Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

MANUSCRIPT. Notes on Country Tours. [A hand-written travel journal of excursions by train around England and a trip to Belgium. N.p.:] 1856-1883. 104pp., manuscript, 8vo (228 x 185mm.) 52 leaves hand-written in a single clearly legible hand detailing excursions around England, numerous mounted engraved views and maps of places visited, and from 1878 there are 15 mounted photographic illustrations. (Text-block broken, several loose leaves, some spotting and browning.) Original boards (spine lacking, upper cover detached). Note: covering nearly a thirty year period of a Londoner’s holidays around England, beginning in 1856 with the Lake District (‘with John’), then Wales, North Devon (‘alone’), Jersey and the Channel Islands, Isle of Wight, Derbyshire, another short tour of the Lake District, then Belgium and the Rhine, Bath, then finally in 1883 to South Devon and Cornwall. There’s a keen eye for detail in these descriptions, especially the industry, the mills and furnaces of the north, and some detailed description of industrial processes, while on other excursions the emphasis is more on walking and church-going.

MANUSCRIPT. [A hand-written book of recipes. N.p.: circa 1650.] 189pp., manuscript, 8vo (191 x 137mm.) 95 leaves written recto and verso within 434pp. numbered in manuscript, by several legible hands within red ink borders, numerous blank leaves to rear, a few authorship initials in ink to margins, ‘K.S.’ and ‘W.E.’ (Browned, marginal spotting.) Contemporary full morocco, bronze clasps, g.e. (lacking latch, some scuffing). Note: many recipes for fruits and deserts and variations of orange dishes and marmalade, many recipes for ‘Quince’, apples, ‘Cytrons’, ‘Aprecocks’, ‘A French Barley Pudding’, ‘orange biskitt’, ‘mackroons’ and a few meat dishes ‘to make a calves head pye’, ‘piggeons pie’, ‘to bake rabbits in doublets’. The emphasis on preserving fruits and the variety of sophisticated fruit dishes and the use of ‘ambergreese’ [ambergris] suggests this was the cookery book of a relatively distinguished establishment.

MANUSCRIPT. – COOKERY. [A hand-written book of recipes. N.p.:] 1830. 84pp., manuscript, 8vo (198 x 159mm.) 42 leaves in two or three mostly legible hands, comprising recipes for food and also instructions for practical matters. (Spotting, browning, text-block split, quires loose.) Contemporary boards (detached, lower cover missing, worn). Note: numerous recipes for deserts, wine, cakes, also ‘French bread’, ‘stewed eels’ and ‘boiling a lobster’. There are domestic instructions, too, for removing ‘ink stains from linen’, ‘cleaning marble’, to ‘mend broken china’, and to ‘wash silk stockings’. Provenance: Mrs. Foster-Selby (ink dedication to her daughter front pastedown, dated 1830).

DARWIN, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1871. Vol. 1 [only, of 2]. First edition, 8vo (183 x 119mm.) Half-title, illustrations, 16pp, publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Toning, endpapers replaced.) Rebound in green cloth with original cloth and spine laid-down (some rubbing to lower cover). Note: contains the first appearance of the word ‘evolution’ in Darwin’s works, before its appearance in the 6th edition of ‘The Origin of the Species’. Provenance: R. Clifford Gill (ink name inscribed to title, dated 1871).

DARWIN, Charles. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1887. Second edition, Revised and Augmented, Twenty-First Thousand, 8vo (188 x 122mm.) Half-title, wood-engraved illustrations in the text, ‘Index’. (Toning.) Original green cloth (spotting to covers). – And a further two volumes by Charles Darwin (‘The Origin of the Species’, 1902, 8vo, and ‘The Origin of the Species’, Popular Edition, 1902, 8vo) (3).

DARWIN, Charles. The Power of Movement in Plants. London: John Murray, 1882. Third thousandth, 8vo (184 x 119mm.) Half-title. (Toning, lacking advertisements.) Contemporary half calf over pebbled cloth, two tan morocco lettering pieces to the spine (extremities rubbed, chipped at top of spine). – And a further eight volumes by Charles Darwin (including ‘Insectivorous Plants’, fourth thousand, 1876, 8vo, and ‘The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom’, second edition, 8vo, and ‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould’, ninth thousandth (corrected), 1883, 8vo, and ‘The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species’, third thousand, 1884, 8vo, and ‘The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants’, third thousand, 1882, 8vo, and ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’, 2 vols., second edition revised, fifth thousand, 1885, 8vo, and ‘The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, second edition revised, fourth thousand, 1885, 8vo) (9).

DARWIN, Charles. The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murray, 1884. Sixth edition, 26th thousandth, 8vo (184 x 119mm.) Half-title, 1 folding chart. (Spotting to blanks, toning, lacking advertisements.) Contemporary half calf over pebbled cloth, two tan morocco lettering pieces to the spine (chipped at top of spine, fading to cloth). – And a further three volumes by Charles Darwin (including ‘The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex’, second edition, 1883, 8vo, and ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals’, tenth thousandth, 1873, 8vo, and ‘Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ Round the World’, sixteenth thousand, 1884, 8vo) (4).

BALZAC, Honoré de. La Comedié Humaine. London: Leonard Smithers, 1897. 11 vols., limited edition, being number of 13 of 50 copies on Japan Imperial paper, 8vo (218 x 135mm.) Half titles in red, etched plates, captioned tissue-guards. (Toning.) Original parchment, gilt portraits to upper covers and spines, t.e.g. (browned, minor soiling, slight staining and scuffing to spines) (11).

ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. – Denzil Baron HOLLES. Memoirs of Denzil Lord Holles, Baron of Ifield in Sussex, from the Year 1641, to 1648. London: for Tim Goodwin, 1699. 8vo (189 x 120mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece. (Toning, stamps verso title.) Contemporary speckled calf (rebacked, label to spine). Note: Holles was one of the ‘Five Members’ who Charles I attempted to have arrested in the House of Commons on January 4th, 1642- one of the events that ignited the civil war. A few years earlier, in 1629, Holles had held down in his chair the House of Commons Speaker, Sir John Finch, in an attempt to pass laws against Charles I’s arbitrary policies. Provenance: Worthing Public Library (labels to pastedowns).  – And a further four volumes (‘The Three Brothers; or, The Travels and Adventures of Sir Anthony, Sir Robert, and Sir Thomas Sherley, in Persia, Russia, Turkey, Spain, etc.’, 1825, 8vo, and ‘The History of Richard MacReady’, published in Lindfield, 1832, 16mo, and [Thomas Blount’s] ‘Boscobel: or, The History of His Sacred Majesties Most Miraculous Preservation’, 1809, small 4to, and Thomas Medwin’s ‘The Shelley Papers: Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley’, 1833, 8vo) (5).

BINDINGS. – Winston CHURCHILL. The Second World War. New York: Bantam Books, 1962. 6 vols., 8vo (173 x 99mm.) (Browned.) Contemporary black morocco-backed marbled paper-covered boards (toned). – And a further five volumes (Lawrence Durrell’s ‘The Alexandria Quartet’, 4 vols., 1961, 8vo, and ‘The Dark Labyrinth’, 1958, 8vo) (11).

UMPHERSTON, Francis A. The Law of Master and Servant. Edinburgh: William Green & Sons, 1904. First edition, large 8vo (247 x 146mm.) Original purple cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Note: scarce. Provenance: H. Lindsay, dated 1913 (ink name to front blank). – And a further nine miscellaneous volumes (Arden Holt’s ‘Fancy Dresses Described; or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls’, fifth edition, [1887], 8vo, and George Eliot’s ‘Romola’, 2 vols., limited edition being number 527 of 1000 copies only, 1880, 4to, and ‘Orient-Pacific Line Guide’, edited by W.J. Loftie, sixth edition, [circa 1901], 4to, and B. Roustam-Bek’s ‘Aerial Russia, the Romance of the Giant Aeroplane’, 1916, 8vo) (10).

EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED. – John Ackerson ERREDGE. History of Brighthelmston, or Brighton as I View It and Others Knew It. Brighton: by E. Lewis, ‘Observer’ Office, 1862. First edition, 8vo (209 x 133mm.) Extra-illustrated with numerous engraved plates and maps, some folding, including a ‘Panoramic View of Brighton West’, a hand-coloured lithograph of St. Peter’s Church, a double-paged lithograph of the ‘Chain Pier’ and engraved plates of ‘The Lanes’, original wrappers bound-in. (Stamps to plate margins, toning, occasional spotting.) Near contemporary red half morocco, t.e.g. (extremities rubbed). Provenance: E.W. Margesson (ink name verso front endpaper, dated 1905); West Sussex County Council (label to rear pastedown). – And a further two extra-illustrated volumes, two copies of John George Bishop’s ‘A Peep into the Past: Brighton in the Olden Time, with Glances at the Present’, 1880, 4to) (3).

DORÉ, Gustave (illustrator). – [Rudolf Erich RASPE.] The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, [circa 1870.] Third edition, 4to (267 x 204mm.) Introduction by T. Teignmouth Shore, plates, illustrations in the text. (Mild toning.) Original green cloth, gilt portrait to upper cover, g.e. (lightly rubbed extremities). Provenance: Reginald Metcalf (ink inscribed to on half-title). – And a further twenty-two volumes, mostly illustrated (including Claud Lovat Fraser’s ‘Pirates’, [1915], 4to, and ‘Nursery Rhymes’, illustrated by Claud Lovat Fraser, [1919], 4to, and Bram Stoker’s ‘The Lair of the White Worm’, second edition, [1925], 8vo, and Rosemary Hoyland’s ‘Ethelbert Under the Sea’, 1956, oblong 4to, and Herbert Strang’s ‘Lord of the Seas’, 1909, 8vo, and Francis Burnand’s ‘The Fox’s Frolic’, illustrated by Harry B. Neilson, [1935], oblong 4to, and ‘Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates’, 1921, 4to) (23).

MORRIS, F.O. A History of British Birds. London: George Bell & Sons, 1870. Second edition, 8vo (251 x 170mm.) 364 hand-coloured plates, tissue-guards, publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Light to moderate spotting to most plates.) Original blind-stamped cloth, pictorial gilt (lightly rubbed, lower joint of vol. 1 splitting). Provenance: Lambert Cameron Jackson (armorial bookplate to front pastedowns) (6).

HULME, F. Edward. Familiar Wild Flowers. London, Paris, New York & Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Limited, [1906]. Series 1-8 in 8 vols., 8vo (188 x 127mm.) Numerous chromolithographed plates. (Toning.) Original green decorative cloth, gilt lettering (extremities rubbed, a few white spots to upper cover of vol. 1) (8).

ASPIN, Jehoshaphat. The Naval and Military Exploits Which Have Distinguished the Reign of George the Third. London: Samuel Leigh, 1820. First edition, 12mo (143 x 87mm.) Hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece, 24 hand-coloured circular plates of military scenes, ‘Index’, 12pp. publisher’s catalogue. (Plates leaf loose and 1 plate loose, lacking 9 plates, lacking 7 leaves.) Original red morocco, gilt lettering and crest to upper cover (rubbed and scuffed, spine creased). – And a further volume (F.O. Morris’ ‘Book of Natural History; Containing a Description of Animals and Birds’, 1852, 8vo) (2).

FULTON, Robert. The Illustrated Book of Pigeons, with Standards for Judging… edited by Lewis Wright. London: Cassell & Company, Limited, [n.d. circa 1880.] 4to (270 x 211mm.) 50 chromolithographed plates, tissue-guards, woodcut illustrations in the text. (Mild toning.) Original pictorial cloth (spine ends bumped, minor abrasion to upper cover). Provenance: A.P. Gawne (ink name inscribed to title).

BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illustrator). – Thomas MALORY. Morte d’Arthur. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1927. Third edition, this being one of 1600 copies only, 4to (291 x 214mm.) Half-title, engraved frontispiece, 1 engraved plate, 20 woodblock plates, including 5 double-paged. (Spotting to frontispiece, offsetting and marginal spotting to title, toning.) Original dark blue cloth with gilt design by Beardsley, t.e.g. (spine ends bumped). Note: the third and most complete of the Beardsley editions, containing ten further illustrations.  Provenance: A. Hamilton (gift inscribed from on front pastedown).

BIBLE, In English. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Newly Translated out of the Original Tongues; and with the former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. Oxford: John Baskett, 1715. 1 vol. in 2, 4to (284 x 221mm.) Title and text ruled in red, double-column, separate NT title, wood-engraved initials, includes ‘Apocrypha’. (Toning, occasional browning and scattered spotting, marginal paper repair to title.) Early 19th century black morocco, gilt ruled and corner-pieces, g.e. (extremities rubbed, abrasions to upper cover of OT). Provenance: Crabbet Park (bookplates to front pastedowns) (2).