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LIST 216 - RECENT ACQUISITIONS.
41 [GREAT EXHIBITION]. [NEWCOMBE, Samuel Prout]. Little Henry’s Records of his Life-time … Old Eighteen-Fifty-One; A Tale for Any Day in 1852. In which a good old fellow gives a true account of himself, and makes up a remarkable year-book. London: Houlston & Stoneman … [n.d., but 1852].£ 225
FIRST EDITION. Crown 8vo, pp. vi, [7-] 114; with 16 wood engravings throughout; a good copy in contemporary blindstamped cloth, some cup rings to cloth, cloth lightly sunned.
First edition of this delightful, and rare, piece of Great-Exhibitiana, designed specifically for children. The work is set out as a “biography” of the year 1851. There is much on the Great Exhibition, the idea of progress, the projected channel tunnel, 300 animals, railways, gold in Australia, etc.
Divided into eight parts, and consisting of 20 chapters, the book is written in the form of a conversation between a father and his children. In some sense an expanded version of his Little Henry’s Holiday at the Great Exhibition published in the previous year, it is interesting to see that Newcombe reuses (and admits to doing so) his introductory material for that work, explaining the idea for the Exhibition through to its fruition. This has the disjointed effect, however, of having the conversation in the first part involving different children to that of the very first few sentences and the whole of the rest of the book. Henry and his sister Rose were instructed by Father in his Holiday, whilst children recognised as L, W and Ion are the ‘pupils’ in Fireside Facts.
The conversations themselves are, naturally, extremely instructive and very moral: they give understandable explanations and clear descriptions of the foods and clothing of all countries of the world (inspired, of course, by the Exhibition). Descriptions are also given of the most outstanding exhibits, amongst which are illustrated, the jaw of a sperm whale, the silk trophy, the statue of the Amazon, the Spanish wine jar, the Koh-I-Noor and the Russian corn trophy. Newcombe himself claims his aim to be “not only to convey in an amusing manner a mass of information, but to cultivate in the reader the powers of observation, comparison, induction, and memory, by the exercise of which the mind is trained to investigate and acquire knowledge for itself” (p. [iii]).
Not in OCLC.
‘The illiterate Stratford Street-Porter’
42 GUTHRIE, Kenneth Sylvan. Shakespeare & Bacon unmasked in outlines of Bacon’s Message to Our Times Shakespeare Unmasked With the Proof that He Could Not Write; Francis Bacon Defended & Unmasked. Baconian Lending Library List. Annual Reading Schedule of Works. Baconian Origin of Rosicrucianism. Tempest as Allegory of Bacon’s Fall. All these Articles are in Outline, and offers of Republication in full with all References will be welcomed. Price of this pamphlet, singly, 25 cents. In quantities for free distribution at cost. International Copyright. Teocalli, North Yonkers, N. Y., 1927.£ 150
8vo, pp. [16]; contemporary Estonian cloth-backed marbled boards; shelfmark gilt-stamped on front cover; Estonian Library stamps on title; lending library rules pasted inside front cover.
Mister Guthrie (1871-1940), an obscure Scottish-born Episcopalian priest, certainly had a mission: ‘A Challenge to Your Own Self-respect. Would you be satisfied to be hoaxed? No! then listen: The only people who mention authorship in connection with the illiterate Stratford street-porter and actor who began life as an immoral, poaching butcher-boy, who ended as an usurious sot who died of a drunken orgy … are those who have not yet read [follows a list of appropriate works]. Of course Bacon wrote all of Shakespeare’s works, a theory still adding to the mystique around Shakespeare.
OCLC locates copies in Berlin, the National Library of Sweden, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, Louisiana State University, New York Public Library and in the National Library of Wales.
43 HEGG, Robert. The Legend of St Cuthbert, or the Histories of his Churches at Lindisfarne, Cunecascestre, & Dunholm, by Robert Hegg 1626. Darlington, printed by George Smith. 1777.£ 385
FIRST EDITION THUS. 4to, pp. [vi], 31, [1] blank; with attractive engraved title vignette and three engraved text illustrations; lightly foxed throughout; uncut, stitched as issued and disbound; a desirable copy.
First appearance of this edition, by George Allan, of Robert Hegg’s account of the life, legends, and shrines of the great Northern Saint, Cuthbert.
The publishing history of the work covers three centuries: a first edition, which suppressed Hegg’s authorship, and is notably inaccurate, appeared in 1663, while the first edition to have been made from the author’s own manuscript did not appear until 1816. The present edition, as the editor’s note states, is “printed from a Copy of the Original written by the Author, and now remaining in the Library of Corpus Christi College Oxford”, and is distinctly more accurate than the earlier printing. The work is notable for its attractive woodcut vignettes depicting Lindisfarne and Durham, as well as Cuthbert’s coffin.
ESTC records three copies in North America, at Harvard, McGill and McMaster.
44 HELVETIUS, Claude Adrien. Le Felicita Poema in sei canti. Opera Postuma di Helvetius. Traduzione. Losanna. 1774.£ 285
FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION. 12mo, pp. 114, [6] blank; printed on blue tinted paper; a clean copy throughout; stitched as issued in contemporary floral patterned wraps, spine lightly sunned with label at foot, minor rubbing to extremities, nevertheless, still a highly desirable copy.
A beautiful copy of the first Italian edition of Le Bonheur, Helvetius’ philosophic system in verse, a system which, rewritten in prose, became De l’Esprit.
As a young man, recently appointed to the lucrative job of fermier-général, Helvetius had received much encouragement from Voltaire and had published a few philosophical épitres on the Voltairean model, the drafts of which he sent to Voltaire for comments. Helvetius talked to Voltaire about his plan to present a whole philosophic system in verse, but the publication of L’Esprit des Loix, at a time when he was frequenting Madame de Graffigny’s salon, made him consider changing the medium for the project from verse to prose. In 1751, he married Madame de Graffigny’s niece, retired to the country and set about converting the draft of his verse system, Le Bonheur into the prose of De L’Esprit, which appeared in 1758.
The first edition of Le Bonheur appeared in 1772, published by Saint-Lambert from manuscripts that Helvetius was preparing for the publication when he died in 1771.
OCLC records one copy only, at Chicago.
Marie Huber: “a man’s mind in a woman’s heart”
45 [HUBER, Marie]. Reduction du Spectateur Anglois, à ce qu’il renferme de meilleur, de plus utile et de plus agréable; avec nombre d’insertions dans le texte, des additions confidérables et quantité de notes. Par l’Auteur des XIV Lettres. Premiere Partie [-Sixieme]. A Amsterdam, chez Zacharie Chatelain & Fils. MDCCLIII [1753].£ 850
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [iv], xxiv, [iv], 228; [viii], 272; [xii], 223, [1] blank; [viii], 192; [viii], 212; [xii], 251, [1] blank; apart from some minor foxing in places, a clean, crisp copy throughout; in near uniform contemporary mottled calf, spines lettered and tooled in gilt with contrasting labels lettered in gilt, different tooling on the spine of vol. III, vol’s I & II with chipping to head and tails (with 1cm loss at foot of vol. I), nevertheless, still a very appealing copy.
First edition of this rare selection of articles from the Spectator, collected, edited, and translated by the Swiss protestant thinker Marie Huber (1695-1753).
Huber was the second of fourteen children of a patrician family, born in Geneva, but spent most of her life near Lyon. ‘Influenced by a pietist uncle, Fatio de Duillier, this accomplished Protestant maiden enthusiastically undertook to combat theological dogma with rare logic and common sense. She rejected predestination and sacraments, and favoured an inner and more personal religion fostering mysticism and direct relation with God. Advocating reason as her sole guide, she was described as having “a man’s mind in a woman’s heart” … Immanuel Kant may owe her more than is generally acknowledged. Forceful and unusually independent in her thinking, she is considered the forerunner of liberal Protestantism’ (Pascale Dewey in The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature (1999), p. 260). Her other works include Lettres sur la religion essentielle (1738; 1754) in which she opposes rigid church dogma and precedes the deism of her compatriot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
OCLC records just two copies, at Toronto and the Universitätsbibliothek Kassel.
46 HUME, David The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself. London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand. 1777.£ 950
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (with the reading “myself” on p. 29). Small 8vo, engraved frontispiece portrait of Hume, pp. [iv], iv, 62; without the final advert; minor light stain to frontispiece (not affecting the image) and also to outer margin of last page (not affecting the text), otherwise a clean copy throughout; sympathetically bound in recent half calf over marbled boards, spine ruled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt; an appealing copy.
Hume wrote his autobiography a few months before his death on 25 August 1776, intending it to be prefixed to the new edition of his works. Of greater significance is Adam Smith’s letter of 9 November 1776 in which he dwelt at length on Hume’s perfect calmness in meeting death. This gave considerable offence to many, including Johnson and Bishop Horne (the latter replied in print, casting doubt on Hume’s serenity). Smith ends his letter: ‘Upon the whole, I have always considered him both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit’.
Chuo I 84; Jessop p. 39; Todd 1777 (1); Vanderblue p. 46.
Rare French translation by Holbach
47 HUME, David. Dialogues sur la Religion Naturelle. Ouvrage Posthume de David Hume, Ecuyer. A Edimbourg, 1780.£ 1,850
FIRST FRENCH EDITION, Second Issue. 12mo, pp. [viii], 292 including errata; some gatherings lightly and evenly browned due to paper stock, final gathering with light stain just visible at head; uncut in old wraps, perhaps contemporary, recent endpapers, wraps with minor staining at head, otherwise a very good copy of this scarce translation.
Rare first French translation (by Paul Henri Thiry, baron d’Holbach) of Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, his most important posthumous publication.
He had been engaged on the work for many years, the first mention of the dialogues being in 1751; pressure from friends prevented their publication during his lifetime. In his will he left Adam Smith the job of overseeing their publication, but in a codicil he altered this to his publisher, Strahan. The task was probably finally executed by his nephew David.
Despite the imprint this first French edition is probably printed and published in Holland, which is born out in the number of copies found in Dutch libraries. The first issue appeared in 1779, the same year as the first. In the avertissement to the present translation, Holbach notes that the Inquisition, “plus habile à brûler qu’à raisonner”, viewed Hume’s work as a “persifflage impie”, but wonders if among the bookburners of Lisbon and Rome, there were not a few who would surreptitiously slip a copy of the Dialogues into their pocket, “pour le lire à la place de leur bréviaire”.
Jessop pp. 40-41; OCLC records three copies in the Netherlands, at Tilburg, Tresoar and Utrecht, one copy in Germany at Berlin, and a copy in North America, at McGill; this issue not in the National Library of Scotland; not in the Chuo catalogue.
48 HUME, David. TWO ORIGINAL STIPPLE ENGRAVED PORTRAITS OF DAVID HUME, by Torchiana. [Milano?] [c. 1815-1818].£ 385
Two plates, each size 6.8” x 4.8” (173mm x 120mm); apart from some very minor foxing, clean copies, each complete with the short printed biography.
First and second issue’s of this attractive portrait of David Hume engraved by Torchiana after G.B. Bosio, printed around 1815.
The first issue is denoted by the misspelling ‘Davide Hulme’, which is corrected on the second. The portraits seem likely to have been included as part of Serie di vite e ritratti de’ famosi personaggi degli ultimi tempi (Milano, presso batelli e Fanfani, 1815-1818). We have been unable to find further information on either Torchiana or Bosio.
49 HUME, David. Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. In Two Volumes … A New Edition. Edinburgh: Printed for Bell & Bradfute, and W. Blackwood, Edinburgh; and T. Cadell; Longman, Hurst & co … London. 1825.£ 400
New Edition Two volumes, 8vo, pp. iv, 544; vii, [i] blank, 507, [1] blank; a clean fresh copy throughout; in the original publisher’s paper backed blue boards, expertly rebacked with printed paper labels to style, corners rubbed, and boards lightly sunned, nevertheless, a very appealing set; with contemporary pencilled ownership signature in vol. I, and in ink on title of vol. II.
Uncommon Scottish edition of Hume’s Essays, which show the vast range of his writings, guided by his knowledge of human nature and history. He dealt with the fields of economics, politics, and aesthetics, history and philosophy and much that would now be termed sociology. The Essays were first published in 1753-6 and repeatedly revised until the posthumously published definitive edition of 1777, in which Hume actually repudiated his Treatise and announced his wish ‘that the following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles’.
Hume’s economic essays, which persuaded and influenced the work of his close friend Adam Smith, were of crucial importance to the development of economic analysis. The Essay on Money is one of the great brief statements of economic theory, establishing as it did the normal relationship between changes in the quantity of money, prices and activity. Hume did not discover the velocity of circulation as the equivalent of the quantity of money - for that we must look to Cantillon - but he did develop a doctrine of hoarding which Keynes recognized as the ancestor of the doctrine of liquidity performance.
The first volume of the present edition is taken up by Essays, moral, political and literary which includes all the Political Discourses, Hume’s most important contributions to economics and his essay Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations which, when first published in 1752, was a milestone in the empirical treatment of questions about population. The last volume includes An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, A Dissertation of the Passions, An Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals and The Natural History of Religion.
Chuo 22; Jessop p. 7; Fieser p. 27 (11).
50 HUNTER, John & Joseph BLACK. Two Medals I. The obverse with bust of Joseph Black to left: ‘JOSEPHUS BLACK MDCCXXIII . MDCCXCIX’, with ‘N. MACPHAIL S.C.’ on truncation. With ‘Thomas Fletcher, Summer 1915, in Physics Class (Dr. James G. Gray)’ along edge.
2. The obverse with bust of John Hunter to left: ‘JOANNES HUNTER MDCCXXVIII . MDCCXCIII’, with ‘N. MACPHAIL S.C.’ on truncation. With ‘Thomas Fletcher, Summer 1915, in Practical Botany Class (Prof Bower)’
Both with reverse: ‘IN ACADEM. GLASGUENS. FACULTATE MEDICA DISCIPULUS INGENIO AC LABORE INSIGNIS PROEMIUM HOCCE MERITO CONSECUTUS EST.’ [n.d., c. 1870].£ 225
Two fine medals of John Hunter (1728-1793) and Joseph Black (1723-1799)
We have been unable to find much further information on the Glasgow medallist N. Macphail other than that he produced two other medals in this series, of the same size, and with the same inscription on reverse, bearing respectively the busts of Drs. William Hunter (1718-1783) and William Cullen (1710-1760).
The Voice of Rage
51 [INDRIANELLA, Madama]. Opera curiosa e non più intesa delle nove mila novecento novantanove bontà e bellezze delle Donne dove s’intende per molte ragioni quanto sia più nobile e più bella la Donna che l’Uomo. Data alla luce da Madama Indrianella da Parigi. Asti, dalla Tipografia Massa, [c. 1798].£ 485
FIRST EDITION. 24mo, pp. 15, [1] blank; lightly browned throughout due to paper stock; stitched as issued in the original blue wrappers, with later label titled in ink on upper wrapper; a very good copy.
Extremely rare ephemeral publication celebrating the “9999 qualities and beauties of women”, and on how much more noble and beautiful women are compared with men. The fictitious Parisian author Indrianella opens the book by praising the eternal architect and creator of everything for having been born a woman and not a man, and however often men may claim it to be better to be a man, they criticize the female sex with false arguments.
This attack on male supremacy is written in an immediate and determined style, not following the tradition of glorifying the typical idealizing stereotypes. The language of this original voice of a women is tinged with Northern Italian dialect and reminiscent of radical Christian dissent, however, among the remarkably sparse biblical references is the remark that Judith showed courage by decapitating Holofernes - in discussing the suitability of women for carrying weapons.
Not in OCLC, ICCU, COPAC or KVK.
52 JAYD, H. Episodes in the life of Mr. Figgins by H. Jayd. Illustrated. Published for the author by David Bryce & Son, Glasgow, [1883].£ 235
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 32; illustrated throughout the text; title with short marginal tear, apart from some light foxing in places, a clean copy throughout; in the original publisher’s cloth backed printed boards, a little dust-soiled and worn, head and tail of spine with minor chipping, endpapers with a number of advertisements; a desirable item.
Although this delightful Glaswegian book of cartoon stories was still in print in 1906, it is a rare specimen of cheap illustrated literature. Due to its rarity and ephemeral character we were unable to obtain any information on the artist Jayd, who gives us a series of eight adventures of Mr. Figgins, a slightly clumsy citizen of Glasgow, who struggles with new boots, which are too tight, goes fishing to end up with a recently drowned cat on the hook, takes a boat trip on Loch Eck, and has other - partly nautical - adventures.
OCLC records two copies, at Cambridge and in the National Library of Scotland.
53 [JOHNSON]. SERVOIS, Jean-Pierre. Notice sur la vie et les Ouvrages du Docteur Samuel Johnson … Nevers, Imprimerie de Paulin fay, Place de la Halle et rue du Rempart, 2. 1877.£ 285
Second edition, first with a portait of the author. 8vo, pp. [ii], 120; with photographic collotype frontispiece of the author; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; uncut in the original green publisher’s wraps, lightly dust-soiled, but still a very appealing copy.
Second edition, some 54 years after the first of 1823, of this survey of the life and works of Samuel Johnson, by the Cambrai priest Jean-Pierre Servois (1764-1831).
The work, in this edition with a preface by the author’s nephew, is largely appreciative of Johnson, and gives an account of both the principal events of his life, and of his works, placed in the political and intellectual context of their time. In addition to the present work, Servois also published a translation of Chandler’s Travels, and theological works on the transfiguration and on monstrances.
Not in OCLC, which records the first edition of 1823 (Lyon only).
54 KÄSTNER, Christian August Lebrecht. Mnemonik oder System der Gedächtnißkunst der Alten. Leipzig, bey Paul Gotthelf Kummer, 1804.
[bound with]: ERLÄUTERUNGEN ÜBER MEINE MNEMONIK, oder das von mire herausgegebene System der Gedächtnißkunst der Alten. Leipzig, bey Paul gotthelf Kummer, 1804.£ 650
FIRST EDITIONS. Two works in one volume, 8vo, pp. xx, 143, [1] blank; 77, [1] blank; marginal tear to final leaf of prelims, occasional light foxing in places, but generally clean throughout; with cancelled Danish library stamp on title; in contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, spine ruled in gilt with skiver label lettered in gilt; some light wear, but still a good copy.
First editions of these two mnemonological studies by Christian August Lebrecht Kästner (1776-1832).
The first work offers a general overview of Kästner’s mnemonological system. After an introduction in which Kästner describes the nature and perfectibility of the memory, and the history of mnemonical techniques, he divides his work into a theoretical and a practical part. In the first, he discusses the role and use of spaces, of images, and mnemonic aids, while the practical part is divided into two chapters: “Daß” and “Was”.
In the second work, Kästner puts the principles outlined in the first work into practice, with methods of remembering, among other things, Roman emperors, popes, and the contents of the 28th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.
Lebrecht Kästner wrote a number of mnemonical works, and was a pupil of Johann von Aretin.
I. OCLC records North American copies at Yale, Northwestern, Kansas, the National Library of Medicine, and SUNY Binghampton; II. OCLC records no copies outside Germany.
Lenin on Adam Smith
55 [LENIN, Vladimir Il’ich]. IL’IN, Vladimir [pseudonym]. Ekonomicheskie etiudy i stat’i. Saint Petersburg, A. Leifert, 1899.£ 2,850
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [iv], 290; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; uncut in the original printed wrappers; minor chipping to extremities, and some light dust-soiling, nevertheless, still a very good copy.
Rare first edition of this early work by Lenin entitled Economic Studies and Essays, discussing Sismondi and Adam Smith, amongst others.
In the 1890s the revolutionary Marxists joined the Legal Marxists, who could publish their evolutionist approach to the Russian economy officially, and thus supported the rapid development of Capitalism. The revolutionary Marxists held the belief, against the convictions of the older generation of revolutionaries (Narodniki), that the capitalist development was an indispensable condition for a successful proletarian revolution. The ‘first legal Marxist counterblast against the narodnik disparagement of Russian capitalism’ (Laue, p. 27) had been Struve’s book Critical Observations on the Question about the Economic Development of Russia (Kriticheskie zametki…), which had come out in August 1894.
The 29-year old Lenin, after having been expelled from Kazan University, studying independently, 14 months imprisonment and banishment to Siberia, worked from that ‘blast’ and deepened Struve’s criticism of both Legal Marxists and Narodniki and supplied it with detailed materialist studies of the Russian economy. At the time of the founding of the Russian Social Democratic Party in the year before the publication of the present book Lenin had already become known to be their best young theorist and analytical mind. Economic Studies and Essays opens with a 112-page article on romantic economics, as represented by Sismondi, and discusses Adam Smith’s influence of that school. Lenin’s refutation of economic romanticism is based on analysis and criticism of capitalism, especially of the Russian variety. This is followed by an essay on the industrial development of the Perm gouvernement, in the Eastern part of European Russia. Further articles are attacks on the Legal Marxists, especially Iuzhakov, and the positions of the Narodniki.
Lenin’s ‘career may be usefully divided into four periods. In the first (1893-1900) he was serving the apprenticeship to the revolution. At this time he acquired his extraordinary knowledge of Marxian theory, remarkable insight into the mentality of the Russian proletariat and the peasantry … In the first period Lenin was one of those who fought strongly for a socialist party free from the peasant romanticism of the Narodniki and the paralyzing theory of proletarian “spontaneity,” which made the “economists” futile as leaders of a revolution’ (Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences). - Both the fact that Lenin used a pseudonym - before Lenin became his established trademark - and that the book has got no printed censor’s note, as was obligatory up to 1905, speak for a clandestine publication.
OCLC records two copies only, at Harvard and Georgia State.
Reminiscences by his Wife
56 [LENIN, Vladimir Il’ich]. KRUPSKAIA, Nadezhda Konstantinovna. O Vladimire Il’iche. Moscow, Izdatelstvo “Krasnaia Nov”, 1924.£ 250
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 24; lightly browned; original wrappers printed in red and black, stapled as issued; rear cover and back with tears.
First edition of this collection of reminiscences of Lenin, written by his wife and co-revolutionary, and published shortly after his death in mysterious circumstances on January 21, 1924. Krupskaia was, together with Inessa Armand and Aleksandra Kollontai, one of the founding members of Women’s Section of the Communist Party. She worked as an educationalist and tried to prevent Stalin’s rise to power and sided at times with Trotsky’s left opposition. The texts in the present volume are mainly public speeches and articles written during the first four months of 1924.
This edition not in OCLC, which lists three copies of a Leningrad printing of the same year, in the Hoover Institute, Yale and Columbia.
57 [LETTER WRITING]. The Polite Letter-Writer; or, whole art of general correspondence … Derby: Printed by and for Henry Mozley. 1819.£ 175
FIRST EDITION? 12mo, pp. xii, 132; with handcoloured woodcut frontispiece; lightly browned and soiled throughout; contemporary sheep, with later reback, spine ruled in gilt; endpapers with contemporary ownership inscriptions.
Scarce first edition, as far as we are aware unrecorded, of this charming little work published to aid letter writing, consisting of 117 letters on a variety of subjects including business, courtship, misfortunes, sickness, vice, morality and wit. Letter I is dated ‘London, May 20th, 1819’, so perhaps the work was first published in London, although we can find no record of this.
Not in OCLC or COPAC.
The Invention of the Lifeboat
58 [LIFEBOATS]. [GREATHEAD, Henry]. REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON MR. GREATHEAD’S PETITION, Respecting his new Invention of a Life-Boat. Ordered to be printed 31st March 1802. [London, 1802].£ 285
FIRST EDITION. Folio, pp. 21, [1] blank; discreet cancelled library stamp at the foot of first leaf; modern wrappers.
Rare first appearance of this government report on the invention of the Lifeboat.
It was a disaster at the mouth of the Tyne on the East Coast of England in March 1789 that lead to the first design of a boat for the purpose or lifesaving, or ‘lifeboat’. A ship named the “Adventure” was wrecked and her crew could be clearly seen from the shore as they dropped helplessly from the rigging into the sea. The spectacle of seeing such a disaster at close hand goaded the members of a private club called “The Gentlemen of the Lawe House” to offer a prize for a design of a lifeboat. The best submitted was deemed to be that of William Wouldhave, the parish clerk of South Shields, though the adjudicating committee only saw fit to award him half the prize of two guineas offered and the other half to a competing design by Henry Greathead. Two members of the committee modified Wouldhave’s design and the actual construction of the boat was entrusted to Henry Greathead (1757-1816), a respected local boat-builder. Wouldhave was angered by the decision of the committee, and felt justifiably that his invention was unjustly taken away from him.
The present report, conducted some years later for the use of Parliament, gives firsthand accounts of the practicability of the lifeboat’s design, the unique construction, the effectiveness of the lifeboat in rescuing lives, together with corroborative statements ascribing the invention and construction of first lifeboats “Original” to Greathead. Parliament voted Greathead £1,200, and the Society of Arts, Trinity House and Lloyd’s all voted him substantial sums of money, but nowhere in the work does Wouldhave’s name appear.
Not on OCLC, which only locates copies of the cumulative published reports in the volume for 1803 as pp. 729-734 (OCLC: 13207384).
Prostitution as a Social Disease
59 LOEWE, Philipp. Die Prostitution aller Zeiten und Völker, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Berlin. Ein Beitrag zu der obschwebenden Bordellfrage. Berlin, B. Logier, 1852.£ 550
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xv, [i] blank, 223, [1]; apart from some minor foxing in places, and a light stain to the gutter of the final gathering, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary half cloth over boards, spine lettered in gilt, inner joints cracked, but cords holding, nevertheless, still a good copy.
This monograph on Berlin prostitution opens with a history of Berlin brothels, including the impact of their closure in 1814, depicting scenes of the social life of Berlin, public amusements, dance parties etc., which were consequentially permeated by prostitutes and their customers, while unlicensed brothels sprang up in the working-class quarters. The squalor and wild growth of clandestine prostitution convinced the magistrate in 1851 to licence brothels. The physician Loewe then, after a history of prostitution and brothels, returns to Berlin and describes the organisation of brothels, inserts a chapter on neglected and undetected syphilis, and ends the volume by reprinting the forms to be filled in by brothel owners and prostitutes, and regulations of such establishments by the Sittenpolizei. Loewe regards prostitution not as a crime, but as a social disease and describes it as closely intertwined with the whole body of society.
An uncommon and progressive description and social analysis of prostitution in society.
Proksch p. 425; see Berlin-Bibliographie V, p. 606 for the 1868 edition only; OCLC records copies at Yale, the New York Academy of Medicine and the National Library of Medicine in North America.
‘Not to be sold in the U.K. or U.S.A.’
60 LOUŸS, Pierre-Félix [for this translation: Peter LEWYS]. The She-Devils. Paris, Ophelia Press, [1958].£ 225
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. 8vo, pp. 266 [the initial two blank], [4]; clean and fresh in the original printed wrappers.
Rare first translation into English (first, as Trois filles de leur mère, privately printed in 1926) of an erotic novel, described by Susan Sontag as one of the few works of erotic imagination to deserve true literary status. The novel tells the story of a mother and her three daughters sharing the same young man as lover. This intense work, full of claustrophobic and monomanic sexual obsessions is the Belgian author’s greatest, however posthumous success. Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925) travelled North Africa with André Gide, visited Oscar Wilde twice and was seen amongst the Wagnerians in Bayreuth.
This anonymous translation is marked in print on the back cover ‘Not to be sold in the U. K. or U. S. A.’ A new translation, under the title Mother’s Three Daughters, appeared in 1969, translated by Sabine d’Estrée, which is probably a pseudonym.
OCLC locates only one copy, at University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
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