Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

MONTAGU, Mary Wortley. The Works of… London: Richard Phillips, 1803. 5 vols., 12mo (173 x 96mm.) 2 engraved portrait frontispieces, 10 engraved facsimiles, many folding, contemporary ink annotation to first text leaves of volume 1. (Offsetting of frontispieces, toning, occasional spotting.) Contemporary calf, gilt borders (extremities and spines rubbed, repair to head of spine of volume 1). – And a further three volumes (including Samuel Sharp’s ‘Letters From Italy’, 1766, 8vo, and Peter Paul Pallet’s ‘Bath Characters: or Sketches From Life’, 1808, 8vo) (8).

MAUND, Benjamin. The Botanist; containing Accurately Coloured Figures, of Tender and Hardy Ornamental Plants. London: R. Groombridge, [1837-1846.] 5 vols. in 3, 4to (220 x 169mm.) Additional engraved titles, 250 hand-coloured engraved plates, indices. (Mild toning, light spotting to additional titles.) Contemporary green half morocco, brown morocco lettering pieces to spines (slight fading to spines, light rubbing to extremities). Provenance: Charles C. Catling (gift inscribed to on titles, dated 1876) (3).

ELIZABETH II. – The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. Cambridge: at the University Press, [1961.] Inscribed in ink by Queen Elizabeth II on a mounted presentation plate, 8vo (197 x 128mm.) Integral bookmark, loosely inserted printed prayer. Original blue roan, gilt lettering to spine, g.e., original cloth-covered box, paper label mounted to side (extremities rubbed). Note: scarce. The Children of the Chapel Royal choristers was first established in the 15th century. They sing for the monarch at Kensington and Buckingham Palace and at the two chapels in St. James’s Palace. There are ten boy choristers. Henry Purcell, Arthur Sullivan, Pelham Humfrey and Michael Wise were all choristers of the Chapel Royal. Provenance: David Henry Nightingale Coster (presentation plate to front pastedown).

BRYDSON, Thomas. A Summary View of Heraldry in Reference to the Usages of Chivalry and the General Economy of the Feudal System. London: Nicol, Egerton, Edwards, Faulder, 1795. First edition, 8vo (236 x 139mm.) Engraved title, 7pp. ‘List of Subscribers’. (Light spotting, blanks replaced.) Near contemporary calf, red morocco lettering piece, gilt borders (minor scuffing, endpapers replaced). Note: Adam Smith is listed as one of the subscribers. Provenance: R. Hayday (ink name to title); Peter Summers (bookplate to the front pastedown).

ACKERMANN, R. (publisher). – W. WESTALL, J. GENDALL & Others. Views of Country Seats of the Royal Family, Nobility, and Gentry, of England. London: R. Ackermann and Co., 1830. 2 vols., 8vo (236 x 147mm.) 146 hand-coloured aquatint plates after Wendall, Gendall, Shepperd and others, 2pp. publisher’s advertisements. (Circular stamps to margins of a third of the plates, several with shaved margins, some offsetting and browning to text, stamps to text leaves, too.) Contemporary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards, red and green morocco lettering pieces to the spines (extremities rubbed, spine panels worn). Note: rare. Only 3 copies shown to be held in institutions by Worldcat. Provenance: Worthing Public Library (bookplates to pastedowns, stamps recto and verso title) (2).

COLLINS, Wilkie. The Moonstone. A Romance. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1868. 3 vols. First edition, first state, 8vo (182 x 116mm.) Titles. (Lacking half-titles and advertisements, corner creases, occasional minor soiling, slight corner loss to pp.93-95 of vol. 2, small burn mark to p.211 of vol. 2.) Contemporary red half morocco over marbled paper-covered boards (extremities rubbed, lower joint splitting at top of vol. 3, text-block slightly shaken to vol. 1 and with upper hinge weakened). Note: all volumes in the first state. Volume 1 with pp.10 and 11 numbering transposed, volume 2 with ‘treachesrously’ on p.129, and volume 3 with the broken bracket at end of title. Considered one of the forerunners of the modern detective novel. [Sadleir 598; Wolff 1368] (3).

LEWIS, Wyndham. Time and Western Man. London: Chatto and Windus, 1927. First edition, 8vo (218 x 134mm.) Wood-engraved vignette to title. (Mild toning, crease to preliminaries.) Original red cloth (discolouring to covers), dust-jacket (chipping to extremities, staining verso, minor losses to inner flap).

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1965. 3 vols., mixed impressions, 8vo (202 x 138mm.) 3 folding maps. (Mild toning.) Original red cloth (lightly rubbed extremities, minor marks to lower covers). Note: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ is a fourteenth impression, ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Return of the Ring’ are both eleventh impressions (3).

WELLS, H.G. The Invisible Man, A Grotesque Romance. London: Macmillan and Co., 1907. 8vo (191 x 126mm.) Half-title, title, 32pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Toning, light spotting to preliminaries.) Original green cloth (stain to lower cover). – And a further two volumes by H.G. Wells (‘Tales of Space and Time’, 1906, 8vo, and ‘Twelve Stories and a Dream’, 1903, 8vo) (3).

LEWIS, Wyndham. The Apes of God. London: The Arthur Press, 1930. Limited edition, this being number 212 of 750 copies signed by Wyndham Lewis, 4to (248 x 183mm.) (Light spotting to preliminaries, scattered spotting to text.) Original tan cloth (wear to spine ends, some soiling and scuffing to covers). Provenance: Anna Webb (ink inscribed to initial blank). – And a further volume (Wyndham Lewis’ ‘The Demon of Progress in the Arts’, first edition, 1954, 8vo) (2).

HERALDRY. Tabulae Illustres. Or, the Paternal Arms of the Present Nobility of Great Britain and Ireland, with their Titles and the Stile of the Eldest Sons. London: E. Cave, [circa 1745.] 12mo (122 x 78mm.) Engraved title, 7pp. text to rear, 27 engraved plates of armorial crests, some plates with partial hand-colouring, 2pp. bound-in at front with manuscript notes. (Lacking 1 plate[?], and 1 plate partially excised, dust-soiled, fading.) Near contemporary calf-backed boards (hinges reinforced, extremities rubbed). Provenance: Fitzherbert Macdonald (armorial bookplate to front pastedown). – And a further four volumes (William Mavor’s ‘Five Hundred Points of Husbandry’, New Edition, 1812, 8vo, and ‘The Ambulator: or, a Pocket Companion in a Tour round London’, tenth edition, [lacking map], 1807, 8vo, and George Gordon Byron’s ‘The Prophecy of Dante’, 1821, 8vo) (5).

[VERSTEGAN, Richard. Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum Nostri Temporis. Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, circa 1590.] 4to (204 x 157mm.) 29 engraved illustrations by Richard Rowland [Richard Verstegan], showing scenes of diabolic torture, 9 blank leaves to front, verses and prose commentary in Latin. (Lacking title, frontispiece and all text leaves until C1 (p.17), damp-staining from I2 to last leaf, M4, soiling to C2.) Early 19th century full panelled calf, gilt borders (extremities rubbed, small loss to spine ends). Note: first published in 1587, again in 1588, and a third Latin edition was published in 1592. Richard Verstegan was an Anglo-Dutch Catholic convert living in exile. His work was a warning to the public of the dangers of a Protestant accession, and it provoked a demand for his extradition to face a claim of libel against Queen Elizabeth I. The tortures depicted are perpetrated not only by Protestants, but also Huguenots and Calvinists and represent a Europe-wide danger that the Catholic would be castrated, disembowelled, forced to drink boiling oil, the gouging out of eyes, ears and noses, burning feet, hanging upside down, the rolling up of innards upon a stick. The last illustration shows the beheading of Mary I Stuart of Scotland in 1567. There is also a variant of the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’.

MILITARY. – Augustin M. PRENTISS. Chemicals in War, a Treatise on Chemical Warfare. New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937. First edition, first impression, 8vo (227 x 150mm.) Illustrations in the text, photographic illustrations, folding table. (Mild toning.) Original black cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Note: an early treatise on chemical warfare.

BROOKES, R. The Art of Angling. London: T. Lowndes, 1770. Third edition, 12mo (172 x 99mm.) Engraved frontispiece and numerous woodcut illustrations, 5pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Toning, blanks replaced, ink stains to A4-B1, marginal damp-staining to preliminaries.) Early 20th century green full morocco, black morocco lettering piece to the spine (fading to spine gilt, endpapers replaced).

[HAZLITT, William.] Liber Amoris; or, The New Pygmalion. London: Privately Printed, [1884.] 12mo (183 x 114.) Facsimile of title from 1823. (Toning, spotting verso endpapers.) Contemporary green cloth, paper label to spine (spine ends rubbed, slight loss to paper label). Note: a curious and thinly-veiled autobiographical account of Hazlitt’s infatuation with his landlady’s daughter, Sarah Walker. Estranged from his wife and tormented by this unrequited passion, Hazlitt published the work anonymously. His friend, Thomas de Quincey, described the book as an ‘explosion of frenzy’ and the decision to publish it an attempt to ‘burn her out of his thoughts’.

DAVIS, Z.A. The Freemason’s Monitor; Containing a Delineation of the Fundamental Principles of Freemasonry, Operative and Speculative, as wells as Religious as a Moral View. Philadelphia: R. Wilson Desilver, 1849. First edition, 8vo (190 x 113mm.) Engraved frontispiece, tissue-guards, 27 engraved plates. (Marginal spotting, light spotting, marginal damp-stain to third of text-block, illegible ink name to front-free endpaper.) Original brown cloth, freemasonry symbols in gilt to covers and spine (lightly bumped). – And a further five volumes related to freemasonry (including Walter Leslie Wilmshurst’s ‘The Meaning of Masonry’, 1923, 8vo, and William Henry White’s ‘Constitutions of the Ancient Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons’, 1847, 8vo, and Nos. 1-3 in ‘The Masonic Handbook Series’, by J.S.M. Ward, [1923-1924], 12mo) (6).

ALIGHIERI, Dante. La Vita Nuova. The New Life… translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Coventry: Cheylesmore Press, [1915.] 4to (241 x 178mm.) Mounted colour illustrations by Evelyn Paul, colour decorations, music by Alfred Mercer. (Toning, occasional finger-mark.) Original publisher’s full medieval style calf with mounted bas-relief of Dante to upper cover (hinges weakened, spine and extremities rubbed). – And a further volume published by the same press (Micheal West’s ‘Claire de Lune, and Other Troubadour Romances’, [1913], 4to) (2).

BEWICK, Thomas and John. Select Fables. Newcastle: S. Hodgson, for Emerson Charnley, and Baldwin et al., 1820. First edition, Royal 8vo (242 x 153mm.) Title with wood-engraved vignette, wood-engraved illustrations and vignettes throughout. (Lacking portrait frontispiece, occasional light spotting.) Original boards (rebacked, endpapers replaced, minor scuffing). Note: published in three octavo sizes: demi, Royal, and Imperial. – And a further two volumes (John Aikin’s ‘The Woodland Companion; or, a Brief Description of British Trees’, 1815, 28 folding plates, 12mo, and ‘Summer Thunderstorms: First Annual Report’, 1931, 8vo) (3).

SIGNED BOOK. The Grand Guignol Annual Review 1921… edited by Mervyn McPherson. London: The Little Theatre, 1921. Signed by Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson et al., 4to (248 x 184mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original printed boards, upper cover illustration by Aubrey Hammond (light spotting and finger-marked upper cover, soiling to lower cover). Note: signed by Sybil Thorndike and her husband Lewis Casson and brother, the actor and novelist Russell Thorndike, the actresses Barbara Gott, Cicely Oates, and George Bealby, Elizabeth Srkell, Ralph Neale, Cyril Cattley and Andrew Churchman- all of them involved in the Grand Guignol horror productions that briefly flowered at the Little Theatre in the West End between 1920-22. Provenance: John J. Morgan (gift inscribed to on the front pastedown, dated 1921).