SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe.
First edition of Shelley's finest poem, an elegy which ranks with "Lycidas", In Memoriam, and Gray's Elegy as the greatest elegiac poems in English. Keats died at Rome of consumption in his 24th year, on 23 February 1821, and by June Shelley had completed Adonais in Pisa, where it was beautifully printed in an edition of perhaps 250 copies. Shelley himself called it the "least imperfect" of his works. The preface contains the famous condemnation of the critics whose adverse comments on Endymion were thought by Shelley to have caused the breakdown of Keats's health. Granniss 66-8; Grolier English 100, 73; Hayward 229; Wise, Shelley, pp. 59-60. Quarto (208 x 130mm). Early 20th-century full brown morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, covers with strapwork borders in blind, gilt-rules and gilt dots, spine similarly decorated in blind and gilt in six compartments with raised bands, board edges gilt-ruled, turn-ins with double gilt rule and blind-stamped and gilt floral cornerpieces, all edges gilt. Housed in custom fleece-lined clamshell box. Some light spotting, mostly at start, outer margin trimmed, the binding fresh and sound, excellent condition.
RACKHAM, Arthur.
Original ink studies by Rackham, depicting a moustached grinning man together with drawings of a monkey dressed in tartan. These early drawings by Rackham demonstrate his considerable ability in pen and ink. Five original drawings (30 x 30 mm, 25 x 25 mm, 43 x 25 mm, 50 x 24 mm, and 15 x 15 mm) on paper (95 x 74 mm), pen and ink, unsigned, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 227 x 170 mm). Some minor light soiling, adhesive residue to reverse of sheet: fine and unfaded.
DAVIS, Frederick Hadland.
First edition, first impression, in the deluxe issue binding. The 31 chapters address themes such as "Buddha legends", "thunder", and "legends of the sea" and are accompanied by a number of reference appendices. The author was inspired to study Japanese mythology by reading the scholar Lafcadio Hearn. This was one of the 12 works published in Harrap's "Myths" series between 1907 and 1917. The artist, Evelyn Paul (1883-1963), was a book illustrator and illuminator whose distinctive style was influenced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Octavo. Original blue diagonal-grain cloth, spine and front cover elaborately blocked in gilt and silver with "bamboo font" lettering and illustrations of a dragon and a female goddess riding a peacock, top edge gilt, fore and bottom edges uncut. Colour frontispiece after painting by Evelyn Paul, 31 similar plates in text, title page partially printed in brown including publisher's vignette. Contemporary bookplate of Esme Bowker (1877-1973), a war widow who founded the Comforts Fund for prisoners of war in Turkey. Cloth exceptionally bright, extremities a little bumped and rubbed, endpapers foxed, else clean. A near-fine copy.
DARWIN, Charles.
First edition, first issue, with "that" spelled correctly on the first line of p. 208 (misspelled in the second issue). The Expression of the Emotions "appeared in November, and was awaited with such interest that over 5,000 copies were sold on the day of publication" (Huxley, p. 96). It was "written, in part at least, as a confutation of the idea that the facial muscles of expression in man were a special endowment" (Freeman), a subject originally intended for The Descent of Man. Darwin invited the photographer Oscar Rejlander to make comparative studies of laughter and crying, obtained photographs of asylum inmates from the asylum director James Crichton-Browne, and consulted the French physiologist Guillaume Duchenne regarding his electrical research on the facial muscles. The plates are among the earliest commercially reproduced photographs in a scientific book. They are lettered with Roman numerals in this copy; another state is known in Arabic numerals, without priority of issue. Freeman suggests that the Arabic numeral plates were printed first, but notes that "the two states seem to occur at random in the two issues of the text, and Darwin's own copy, at Cambridge, has the Roman" (Freeman). Freeman 1141; Garrison-Morton 4975; Norman 600. Leonard Huxley, Charles Darwin, 1921. Octavo. Original dark green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers panelled in blind, black endpapers. With 7 heliotype plates, of which 3 folding, woodcut illustrations within text, many full-page. With 4 pp. publisher's advertisements dated November 1872 at rear. W. H. Smith & Son blind stamp on front free endpaper verso, gift inscription in ink on recto dated 1880. Spine ends and corners bumped, spine panel a little cockled and small closed tear to cloth of same discreetly restored, small knock to outer edge of front cover, inner hinges repaired, free endpapers creased, contents generally clean, short closed tear at upper edge of leaf Q5 neatly repaired: a very good copy.
WHITE, T. H.
First edition, first impression, of the most significant work of Arthurian literature in the 20th century. Based on Malory's Morte Darthur, the novel reinvigorating the mythology for new and younger readers. Initially intended as a stand-alone work, the success of the novel led to White expanding it into a tetralogy of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King. The novel was adapted by Disney into an animated film in 1963. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in white. With dust jacket. Line-drawing chapter head- and tailpieces. Neat ink signature of the engineer H. C. I. Rogers to front pastedown. Edges slightly foxed as usual; unclipped jacket lightly nicked at extremities, short closed tear to head of front panel, hint of foxing, else bright: a near-fine copy in near-fine jacket.
PLATH, Sylvia.
First edition, sole impression, one of around 60 copies of Plath's first separately published poem. This copy was retained by Plath and Hughes and passed by descent to their daughter, Frieda, with her clipped signature loosely inserted. Inspired by the Boston waterfront, Plath wrote the poem in 1958, while she was living in Massachusetts with Hughes and teaching at Smith College. When the couple returned to England the following year, Plath contacted Alan Anderson to print this small fine press edition. She took a keen interest in the details of its production, and on 11 June 1960 she wrote to Anderson to offer her thoughts on the proofs he had sent her: "I am writing on my own behalf to say how delighted my husband and I were with the proofs of 'A Winter Ship'. I'm sending back the one we like best, with the border round it. We thought we'd like the date, place and press in upright letters, as on the other proof, and my name deleted as I'll write that on the inside myself, with Christmas greeting too. Would four dozen copies be too much of a burden for you?" Plath saw the results the following month and wrote again to Anderson: "the pamphlets are absolutely beautiful. Ted and I are delighted with them, and especially with the handsome way you make up your covered booklets" (23 July). "A Winter Ship" is highly regarded among Plath's Boston poems and is noted for its spontaneous depiction of the icy wharf in winter. Reviewing Plath's poems after her suicide in 1963, Ian Hamilton noted in particular "the excellent 'A Winter Ship', in which the experience absorbs and vitalizes the range of her curiosities". Tabor A1. Octavo. Single bifolium of Whatman paper, bound in original card wrappers, sewn at the fold. With marbled paper dust jacket, white paper label to front panel printed in black. A fine copy.
MORRISON, Toni.
First edition, first printing, of the author's influential first novel, which "cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing black girls at the center of the story" (Als). Its lasting importance was recognized in 1993 when Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Morrison wrote the novel "in stolen moments between her day job as a book editor and her life as the single mother of two young sons" (New York Times, 6 August 2019). It received little critical attention on publication, though the distinguished critic John Leonard was unstinting in his praise, describing Morrison's prose as "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (New York Times, 13 November 1970). Hilton Als, "Toni Morrison's Profound and Unrelenting Vision", New Yorker, 27 January 2020; Margalit Fox, "Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88", The New York Times, 6 August 2019; John Leonard, "Three First Novels on Race", The New York Times, 13 November 1970. Octavo. Original blue quarter cloth, spine lettered in silver, grey paper-covered sides. With dust jacket. Spine ends lightly bumped and sunned, occasional ink underlinings to contents; unclipped jacket slightly toned as usual, faint vertical crease to front flap as always: a very good copy in near-fine dust jacket.
ARNOLD, Julean (comp.).
First edition, first printing, compiled by the US Chamber of Commerce's commercial attache in Shanghai. In his view, strengthened trade relationships between America and China could counteract the adverse effects of the Great Depression. Sections present a wealth of statistical information alongside attractive vignettes and bilingual text. Julean Herbert Arnold (1875-1946) served the American business community in China for several decades and was an authority on the country. In 1926, he published a 20-page pamphlet, Salient Facts About China, which formed the basis of this more extensive work. No less a personage than Hu Shih wrote the preface to Arnold's Some Bigger Issues in China's Problems (1928). Octavo. Original red cloth over printed wrappers, covers with window frames lined with printed glassine. Maps, diagrams, and vignettes in text. Ownership signature of the American doctor B. R. Corbus on front free endpaper verso. Spine ends worn, inner edges of delicate window frames creased. Text in English and Chinese.
CHURCHILL, Winston S., & others.
A wartime visitor's book, including the signatures of Winston Churchill and around 750 others, including Douglas Haig, H. G. Wells, and Hilaire Belloc, giving a fascinating record of the movement of British military and other persons through Paris during the conflict. The book belonged to Maurice Brett (1882-1934), Provost Marshal in Paris during the First World War. Brett was the younger son of Lord Esher (the Esher bookplate is on the front pastedown) and was the husband of the stage actor Zena Dare. Brett often adds a note of purpose of travel to the signatories, who in most cases state their place of residence and their rank where applicable. Winston Churchill signs alongside his cousin Ivor Spencer-Churchill on 28 May 1917. Churchill, then suffering a period in the political wilderness following Gallipoli, had travelled to meet with Ferdinand Foch, Douglas Haig, Sir Henry Wilson, and others, including Lord Esher. After the meeting, Esher wrote to Haig of Churchill's "clever but unbalanced mind" and "temperament. of wax and quicksilver", recommending that he "remain outside of Government" (Gilbert, p. 21). Esher's advice was not heeded, and Churchill was shortly after appointed Minister of Munitions. As expected, the majority of the entries are from military or political personnel: Leslie Haden Guest, Robert Cecil, Lancelot Storr, Robert Vansittart, Maurice de Rothschild, Douglas Haig, Leo Amery, George Warrender, and Arthur Asquith among them. There are also a handful of literary figures - Hilaire Belloc, E. V. Lucas, John Masefield, Roy Horniman, and H. G. Wells. There are a couple, such as Geoffrey Keynes and Shane Leslie, both with the Royal Army Medical Corps, who can claim both military and literary credentials. Other entries include Prince Victor Duleep Singh, George Reresby Sitwell, the photographer Ernest Brooks, and Horace de Vere Cole (who perpetrated the Dreadnought Hoax, and whose business with Brett is listed as "Police case"), the war artist William Orpen, and the modernist dancer Loie Fuller. Martin Gilbert, World in Torment: Winston S. Churchill, 1916-1922, 1990. Quarto (220 x 186 mm). Mid-20th-century red cloth, spine lettered in gilt ("M.V.B. Provost Marshal in Paris - 1914-1918"). Manuscript in various inks on ruled paper, stamp of "Gouvernement Militaire de Paris, Intelligence Anglaise" to initial blank. Spine a little sunned, endpapers spotted, paper slightly toned throughout. In very good condition.
CHURCHILL, Winston S.
First abridged edition, first impression. For this edition (the second overall), Churchill shortened the text by a third but added a new preface and chapter on the destruction of the Khalifa and the end of the war. The book was first published in two volumes in 1899. "The River War is a brilliant history of British involvement in the Sudan and the campaign for its reconquest: arresting, insightful, with tremendous narrative and descriptive power" (Langworth, p. 27). In his abridgement Churchill also extensively revised the book to omit any criticisms of Kitchener and the British Army: "as a Conservative MP, he found it prudent to tone down his questioning of the imperialist adventure" (Rose, p. 61). Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes. Cohen A2.2; Woods A2(b). Richard M. Langworth, A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill, 1998; Jonathan Rose, The Literary Churchill, 2015. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine and front cover lettered and decorated in gilt, black endpapers. Photogravure portrait frontispiece of Kitchener, 14 coloured maps and plans (6 folding), 8 sketch maps in text. Light rubbing at extremities, endpapers a little toned, rear hinge with superficial split: a very good, square copy.
WOOLF, Virginia.
First edition, first impression, of the author's penultimate novel, the most popular during her lifetime. Woolf began writing the work in the early 1930s as a novel-essay titled The Pargiters and subsequently divided it into two parts: the fiction portion became The Years and the essay portion the basis for Three Guineas. Kirkpatrick A22a; Woolmer 423. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket, designed by Vanessa Bell. Spine slightly toned, inner hinges cracked and discreetly repaired, contents clean; jacket spine and extremities toned, a few tiny chips to edges, else bright and unclipped: a very good copy in very good jacket.
JOYCE, James.
First edition, signed limited issue, number 366 of 425 copies signed by the author, printed on handmade paper, and specially bound; complete with the publisher's slipcase. The limitation was split between the British and American markets and sold simultaneously with the trade issues on 4 May 1939. "The most conspicuous innovation of Finnegans Wake is its use of 'dream-language'. After Ulysses Joyce believed that he had 'come to the end of English', and his last novel is a pervasive layering of multilingual puns in successive drafts which produces a fabric rich in semantic possibilities" (ODNB). Burgess, 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939, p. 25; Connolly, The Modern Movement 87; Slocum & Cahoon A49. Large octavo. Original red buckram, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, top edge gilt, other edges uncut, leaves unopened. Housed in publisher's yellow cloth slipcase. Later compliments slip from Patricia MacManus (1914-2005) of the Viking Press, marking the publication of Steinbeck's East of Eden on 19 September 1952, loosely inserted. Spine very gently sunned and bumped at foot, minor rubbing, internally clean; lightly soiled slipcase with wear to edges and two short splits: a near-fine copy.
CHURCHILL, Winston S.
An attractive collection of satirical cartoons depicting Winston Churchill, all hand-coloured at the time; from the collection of Steve Forbes. The cartoons were either removed from the periodicals and hand-coloured, or else sold separately by the publishers either directly or to third parties. i) Winston's Bag. By David Low, printed in The Star, London, 21 January 1920. Churchill's perceived failures - Sydney Street, Gallipoli, "Russian Bungle," and "Antwerp Blunder" - are laid at his feet. ii) Unpaying Guests. By Leonard Raven-Hill, printed in Punch, 13 April 1921. "Churchill was much in favour of having strong British influence on and support of Palestine and Iraq (often dubbed 'Messpot'). British sentiment was, however, that to gain influence would require tremendous expense" (Stiles, p. 180). iii) Our Imperial No. 1. By Frank Reynolds, printed in Punch, 15 June 1921. "Churchill opened the Imperial Conference on Mesopotamia and is here pictured as a polo player (his favourite team sport) as he drives the world forward" (Stiles, p. 182) iv) Disarmament and the Man. By Leonard Raven-Hill, printed in Punch, 5 October 1921. "Churchill portrayed as a bellicose Napoleon with multiple images of warriors around him including Nelson and Mars, the Roman god of war. The implication is that WSC would be a strange choice for a disarmament conference (and in the end he did not attend). This is Punch's first image of WSC as Napoleon" (Stiles, p. 185). v) The Fight for the Favourite. By Leonard Raven-Hill, printed in Punch, 4 June 1924. "Churchill and Lloyd George were vying for power and both wanted to be perceived as the most anti-Socialist. In Liverpool on May 8, WSC had stated that Socialism is 'one of the most profound and mischievous delusions which can ever enter the brain of man'" (Stiles, p. 195). Please note that buyers in the UK will have to pay an additional 20% VAT. Shipping will also be charged at cost. Please contact us for a quote. Gary L. Stiles, Churchill in Punch, 2022. Prints with contemporary hand-colouring. Each window-mounted and presented in wooden frames with acrylic glazing. Various sizes, frame sizes circa 33 x 39 cm. A little crinkled; in very good condition.
NABOKOV, Vladimir.
Presentation copies of these scarce offprints, printing Nabokov's paradigm-shifting papers on blue butterflies. Each is inscribed to the butterfly collector Donald B. Stallings, whose expertise and friendship Nabokov deeply appreciated. The grouping features occasional authorial corrections as well as Nabokov's drawing of a butterfly alongside one of the inscriptions. Stallings appears in the acknowledgements of "The Nearctic Forms" (p. 87) for loaning specimens from his private collection for Nabokov's research. On moving to America in 1940, Nabokov "had much to learn even from veteran [butterfly] collectors like Don Eff and Don Stallings" (Boyd, p. 21) before metamorphosing from amateur into scientist. In his genial letter to Stallings of 25 August 1947, Nabokov wrote, "Those two days of collecting we had together were most delightful. I wish you could have stayed longer" (ibid., p. 404). Nabokov also wrote to Stallings on 10 March 1948: "I am preparing a boxful of nice things for you. You have been so very generous and helpful that you really deserve them" (ibid., p. 409). Nabokov wrote these papers while working at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. At first, "he found it agony to renounce his Russian prose. Rather than suffer the throes of writing a full-length work of fiction in a language other than Russian, he could return to entomology, where his working language had always been English and where his sense of [prose] mastery, far from being diminished, was now vastly expanded" (Boyd, p. 11). In 1938, Nabokov achieved his childhood dream of discovering a new species of butterfly, and then he turned to minutely examining thousands of specimens to produce the "masterly rearrangement" of taxonomy printed here. "The Nearctic Members", according to Nabokov, took him "several years and undermined my health for quite a while. Before I never wore glasses. This is my favourite work". He described its glowing reception in the scientific community as "real fame. That means more than anything a literary critic could say" (cited in Coates & Johnson, p. 23). In "Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae", Nabokov named seven new genuses, making him "the inventor of the fundamental classification into which all the region's species of Blue butterflies would fit" (ibid., p. 55). He published nine articles on the blue butterflies between 1941 and 1952; the current articles comprise all the major papers. A famously sharp editor, especially of his own texts, Nabokov has made five manuscript corrections between these copies of "Notes on the Morphology" and "Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae". In one instance, Nabokov supplies Stallings's copy of the latter paper with a finding from his addendum which was printed separately in 1945: "[Lycaena] martha has proved to be a third species of Echinargus, beautifully intermediate in genitalia between isola and the Trinidad SP. V.N., 1946" (p. 39). Nabokov said in an interview with the Paris Review in 1967, "the pleasures and rewards of literary inspiration are nothing beside the rapture of discovering a new organ under the microscope or an undescribed species on a mountainside in Iran or Peru. It is not improbable that had there been no revolution in Russia, I would have devoted myself entirely to lepidopterology and never written any novels at all". The bibliographical details of the offprints are provided below. a) "The Nearctic Forms of Lycaeides Hüb[ner]" (1943), from Psyche, vol. 50, nos 2-3, pp. 87-99. Inscribed on the first page, "For Don B. Stallings, with best regards from author". b) "Notes on the Morphology of the Genus Lycaeides" (1944), from Psyche, vol. 51, nos 3-4, pp. 104-38. Inscribed along with a drawing of a butterfly on the title page, "For Don Stallings, with very best regards from the author". The text has three annotations by Nabokov (see pp. 105, 107, & 111). c) "Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae" (1945), from Psyche, vol. 52, nos 1-2, pp. 1-61. Inscribed on the first page, "Don B. Stallings from V. Nabokov". The text has two annotations by Nabokov (see pp. 11 & 39). d) "The Nearctic Members of the Genus Lycaeides Hübner" (1949), from Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, vol. 101, no. 4, pp. 479-560. Inscribed on the title page, "Don B. Stallings, with the author's very best regards. At last!"; front wrapper also inscribed with Nabokov's address of 802 E. Seneca Street, Ithaca, New York, where he lived from 1948 to 1950 while writing Lolita (1955). Brian Boyd & Robert Michael Pyle, Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings, 2000; Steve Coates & Kurt Johnson, Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius, 1999; Vladimir Nabokov, "The Art of Fiction No. 40", Paris Review, no. 41, Summer-Fall 1967. Together 4 works, octavo, the initial three wire-stitched as issued, the last in original pale green wrappers. Final two works housed in custom green and red cloth folding boxes by the Dragonfly Bindery. Illustrated with plates. Occasional minor blemish, glue repair to spine head of "The Nearctic Members". In excellent condition.
CHURCHILL, Winston S.
First US edition, first printing, of the first volume of Churchill's wartime speeches, published here for an American audience prior to the nation's entrance into the war. This copy is from the collection of Churchill's bibliographer Ronald Cohen. The book was first published as Into Battle in Britain the previous month. The US edition adds two more speeches alongside some minor editing. It is the third edition overall, following the Canadian which also used the same title. "In its North American guise, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, it sold more copies than any previous Churchill work, paid off all of Winston's debts and most of Randolph's, and accounted for nearly 60,000 copies in the American market alone. More than any other book to come out of the war, it bolstered the fainthearted, gave strength to the weak and encouraged the strong. Here between two hard covers, in Ed Murrow's words, was the English language mobilised for battle. It deserved to be a best-seller, and it probably introduced Winston Churchill to more Americans and Canadians than any other of his books" (Langworth, p. 203). Provenance: Ronald Cohen, with his ownership inscription in pencil on the front free endpaper. Cohen's Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill, published in three volumes in 2006, is the authoritative source for collectors, librarians, and dealers. Cohen A142.3; Woods A66(b.1). Richard Langworth, A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill, 1998. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in silver on red ground. With dust jacket. Half-tone photographic portrait frontispiece. Contemporary bookplate of "Dorothy Schwartz" to front pastedown. Slight crease to spine; jacket with spine panel darkened, chipped at extremities, not price-clipped. A very good copy in very good jacket.
SHAKESPEARE, William.
The Edinburgh Folio edition, number 810 of 1,000 sets. William Ernest Henley (18491903), the poet most famous for his "Invictus", was also editor of the National Observer and published work from the most prominent authors of the 1890s. Having produced editions of Burns and Byron, Henley began editing Shakespeare in 1901. After his death, the edition was completed by the literary scholar Walter Raleigh (1861-1922). 10 volumes, tall quarto (321 x 207 mm). Contemporary red morocco, spine with raised bands, compartments lettered and tooled with floral device in gilt, red cloth sides, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, fore and bottom edge uncut. Engraved portrait frontispieces with tissue guard, title pages printed in red and black with printer's device of T. A. Constable, Edinburgh. Occasional small mark to binding, touch of shelf-wear to bottom edges, internally clean. A near-fine set.
ROYAL AIR FORCE; WORLD WAR TWO.
First edition, number 396 of 401 copies, signed by all six members of the creative team on the mounted authentication leaf. A magnificent tribute, containing 25 superb original silhouette portraits of distinguished RAF pilots from Britain and the Commonwealth, all signed by the sitter and the artist, Michael Pierce, together with his embossed stamp. Each portrait is accompanied by a biography of the subject, together with photographs of memorabilia and facsimiles of letters. The prospectus details the meticulous attention to detail during production: 500 sets of sheets were printed, with the best 401 hand-chosen and the rest pulped. The editor was noted historian of aviation Bill Gunston, who compiled the biographies in collaboration with former RAF pilot John Golley. Prince Edward contributes the preface. So Few, and its 1995 successor on Bomber Command, So Many, raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the RAF Benevolent Fund, a success which led to trade issues by W. H. Smith. This deluxe issue is uncommon on the market today. The first copy was presented to Queen Elizabeth II. The list of contributors names several charitable organisations and other members of the Royal Family for whom copies would likely have been reserved. Folio. Original blue crushed morocco over bevelled boards, raised bands to spines within gilt rules, titles to second compartments gilt, front cover lettered in gilt, with inset embroidered RAF brevet and gilt decoration, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, bound blue silk page-makers. Housed in the original moiré silk-lined blue cloth solander box. With 25 coloured silhouettes on card leaves, tipped in as issued, signed by the subject and artist, artist's embossed stamp, tissue-guards, numerous photographs (colour and black-and-white) and facsimiles to the text. An excellent copy.
Rare first collected edition in English, including the first English translation of the Theogony and the second translation of The Works and Days. This copy is in a handsome contemporary binding, from the library of the English Unitarian minister and writer John Disney, with his gilt monogram and armorial crest on the covers. Prior to this edition, the only English translation of Hesiod was a version of The Works and Days by George Chapman, published with the title The Georgics of Hesiod in 1610 and now exceedingly rare. The present version by Thomas Cooke appeared during the Augustan heyday of English Georgic poetry - which also included Gay's Rural Sports (1720), Pope's Windsor Forest (1717), and Thomson's The Seasons (1730) - and is embellished with an attractive frontispiece by William Hogarth depicting a bust of Hesiod from the Pembroke Collection at Wilton. Cooke's Theogony later became a major source of inspiration for William Blake, especially in the introduction of his Songs of Innocence (1789). This translation remained standard until Sir Charles A. Elton's edition of 1815. The list of subscriber includes the Scottish poet and publisher David Mallet, the novelist Samuel Richardson, the Anglo-Irish physician and collector Hans Sloane, and Richard Savage, poet and friend of Samuel Johnson. The 172 subscribers ordered a total of 271 copies. Cooke (1703-1756) was a prolific translator of the classics. This version of Hesiod was his most acclaimed work, which gained him the nickname "Hesiod Cooke". He also worked on Moschus, Bion, Cicero, Terence, and Plautus. Cooke is often remembered for a quarrel with the poet Alexander Pope; despite Cooke's attempt to make peace by sending Pope a copy of his Hesiod in 1728, Pope made him one of the dunces in his Dunciad, which was published in the same year. This work is rare in commerce, especially in a contemporary binding as here. We have traced only two copies at auction in over 60 years, both of which were in a modern binding. Provenance: John Disney (1746-1816) was a writer on religion, and perhaps interested in Hesiod as a fundamental source of information about ancient Greek customs and beliefs. Disney's major works included biographies of latitudinarians such as Arthur Ashley (1785) and Edmund Law (1800) and Unitarians such as John Jebb (1787) and Michael Dodson (1800); Disney's sermons were published in 1793 and 1816. "As a minister, memoirist, and a religious and political writer Disney was an important figure in the development of English Unitarianism" (ODNB). Foxon I, p. 341; Lowndes IV, p. 1057. "Disney, John (1746-1816)", in Toronto Database of British Armorial Bindings, available online. 2 parts in 1, quarto (225 x 165 mm). Contemporary panelled calf, spine with raised bands, gilt decoration in compartments, red morocco label, front cover with gilt monogram "JD" of John Disney (Toronto stamp 1), rear cover with Disney's gilt lion crest (Toronto stamp 2), board edges tooled in gilt, edges sprinkled red. With 2 engraved frontispieces, the first by Hogarth. Contemporary annotation mentioning Hogarth's portrait of Hesiod on rear free endpaper verso, neat contemporary manuscript corrections in margin of two leaves. Extremities rubbed, joints cracked, but holding, couple of scratches on rear cover, front inner hinge sometime professionally and discreetly reinforced, closed tear to rear free endpaper and pastedown skilfully repaired, endpapers slightly browned and foxed, light toning to initial and final gatherings, faint damp stain to title page of second part, sporadic mark to contents, otherwise remarkably bright and clean. A very good copy with wide margins.
Scarce offprint, presentation copy, inscribed by Babbage on the title page, "To W. R. Grove Esq from the author". William Robert Grove invented the first fuel cell and was a pioneer in the field of energy conservation. The present work discusses "the importance of mathematical notation and the facilitating role a good system can have in leading researchers to discoveries" (Tomash & Williams). Babbage considered algebraic symbolism the fundamental foundation of mathematics; he argued that language was insufficiently precise to simultaneously consider all the necessary aspects of a mathematical problem. The present work is an expansion of his earlier paper, "Observations on the Notation Employed in the Calculus of Functions" (1822), which contains the "assertion that many mathematical discoveries are dependent on the development of a suitable mathematical notation" (ibid., B47). Babbage's interest in symbols culminated in the elaborate system of mechanical notation he devised to identify parts of machinery and describe their motions. His first publication on this topic, "On a Method of Expressing by Signs the Action of Machinery", appeared the same year as this title. Babbage first presented "On the Influence of Signs in Mathematical Reasoning" at a meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society on 16 December 1821. It appeared as an offprint in 1826 and in the Transactions in 1827 (vol. 2, pp. 325-77). Grove's (1811-1896) most influential work was "On the Correlation of Physical Forces" (1846). "In this essay, regarded by many as being a precursor to the theory of the conservation of energy, Grove argued that all physical forces such as electricity, heat, light, magnetism, and so forth, should be regarded as being correlated, or mutually interrelated. In many ways, the essay was an argument against traditional notions of causality. Grove advanced a large number of experimental examples from the various branches of the physical sciences to substantiate his claims. He suggested that the main task of the natural philosopher was to demonstrate how this principle of correlation operated universally" (ODNB). This offprint is rare institutionally and in commerse. WorldCat notes holdings at ten institutions: the Royal College of Surgeons (inscribed to the college) and the Science Museum in the UK; the New York Public Library and the universities of Harvard (inscribed to Carl Jacobi), Yale (inscribed to Henry Lawrence Eustis), Kansas, and John Hopkins in the US; the Bibliothèque de Genève in Switzerland; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Germany (inscribed to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Munich); and the National Library of South Africa. We can trace two other presentation copies in commerce: one to Thomas Stevenson Davies, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the other to Carl Friedrich Gauss. Tomash & Williams B26. Quarto (268 x 218 mm), pp. 53. Disbound from larger volume, held together by remnants of original spine and laid into contemporary buff wrappers, front wrapper lettered in early manuscript, modern printed paper label to same. Wrappers browned, with small closed tears along spine, first and last leaves foxed, inscription at head of title page slightly shaved in binding process, upper outer corners creased, minor soiling to contents else clean: a good copy.
First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the month of publication "To Ernest Poulter from Winston S. Churchill Oct 1933". Poulter supplied Churchill with the print, "The Mauritshuis at the Hague", which is reproduced facing page 540, with Poulter acknowledged. Churchill's biography "took its place at once among the classics of historical writing. As the story of his ancestor's leadership of a grand alliance to prevent the domination of the continent by a single power, it was also a source of inspiration to Churchill in his campaign against appeasement" (ODNB). Provenance: Sotheby's, 16 December 1974, lot 139; the collection of Steve Forbes. Cohen A97.2(I).a. Large octavo. Original purple cloth, spines lettered in gilt, Marlborough crest gilt to front cover, top edge gilt. Portrait frontispiece to each volume, 99 additional plates, 14 facsimiles of letters, and 182 maps and plans, several folding. Slight sunning to spine and extremities as often, light foxing. A very good copy.
First edition, third printing, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper preserved from the earlier binding, "Inscribed by Winston S. Churchill Feb. 1932". Churchill was then on a money-making American lecture tour, undertaken in the winter of 1931-2 in an effort to recoup his losses from the Stock Market crash. The Unknown War (published as The Eastern Front in Britain) was the final volume of The World Crisis, Churchill's history of the First World War. The first printing of the volume was in November 1931; this third printing is newly dated 1932, and was published on 25 January 1932 in a printrun of 990 copies. Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes. Cohen A69.1(V).c. Octavo (211 x 148 mm). Recent brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Half-tone photographic frontispiece, 7 similar plates, 10 maps of which one folding and in colour, frequent maps and plans to the text. A little toned, inscribed page a little finger-soiled. A good copy.