Toning, pencil annotation to p.25.) Original boards, paper label to spine (extremities rubbed, minor scuffing). Note: scarce.

CHEMISTRY. – George H.F. NUTTALL. On the Role of Insects, Arachnids and Myriapods, As Carriers in the Spread of Bacterial and Parasitic Diseases of Man and Animals. A Critical and Historical Study. [Baltimore:] John Hopkins Hospital Reports, [circa 1899]. Vol. VIII. 8vo (254 x 179mm.) 3 plates, errata leaf. (Toning, slight crease to text-block, preliminaries browned.) Contemporary black half morocco, red morocco lettering piece to the spine (minor scuffing). Provenance: Robert Edward Dillon, Lord Clonbrock (bookplate to front-free endpaper); Edward Braxton Reynolds (bookplate to front pastedown). – And a further eleven volumes mostly related to chemistry and biology (including James F.W. Johnston’s ‘The Chemistry of Common Life’, 2 vols., 1856, 8vo, and Colin MacKenzie’s ‘Five Thousand Receipts in all the Useful and Domestic Arts’, fifth edition, 1825, 12mo) (12).

ASTROLOGY. – Marie-Anne Adelaide Le NORMAND. La Sibylle au Congrès D’Aix-la-Chapelle suivi d’un Coup-d’ Oeil sur Celui de Carlsbad. Paris: L’ Auteur, 1819. First edition, 8vo (198 x 117mm.) Half-title, engraved frontispiece, 6 engraved folding plates. (Toning, four of the plates with marginal creasing and chipping.) Contemporary calf, red morocco lettering piece to the spine (extremities rubbed, minor loss at base of spine). Note: Le Normand was an astrologer, bookseller and tarot practitioner and the spiritual advisor to numerous powerful people in revolutionary France, including Marat, Robespierre, Empress Josephine as well as Tsar Alexander I. Provenance: Erika Cheetham (ink name verso front blank).

MANUSCRIPT. [A hand-written compendium of random excerpts from contemporary journals, newspapers, gazettes. N.p.: 1823-1824.] 311pp., manuscript, 8vo (198 x 159mm.) 155 leaves of densely written excerpts in a single legible hand, including 26pp. to rear of genealogical information relating to the Le Geyt and Delafaye families, a mounted contemporary article relating Brunel’s plans for the ‘Thames Tunnel’ in 1823. (Toning, occasional browning.) Contemporary vellum, manuscript lettering to upper cover and spine (stained and discoloured). Note: contains a profusion of subjects, many of international interest, including reports on the death of a 1000 ‘Witches in Central India’ over the last thirty years, ‘The Condition of Women in Turkey’ (where its noted that most of them spend a good portion of every day in the public baths), the building of a 23-mile long canal in China, ‘Italian Manners’, as well as literary, political and articles about English and world  history, there’s medical matters like ‘The Durability of Human Teeth’, or utterly random like ‘Shop Signs’, ‘Beards’ and ‘Water Pipes’, all of these taken from a variety of contemporary sources. Provenance: Le Geyt family (ink ownership to upper cover).

COLOUR PRINTING. – [Henry Noel HUMPHREYS.] The Illuminated Calendar and Home Diary for 1845. London: Longman & Co., [1844.] Chromolithographed title, 4pp. text printed in red and black, 36 chromolithographed plates in colours and gold on thick card, being three for each month, including 12 scenes from the ‘Hours’ of Anne of Brittany. (Numerous contemporary entries in ink in the ‘Diary’, small marginal tears to initial blank, lacking publisher’s catalogue to rear.) Original gilt decorated cloth (spine worn, extremities and covers rubbed). – And a further sixteen related volumes, mainly mid-19th century illustrated volumes (including, lacking three plates, ‘The Night-Flyers, a Series of Moth Pictures’, published by Paul Jerrard & Son, [circa 1863], large 8vo) (17).

HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel. The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing. London: Ingram, Cooke, and Co., 1853. First edition, 4to (257 x 168mm.) 28 plates, several chromolithographed. (Browning, preliminaries heavily browned, occasional damp-staining, 1 loose plate.) Original black calf spine, papier-mâché pierced covers designed by Humphreys, g.e. (loss to corners and to top edge of lower cover, light cracks to lower cover). Note: one of only three Victorian papier-mâché bindings to be reprinted.

BINDING. – Henry Noel HUMPHREYS. Sentiments and Similes of William Shakespeare. London: Longman, Brown, Green et al., 1857. Second edition, 8vo (193 x 146mm.) Chromolithographed first page, initials in black and gold, ruling in gold. (Text-block cracking at ‘Contents’ leaf, spotting to preliminaries and rear blank.) Original cloth-backed black papier-mâché binding with oval relief portrait of Shakespeare to centre and author’s initials to lower cover, g.e. (corner losses to upper cover of binding, two cracks to lower cover, extremities rubbed). – And a further ten illustrated volumes (including ‘The Prism of Imagination’ by The Baroness de Calabrella and with illustrations heightened by Owen Jones, [lacking several leaves], 1844, 8vo, and G. Baxter’s ‘The Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet of Paintings’, [1837], [with 8 of 11 plates], 4to, and ‘Passages From Modern English Poets. Illustrated by the Junior Etching Club’ [disbound, lacking 4 leaves], [1865], 4to) (11).

JAZZ. – Hugues PANASSIÉ. Louis Armstrong. Paris: Éditions du Belvédère, 1947. First edition, signed in green ink by Louis Armstrong and by the author, 8vo (218 x 154mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original card wrappers, glassine dust-jacket (browned). Note: Hugues Panassié was a French critic, writer and producer and the founding president of the ‘Hot Club de France’. Throughout his life he promoted ‘Dixieland’ jazz rooted in the swing and blues tradition of African-American music. – And a small quantity of jazz magazines (including ‘Bulletin du Hot Club de France’, 4 issues [No. 1,2,76,91], Oct-1950-Oct-1959, 8vo) (small quantity).

ART DECO. – [Edward Louis Warschawsky LEON.] ‘Edy-LEGRAND’. Macao et Cosmage ou L’ Experience du Bonheur. Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Francaise, 1919. Square folio (342 x 333mm.) Numerous pochoir illustrations by Legrand, including on endpapers, text in French. (Toning, occasional finger-mark.) Original illustrated paper-covered boards (small corner crease to upper cover, extremities chipped, lightly dust-soiled to lower cover). Note: an early art-deco styled story for children that is considered a milestone in the history of children’s book illustration.

TRADE CATALOGUE. – A.W. GAMAGE Ltd. (publisher). Gamage’s General Catalogue. London: Caxton Press, [circa 1927.] 96th edition, 8vo (280 x 213mm.) Numerous black and white advertisements and illustrations, 1 leaf (sports clothing) in colour, loosely inserted order forms. (Toning.) Original red cloth, mounted paper illustration to upper cover (some fading, extremities bumped).