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5 |
King John and the Abbot of Canterbury an Olde English Ballad.
Washington: The Olde Booksmith, n.d. Set forth in new fashion by William Hinscliff (pp. 32). Small folio (25 cm) in black wraps (minor damage to the edges) with gilt titles and decorations (a bit faded at the top edge); a half-dozen quaint, medieval-flavoured engraved plates together with decorative engravings on every page by W. H. A scarce, handsome little book.
Price:
100.00 USD
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6 |
R. M. S. Aquitania, Cunard White Star Lines, List of Cabin Passengers and Programme of Events (Sunday, February 26, 1939).
White Star Line, 1939. Sailing February 25 from Southampton, calling at Cherbourg, bound for New York City. Royal blue in stiff wraps, gilt decoration and lettering in art deco, colour picture of Aquitania tipped in. Officers (Capt. G. Gibbons), cabin passengers (including Professor Bruno Walter); refund of U.S. head tax, general information for passengers (baggage in bond, hairdressing saloons, etc.) in English, French, and German; advertising notice of cruises and American holidays, scheduled sailings through June 1939, notice for world cruise aboard S. S. Franconia (ports of call, etc.); Programme of Events (8.30- 9.30 Swedish Drill, on deck, weather permitting). Tips and edges lightly creased; otherwise a fine, clean copy. One of the last transatlantic cruises before the war and no doubt carrying more than one passenger escaping the Nazis.
Price:
85.00 USD
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7 |
The Tourist’s Illustrated Hand-Book for Ireland.
London: David Bryce, 1854. Third edition (adverts, 224 pp., adverts) with six maps and sixty-six b&w engravings from drawings by Mahony, Crowquill, Jones, and Lover. Octavo, in ‘pea-green’ cloth, gilt titles and decoration. Published for the tourist trade by the railway companies ‘parties to the Irish tourist ticket system’. The two hundred or so pages of text describe railway tours through various parts of Ireland (e.g., Dublin to Galway) with maps and illustrations, mostly full-page but some cuts, of the sights along the way (Goldsmith’s birthplace). The text, maps, and illustrations are sandwiched between two large sections of advertising, about fifty pages each. The detailed adverts reflect the particulars of everyday middle-class life at mid-century: earnest improvement books (Poetry and Poets, with the Story of the Poet Lover), remedies for medical complaints (Butler’s Taraxacum and Tasteless Seidlitz Powder; the Moc-Main Lever Truss by Royal Letters Patent- illustrated), life insurance policies against ‘Death by Railways’ (40s buys 100L’s insurance), and Cording’s wading boots and waterproofs, yachting jackets and sou’-westers (‘Comforts for Campaigning’). Notably, this edition includes a section of advertising addressed to those considering emigration to North America, Canada especially: Hand-Book to Canada and the United States with Descent of the Niagara and the St. Lawrence (price, one shilling); a large fold-out map of Upper and Lower Canada and the northeastern States and on the verso summaries of various Parliamentary papers on emigration-- reports from Lord Elgin, the Canadian Governor-General, and assorted Lt. Governors-General from the provinces. This last advertising seems oddly placed. Presumably people seeking advice on emigration were less likely to be those riding the train than those who could be seen huddled in villages and huts along the route, victims of the potato famine. The title page mentions that in Fortnight in Ireland Sir Francis Bond Head refers to a ‘pea-green book’ (‘The house was overflowing with English Tourists, each carrying in his or her right hand a Pea-Green Hand-Book.’) and this is it. Our copy is a survivor of a rough crossing or an indifferent reception, or perhaps both. The green cover is faded on the spine, gilt titles and decorations barely discernable; the covers retain their special (Kelly, not ‘pea’) green but are rubbed; the binding is a bit loose but holding; the folding maps have sometime in the past hundred years been mis-folded and several have been torn (in at least one case with small loss, but for the most part neatly repaired); p. 97 has a faded ink scribble and the rear hinge has been re-inforced with archival tape. Nevertheless, a complete work which documents early railway tourist travel in Ireland and gives an insight into middle-class life at mid-century. An earlier traveler has noted in pencil ‘Good’ against the notice published for the Imperial Hotel, Cork, whose ‘omnibuses attend the arrival and departure of every train’ and where ‘hot, cold, and shower baths [are] always ready’.
Price:
340.00 USD
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10 |
Barnum, P. T. Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum
Hartford, J. B. Burr, 1869. First edition (xxiv, 780), thirty-two full-page illustrations in B & W. The first appearance of Barnum’s effusions which persisted in one edition or another for twenty years. Tall octavo, in leather (rebacked in Japanese paper), new endpapers, gilt titles to spine. Barnum’s account of a gaudy life, one in which opportunism and philanthropy were prepared in the same dish, suggests Mark Twain did not have to invent tall tales-- they were being lived all around. Some off-setting from the engravings, absent frontispiece, occasional foxing, but a perfectly respectable copy.
Price:
85.00 USD
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11 |
Carpenter, John and Rue Carpenter Improving Songs for Anxious Children
New York: Schirmer, 1913. Large format with 17 illustrated songs, words and music (“Alas, I am a heavy child...,” “What’s the use of practising for little boys like me?” and other similar ditties of a less than uplifting tenor). In bright yellow, decorated paper-covered boards (worn edges and slightly faded). An unusual and hard to find book.
Price:
85.00 USD
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12 |
Collins, Arthur The Peerage of England; Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of All the Peers of that Kingdom Their Paternal Coats of Arms, Crests, Supporters and Mottoes, Curiously engraved on 200 Copper-Plates.
London: H. Woodfall et al., 1768. Fourth edition, in seven volumes (pp. 427, index; 487, index; 493, index; 411, index; 499, index; 633, index; 655). Tall octavo (21 cm) original bindings in full calf, with various coats of arms and related symbols in quite fine copper-plate engravings; the complete text generally clean and tidy. Collins (1682?- 1760) was at once author, editor, publisher, and bookseller who produced a number of what today might be called ‘royalty’ books. A relatively early edition of a work begun in 1709- 12; there were many subsequent (one 19th century edition, a continuation by Brydges, ran to nine volumes and 5000 words). This social register was perhaps indicative of the nobility’s sense of secure privilege in the scheme of things-- it was a list on which one wanted to be found, and is still useful for genealogical searches. Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage is a late-comer, the first edition having appeared in 1769. Offered here as an excellent candidate for sympathetic rebinding: the text is clean and complete, including the many engravings; the original rather plain calf bindings are missing several boards-- the remainder are loose, the hinges having worn through. A very few nineteenth century copies, decently bound, of what one book-seller calls a ‘frustratingly scarce set’ are available at around 2000 USD. As is.
Price:
450.00 USD
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14 |
Davidson, Joe Amelia Earhart Returns from Saipan
Canton (Ohio): Davidson, 1969. First edition. A rambling account of a post-war search for the remains of Amelia Earhart on Saipan, where, it was claimed, she had been held prisoner by the Japanese. While there were ample remains on Saipan, it is uncertain any were Earhart’s (or her navigator’s, Fred Noonan). In faded blue cloth, absent Dj.
Price:
20.00 USD
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15 |
Eustachio, Bartolomeo Le Tavole Anatomiche de Bartolomeo Eustachio.
Roma: Bottega dell’ antiquario, 1944. Private subscription of 1000 copies of which this is #995. Introduction by Adalberto Pazzini, 47 anatomical drawings by Eustachio (1520- 1574) with commentary and bibliography. Quarto (24 cm x 34 cm) in paper covered boards with illustrative front cover. Spine faded with some minor breaks, tips worn, previous owner’s neat signature on an otherwise clean, tight copy. An attractive and scarce book.
Price:
175.00 USD
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16 |
Fowler, O.S. and L. N. Fowler The Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology
New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1855. Signed presentation copy of first edition. Four-page hand-written note bound in (unattributed). One hundred engravings and a Chart of the Character. Publisher’s brown cloth with gilt and impressed lettering, decoration. Some gilt on front cover worn away, edge and corner wear. Soiled end papers on which Master David Muir practised his signature. Nevertheless, a good tight copy.
Price:
200.00 USD
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17 |
Fuchida, Mitsuo and Masatake Okumiya. Midway, the Battle that Doomed Japan
Annapolis: Naval Institute, 1957. Fourth edition (pp. xxiv, 266, index), SIGNED by each author, a presentation to noted naval historian Ken Macpherson. Large octavo (23.5 cm) in red publisher’s cloth, yellow titles. Absent any dust jacket, epps mildly stained; otherwise a clean, bright copy. Signed copies are uncommon.
Price:
150.00 USD
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18 |
Harrison, George Henry [G. H. De S. N. Plantagenet-Harrison] The History of Yorkshire: Volume I, the Wapentake of Gilling West.
London and Aylesbury: the Author, 1885. Second edition, dedicated to Sir Henry De Burgh-Lawson, Bt. (pp. frontis, xiii, [16], 576, index of places, index of names). Large folio (45 cm) in three-quarter brown faux leather cloth over textured maroon cloth, gilt decoration and new gilt title on label, marbled edges; frontis portrait of Harrison in ambassador’s uniform (probably Peruvian); fifty-eight views, illustrations, and approximately two hundred pedigrees including, for example, those of Queen Victoria and George Washington. The backstrip at some point replaced with stout but unappealing cloth; frontis was found loosely inserted and is now neatly tipped in (It is a few cm. shorter and may originate with the first edition or may have been trimmed); several minor nicks and chips remain; rear endpaper replaced. George Henry Harrison, the author of The History of Yorkshire: Volume I, the Wapentake of Gilling West is reliably reported as having been born in 1817 at Whashton, Kirby Ravensworth, in the North Riding, Yorkshire. He died in 1890. Beyond that, however, there is mostly speculation and, shall we say, invention. Most of it comes from Harrison himself but some of it comes from others who probably should have known better. For example, the National Archives Catalogue refers to him as ‘General G H de M Plantagenet-Harrison’ and inserts a knowing sic in square brackets, indicative of the cataloguer’s skepticism about the military title. Harrison’s real name, it is claimed, was “James Phillippe, a genealogist,” who “around 1830... began to research the families of Richmondshire.” While it is conceivable that Harrison (or Phillippe) began work on his monumental history of Yorkshire in his early teens (He was thirteen in 1830), it is more likely the cataloguer has condescendingly grasped the wrong end of the stick, for the London Gazette (29 October 1867) reports “George Henry De Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet Harrison, carrying on business as a Genealogist and Herald... in the name of James Phillippe” at various addresses in Middlesex has been “adjudged bankrupt.” Moreover, there is a record showing a George Henry Harrison, one of six children born to Margaret Hutchison (1787- 1864) and Marley Harrison (1772- 1822) of Whashton, Yorkshire in 1817. ‘James Phillippe’ almost certainly is the pseudonym and not the other way about. Harrison did little to clarify matters, however, nor was he overly modest in his claims to distinction and accomplishment. At the outset of his History of Yorkshire, he styles himself “Prince of Plantagenet- Skioldungr, Duke of Lancaster, Normandy, Aquitaine and Scandinavia, Count of Anjou, Maine, Guienne, Poictou, Earl of Lancaster, Chester, Richmond, and Kent” and so on for the better part of a full page. His military resume includes service as a general officer in Mexico during the war of the Yucatan (1843), with the army of Peru (1844), and in Argentina at Corrientes with General Jose Maria Paz and the Army of God and Liberty (1845); in Europe, in the revolutionary year 1848, Harrison claims to have served as General of Cavalry in the Danish army and, later in the same year, as Lt.- General of the German confederation. He ended his military career in 1853, he says, as a Marshal in the Turkish army. It’s not all that easy to know what to make of Harrison. One commentator in Notes and Queries (15 March 1930) simply dismisses him as “a pedigree forger of the worst and most unscrupulous type” and that is hardly surprising given that his own fabulous family pedigree, included in the History, traces his origins back through history and pre-history to the Norse god Odin. But surely this is fantasy, not forgery. It has about it the comic lunacy of a Monty Python sketch. On the other hand, Nancy McLaughlin, reviewing Harrison’s History for genealogy aficionados, seems to accept Harrison’s claims to military eminence. She writes, perhaps thinking of her readers, many of whom may have taken to genealogical research in their retirement, “By the 1850’s he had evidently concluded a most successful and adventurous army career, and had returned to England to devote himself to the study of genealogy.” And it happens that Harrison really was present at Corrientes, Argentina, and did meet with General Paz who remarks in his Memorias postumas that in the second fighting season at Corrientes he was introduced to the “celebrated English general Plantagenet Harrison” who it was said possessed great wealth and whose support was “worth an army”. However, shortly after their first meeting, Paz says, “I suggested a trip to Rio de Janeiro, in order to procure weapons, and used the occasion to get rid of him.” General Paz says that it took but a few words from Harrison to convince him the famous English officer was, in a Spanish phrase which needs no translation, “un maldito estupido.” There’s a good chance, too, that Harrison actually turned up in the Yucatan during the uprising in 1843 and a year or so later in Peru where he commissioned a portrait of himself decked out in the uniform of an ambassador (probably Peruvian), but his part in the South American civil wars and later in revolutionary Europe surely was one meant to be played by Groucho Marx and not George C. Scott. A glance at the ambassadorial portrait which serves as the frontispiece to his History seems conclusive. In the early 1850’s Harrison returned to England (triumphantly, he must have thought ), presented himself at the library of the British Museum, and applied for a reader’s card in the name of the Duke of Lancaster. Accounts of what happened next differ somewhat. Modern English Biography (Boase) states Harrison was “banned” from the library; elsewhere it is suggested he was offered reader’s services as plain Mr. Harrison, pace the ducal title (or, we won’t ask and you won’t tell). In any event, Harrison adjourned at once to the Public Records Office as a far more interesting source of raw material and over the next thirty years produced an extraordinary study of land tenure, translating and collating antique documents (“charters, rolls, fines, feoffments, inquisitions post mortem, deeds, books of the Exchequer”) long ago squirreled away and lying dormant in the PRO. Harrison’s researches into Yorkshire real estate, amounting to some thirty hand-written volumes, fully indexed, were the source of his projected six volume History of Yorkshire, only the first of which was completed for publication and is the book offered here. While “questions have been asked” about Harrison’s pedigrees, his research into property transfer and ownership, together with tracing the attached families, has apparent merit. (After his death in 1890, his daughter Blanche offered the complete Ms collection to the PRO which bought a select dozen volumes for few hundred pounds. In 1892 Blanche Plantagenet-Harrison married John Routh, MA, of Clints House, Gayle, Yorkshire. It was recorded that shortly thereafter, Mr. Routh claimed “jure matris [through his mother] the ancient Barony of Swivington, dormant since the reign of Edward III.” It must have been catching.) A clean, sound copy of quite an extraordinary book.
Price:
595.00 USD
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