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LIST 216 - RECENT ACQUISITIONS.
21 CADET DE VAUX, Antonio Alexis. Essai Historique sur les Lieux et les Dangers des Sépultures & des inhumations dans les villes & dans les églises, par Mr. Cadet de Vaux, Inspecteur-Général des objets de salubrité, de plusieurs Académies, Censeur Royal, &c. &c. A Paris, chez la Veuve Valade, Imprimeur-Libraire, rue des Noyers, vis-a-vis Saint-Yves. 1785.£ 450
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 20; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; stitched as issued in contemporary wraps, lightly foxed and dust-soiled, with ownership signature at head of inner front wrapper; a desirable item.
Rare first edition of this treatise by the renowned French chemist and philanthropist Antonio Cadet de Vaux, on the dangers of burial sites in towns and churches.
Cadet de Vaux opens: “The dangers of tombs in churches, or in cemeteries placed at the heart of towns, has long excited the zeal of several famous doctors. Nonetheless, the abuse continues”. He discusses the traditional reasons for burials in occupied areas, and the history of the regulations surrounding the practice, before describing some of the dangers associated with burial in confined spaces. One instance he reports is the case of 149 mourners out of 170 who were the victim of a putrid fever after attending a burial at Saulieu in Burgundy, while he also notes the deaths of 15 people after the burial of a village squire near Nantes.
Following Vicq-d’Azir, Cadet de Vaux cites a number of authors who had raged against the practice of burial in churches, including Voltaire (in Babouc and elsewhere), and Haguenot.
Cadet de Vaux (1743-1828) wrote on many subjects, but was especially interested in public health and sanitation. Other works include a guide to minimising the squalour of dwellings after flooding, and a study of the benefits and preparation of gelatin for the use of the sick and the poor. With Parmentier, he founded the École de Boulangerie in 1780.
Not in OCLC.
Unrecorded - A Quixotic and Rabelaisian Satire
22 [CERVANTES & RABELAIS]. Lettre de Monsieur **** a Monsieur Tirtea Fuera, Docteur en Medecine, resident dans l’Isle Barataria. A Barataria [Avignon?], De l’Imprimerie de S.A., 1722.£ 1,500
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 15; lightly foxed and dust-soiled throughout, two small holes on final leaf just affecting five letters, not impeding legibility; recent marbled boards.
First, and as far as we are aware only edition of this ‘medical’ letter to the doctor of the the fictional island of Barataria, a Rabelaisian play on the world of learning, libraries, and academies. Full of neologisms, such as hipotipose, discertationiste caffard, rebartif, papolastre, the anonymous author praises the science and medical knowledge of Tirtea Fuera with the entire arsenal of overblown rhetoric, oblique metaphors and distortions of the laudatory prose commonly used in academic circles. Much panegyric praise is heaped on the doctor for dealing with the plague on the island of Barataria (indeed, there was an outbreak of plague in the South of France in 1720/21), and the author wishes him a very generous pension, longevity, and writes that the doctor was lucky not to lose his senses during the dangers of the plague, and not to have fallen under the spell of the ‘tyrannic powers of Rabelais’ disciples’ (p. 15).
Tirtea-Fuera was initially in Don Quixote the place the doctor Pero Perez was from; however, with time that word became the name itself of the legendary doctor. Barataria, a non-existent island, was awarded by some noblemen to Sancho Panza as a prank in Cervantes’ Don Quixote (from the Spanish word barato, cheap).
As Avignon is once mentioned in the text, we assume that this academic parody refers to that university and was published there. A couple of ‘serious’ books were printed in Avignon, dealing with the plague outbreak of the early 1720s.
Not in OCLC, COPAC, KVK, Barbier or any other catalogue or database consulted.
Bizkaïens, ecoutez-moi!
23 CHAHO, Joseph Augustin. Paroles d’un Bizkaïen. aux libéraux de la reine Christine. Paris, Librairie Orientale de Prosper Dondey-Dupré, 1834.£ 400
FIRST EDITION, Presentation Copy. 8vo, pp. [4], iv, 35; evenly browned or brown spotted due to paper stock; otherwise clean and uncut with wide margins in the original publisher’s green printed wrappers with wood engraving and ornamental border on front cover; signature of the author on title-verso.
Very rare and early plea for Basque separatism, and an attack on the central governments.
‘A French Basque from Soule, Chaho was a progressive in his general views but had defended what he interpreted to be the basic motivations of Basque Carlism. In his booklet Paroles d’un Bizkaien aux libéraux de la Reine Christine and then in his Voyage en Navarre pendant l’ insurrection des Basques (1837), Chaho posited a common identity among all the Basques—on both sides of the Pyrenees—and interpreted support for Carlism as based on the defense of Basque liberties, which he deemed the freest, most egalitarian and well-structured constitutional system in the world. He concluded that the political problem of the Basque region would never be solved unless the Basques were fully allowed to affirm their separate identity’ (Stanley G. Payne, “Sabino Arana and the Creation of the Basque Nationalist Movement”, in: Basque Studies Program Newsletter Issue 13, 1975).
Chaho (1811-1858) was a journalist, who founded the first exclusively Basque periodical, Uskal-herriko Gaseta and exerted considerable influence on Sabino Arana Goiri, who was born almost half a century after Chaho and is generally considered the Father of Basque Nationalism. In 1848 Chaho proclaimed the Republic of Bayonne, and campaigned in the National Assembly for universal suffrage. After Napoleon’s rise to power he was silenced and at times under house arrest.
Not in OCLC.
24 CHERADAME, Félix. Le Wisth (aux tricks doubles) ramené a ses véritables principes. Méthode pour l’apprendre en peu de temps et pour le jouer avec succès … Bruxelles, Librairie Encyclopédique de Perichon, 1849.£ 285
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. vi, 7-36, 18 advertisements, with separate 8 page advertising brochure stitched in at end; spotting and foxing throughout; in the original printed yellow wrappers; some wear and loss to spine, and wraps soiled.
First edition of this uncommon guide to whist, “reduced to its true principles”.
“This little work, if it is destined to make any noise in the world of serious players, will owe its reputation less to the author’s merit than to the violence of the criticisms of which he expects to be the object.
In fact, the author has just completely reversed the old system of the game of whist, in order to substitute a new one, more in tune with the true principles of the game (as we hope to show).
We are particularly keen to teach the game in a short time (in some sort of mechanical manner), a reasonable and desirable aim even when it is impossible to hope to achieve it amidst the chaos of books on the subject, of all types and at all prices…” (Avis de l’auteur).
OCLC records one copy in North America, at Nevada.
25 [CLARKE, Mary Ann]. The Magical note, and its consequences, which set the country in an uproar; Displaced a Great Man; and placed many little ones on the stool of repentance. !!!!! London, W. & J. Orme, 1809.£ 1,250
Square 12mo, interleaved and bound as small 8vo, pp. 15, [1] (incl. title), with nine coloured engravings; interleaved throughout with many blanks, some offsetting of plates, but still a clean and crisp copy; bound in contemporary calf, spine lettered and tooled in gilt, boards ruled in gilt, lightly rubbed, but not detracting from this being a handsome and appealing copy with the later armorial bookplate of MacGregor of MacGregor on front paste-down.
Scarce little book of satirical verses and caricatures lampooning a famous sexual, financial and economic scandal of the regency period, Mary Anne Clarke’s (1776-1852) relationship with Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany and commander-in-chief of the army.
In 1809, when it was discovered that she had been receiving payments for promising to influence the Duke of York on matters of military promotion, a flurry of pamphlets was published and the ex-mistress threatened to publish her own memoirs, together with incriminating letters, which was suppressed against a substantial payment and life annuity. Her life provided the basis for a novel, Mary Anne (1954), by her descendant Daphne Du Maurier.
This is the second edition, published in the same year as the first. Both editions are rare.
We can find no copies of the second edition recorded, however, OCLC locates two copies of the first edition, at University of Illinois and UCLA, and one copy of the third edition of 1810; COPAC lists one copy of the first edition in Guildhall Library and two copies of the third edition in the V&A and in Oxford.
26 COMAZZI, Giovanni Battista. La Morale dei Principi osservata nell’istoria di tutti gl’Imeradori, che regnarono in Roma. Vienna, Matthias Sischowitz, 1689.£ 550
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [x], 484, [2], woodcut tailpieces in the text; some spotting throughout, half-title with old repair to outer margin; however, crisp in Italian half vellum over mottled boards of the beginning of the 19th century, spine highly ornamented in gilt, two contrasting morocco lettering-pieces on spine; a little spotted and rubbed; from the collections of Carlo Piazza and Bruno Brunello, with their stamps on half-title and title.
First edition of this uncommon and cynical political work, printed in Austria. Put on the Index in 1716, alongside other titles by Giovanni Comazzi, this moral history of Roman Emperors gives examples of moral and immoral actions of the Principe which are sharply analyzed and interpreted from a very enlightened point of view, which certainly discomforted the authorities. For example, Comazzi’s reflections on signing a death warrant: ‘To sign a death warrant is an act of justice, signing it malevolently is a human act. These two qualities are the essential constituents of the Prince, in such a way, that if justice is lacking he is a woman, and if he lacking humanity, he is a beast. In either case the Prince is a monster, and not a Prince’ (translated from p. 88).
Another acerbic morale - very Machiavellian in tone - is in the chapter on Emperor Commodus: ‘The Prince, who wants to be a devil needs saintly ministers, because they do not serve him with love, but with fidelity’ (p. 258). An even more scandalous ‘moral’ comments the young Emperor’s indulgence with 13 girls and 13 boys he held in his palace, with the laconic remark, that ‘he sinned to be Prince, in the belief he shared with the common people, that the good fortune of the Prince consists in committing sins with impunity’ (p. 256).
Despite - or because of - the book’s place on the Papal Index, it enjoyed popularity and was in demand, as there were many editions in the original Italian up to 1810, and translations into German, English and French in the 18th century. The English translation, dedicated to the Duke of Bedford in 1729 makes the political stance clear by adding a motto to the title-page: Regis ad exemplum.
OCLC locates only one copy, in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
Why are Roman women so much better than Roman men?
27 [D’AMBROSIO, Gabriello]. Perchè in Roma le Donne sono più belle, più attive e più perspicaci degli uomini? Memoria de G.d’A. Pesaro, coi tipi di Annesio Nobili. 1825.£ 185
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 36, [2]; minor light foxing in places, otherwise clean throughout; with stamp to verso of front free endpaper; uncut in the original publisher’s printed wraps, rodent damage to upper corner (also affecting front free endpaper, but with no loss of text), spine rather chipped and some chipping to extremities, nevertheless still a good copy of this entertaining work.
First edition of this unusual pamphlet speculating on the reasons for the seeming superiority of the women of Rome over the city’s men.
Observing that the first impression that will hit anyone in Rome is that of the beauty of the women, compared with that of the men, the anonymous author, by whom we did not find any other title, after anatomical and physiognomic observations, deals with nutrition, exercise and costume of the modern Romans, in which he sees the cause of the praiseworthiness of the women of the city.
OCLC records just two copies, at New York Public Library and in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
28 DANDOLO, Count Tullio. Storia del Pensiero nei tempi moderni. Il secolo decimosettimo studii … Vol I [-IV]. Milano, per Gaetano Schiepatti, 1864.£ 450
FIRST EDITION. Four volumes, 8vo, pp. 351, [1] blank; 350; 474; 343, [1] blank; some dampstaining in places, paper repair to last few leaves of final volume, and lower wrapper of same, with loss of a few letters of index; dustsoiling, usually light, throughout; largely unopened in the original printed wrappers; split to spine of volume 3, repair to lower cover of volume 4, spines worn; preserved in cloth box.
First edition of this comprehensive study of seventeenth century thought, by the Italian philosopher, politician, and translator Tullio Dandolo (1801-1870).
Dandolo, who is best known for his I secoli dei due sommi italiani Dante e Colombo (1856), here presents a survey of all aspects of seventeenth century thought, covering historiography and political theory, literature and art, and philosophy, in Italy and in western Europe. Among the people and subjects discussed are Sarpi, the Thirty Years War, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, the last Stuart kings, Newton, Leibniz, the Jesuits, Bayle, Molière, famous women, French archaeology, Italian painting, Jansenism, and Vico.
Dandolo was the author and translator of many works, including the first translation into Italian of Lavoisier’s Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, and several studies of the topography, history, and culture of Switzerland.
OCLC records three copies, at Cambridge, Chicago, and the Newberry Library.
29 [DMITRIEV, D. N.]. Prikliucheniia Molodago Medvedia [cover title]. [Tipografiia F. K, Ioganson, 1889.£ 350
Small 4to, pp. 8, with five chromolithographic plates; text a little browned, light spotting in places only; chromolithographic front wrapper (rear wrapper missing), wire-stitched as issued; a little spotted; contemporary ownership inscription in ink of one Zdenka on verso of the first plate.
A beautifully illustrated children’s book with The Adventures of a Young Bear written in rhyming verses. The story line is a typical Russian one: a young dancing bear escapes his master, steals apples from a street vendor, breaks into an upper-class house where he creates havoc, drinking wine whilst standing on the white tablecloth of a finely laid table, is chased downstairs by a maid who puts a hot iron on to his bottom; and finally the bear keeper is waiting to collect his property and put it back into serfdom.
We were unable to trace any other copy.
With a poem by Voltaire
30 [DU BOCCAGE, Marie Anne Fiquet]. Componimenti Recitati nell’adunanza d’Arcadia in lode dell’ Inclita, ed Erudita Madama du Boccage Celebre Poetessa Francese detta fra gli Arcadi Doriclea Parteniate. In Roma, per Giovanni Generoso Salomoni. 1758.£ 285
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 42, [2] blank; title with minor dust-soiling, stain visible throughout, mainly light, but more evident in places; in recent mottled boards.
First edition of this collection of poems recited at the induction into the Arcadi of the French writer and artistic patron Marie Anne Fiquet du Boccage.
Madame Du Boccage ran a distinguished salon in Paris, frequented by, among others, her friends Voltaire and Fontenelle. ‘Forma Venus, arte Minerva’, or so tagged by her admirers, Madame Du Boccage had been awarded a prize for her first poem and the publication of La Colombiade helped her to become acadamician to numerous institutions, most importantly the L’Academie des Arcades in Rome. The present volume includes poems by Gioacchini Pizzi, Giacinta Orsini Ludovisi, Antonio Gaspari, Pietro Chiari, and Voltaire, among others.
ICCU records just one copy, at the Biblioteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio - Bologna; not in OCLC.
31 ETTORRI [sometimes ETTORI], Camillo. Il buon gusto ne’ componimenti rettorici, … Nella quale con alcune certe considerationi si mostra in che consista il vero buon gusto ne’suddetti componimenti. Profittevole a chiunque brama riuscire saviamente popolare. In verso, in prosa, predicatore, accademico, segretario, maestro, &c. Bologna, Eredi del Sarti, 1696.£ 1,200
FIRST EDITION. Tall small 8vo, pp. [xxiv], 690 (recte 694); faint old collector’s stamp on title, very light brown-spotting in places; clean and fresh in contemporary Italian vellum with raised bands, spine lettered in ink; a few wormholes to spine.
Rare first edition of Camillo Ettorri’s work, in which he outlines a theory of poetry and literature shifting closer to trans-Alpine rationalism, clarity, marking the slow turn from Baroque style to Neo-Classicism, and re-evaluates Petrarch and Dante.
In the preface the Jesuit Ettorri (died 1700) defines good taste (buon gusto) in analogy with its original gastronomic meaning, as something equivalent to ‘discerning’ based on experience and and a highly developed sensitivity for the components of food and their interaction. The aim of good taste in writing is to perfect nature, without destroying it (chapter 8), to apply dialectics to rhetoric, and in this discipline to dominate the argument and not to be dominated by it. Ettorri covers all fields of the composition of the spoken, written and printed word, from private letters to academic debates, from panegyric poetry to prose and historiography. It was Ettorri’s book that made ‘taste’ an important notion in Italian aesthetics (see Taste in the History of Aesthetics, online under http://etext.virginia.edu).
Sommervogel III, col. 480; not in OCLC, or COPAC; KVK gives only Italian locations.
32 [EXHIBITIONS]. [JURY DOCUMENTS]. Expositions Universelles. Paris, 1867 and 1878.. £ 2,250
50 batches of documents or documents in various formats, illustrated, plans, drawings, sketches and engravings
Important collection of original documents, both manuscript and printed, on individuals and inventions submitted to the second and third Exposition Universelle at Paris in 1867 and 1878.
The archive contains documents submitted to the jury by exhibitors as part of the award for prizes. The subjects covered include trams, trains, wagons, the railways (including mountain), locomotives, installation and maintenance of the track.
The archive is formed of three distinct sections:
A) 1867 Exhibition: different cranes designed by French companies. Workshops and foundry Varigney: preparation of the crane wheel and his carriage, several drawings in colour and correspondence with the organisers of the exhibition, other handling equipment described by different Constructors.
B) Exhibition of 1878: including 24 pp hand-written ‘note on the mountain railways and in particular on ways to Crémailère (Signed) 1878 Paris Inspector Picard. Railways and locomotives. Austria (Wagon for transportation of beer, a new heater for the carriage), notice on items sent to the exhibition. Also four brochures (bilingual) on track design. With numerous sketches; Hungary, notices on design and accessories including a 3-axle coupled locomotive.
C) Exhibition of 1878: various inventions including: Swedish report on the deliberations and decisions on trams in England (also English and printed notes ms. with the French Committee). Statistical Report on the railways in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland. Many print and hand-written notes. Jury commenting British inventions. Several examples of completed questionnaires submitted to the exhibitors by the jury.
Several projects also describe French reforms of laying track railway, water injection into boilers and railway lantern design. Also included is a Memoir on railway equipment presented at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876 (brochure in English and summary manuscript in French).
Monarchy, republicanism, and socialism
33 FONTANA, Bartolommeo. Del Principe nelle Dottrine Politiche del nostro tempo. Firenze Roma Torino, Fratelli Bocca Librai Ediori, 1883.£ 385
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [vii], [i] blank, 160; some spotting and foxing throughout; uncut in the original printed wrappers, bound in recent maroon half calf over marbled boards, with spine ruled and lettered in gilt.
Rare first edition of this study of the role of the prince according to modern political thought.
Obviously drawing heavily on the work of Macchiavelli, the work is divided into four parts. In the first, Fontana presents his thesis, examining the various political needs of the late nineteenth century, and the solutions proposed by communists, legalists, socialists and nihilists. He then goes on to discuss the best form of government, the nature of supreme authority, and Macchiavelli’s Il Principe, both on its own and seen in the light of the work of Vico and Dante.
In the third part, Fontana discusses the philosophy of history, while in the fourth, he examines practical matters, including whether a republic is preferable to a principality, the abolition of property rights, and the urgent reforms he sees as necessary.
We have been unable to find any information about the author.
OCLC: 78511200 records just one copy, at Harvard.
34 [FRENCH REVOLUTION]. Wörterbuch der französischen Revolutions-Sprache. [n.p., Nürnberg?], 1799.£ 385
FIRST EDITION? 8vo, pp. 16; some light foxing throughout; disbound.
Uncommon satirical glossary of the French revolution for German speakers, in which the anonymous author translates the new language of revolutionary France for less radical ears, so that, for example, the muséum national is explained as a highwayman’s lair (Räuberhöhle).
A work with the same title appeared in 1792, but with some 45 pages; it is unclear if it is the same work.
OCLC records copies at Göttingen, Munich, Tubingen, and Freiburg,
Probability at work and play - from annuities to whist
35 GAUTHIER D’HAUTESERVE, M. Traité Élémentaire sure les Probabilités; Paris, Bachelier 1834.£ 550
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. iv, 120; some spotting and foxing throughout, with one small wormhole throughout, occasionally with partial loss of letter; in later brown calf-backed boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt.
First edition of this uncommon treatise on probability, by the French mathematician and politician Gauthier d’Hauteserve.
Dividing his work into four parts, Gauthier first examines the principles underlying the calculus of probabilities, and discusses the work of other mathematicians, including the St Petersburg problem illustrated by Bernoulli, before proposing a number of solutions to various problems concerned with probability. He then examines the application of the theory of probability to questions concerning annuities, depreciation, and interest, while the final chapter gives a series of examples of the ways in which probability works in the game of whist.
OCLC records copies at Toronto, Chicago, Michigan, Nevada, and Brown.
Probabilism and its Revocation
36 GHEZZI, Niccolò. De’ Principi della Morale Filosofia, Riscontrati co’ principi della Cattalica Religione Libri Tre, di Nicolò Ghezzi, della Compagnia di Gesu. Tomo Primo, che abbraccia il Libro Primo, e la Parte Prima del Libro Secondo. In Milano, nel Regio Ducal Palazzo, 1752.
[bound with:] [GHEZZI]. [drop-head title:] Dichiarazione con cui il P. Niccolo’ Ghezzi … Ritratta per ordine della Sacra Congregazione dell’ Indice alcune propozioni del suo Libro intitolato I PRINCIPI DELLA MORALE FILOSOFIA. [In Bologna, per Girolamo Corciolani … 1754].£ 1,250
FIRST EDITIONS. Two volumes, 4to, pp. [iv], xxviii, 701, [3], [1] errata, [1] blank; [viii], 705-1014, [2], [1] errata, [1] blank; [8]; paper flaw to Ttttt2-Ttttt3 with loss of several letters, but no loss of sentence gist, otherwise apart from some minor light foxing, a clean copy throughout, second work rather foxed, due to paper stock; in contemporary vellum, spines titled in ink, lightly dust-soiled, but not detracting from this being a handsome and very appealing copy.
First edition of this rare study of probabilism, by the Como Jesuit Niccolo Ghezzi (1683-1766), in which the question of whether in moral questions one should rather follow a doctrine approved by the Church, or whether the probability of circumstances, opinions and experience should be the guide is discussed, touching many related philosophical and theological matters.
The 16th-century Spanish theologian Bartolomé de Medina had put forward the doctrine, that following the teachings of an approved authority has to be the preferred guideline for moral decisions, dismissing all other, however evident, ‘probabilities,’ a view supported by many Jesuits and attacked by Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales. Ghezzi, highly esteemed by his fellow Jesuits for his erudition and scientific curiosity, defends probablistic views, which were criticized by the Holy Congregation, who threatened to put the work on the Index, unless he had the apology and revocation printed, which is here bound in at the end. Ghezzi was forced to correct his objectionable teachings in numbered paragraphs referring to 12 passages in his book.
OCLC locates one copy of the main work, at University of Toronto, and no copy of the Dichiarazione, of which ICCU locates only two copies, in Viterbo and in Rome.
37 [GIBBON & VOLTAIRE]. Aventure que M. de Voltaire eut avec Gibbon l’Historien, dans le grand Berceau de Charmille, a Ferney, en 1776. Geneve, Imprimerie E. Pelletier, rue du Rhone, 64. [n.d., c. 1840].£ 125
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 4; spotted, dust-soiled and with minor light stains, first page with a wax seal at foot; unbound, as issued.
This slender publication tells one encounter between Voltaire and Gibbon, which included many proofs of Voltaire’s irascibility and Gibbon’s disdain for the philosopher. After his spectacular conversion to Roman Catholicism, Gibbon moved to Lausanne, in order to study the complex politics of Switzerland, taking up residence in 1753. ‘Gibbon later said that as a young man he had ‘rated [Voltaire] above his real magnitude.’ Certainly in the later volumes of the Decline and Fall he permits himself some sharp asides at Voltaire’s expense. Nevertheless, the Frenchman’s influence is palpable in the first volume of the history, and it is not difficult to imagine the young Englishman being inspired, not by Voltaire’s scandalous philosophy, to be sure, but rather by the way in which Voltaire embodied literary celebrity’ (Oxford DNB).
OCLC records just one copy only, at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
38 GODWIN, William. Les Choses Comme Elles Sont, ou les Aventures de Caleb Williams … Tome Premier [-Troisieme]. A Lausanne, chez Hignou et Compe. Imp. Lib. Aux depends de l’Auteur. 1796.£ 850
FIRST EDITION PUBLISHED IN SWITZERLAND. Three volumes, 12mo, pp. xxii, 276; [ii], 334; [ii], 332; a clean fresh copy throughout with only a few minor marks; in contemporary half calf over sprinkled boards, spines ruled in gilt with contrasting blue and red labels lettered and numbered in gilt, light rubbing to extremities, but not detracting from this being a handsome and highly desirable copy.
Scarce first Swiss printing of Godwin’s masterpiece, part political propagandist novel, part gothic thriller. It was enormously influential both in Britain and on the Continent, where many editions were published in a number of different languages.
Tompkins describes Caleb Williams as ‘the first and finest example of [Godwin’s] brooding dissection of morbid mental states [which] excited enthusiasm in a generation which had begun to hanker for the abnormal and the complex’ (Tompkins, The Popular Novel in England 1770-1800, p. 179).
The anonymous translator (“des gens de la campagne”, according to the title page) notes in his preface that “Les livres sont une production de l’esprit humain qui peut très-bien faire juger de l’état moral et politique d’une nation”, and places Godwin’s novel in the intellectual context of the time, in particular noting the influence of Montesquieu and Rousseau (who didn’t “inventés les droits du peuple … [but] a seulement averti qu’ils existoient”), as well as observing the importance of English women writers (“Mesdames Brook, Burney, Inchbald, Rattclif ont remplacé Fielding et Richardson”); the preface goes on to explain the themes of Caleb Williams.
The first French translation, by Garnier, was made from the second English edition, 1796. The preface to the present edition notes that the first volume had already been printed when another translation appeared in Paris; while the translator’s first instinct was to suspend production, he then decided that the novel was of such a quality and importance that it could easily support two translations.
OCLC records copies at the International Institute of Social History, the Swiss National Library, Kansas, the New York Public Library, and Munich.
With many letters to Noblewomen
39 GONZAGA, Archbishop, and Guglielmo PAGNINO [editor]. Lettere a’ prencipi dell’abbate Pagnino, scritte per Monsig. Arcivescouo Gonzaga, & altri. Con l’aggiunta della Piaceuoli. In Roma, Per Giacomo Dragondelli, 1658.£ 350
FIRST EDITION. Small 4to, pp. [viii], 380; pp. 327/8 with paperflaw, not affecting legibility, apart from a few minor marks, a clean, fresh copy throughout; contemporary vellum, spine titled in ink, vellum lightly marked and dust-soiled, but not detracting from this being a handsome and appealing copy; two ownership inscriptions to front paste-down and fly-leaf, one dated Rome, 1671, the other 1801.
Dedicated to Carlo Leopoldo di Lorena, by Abbot Pagnino, who is known to have published two volumes of poetry and a few books on ecclesiastical history and philosophy, this work contains letters by the Archbishop Gonzaga, member of the powerful Mantuan dynasty, who were related to many a ruling house of Europe, including two Habsburg Emperors, and with one family member, Ludwika Maria Gonzaga, who was Queen consort to two successive Polish kings.
The archbishop’s letters are addressed to members of the high nobility of Italy and Europe. Among the recipients were Eleonora Magdalena Gonzaga of Mantua-Nevers, wife of Emperor Ferdinand III (addressed as Empress), the Duchess Maria of Mantua, several cardinals, the Duchess of Urbino, the Vice-Roi of Sicily, Cardinal Borghese, Ludwika Maria Gonzaga (addressed as Queen of Poland), Giovanni Carlo de Medici and others. It is remarkable is the large number of women with whom the Archbishop corresponded.
OCLC records two copies in North America, at Michigan and the Newberry Library, with two further copies in Europe at Cambridge and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
40 GRAHAM, Charles. Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse, by Charles Graham, of Penrith in Cumberland … Kendal: Printed by W. Pennington, 1778.£ 385
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. xii, 203, [1] errata; rather grubby and browned throughout; initials ‘J.S.E’ stamped at foot of title; in contemporary sheep, head of upper board with portion of leather missing, minor rubbing to extremities, split to head of lower joint (but binding holding firm); despite faults, still a good copy.
Scarce first edition of this charming collection of provincial prose and verse, printed in Kendal.
‘Vices, not persons, are the objects of my animadversion; the virtuous have nothing to fear from my pen, and if the reigning follies of the age appear ridiculous, when impartially displayed, blame the follies and not me’ (Author’s prefece, p. vi).
With this in mind Charles Graham includes some 53 pieces, amongst which we find ‘On John Westley’s Address to the Americans’, ‘The Politician and the Moralist. A Tale’, ‘Extempore verses presented to a lady’, ‘An Essay on Fame’, ‘Ridiculous custom of the female sex exploded’ and ‘On the savage diversion of Cock-fighting’. The work concludes with the author’s ‘Thoughts on Berkley’s Principles of Human Knowledge’ in which he notes that he has ‘no particular aversion to Berkley as a man, but I look upon his essay as a piece of enthusiastic stuff not to be swallowed by any intelligent man, who possesses the proper use of his reason’ (p. 191).
ESTC records five copies in North America, at Cornell, Chicago, Michigan, Yale and the Lilly Library.
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