Calendrier perpétuel ou Almanach journalier; avec une table chronologique de calculs faite depuis l’an mil un de Jesus-Christ, jusqu’a l’an deux mil, pour l’Ancien & le Nouveau Calendrier. Ouvrage très-utile & nécessaire aux magistrats, gens de justice, hommes de lettres, chronologistes, navigateurs, curieux & a toutes sortes de personnes.
First edition of an ingenious perpetual calendar, serviceable to the year 2000. and including a folding engraved lunar chart. The preface suggests its utility to 'l'Homme d'État, le Magistrat, l'Homme de Lettres, le Particulier même'. Duplessis was a map publisher, who also issued a variety of calendars. The advert after the preface offers geographical and historical maps and charts, a large map of France on 175 sheets but also calendar mounted on card with elaborate engraved borders which could be supplied glazed in gilt frames. 4to (240 × 175 mm), pp. 86, plus folding engraved table. Occasional minor ink marks, some spotting, slightly heavier to the engraved plates, old waterstain to lower inner corners. Slightly later (c. 1800) quarter sheep, gilt spine. [No US or UK copies in Worldcat.]
More from Justin Croft Antiquarian Books Ltd
Sappho.
First edition, in a superb geometric binding by Henri Creuzevault. This is copy III of 5 copies on vieux japon (of a total edition of only 45 copies, the remainder on japon imperial), bound without the additional suite on chine. All the plates are signed in pencil. Sappho is one of Mariette Lydis's rarest books, and among the most provocative, with its large format plates demonstrating her mastery of the etched line. Still under-appreciated and under-represented in institutional collections, Lydis is one of the most intriguing artistic figures of her era. Her youth in bourgeois Jewish Vienna was followed by travels across Europe, Africa and later England, the USA and South America. She settled in Paris in the 1920s (later describing the city as 'the only place where it is possible to forget the brutality of men') where she embraced the fluidity of culture and sexuality she found there. Though married three times (the last to publisher Giuseppe Govone, with whom she jointly published Sappho) she was openly bisexual. Her flight from Europe to Argentina in 1940 and subsequent isolation from European collectors and artistic movements perhaps served to obscure the astonishing range of her graphic art in the twenties and thirties.The contemporary binding of this copy is an especially striking example of the art deco architectural style of Henri Creuzevault (1905-1971), among the most prominent and celebrated Parisian binders of the immediate pre-war era. Camille Creuzevault illustrates an almost identical binding on a copy of Pierre Louys' Aphrodite of 1936 (Henri Creuzevault, II, 59). 'Henri Creuzevault intended to be a painter but in 1918 he learned the craft of leather-gilding and then entered the binding studio of his father Louis Lazare Creuzevault. During his military service in the Middle East in 1925, he again took up painting and drawing. The following year, back in his father's studio, he drew his first sketches and exhibited his bindings at the Musée Galliera where he won first prize in 1928. Creuzevault's art, always highly rigorous, developed throughout his life. His early style was fairly sober and traditional, progressing in the 1930s to compositions in the style of Art Deco, and 10 years later returning to an austere Classicism before the production of his bold works of the 1950s. ' (Benezit). Folio (323 × 245 mm), 15 etched erotic plates, all signed by Lydis in pencil, with facing text in Greek and French, plus a final double-page key/colophon sheet with each of the images in miniature, title and justification leaf, original wrappers preserved. Contemporary tan goatskin by Henri Creuzevault (signed) with a bold geometric design of fifteen horizontal bands and rectangles in relief, spine lettered in gilt. Slipcase and chemise (rubbed, the spine of the latter slightly cracked). A superb copy. [Worldcat lists copies at Cornell, Harvard and Bibliothèque nationale only (there are also copies at Edinburgh University and the National Gallery of Scotland).] Claudine à l’école; Claudine à Paris; Claudine en ménage; Claudine s’en va.
First edition with the Lydis illustrations, of Colette's coming-of-age novel (first published in 1900-3 with debatable contribution from her then-husband, Willy). This is copy number 88 of 100 on pur fil Lafuma with plates in 2 states, after copies on Japon and Hollande, of a total edition of 1585 copies on different papers. There was mutual admiration (and perhaps more) between Colette and Lydis, the former having written an admiring note on the artist for the programme of the 1934 Bal des petits lits blancs, which Lydis had illustrated. 4 vols, large 8vo (230 × 170 mm), pp. 239, [3]; 186, [4]; 174, [4]; 160, [4], plus 48 plates each in two states (one monochrome, one colour). Uncut in original dark blue morocco with red borders, lettered on the spines to read 'CLAUDINE' across the 4 volumes. Original matching slipcase. Le Jugement par Jury, ou la Vengeance d’une Femme.
First edition. A novel illustrating the contemporary vogue for fiction based on the records of the French law courts. A contemporary reviewer in the Revue encyclopèdique savaged the novel itself but evidently found the 38-page introduction interesting - being a commentary on the merits of the relatively recent development of trial by jury in France. The book found several other reviews in the same year and evidently divided opinion. The Revue bibliographique du Royaume des Pays-bas simply noted 'Cet ouvrage a été saisi par la police'.Dubergier, who did not put his name on the title, was prolific both as a translator from English and as a novelist in his own right - usually favouring popular literature of the Walter Scott variety, sometime with Scottish or Irish settings. 2 vols bound together, 12mo (156 × 92 mm), pp. 239, [1]; 216, complete with half-titles, plus two mezzotint frontispieces. Minor loss to margin of one leaf (from careless opening). Contemporary quarter sheep, spine gilt in compartments, sides with jade green marbled paper. Slightly rubbed and soiled but a most attractive copy. [Querard, 11, p. 115. Worldcat lists the Bn and Princeton copies only.] An impressive set of eighteenth-century altar cards - a triptych of engraved prints with text and images designed to be placed on the altar at the time of the Catholic eucharist, as an aide memoire for the celebrant, giving the text of all the eucharistic prayers with associated iconography. On the left hand panel here is the Gloria and the Credo, and in the centre and right are the prayers and instructions for the presentation of the host and chalice. As usual, the image of the crucifixion occupies the centre of the iconographic scheme, set within the engraved text, while around the text panels are figures of the evangelists, St Peter, Christ with a sword, angles and putti. In the upper portion is an elaborate canopy with the scroll reading 'Ecce tabernaculum dei cum domini' ('Behold the tabernacle of God with men').Altar cards were usually printed from three separate plates, probably the case here. This engraved example bears three successive imprints. The first (on the left panel) is of Pierre Devret who must have had the images engraved in the first quarter of the eighteenth century - when he occupied a shop 'À l'Annonciation' in the rue St Jacques (the text being the work of Charles-Auguste Berey, active in the period 1689-1722). The plates then passed to Nicolas Bonnart, whose name is added to the imprint and again on the central panel. Bonnart traded until 1727 and the pates must have passed again to Petit, whose name is added to the imprint of the central panel, a printseller who issued prints from his shop 'À l'image de Notre Dame' in the rue du Petit Pont until the last quarter of the century. 3 engraved sheets pasted together (each c. 460 × 215 mm, together c. 460 × 645 mm) and laid to old heavy board, later pink paper backing, contemporary handcolouring, including pale blue wash border. Very slight marginal creasing and fraying, one small abrasion lightly affecting a couple of words of text, but otherwise excellent.
Le Roman de la Momie.
Copy number one, with twelve original watercolour drawings by George Barbier (including those for the wrappers), a grand papier copy printed on vieux japon, and a double suite of illustrations (on chine and japon, one in colour one in outline). This is the first of the three special tirage de tête copies, each containing one third of the thirty-six original Barbier watercolours, this the primary copy, with cover designs. The total edition was of 1091 copies on various papers.This is one of Barbier's last illustrative works - he died in 1932 at the age of 50 and at the height of his celebrity, already recognised as one of the greatest French illustrators of his century and subsequently regarded as a father of the Art Deco movement. Gautier's orientalist novel provided the perfect inspiration for Barbier's ambiguously eroticised designs, including one of the most immediately recognisable wrapper designs of the era. His finely-wrought watercolours were reduced in reproduction (though not the signed original of the cover) and they retain pencil notes and guidelines for preparing Eugène Gasperini's woodblocks.Barbier's many jewel-like designs for fashion and the ballet and his book illustrations have long been collectible, of course, and he has more recently been the object of a gradual reclamation as a gay artist (despite an absence of any concrete evidence of his sexuality). It is notable he left so little by way of biographical record, and that he was to some extent overlooked or forgotten in the years following his untimely death, leading some commentators to infer a concealed sexuality. 'Contributing to his disappearance were his own reticence and a surprising sparseness of biographical information. Born into a prosperous bourgeois family in the provincial town of Nantes, he lived a clearly very different lifestyle in Paris, where he frequented unmistakably, if not exclusively, homosexual circles - he was, for example, an intimate of the dandy and poet Robert de Montesquiou, who introduced him to Marcel Proust', Roderick Conway Morris, 'Forgotten Art of French illustrator George Barbier', The New York Times, Nov. 14 2008.Gautier's Roman de la Momie was first published in 1857 and is a quintessential Orientalist fantasy, striking in recounting the discovery of a fully preserved female pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings by an English and a German Egypotologist. The mummy is identified as a queen, Tahoser, and a combination of hieroglyphics in the chamber and a papyrus scroll reveals her story.The superb binding is by Cretté (1893-1969), 'one of the Ecole Estienne's most brilliant pupils. [who] after graduating joined Marius Michel's studio, eventually taking over a month before the master's death in 1925' (Duncan and de Bartha, Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding. The French Masterpieces 1880-1940, 1989). Two volumes (text and suites), large 8vo (244 × 185 mm), pp. [4], 325, [3], illustrated wrappers preserved, including 36 colour illustrations by Barbier printed from woodblocks by Gasperini. 12 original ink and watercolour drawings (2 including 2 images) plus two complete suites of illustrations mounted and bound in a second volume. The text in full blue levant morocco by Georges Cretté, covers with Egyptian palmate borders of green, yellow and orange onlays with gilt borders, smooth spine with two further palm motifs, lettered direct in gilt, bright green suede endpapers, gilt edges signed in gilt, morocco backed chemise with the second volume in matching blue half morocco, slipcases. Morocco booklabels of Francis Kettaneh. Album de l’artiste en cheveux. Répertoire de Hanssen.
[bound with:] [CORNÉ, J. J.]. Album du dessinateur en cheveux, [Paris, n.d., c. 1840s]. ff. 8 lithographed plates. Soiled, some old repairs to versos. One further additional lithograph design (smaller) bound in at end. Contemporary quarter roan (worn). Evidently well used, but still good copies.Two exceptionally rare albums of designs by Parisian hair artists - not hairdressers but creators of popular memorial and funerary pictures created from the cut hair of the deceased of which numerous examples are depicted here. The Hanssen album has an additional price list (including prices for frames); the Corné album is without a title-page (it is unclear if it was issued thus). Both artists are mentioned by André Chanlot in Les Ouvrages en cheveux; leurs secrets, p. 36. Chanlot dates the Corné album to c. 1845 and records the death of Hanssen in 1846. Folio (310 × 240), ff. [1], 24 lithographed plates, plus folding lithographed price list, partly mounted on old manuscript scraps (quite creased). Title mounted. Some waterstaining and spotting. [Exceptionally Rare. Worlcat lists three copies of the Hanssen album (all in France) and none of the Corné.] Les Aventures de Senneville et Guillaume Delorme, écrites par Eugène en 1787.
First edition, preserved in original wrappers, of this popular and critically-acclaimed roman de moeurs. It was widely-read around Europe and, interestingly, appeared on the advert leaves of numerous English books (in its original French). The Quarterly Review commented: 'M. Picard is well known to be the most celebrated dramatic writer in France. The French Critics have pronounced this to be one of the best novels that has appeared since Gil Blas' (1815). Picard was variously a playwright, actor, novelist, poet and musical director in Paris. 4 vols, 12mo (180 × 108 mm), pp. viii, 320; [4], 347, [1]; [4], 332; [4], 300, complete with half-titles. Uncut in original printed pink wrappers, titles to upper covers, glove device to the lower. Spines faded and slightly frayed, but an excellent, unsophisticated copy. at White-hall, giving Advice to the young Æsops at Tunbridge and Bath: or, Some Fables relating to Government. By a Person of what Quality you please.
First edition of this British political satire, co-opting Aesop's animals of in a series of witty verses, capitalising on the popularity of the Aesop in English via the editions of Ogilby and L'Estrange. 'In 1698 a whole series of fables began to appear anonymously which set Aesop on a journey through England and the rest of Europe. He comments through his animal characters about the Jacobite threat, William's government of England, and Louis XIV's ambitions on the continent. As one writer put it, "It is now the Mode, it seems, for Brutes to turn Politicians," and Aesop was chosen as their main expositor. Aesop at Tunbridge (1698) was a structured attack on William and on Whig principles in general. In the same year Aesop at Bath criticized the Jacobites; Aesop Return d from Tunbridge committed the hapless supporter of the Jacobites to Bedlam; Old Aesop at Whitehall defended the government; and Aesop at Amsterdam objected to the very monarchical forms of government supported in one way or another by Whig, Tory, and Jacobite factions' (Daniel, 'Political and Philosophical Uses of Fables in eighteenth-century England', The Eighteenth Century, 23, 2, 1982, p. 153). 8vo (192 × 120 mm), pp. [6], 31, [1] (without initial blank leaf). Slightly thumbed and browned. Stitched in later blue wrappers, a waste sheets from a wrapper for a part of an edition of Johnson's Dictionary. A little frayed. [Wing O196. ESTC lists US copies at Clark (UCLA), Folger, Harvard, Cincinnati and Texas.] Ulysse (Fragment) [in “900” Cahiers d’Italie et D’Europe 1. Cahier d’Automne 1926, ed. Massimo BONTEMPELLI et al, offered with the three succeeding issues of “900” all in hardbound deluxe editions of 300 copies only]
The earliest portrait of Leopold Bloom? Mariette Lydis contributed one illustration to the first issue of "900", placed with the fragment of Ulysses in the French translation by Auguste Morel. The image is clearly identifiable as a Leopold Bloom-like figure, yet is perhaps not a direct illustration (what are we to make of the Ostende tourist poster in the background?). It is dated 1925 in the lower corner and is captioned 'Illustration' at the foot. No earlier illustration of Bloom is known (nor indeed any earlier illustration of Ulysses) and the standard idea of him is drawn partly from Joyce's own inept sketch of him made in Paris in 1926.Joyce was nominally a joint editor of the radical literary review "900", with Massimo Bontempelli. Mariette Lydis was Bontempelli's lover at this period (her letters to him are preserved at the Getty Institute) and probably also know Joyce. She sketched his portrait the following year in Paris.The Ulysses excerpt translated by Morel is episode 4, 'Calypso', introducing Leopold Bloom with his morning visit to the butcher's shop for a kidney for Molly's breakfast. James Joyce is listed among the journal's editors on the half-title verso (along with Bontempelli, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Jerog Kaiser and Pierre Mac Orlan). Among the adverts at the end of the volume is a full-page for the forthcoming German edition of Ulysses by Rheinverlag of Zurich (the book appeared in the autumn of 1927). Another advert is for the journal Critica Fascista (a 'Fornightly Fascist Review'). 8vo (192 × 130 mm), pp. 203, [13] (including adverts), the Ulysses fragment on pp. 107-131, illustrations. Original yellow wrappers. Contemporary bookseller's stamp to upper cover (Les Arts et le Livre, Paris). Slightly dust-stained and with creasing to the spine, but actually a good copy of this fragile journal. [Slocum & Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce (953), D25 (p. 113).] The March of Intellect.
One of Heath's famous graphic satires on the theme of The March of Intellect, which expressed contemporary anxiety over technological progress and social change in England brought about by science, education, industrialisation and commercialisation. This one shows a London street corner at the edge of open country and the sea, with numerous figures, including a street-sweeper, horse-drawn carriage, two men playing chess, musicians and singers and street-sellers, with wealthy figures being sent down a mechanical lift beside giant shop window stuffed with milliner. A steam carriage full of redcoat soldiers is seen in background, along with passenger balloons and a flying warship (raining canon-fire at ships below) in the air beside bridge crossing the English Channel between Dover and Calais. Etched and engraved print (230 × 350 mm), cut within plate mark, just touching border in places but not affecting imprint, image or caption. Original hand colouring. Lightly pasted at corners to an old drab paper album leaf, very light offset from another leaf, probably of pink paper, but still an excellent example. An Act to render more effectual an Act made in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of Her late Majesty Queen Anne, intituled, An Act for providing a publick Reward for such Person or Persons as shall discover the Longitude at Sea, with regard to the making Experiments of Proposals made for discovering the Longitude; and to enlarge the Number of Commissioners for putting in Execution the said Act.
(LONGITUDE ACT). First edition. The 1714 Longitude Act was established the Board of Longitude and offered monetary rewards for anyone who could find a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude. It was modified in several subsequent Acts, including the present, making another £2000 pounds available for experimentation and recording that John Harrison had received £1250 for his initial determinations.Though separately published with a general title for a complete sitting of Parliament, individual Acts of Parliament were paginated to be bound together in yearly volumes hence the pagination 399-403 here. Small folio (288 × 182 mm), pp. [2], 399-403, [1], including general title with woodcut arms, black letter text. Recent paper spine. An excellent copy.- $643
- $643
Edith Mortimer, or, The Trials of life at Mortimer Manor.
PARSONS, [Gertrude], Mrs. First edition of this very scarce novel by a significant British Catholic author. She was born Gertrude Hext in Cornwall in 1812 and became a Catholic in 1844. A review of Edith Mortimer in The Rambler enthused: 'Mrs. Parsons is one of our best writers of Catholic fiction. There is a heartiness and energy about almost every thing that comes from her pen.''A deeply religious woman, Gertrude Parsons was charitable to the poor and a leading benefactor of the mission at Little Malvern. Gertrude Parsons's enthusiastic commitment to her adopted faith was most apparent, however, in many of her published works. Thornberry Abbey (1846), in which the heroine and her clergyman fiancé are both converted to Catholicism, is clearly semi-autobiographical. In another early novel, Edith Mortimer, or, The Trials of Life (1857), a young Roman Catholic convert learns to conquer her pride, breaking off her engagement to a rich protestant cousin. In the 1860s Gertrude Parsons wrote four tract tales for Burns and Oates's Tales and Narrative series, which was aimed at a working-class audience; these included Lent Lilies and The Muffin Girl' (Rosemary Mitchell in Oxford DNB). 8vo (170 × 98 mm), pp. [8], 168, 48 (adverts for other Catholic works published by Dolman), compete with half-title. Publisher's ribbed and embossed brown cloth, gilt spine. Very slightly rubbed but an excellent, bright copy. [WorldCat lists US copies at Brigham Young and Huntington only.]- $901
- $901
Painted and calligraphic arms.
(HERALDRY). An attractive miscellaneous collection of painted arms, some perhaps dating from soon after 1800, some from the later nineteenth century and some from the twentieth. They provide an interesting overview of the arts of the heraldic miniature painter and calligrapher. Two good examples come direct from the College of Arms (both dated 1907), one of the larger pieces (315 × 255 mm) bears the arms of Thomas James Summers and is signed on the back 'Painted by J. Eedes. 63 Great Titchfield St. Oxford St and a fine painting on vellum is marked in contemporary manuscript on the back 'Painted by Peters & Sons Coachmakers London November 11 1858'. Some, including a couple bearing royal arms have evidently been cut from the original grants of arms. c. 40 painted arms, some on vellum, others on paper, various sizes. Some mounted on board, sometimes with consequent staining or offsetting.- $1,287
- $1,287
Neuf pas autour de ma chambre. Tournée sentimentale, dédiée aux amateurs d’un exercice modéré.
[CARON or CHARLES] 'H.R.C'. First edition, presentation copy. A witty imaginary Voyage autor de ma chambre in the spirit of Le Maistre. In just nine steps the author circumnavigates his room, bumping into Napoleon and traversing Europe. There are verses, riddles, enigmas and an acrostic on the Swedish succession: 'Charles Jean Prince Royal de Suede'. The ninth step is a long verse dedicated to the elderly British King George III. The allegorical plate depicts voyagers in an elegant state of undress on the back of a flying horse. The dedicatee of this presentation copy is Maria Juliana Wahrendorff von Rosen (1763-1820). 8vo (192 × 110 mm), pp. [4], 113, [1], plus one aquatint plate in sepia. Contemporary tree calf, gilt, orange morocco label. Slightly rubbed, joints just starting at foot, but a pretty copy. Contemporary inscription '. Rosen' [partly illegible]. Shield-shaped bookplate with inscription 'A Madame la Comtesse de Rosen née Wahrendorff hommage de l'auteur' [Worldcat locates the Yale copy only in the US. JISC/Copac lists no UK copies.]- $1,158
- $1,158
[Illuminated manuscript.
[MALLET, Sophie]. A delightful, accomplished and idsiosyncratic illuminated manuscript in neo-gothic style by a French woman, one Sophie Mallet, probably as a wedding gift for a female friend or relation: Jeanne or 'JMN'. The texts include familiar words of advice for a young wife, scriptural and otherwise, while a section titled 'Vie du monde' includes personal and original advice addressed to 'ma Jeanne'. Among the texts are: 'Qui trouvera une femme forte?.' (Proverbs 31 [incorrectly given as Ecclesiasticus here], 'Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies'); 'Bienheureux les pauvres d'esprit.' (Matthew 5, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven); 'Faites comme les petits enfants qui de l'une des mains se tiennent à leur père' (St Francis of Assisi, 'Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me'), and there are excerpts from the Imitation of Christ and from St Bernard.The real pleasure of the manuscript lies in its illumination, expertly done with unusual and quirky details. The borders include numerous recognisable birds, insects and flowers rendered in impressive detail. Colours are applied very skilfully as are metallic highlights, including burnished and liquid gold, often on raised or otherwise textured grounds. Best of all is the colophon or tailpiece, which includes an entwined pair of longtailed dragons looking more like dinosaurs than medieval beasts. Illuminated manuscript on vellum, 18mo (104 × 80 mm), 17 leaves, each with decoration/text on each side. 2 full-page miniatures, 2 decorated section titles, one colophon piece, numerous 2- and 3-line initials, decorative line fillers, each page with borders on 3 sides, each page to different design scheme, text in differing styles (from a neat cursive to an imitation of gothic) script. Occasional marginal browning. Original cream morocco gilt, sides with black onlaid borders, pale blue silk endpapers, one embossed with the initials 'JMN', gilt edges. Contained in the original silk lined black morocco box with the initials repeated on the lid. Box a little scratched, the upper joint of the book very slightly tender. A beautiful survival.- $3,345
- $3,345
Le Emportemens amoureux de la Religieuse etrangère. Nouvelle galante & historique. [Lettres Portuguaises avec les réponses traduites en françois].
(LETTRES PORTUGAISES). First edition with this title and introductory part, a very rare opportunistic edition of Lettres Portuguaises, which found itself onto the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1727. The epistolary novel Lettres Portugaises was one of the publishing sensations of the late seventeenth century and beyond, first published in Paris in 1669, purporting to be the genuine letters between a Portugese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, and the French nobleman, the Marquis de Chamilly. Despite its passionate tone it was not outlawed and indeed it was widely reprinted and set the tone for much of the sentimental and epistolary fiction of the eighteenth century. Though the letters have been proved to be fictional, both parties were real.This edition, probably clandestine, seems to have been a step too far in the eyes of the censors. Apparently a reissue of the sheets of a 1696 Lyon edition, it was augmented with a 48-page prequel in which the first encounters between Maria and the Marquis in Portugal are recounted. This text was cast as a seduction scene, in which the young nun entertained the Marquis in a private apartment beside her cloister, dressed in a pale blue nightgown adorned with red ribbons. Suppression seems to have been effective and it is unrecorded in public collections, as far as we can tell, besides a single copy in the library at Bourg-en-Bresse. Gay mentions it among the reprints of Lettres Portugaises, citing a copy offered for sale in Paris in 1869. 12mo (143 × 78 mm), three parts in one, each with separate title, pp. 48; [4], 116; 119, [1], woodcut and typographical ornaments. Some light waterstaining, a small scatter of worming to blank lower margin of final 20 leaves or so, old inkstain to first title. Contemporary sprinkled sheep, gilt panelled spine, lettered direct. Rubbed, head of spine slightly chipped/torn with minor loss. Early woodcut armorial bookplate with the motto 'Vincet amor patriae'. A good copy. [Gay II, 847. Not found in Worldcat.]- $3,603
- $3,603
Jeu instructif des peuples et costumes des quatre parties du monde et des terres australes.
(GAME). A superb 'game of goose' on the theme of the peoples of the known world, with fine engraved corner vignettes representing Africa, America, Europe and Asia and 63 vignettes representing different peoples. They include native Americans (of California, Mexico, the Amazon, Iroquois, Brazil, Chile, Tierra del Fuego, Paraguay and Nootka Island), inhabitants of Java, Sumatra, China, Japan, Tahiti, Australia (Nouvelle Hollande) and New Zealand, as well as Africa, the Middle East and Europe. In common with other games of this type, the cultural attitudes represented by the symbolism and mode of play is worthy of decoding. With dice and counters, the players are to navigate (culturally, not geographically) from China (evidently still at the furthest reaches of the European geographical imagination) to France, via the 63 numbered squares, with their various characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Mexico (square 6) is shown as a bridge and players landing there jump straight to square 12 (the Amazon); at 19 (Tahiti) the islanders' hospitality detains players for two turns; at 31 (Siberia) the players waits in exile until another player reaches the same square and rescues them, at square 42, traditionally the 'puzzle' square (Japan) the player is refused landing and goes back to 30 (Abyssinia) and just before the end, square 58 (New Zealand) the player encounters the reputed anthrophages (man-eaters) and returns to the start. Single engraved sheet (525 × 354 mm, plate size 485 × 660 mm). A single vertical fold, with an early guard on verso, some very pale browning in the vicinity of the fold, with a few light spots. A very good copy. [Ciompi/Seville Collection 32; Adrian Seville, 'The geographical Jeux de l'Oie of Europe. Les Jeux de l'Oie géographiques de l'Europe', Belgeo, 3-4, 2008, 427-444 (56).]- $5,147
- $5,147
Londres et l’Angleterre, ouvrage élémentaire à l’usage de la jeunesse.
[AUBERT DE VITRY, François-Jean-Philibert]. First edition of this extensive pocket guide to London, England and Wales for a juvenile audience. The description of London is admirably complete, with notes on the principal monuments as well as its people and customs ('The Lord of Merry Disports' and 'Itinerant Musicians' among them). The plates (originally appearing London, or interesting Memorials published by Thomas Boys in London in 1823) depict The Custom House, Somerset House, Hanover Terrace and Westminster Abbey. 12mo (168 × 90 mm), pp. [4], 348, xi, [1], complete with half-title, plus engraved portrait of George IV by Fry after Reynolds and 4 plates 'Printed by H. Adlard. Engraved on steel by W. Cooke, Junr.', original tissue guards. Occasional light browning. Contemporary tree sheep, gilt panelled spine, red morocco label, contemporary Parisian bookseller's ticket (Forest). Rubbed, joints cracked but secure. An attractive copy. [Adams, London illustrated, 1604-1851 (1983), 150. No US copies in Worldcat and JISC/COPAC records the Bishopsgate Institute and Bodley copies only.]- $418
- $418
Calendrier perpétuel ou Almanach journalier; avec une table chronologique de calculs faite depuis l’an mil un de Jesus-Christ, jusqu’a l’an deux mil, pour l’Ancien & le Nouveau Calendrier. Ouvrage très-utile & nécessaire aux magistrats, gens de justice, hommes de lettres, chronologistes, navigateurs, curieux & a toutes sortes de personnes.
DUPLESSIS, [Pierre-Alexandre GRATET-]. First edition of an ingenious perpetual calendar, serviceable to the year 2000. and including a folding engraved lunar chart. The preface suggests its utility to 'l'Homme d'État, le Magistrat, l'Homme de Lettres, le Particulier même'. Duplessis was a map publisher, who also issued a variety of calendars. The advert after the preface offers geographical and historical maps and charts, a large map of France on 175 sheets but also calendar mounted on card with elaborate engraved borders which could be supplied glazed in gilt frames. 4to (240 × 175 mm), pp. 86, plus folding engraved table. Occasional minor ink marks, some spotting, slightly heavier to the engraved plates, old waterstain to lower inner corners. Slightly later (c. 1800) quarter sheep, gilt spine. [No US or UK copies in Worldcat.]- $2,573
- $2,573
Animal Sagacity.
HALL, Mrs. S.C. 4to, pp. [4], vi, 168, [8], including colour printed frontispiece and title, illustrations. Green cloth, stamped in gilt and blind, large colour printed onlay to upper cover, printed adverts to all endpapers. Rubbed. [Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).]- $97
- $97
Calendrier perpétuel ou Almanach journalier; avec une table chronologique de calculs faite depuis l’an mil un de Jesus-Christ, jusqu’a l’an deux mil, pour l’Ancien & le Nouveau Calendrier. Ouvrage très-utile & nécessaire aux magistrats, gens de justice, hommes de lettres, chronologistes, navigateurs, curieux & a toutes sortes de personnes.
Calendrier perpétuel ou Almanach journalier; avec une table chronologique de calculs faite depuis l’an mil un de Jesus-Christ, jusqu’a l’an deux mil, pour l’Ancien & le Nouveau Calendrier. Ouvrage très-utile & nécessaire aux magistrats, gens de justice, hommes de lettres, chronologistes, navigateurs, curieux & a toutes sortes de personnes.: https://rarebookinsider.com/rare-books/calendrier-perpetuel-ou-almanach-journalier-avec-une-table-chronologique-de-calculs-faite-depuis-lan-mil-un-de-jesus-christ-jusqua-lan-deux-mil-pour-lancien-le-nouveau-calendrier-ouvrage-tre-2/
- Calendrier perpétuel ou Almanach journalier; avec une table chronologique de calculs faite depuis l’an mil un de Jesus-Christ, jusqu’a l’an deux mil, pour l’Ancien & le Nouveau Calendrier. Ouvrage très-utile & nécessaire aux magistrats, gens de justice, hommes de lettres, chronologistes, navigateurs, curieux & a toutes sortes de personnes.