PETRARCH. PETRARCA (Francesco)
Folio, 303 x 193 mms., foliated, [iv], [222], title-page in red and black, illustrated throughout with full-page and vignette woodcuts (262, so far as I can tell). [BOUND WITH]: De rebus memorandis. Francis Petrarcha der Hochgeleert vnd weitberümpt Orator vnnd Poet von allerhandt fürtrefflichen Handlungen. Franckfurt am Meyn: Bey Christian Egenolffs seligen Erben, 1566. Foliated [6], 102 [6 index and register], title-page in red and black, with woodcut on last pages of text bound in contemporary pigskin, panelled in blind, with decorations and images also in blind; small piece cut from top margin of front free end-paper, binding soiled, missing one clasp. This is the second edition by Egenolff. The web site "Money Museum" says this of Petrarch's work: "Misfortune is our own fault. The Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) was convinced of this. Hardly any author of the popular help-yourself literature on the subject of "happiness" says that so openly - in five minutes, without effort, with a money-back guarantee . Petrarch does not offer such superficial and light fare. But he also wrote a lucky guide in 1366. His late work was written in Latin and bore the somewhat unwieldy name "De remediis utriusque fortunae", i.e. something like "On the remedies for happiness and misfortune". In the language of the educated, it was initially aimed at an intellectual elite that was very familiar with Petrarch's ancient models. But then it became apparent that this text appealed to everyone. By 1756, the bestseller went through 28 editions in its original Latin edition alone and was translated into more than 50 languages, including 13 times into German, where it was soon marketed under catchy titles such as "Glückbuch" and "Trostspiegel". The illustrations of the so-called Master of Petrarch also contributed to the success of the German version. The congenial woodcuts show that he was one of the greatest draftsmen of his time. But what kind of book was it that inspired the whole of Europe and established Petrarch's reputation as Italy's most important poet? Entirely in the antique style, personifications appear who discuss happiness and misfortune in a dialogue about concrete everyday problems. Reason, joy and pain rise in the intellectual boxing ring. The readers have to be prepared for some uppercuts. While some people can still endure severe blows of fate such as poverty or illness with a certain calm, the real danger lurks, says Petrarch - in luck! Who, in their wealth and success, would not be swept away by their joy? But Fortuna is busy turning the wheel of fortune and whoever is on top today will be crushed under the wheel tomorrow. Worldly possessions and achievements, therefore, should be viewed as fleeting and accepted with gratitude, but not clinging to them or striving for them with all our might. Against this background, Petrarch's devastating exclamation is to be understood: "The love of money testifies to a poor spirit." The author could certainly see himself as an expert in his field. He experienced the harshness of exile early on. For a long time, Petrarch led a life of financial insecurity because he had given up studying law for his true passion, literature. Thus the young poet was forced to alternate between wealthy patrons and families. It took him from southern France to Rome and from Milan to Venice. Petrarch saw friends dying of the plague and had to accept that the love of his life had already been married to someone else. His conclusion: "I can hardly find anything more fragile and restless than human life." Today we are convinced that the state protects us and that our insurance relieves us of most other worries for a small monthly fee. People 650 years ago were much more on their own. With the "word medicines", as Petrarch himself calls the instructions, he wanted to help his contemporaries like a modern coach. Back then, people mainly struggled with external dangers, today we are working on our behavior patterns and attitudes. Reason enough to check Petrarch's wisdom for its current use. He has no convenient panacea for happiness, but many a stimulating suggestion on how not to become unhappy. And that's more than many of its modern competitors can offer."
CARADOC OF LHANCARVAN
8vo, 218 X 127 mms., pp. [xlii], xlii, 396 [397 - 412 index], title-page in red and black, engraved vignette of "The Chief Druid" on title-page, folding table of Kings and Princes of Wales before p. 1, occasional contemporary calf, gilt border on covers, gilt spine (but faded with loss of gilt, dark red leather labels; corner of title-page repaired, front joint slightly cracked, corners worn, ex-library, with stamp on verso of title-page. Caradoc of Llancarvan (?d. 1147) is thought to have been a monk from the Abbey of Llancarvan. No original text of his history of Wales survives, and Powell's text, which probably contains some of Caradoc's original, was published in 1584. Sir John Price (d. ?1573) published his work first in 1584 as part of Powell's work. This edition is by Thomas Evans (1742 - 1784), the publisher and bookseller, who dedicates the work to Sir Watkin Williams Wynne. Evans acknowledges his reliance upon the notes of the Welsh antiquary and scholar Robert Vaughan (1592 - 1667), whose collection of manuscripts was one of the most complete in existence in the 17th century.
JONES (Mary)
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 210 x 128 mms., pp. vi, [ix] - lv [lvi blank], including list of over 1400 subscribers, recently rebound in plain gray boards, cream paper label spine. A good copy. Mary Jones (1707 - 1778) was born in Oxford, and how she managed to collect 1400 subscribers to this volume is unclear. Although she had friends in high places, her own domestic life seems to have been spent mostly with her brother. However, she came to the attention of the literati and the glitterati of mid-18th century England. She met Samuel Johnson, who called her "the chantress," alluding to her brother's post as Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral. Ralph Griffith reviewed this volume in 1752 in The Monthly Review and described Jones as "the best woman writer since Katherine Phillips in the seventeenth century." Roger Lonsdale describes her as "one of the most intelligent and amusing women writers of her period." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English concurs; "her poems [are] colloquial, sinewy, satirical, sometimes risqué; her letters to women confront their situation both bleakly and playfully." Foxon I. p.391. Rothschild 1280. Lonsdale: Eighteenth Century Women Poets p.155-165, Janet Todd: A Dictionary of British and American Women Poets p.181.
SCALIGER. Jules César Scaliger;
FIRST EDITION. 4to, 217 x 147 mms., foliated, [iv], 476, [30 index, 31 printer's imprint], attractively bound in near contemporary light brown calf, ornamented with gold fleurs de lys, with in a gilt border, spine gilt in compartments to the same motif, red leather label, with the armorial bookplate of "John Marques[s] of Tweeddale, Earle of Gifford, Viscount Walden, Lord Hay of Yester, &c." and a later (probably 18 century) note on the recto of the front free end-paper, a very good and attractive copy, except for the title-page, which has been vandalized by the cutting out of a portion of the leaf, measuring 75 x 58 mms. from, the centre Born in Italy, Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484 1558), spent most of his adult life in France and began his career in the military of the emporer Maximillian. His first work, printed in 1531, was an oration against Erasmus in defence of Cicero and his allies. Wikipedia notes, "He is best known for his critical Exotericarum Exercitationes on Cardan's De Subtilitate (1557), a book approaching natural philosophy and which had a long popularity. The Exercitationes display encyclopaedic knowledge and accurate observation; but, as noted by Gabriel Naudé, they are not flawless. They had an influence upon natural historians, philosophers and scientists such as Lipsius, Francis Bacon, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Johannes Kepler. Charles Nisard wrote that Scaliger's object seems to be to deny all that Cardan affirms and to affirm all that Cardan denies. Yet Leibniz and Sir William Hamilton recognize him as the best modern exponent of the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle."
BATHURST (Elizabeth)
12mo (in 6s), 147 x 83 mms., pp. [lxxii], 255 [256 advert for books printed and sold by Mary Hinde], contemporary sheepskin; no front free endp-paper, titlel-page creased and a little frayed at edges, X3 torn from top margin without loss of text. The Quaker preacher and theologian Elizabeth Bathurst (1655-1685) published this work first in 1679, and this third edition was the first to be published by Mary Hinde, the widow of Luke Hinde. This is her major work, explaining and defending, an "account of salvation, focusing in particular on the universal offer of salvation and the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. Truth's Vindication was reprinted six times by Quaker publishers - notably in a posthumous (1691) edition by Tace Sowle, as her first project after she took over her father's publishing firm." I have not handled, so far as I can tell, any book printed before 1800, written a female, published by a female, and owned by a female, over three centuries.
M'NICOL (Donald)
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 206 x 120 mms., pp. viii, 371 [372 Errata],contemporary calf, red leathrer label; front joint cracked and tender, top and base of spine worn. In his "Advertisement," M'Nicol asserts that he wrote the book immediately after the publication of Johnson's Journey (1775) but forebore publishing it, as he was a novice in the writer's trade. His publication is now "too long delayed. Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson's `Journey' has lain dead in the library, for some time past." His remark is curiously correct: there were several printings of Johnson's work, both in Dublin and London in 1775, but nothing after that until 1785. Boswell read the work for the first time on 27 July 1780 and asked another advocate, John Maclaurin, later Lord Dreghorn, if the work were actionable. Maclaurin advised against prosecution, which in any case would probably not have pleased Johnson. Johnson's work and M'Nicol's were published together in Glasgow in 1812; that probably would have pleased neither author.
REYNARD THE FOX
8vo, 188 x 117 mms., pp. [viii], 311 [312 adverts], including half-title, contemporary calf, panelled in blind; joints slightly cracked, no label, but a good to very good copy with a clean text, and the armorial bookplate of "Sr. Robert Eden, Bart" on the front paste-down end-paper. The army officer and colonial governor Sir Robert Eden (1741 - 1784) was Governor of Maryland, and ODNB records that he did not have an easy time, "when the crisis in relations between colonists and crown came to a head during his governorship. Although he retained the good will of his Maryland subjects, he was unable to reconcile the colonists to continued parliamentary rule despite his best efforts to act as a buffer between the two sides. Eden succeeded in remaining in Maryland as nominal governor until June 1776, but his effective authority had ended two years earlier when the first extra-legal Maryland convention assembled in June 1774. 'He [had] survived without being able to prevail' (Land, 309). Finally, in May 1776, Maryland's sixth convention resolved 'that the Publick quiet and safety require that [Eden] leave the Province and that he is at full liberty to depart peaceably with all his effects' (Beirne, 173). On 26 June he sailed for England on HMS Fowey, his wife and children having departed earlier." The earliest version of this famous story seems to have been written in the middle of the 13th century. The versifier here is unknown, but he or she used the Latin of Harman Schopper, first published in 1567. The opening lines unmistakely derive from Virgil: Nor Arms I sing, nor of Adventurous Deeds, Nor Shepherds playing on their Oaten Reeds, But civil Fury, and invidious Strife, With the false Pleasures of a Courtiers Life. To whom ye Muses, will my Theme belong.
JONES (afterwards LOWNDES, Hannah Maria)
FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo,k 210 x 130 mms., pp. 718, engraved frontispiece, engraved vignette on title-page, 7 other engraved plates, , bound in contemporary mottled calf, neatly is rather plainly rebacked, spine gilt lettered, minor soiling or spotting, but a good copy. The list of plates suggest that there should a further one at page 309 not present in this copy, but it appears it is absent from other copies that I have checked. Published first in four volumes. Hannah Maria Jones wrote twenty-three novels during her career, which stretched from 1820 to 1850, yet despite her huge output and massive popularity, only a few reviews of her works have been traced, though this one was reviewed in the Monthly Critical Review, with the reviewer commenting, "The other incidents of this tale, and the other characters, are marked by no features of originality; but the style is better than that of the common class of novels, and it is commendably free from the cant of religion, which has of late so disgustingly obtruded in works of this description."
[WOTY (William)]
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, 165 x 97 mms., pp. [xxiv], 154 [155 - 156 blank], contemporary calf; top and base of spine chipped, joints renewed, lacks label. Woty (1731 - 1791) published his first book privately and anonymously, though he managed to secure about 450 subscribers, including George Colman, William Davies, "Mr. Franklin," David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, William Mason, Arthur Murphy, Tobias Smollett, etc. Eddy and Fleeman, A Preliminary Handlist of Books to which Dr. Samuel Johnson Subscribed, no. 67. Roscoe A 642.
[THOMPSON (Edward)]
4to, 243 x 180 mms., pp. [4] 5 - 34, including half-title; lacks the adverts leaf, mall library same on verso of title-page, both half-title, title-page, and last page of text dusty and soiled, disbound. The date on the title-page is wrong, as noted by ESTC: "'The meretriciad' was first published in 1761, and adverts on p.[36] of the present work include: 'The sailor', 1764 and 'The Courtesan', 1765." ESTC T32322 with copies in BL (4), Bodleian (2), Cambridge; Harvard, Huntington, Indiana, Stanford, UCLA, Florida, Kislak Center Penn.
CAREW (Richard)
FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo, 225 x 172 mms., pp. [ii] [ii] iii - xix [xx blank], [viii], then foliated, [1] - 159 [160 - 163 indexes], followed by "An Epistle of Richard Carew Esq: concerning the Excellencies of the Engllsh Tongue," with separate title-page, pp. [2] 3 - 13 [14 blank], title-page in red and black, contemporary calf, rebacked in lighter calf, red morocco label; last six leaves (the "Epistle" stained a lower margin, but a good copy, with the armorial bookplate of Henry Waymouth on the front paste-down endp-paper, the autograph "J Harry Cook/1895" on the upper margin of the recto of the front free end-paper, an ownship inscription dated 1727 scored out on top margin of recto of adverts leaf, with adverts on verso. "Carew became a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, where his scholarship was clearly valued. He assisted Sir Henry Spelman with the latter's researches into the history of tithes, and was rewarded with the dedication of the resulting treatise. Greatly interested in language, and particularly in etymology, Carew's panegyric on 'The excellencie of the English tongue' was first published in the second edition of William Camden's Remaines (1614). It constituted a qualified rebuttal of Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence of Antiquities (1605), which rejected the British contribution to England's history and languages in favour of Germanic elements. Carew thereby became entangled in a dispute which involved (among others) Verstegan, Thomas Nashe, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, over the extent to which English should either assimilate foreign words or attempt to maintain a degree of linguistic integrity. Carew accepted Saxon as the 'natural language' of England (Jones, 220), but he was much more willing to recognize the contributions of foreign tongues and cultures than Verstegan was" (ODNB).
ROSE (William)
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 192 x 115 mms., pp. [xii], 179 [180 adverts], engraved frontispiece and 5 other engraved plates (by Kirkall after F. Boitard), contemporary panelled calf; fore-margins of last blank leaves affected by damp with a little loss, last two leaves of text slightly affected by damp but with no loss, front joint slightly cracked, upper rear joint slightly cracked, wear to top and base of spine. Inscribed on upper margin of recto of front free end-paper, "Rog. Bridgemans Book/ the Gift of Mr Webster/ 1728." The history of Joseph as related in Genesis in the Old Testament is one of its most powerful narratives; Rose suggests an analogy between Joseph's life and that of Jesus. Famously, Potiphar's wife, whose name history has never disclosed, tried to seduce him, and on the last occasion, Joseph rushed away, leaving her holding his robe. Rose relates her passion thus: "Not long, howe'er her casual Grief restrains/ Lover's stronger Passion struggling in her Veins./ The friendly Part dismiss'd, her Flame returns, And for her Slave, with other Cause, she mourns. His well-proportion'd Limbs, his manly Grace; His flowing Locks, and his Angelick Face,/ (Guiltless Incentives of her shameless Fault)/ Engage in base Designs her busie Thought./ Of her soft Sex she summons all the Art,/ In equal Ardours to inflame his Heart." Readers unfamiliar with the story will be pleased to hear that she is defeated "in all her lewd Designs"; alas for virtue, Joseph, well, I'm not giving away all the plot, but it's rather a good poem in heroic couplets. Rose's History of Joseph (1712) is rare in commerce. This is ESTC T124874, and there are no other editions or variants found by ESTC. American holdings are particularly eccentric: though Harvard has it, there is no copy at Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Stanford, or Princeton. There are, interestingly, three copies of other books in the Huntington Library with exactly the same ownership inscription regarding Bridgeman and Webster: A copy of Homer's Illiad(1676); a Sophocles from 1669; and another Sophocles from 1668. This Roger Bridgeman is Roger Bridgeman, D.D. (1700-1750), sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, later a clergyman, the second surviving son of Sir John Bridgeman, third Baronet. This Roger Bridgeman is said to have become "rector of Plemstall, in Cheshire, in or before the month of October, 1727, which had become vacant by the death of Mr. Webster; and on 18th December of the same year he was appointed minister of Castle Bromwich chapel, in the county of Warwick, both of which were then donatives in the gift of Sir John Bridgeman" (George T. O. Bridgeman, The History of the Church and Manor of Wigan in the County of Lancaster, Part III, 1889, p. 629; see also p. 628). One unsurprising scenario would be this: a surviving relative of this Webster, a male relative (so another Mr Webster), might have decided to gift some of the deceased rector's books to the new incumbent as a welcoming gesture. Moreover, the 1676 Homer in the Huntington bears the bookplate of Weston Library with the arms of the Earl of Bradford. The Earls of Bradford and this Bridgeman family are very much genealogically intertwined.
FENELON (Francois de Salignac de la Mothe). DIBDIN (Thomas Frognall)
FIRST EDITION. Tall 8ov, 207 x 127 mms., pp. [v] ix [x blank xi Contents, xii blank], 240, engraved frontispiece, contemporary half calf, marbled boards, gilt spine, red leather label; slight wear to extremities, but a very good copy Fenelon's De l'Educaton des Filles was first published in 1684, translated into English by George Hickes in 1707, and frequently reprinted after that. Dibdin was invited by the publisher, H. Ruff, to undertake a new translation. Carolyn Lougee in her article "Noblesse, Domesticity, and Social Reform," gives a useful assessment of Fenelon's argument: "[Fenelon formulated an educational program designed to produce hard-working,frugal, and simple mothers of noble families. From the fundamental premises that education was a variable of social function and that woman"s function was the governance of families, Fénelon deduced alimited curriculum of practical economics, basic religious training,and a safe dose of carefully-selected classical and modern literature."
BOETHIUS.
8vo, 170 x 110 mms., pp. xxii [xxiii - xxiv contents and license], 184, fine engraved portrait of Boethius as frontispiece, contemporary vellum, gilt spine; boards slightly sprung so a near-fine copy, beautifully printed. The Italian author and editor Benedetto Varchi (1503 - 1565 ) was an exceptional translator and editor of Latin texts; the earliest printing of this translation that I have found occurred in 1562. WorldCat notes that "Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. The Consolation was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy. Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. The Consolation was extremely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas were influential on the thought of Chaucer and Dante." The work alternates between verse and prose, with Boethius speaking his own person in prose, and philosophy answering in verse. In his History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell writes of Boethius: "During the two centuries before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European man of learning so free from superstition and fanaticism. Nor are his merits merely negative; his survey is lofty, distinterested, and sublime. He would have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which he lived, he is utterly amazing."
GOLTZIUS (Hubert)
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Folio, 354 x 227 mms., pp. [ii], [352], with decorative title-page, 165 circular engraved portraits printed in sepia (with off-setting on opposite page), contemporary calf, with early reback in matching calf, gilt ornament on covers (worn); no paste-down end-papers, with occasional soiling of text, 30 mm. tear in last two leaves from lower margin , some other general wear, but a good to very good copy of an uncommon book. Hubert Goltz or Goltzius (1526 1583) was a Renaissance painter, engraver, and printer from the Southern Netherlands. He is not to be confused with the much more famous Hendrik Goltzius, who was his cousin, once removed. Jean Peeters-Fontainas, Bibliographie des impressions espagnoles des Pays-Bas méridionaux, n° 505. Copies located in UC, Berkeley, Free Library Philadelphia, Cambridge, B, IBLIOTHEQUE D'ART & D'ARCHEOLOGIE-RCON, BIBLIOTHEQUE D'ART ET D'ARCHEOLOGIE, two in Chile, Parix Mazarine, Paris History of Art, Belgium: Plantin Museum, Harvard, Folger.
[CHAPMAN, Mrs E. E.]
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 142 x 115 mms., pp.[iii] viii - xii, 75 [76 blank], bound in light brown original cloth with title and author blocked in gilt on front cover, all edges gilt; corners very slightly crushed but a very good to fine copy, inscribed on recto of front free end-paper, "Fanny Hodgson/ May 1894/ From Miss E. Jackson." This is the first edition of the sole book known from the pen of Mrs E. E. Chapman of the small village of St Neots in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. The book has a preface by the Rev. William O'Mant of Kimbolton, which is presumably the town of Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire, not the village in Herefordshire. The printer is Henry Berrill of Potton in Bedfordshire, a county that shares a border with Cambridgeshire, and at one point overlapped with it. Reilly knew of this book, but noted only the British Library copy, and identified "E. E. C." as Mrs E. E. Chapman of St Neots (Catherine W. Reilly, Mid-Victorian Poetry: An Annotated Biobibliography, p. 90). Library Hub (COPAC) finds only the British Library copy of this first edition, like Reilly, but it does find also one copy of a later edition from 1878, though it, too, is at the British Library only. The latter entry in Library Hub, the one for the 1878 edition, identifies the author as Elizabeth Emma Chapman based on "a newspaper cutting, contained in this volume", which cutting records the author's death at the age of 72, but the cataloguer, maddeningly, neglects to say in what year the author died. Gwenn Davis and Beverly A. Joyce in Poetry by Women to 1900: A Bibliography of American and British Writers (1991) list no E. E. C., nor any Mrs E. E. Chapman, presumably not realising, from its title, that this book, Stray Leaves, is a book of poetry. There is no copy of either edition of Chapman's Stray Leaves in the poetry collection at UC Davis, nor any at Cambridge University Library. Surely, however, more can be learned about the mysterious provincial poet Mrs Elizabeth Emma Chapman of St Neots by some diligent literary detective!
BENNETT ([Anna Maria], Mrs.)
5 volumes. 12mo, 173 x 101 mms., pp. [iv], iv, iii [iv blank], 298; [iv], iv, 312; [iv], iii [iv blank], 353 [sic, for 343, 344 blank]; [iv, ii, 297 [298 blank]; [iv, iii [iv blank], 380, including half-title in each volume, contemporary sheepskin, gilt rules across spines, red leather labels. A very good to fine set. The Beggar Girl and her Benefactors was first published in 1797 by Lane in seven volumes, with a Dublin edition in three volumes in the same year. The work was "a record length of seven volumes a record even for its publisher, the Minerva Press, which was notorious for its three- to five-decker novels Contemporary critics, however, well aware of the financial considerations, criticised Bennett's fiction for its length, its many digressions, and its overly intricate plot. They appreciated her, on the other hand, above all for her rich gallery of characters"(cited in Art Imitates Life: The Life & Novels of Anna Maria Bennett by Sanna Fogt), The Critical Review made the same poinr: "Whenever quantity shall become the criterion of merit, we shall perhaps be able to estimate the value of this work more agreeably to the author's wishes than at present. There are scenes of tenderness, delineations of character, and some attempt at humour, which will not fail to please: but upon the whole the story is eked out with a strange excess of digression and with many superfluous characters." The comment on the number of volumes as being a "record length" seems to have been made by someone who had not read, or heard of, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Pamela, or Sir Charles Grandison. Raven, James, Antonia Forster, Peter Garside, Rainer Schöwerling, The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles (OUP 2000). 1797.26
[SPENCER (Peter)]
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Small 8vo, 165 x 101mms., pp. viii, 192, contemporary embossed green cloth, title in gilt on spine; binding a little worn and rubbed, but a very good copy. This is a family association copy and a presentation copy of a book of poetry of which I find only one other copy in the world, the copy at the British Library, but the BL's copy is not a presentation copy. This copy is a unique variant: it is bound in forest-green-coloured publisher's cloth, where the BL's copy is bound in plum-coloured publisher's cloth. Both bindings have the identical decorative pattern of a large lozenge embedded in stylized foliage. No other copies known. The British Library and Library Hub assert that the pseudonymous author, "Minimus", is Peter Spenser, but this is wrong. He is Peter Spencer. Son of another Peter Spencer (of St. Giles, Holborn), the poet Peter Spencer (1807-1871) was a Cambridge wit and poet who first matriculated at Pembroke College in the University of Oxford before attending Peterhouse in the University of Cambridge in 1826. This, his only known book of poems, is so rare that Catherine Reilly did not know of it, having no entry on the book or the author in her extensive survey Mid-Victorian Poetry, 1860-1879: An Annotated Biobibliography (2000). Another full book by Peter Spencer might have existed (in manuscript?) early in the nineteenth century, as suggested by this extraordinary passage from a letter by "the Rev. S. Tillbrook from Freckenham", November 6, 1831, to Dr Samuel Butler, headmaster of Shrewsbury School: "Touching Peter Spencer, B.A., of Peterhouse College. He was a pupil of mine, and a right funny dog was he. His father is a droll fellow enough, a dealer in feather-beds and bolsters, and, what is better, in choice wines. The son is a great reader, and I believe, indeed I know, that he is an author also. His father told me his book was beautiful, but I never read it. Young Peter is a rhymer and a doggerel wit; on his dog's collar was a distich to this effect: -- 'My name is Pet, to Pet. Coll. I came. / I'm an honest dog: I hope you're the same?' " (The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, Head-Master of Shrewsbury School, 1798-1836 (1896), vol. 2, p. 4). Spencer was no doubt echoing the great dog-collar rhyme composed by Alexander Pope a century earlier for a puppy owned by the Prince of Wales: "I am his highness's dog at Kew; / Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?". The "Rev. S. Tillbrook" is Samuel Tilbrook (1784-1835), who was a Fellow at Peterhouse in Cambridge when Peter Spencer attended as an undergraduate. Tilbrook was also a friend of Wordsworth's, and a correspondent of Southey's. I do not know what book by Spencer that Tilbrook was referring to in the early 1830s. The book on offer from 1863, the second-known copy, is the only poetry of Spencer's that I know to survive. This is a very rare collection by an Oxford poet and a Cambridge poet. Cambridge records show Spencer, after his Peterhouse degrees, B.A. (1831), and M.A. (1835), was Canon at Folkestone, then Vicar of Temple-Ewell in Kent. He died in 1871, outliving his Cambridge tutor by more than three decades
PAPA (Giuseppe del)
2 parts in one volume. 4to, 232 x 168 mms., pp. [iii], 220; [viii], 223 [2234 blank], engraved vignette on each title-page, with contemporary note on title-page of volume one, contemporary vellum, lettered in ink on spine; front hinge slightly cracked, no front free end-paper, vellum a bit soiled, but an attractively-printed copy, The Italian doctor Giuseppe Del Papa (1648 - 1735) published his first work, Lettera intorno alla natura del caldo e del freddo, in Florence in 1674. This was followed by numerous other works and an illustrious career.
BATTISTA (Giuseppe)
4 volumes i 1. 12mo, 132 x 70 mms., pp. [xxxii], 197 n[198 - 204 contents]; 150 [151 -154 contents]; [xvi, 161 [162 - 164 contents]; [xii], 308, with title-pages for parts 2, 3, and 4 dated 1665, fine engraved general frontispiece for the four parts, bound in contemporary vellum (somewhat soiled), ink title on spine. A very good copy. * The Itlalian poet Giuseppe Battista (1610 - 1665) is described as a marinist poet; and Wikipedia tells me that "marinism" is "Marinism (Italian: marinismo, or secentismo, "17th century") is the name now given to an ornate, witty style of poetry and verse drama written in imitation of Giambattista Marino (15691625), following in particular La Lira and L'Adone." His poetry is said to have enjoyed great popularity in its day, and there were several reprints of these particular volumes. His baroque, epigrammatic verse has clear overtones of deliberate novelty for novelty's sake.
SEWARD (Anna)
FIRST COLLECTED EDITION. 3 volumes. 8vo, 184 x 108 mms., pp. [ii] - vi, ccvi [ccvii drop-title, ccviii blank], 187 [188 colophon]; [iii], iv - ix [x blank], [ii] - viii], 402, with the armorial bookplate of John George Hamilton of the front paste-down end-paper of volume, . UNIFORMLY BOUND WITH: Letters of Anna Seward: Written between the years 1784 and 1807. mIn Six Volumes. Edinburgh: Printed by George Ramsay & Company, for Archibald Constable and Company, Edinburgh; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, William Miller, and John Murray, London. 1811/ 6 volumes. 8vo, 148 x 108 mms., pp. [iii] xi [xii blank], 399 [400 blank]; [iii] - vi, 3999 [400 blank]; [iii] - vi, 397 [398 blank]; [iii] - vii [viii blank], 397 [398 blank]; [iii] - vii [viii blank], 432; [iii] - vii [viii blank], 490, xiv, with engraved portrrait and folding facsimile in volume 1, engraved portrait of Thomas Seward in volume 2, engraved plate of Lichfiled as frontispiece in volume 3, 9 volumes The poet and letter writer Anna Seward (1742 - 1809), aka "The Swan of Lichfield," came to literature early under the tutelage of her father, Thomas Seward (1708 - 1790), who taught her to read at an early age. Her father was a year older than Lichfield's most famous son, Samuel Johnson (1709 -1784). Anna had an uneasy relationship with Johnson, whose achievement were far greater than those of her father. Onlyh after Johnson died she begin to publish her own writing. She had an even more interesting relationship with James Boswell: ODNB recors that, "a brief time, in 1784, Boswell and Seward had been on very friendly terms. Their confidential correspondence indicates that he was in 'a flutter' over their conversations and desired to have 'a lock of that charming auburn hair I admired so much the delicious morning I was last with you' (Heiland, 386). Rejecting the 'voluptuous inclination' suggested in Boswell's request, Seward eventually sent him the lock of hair on her own terms of a chaste friendship (ibid., 387)." Todd/Bowden 50A and 58a.
SEWALL (Jonathan Mitchell)
FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, 152 x 98 mms., pp. 304, contemporary sheepskin, red leather label; spine and corners worn, joints weak but holding; a fair copy. The American lawyer and poet Jonathan Mitchell Sewall (17481808) was the son of Mitchell Sewall and Elizabeth Price. He made a more-or-less enduring name for himself with his song "War and Washington," which was popular, at least with the rebellious colonials, during the American Revolution. As it was sung to the tune of "The British Grenadiers," I forebear any suggestion of what the British might have thought of it. The book itself seems uncommon. OCLC lists a number of digital copies, but the only real book that I could locate was in the BL, but there is a copy in the Library of Congress and in one east coast library in the United States
SANNAZARO (Giacomo)
Small 8vo, 154 x 91 mms. foliated, 53 -54 - 56 index] leaves, contemporary vellum, vertical black leather label on spine; binding a little soiled, but otherwise a very clean , attractive, and finely printed cpy. The first edition of Sannazaro's verses, Sonetti et canzoni di M. Jacopo Sannazaro, was published in Naples and Rome in 1530, with several subsequent editions in the next two decades. Jacopo Sannazaro (1458 -1530) enjoyed quite a bit of literary success with his poetry, particularly his classic Arcadia (c. 1480), and his works are said to have inspired the English poets of the 16th and 17th centuries, most notable Sir Philip Sidney, whose own Arcadia was published in 1593, where the girl's name "Pamela" appears for the first time in English literature. OCLC gives these references: Bandini, A.M. De Florentina Iuntarum Typographia,; page 231; Giunti tipografi editori di Firenze, 1497-1570,; no. 230; Renouard, A.A. Annales de l'imprimerie des Alde,; page LIV, no. 123; Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries,; S-334; Brunet, J.-C. Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres (5e éd.),; voume 5, column 129; National union catalog, pre-1956 imprints,; 519:484
CRAIGHEAD (George)
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), pp. [vi], 36, 19th century half calf, marbled boards, red leather label; corners a bit worn but a very good copy. In his survey of matters infernal, the historian of ideas Damian Frank Pearson notes in his study that George Craighead and another thinker, Tobias Swinden, contended that hell must be in the Sun: "Tobias Swinden (1726) and George Craighead (1748) both argued that Hell could not be in the earth as there would be no room for all the dead and not enough air and fuel to keep the fires burning for eternity, and Hell had been created to confine the fallen angels after the revolt in heaven. The location of Hell could not be in the earth. Their place for Hell was within the confines of the Sun, with the sun-spots being the gateways to the eternal fires. Craighead also challenged what he saw as the heretical and atheist views of Abraham Oakes (1740) and Charles Povey (1740), who both argued that hell had no place at all but was a state of mind borne by the disembodied spirit after death" (Descending Caves: Descent Narratives and the Subterranean Science and Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1830, doctoral thesis, 2018, p. 120). No doubt, George Craighead's Nature and Place of Hell Discovered (1748) will be an adornment to any collection of books on underworlds or dystopias -- or, indeed, on early astronomical theory. This is the first and only edition of the work, ESTC T78018, the database finding only two copies in Britain (British Library and the National Library of Scotland), and only four copies in the United States (Huntington Library, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library of Virginia, and the Union Theological Seminary). The ESTC locates no copies elsewhere.
