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LIST 216 - RECENT ACQUISITIONS.
The First Eighteenth Century History by a Woman
61 MACAULAY, Catharine. The History of England from the Accession of James I to the Elevation of the House of Hanover, London, Printed for the Author, 1763, 1765, 1767, 1771, 1771.£ 850
FIRST EDITIONS of vol’s I-III & V, ‘New edition’ of vol. IV (original text with cancelled title). Five volumes, 4to, portrait frontispiece of Catharine Macaulay in the classical Roman Republican style by Basire after the original by Cipriani in vol. III, pp. xviii, [i] Address to Liberty, [i] errata, 439 [1] blank; [viii], 483, [1] blank, xxiv (Appendix); [vi], 463, [1] errata; [vi], 436, [1] Appendix, [1] blank; [vi], 384 (mispaginated: recte 391 + 1 blank), lv Appendix; apart from a few minor marks, a clean fresh copy throughout; handsomely bound in contemporary tree calf, spines ruled in gilt in compartments with red morocco labels lettered and numbered in gilt, spines lightly rubbed with minor chipping at head, but not detracting from this being a highly desirable copy.
A handsome copy of the first edition of Catherine Macaulay’s History of England. The series was originally published on a rather ad hoc basis over 20 years, and was the first eighteenth century history by a woman. Promoted at the time as the Whig or Republican alternative view of history (she had met Franklin in Paris and stayed with Washington in America) to the already published Tory history by Hume. In this respect, contemporaries seem to have favoured her history over Smollett’s.
Loathed by Dr. Johnson and Wilkes, Mary Wolstonecraft nevertheless said of her that she was “the woman of the greatest abilities that this country has ever produced,” [Vindication of the Rights of Women, pp. 235-6]. Horace Walpole, describing her “History”, said she “exerted a manly strength with the gravity of a philosopher …”
Although well represented in institutions, closer examination of holdings reveals nearly all of them to be incomplete, either lacking the later volumes (three further volumes appeared much later in 1781 and 1783), as our set, or lacking one of the earlier volumes.
ESTCT106230.
The Prime Minister’s Copy
62 [MACDONALD, James Ramsay]. STEPHEN, Leslie Editor Letters of John Richard Green. Edited by Leslie Stephen. London, Macmillan and Co., Limited … 1901.£ 85
FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY. 8vo, pp. [xii], 511, [1] blank; with frontispiece and two plates; a clean copy throughout with only minor foxing to endpapers; uncut in the original red publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in gilt, a few minor surface marks, otherwise an appealing copy, with the ownership signature of the Prime Minister ‘J.R. Macdonald, 26 Oct 1901’ on front free endpaper and later book label of ‘The Rt. Hon. Malcolm MacDonald’ on front pastedown.
First edition of the letters of the English historian John Richard Green (1837-1883), edited by Leslie Stephen.
Green had initially entered the Church, but in 1869 he finally gave up his work as a clergyman, and was appointed librarian at Lambeth. He had been laying plans for various historical works, including a History of the English Church as exhibited in a series of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and, what he proposed as his magnum opus, a history of England under the Angevin kings. After suffering from failing health he abandoned these projects and instead concentrated his energies on the preparation of his Short History of the English People, which appeared in 1874, and at once gave him an assured place in the first rank of historical writers.
This copy is particularly appealing as it belonged to the British politician James Ramsay Macdonald (1866-1937), twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1924 and 1929). He rose from humble origins to become the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924.
Napoleon’s Principe
63 MACHIAVELLI, Nicolò. Machiavel commente par Non Buonanparte. Manuscrit trouvé dans le carosse de Buonaparte, après la bataille de Mont-Saint-Jean, le 18 Juin 1815. Paris, C.-F. Patris for the Librairie Stéréotype, 1816.£ 850
FIRST EDITION OF THE ANNOTATIONS. 8vo, pp. [4], lxxxii, 335; occasional brown spotting; ‘Napoleonic’ red morocco ornamented and lettered in gilt by Hatchards of Piccadilly, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt.
Edited by Guillon, this is a most interesting edition of a French translation of Machiavelli’s Il Principe.
After the Battle of Waterloo a manuscript volume was found in Napoleon’s carriage containing extracts from Machiavelli with Napoleon’s commentary on them. The present work gives the full text of ‘Le Prince’ and prints Napoleon’s commentary in the right column. There is a long introduction by Guillon who has also added numerous explanatory footnotes.
An unusual and scarce work in a superb Napoleonic-style binding.
Barbier III, 4; OCLC records copies at Minnesota, Brigham Young, Chicago, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University and the College of William and Mary in North America.
64 [MACPHERSON, James]. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von [librettist] and Johann Rudolph ZUMSTEEG [composer]. COLMA, ein Gesang von Goethe … Leipzig, Breitkopf and Härtel, [c. 1796].£ 850
Oblong small folio, pp. [2], 28, typographic musical score; light scattered foxing; otherwise clean in contemporary (original?) blue wrappers; a little spotted, spine with wear.
Re-issue with newly set and re-worded title page (apparently unrecorded; first issued in 1793) of Goethe’s Ossian translation contained in his Werther and set to music. Werther had been the ultimate enthusiast for Macpherson’s poetry, which he [Goethe] translated; exclaiming ‘In my heart Ossian has taken the place of Homer’. Zumsteeg (1760-1802) was Kapellmeister at the court in Stuttgart, published seven volumes of ballads and Lieder, as well as setting music to Bürger’s long poem Leonore, which was translated into English by Walter Scott with the title William and Helen. The music of Colma is melodramatic, full of cadences and tremoloes, evoking the Scottish heroic sea- and landscape.
The idea to compose an Ossianic opera, based on Macpherson’s work, had been in the air for some time. As early as 1790 Goethe mentioned the project of an Ossian opera to the music writer Reichardt. And again, seven years later, after Goethe had attended a performance of Colma in Stuttgart, the idea was resurrected, and he considered to ‘arrange it for the stage’ (see W. G. Schmidt and others, Homer des Nordens p. 791). It took yet another seven years until the public could enjoy Ossianic poetry on the stage, in Jean-François Le Sueur’s opera Ossian, ou les bardes, first performed in 1804 in Paris.
Zumsteeg befriended Friedrich Schiller when they were both pupils at the Carlsschule in Stuttgart, and among his early works were compositions to accompany literary texts by Klopstock and Schiller, songs to his Die Räuber. Zumsteeg’s lieder and ballads were regarded by his contemporaries ‘as models of interpretative word-setting’ (Grove), and ‘had a particular influence on young Schubert’ (ibid).
OCLC locates two copies in American Libraries, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina and at University of Michigan.
65 MARX, Karl. Capitale e Salario colla bibliografia dell’autore e con una introduzione di F. Engels. Prima traduzione italiana di P. Martignetti. Milan, [Tipografia degli Operai] for the Uffici della Critica Sociale, 1893.£ 385
FIRST ITALIAN EDITION IN BOOKFORM. 8vo, pp. 59, [5], with portrait-frontispiece in pagination; evenly a little browned due to paper stock; clean in the original printed wrappers; a little spotted.
First published in 1849 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung as a series of articles, Lohnarbeit und Kapital was separately published by Engels in 1891. This Italian translation contains Engels’ Marx biography, written in London in the year of this edition, Engels’ 1891 introduction and an appendix to this by Filippo Turati as preliminary pieces.
The translator, Pasquale Martignetti (1844-1920) was a correspondent of Engels, political writer and translator of several of Marx’ works. In 1883 he came into epistolary contact with Paul Lafargue and Engels, to whom he wrote in 1887, that reading the French edition of Capital had converted him to socialism. This translation had appeared first in several issues of the periodical La lotta di classe from April 1892 to July the following year. Martignetti had chosen this work by Marx in particular, because he considered it ‘an excellent work of propaganda for Italy,’ as he wrote to Engels (see DBI).
Filippo Turati, the author of pages 21 to 25, was a poet, sociologist and co-founder of the Italian Socialist Party, PSI, who belonged to the reformist fraction of the Italian Marxists, who believed in gradual development towards socialism.
Stammhammer III, p. 103; OCLC locates a single copy, at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam.
‘The Present of the Period’
66 [MATRIMONY]. The Matrimonial Programme. To those about to Marry, Punch says “Don’t.” We say, first see Courtship, Marriage, and its consequences, and then decide for yourself. Illustrated in Fourteen photo-lithographic tableaux. Brighton, T. Moon, [c. 1874].£ 650
Folding lithographic panorama of fourteen silhouette-like domestic scenes (two on each ‘leaf’), overall length 715 mm, 125 mm tall; folding concertina-style into its original covers, lithographed in gilt. advertisements inside covers and on rear cover, one advertisement leaf, one leaf preface ‘to fifth edition’ and introduction.
‘The Matrimonial Programme appears to have “hit the mark” … Its appropriate Binding - White and Gold - makes it presentable at Christmas, New Year’s, Birthday or Wedding Gift; also as a Valentine, or in fact any time. It is the Present of the Period’ (preface). The first edition is likely to have appeared in 1869, as it was advertised in the Christmas Bookseller for that year.
67 MINZELE, Gennaro. La Grandezza Discreta Analissata nelle sue finite ed infinitesime funzioni. Tomo I [-II]. Napoli, Presso Gaetano Raimondi, MDCCXCVIII [1798].£ 1,250
FIRST EDITION. Two volumes in one, 8vo, pp. [viii], 122; 136; title pages printed in red and black; aside from some occasional light spotting, and marginal dampstaining to a few leaves, clean and fresh throughout; in contemporary vellum, morocco labels on spine lettered in gilt; labels worn, inkstain to corner of upper board, but still a very good copy.
First edition of this very rare study of divisibility and discrete quantities by the Italian mathematician and scientific writer Gennaro Minzele (1761-1824).
The work is divided into five sections. After an introduction in which Minzele describes the fundamental idea of mathematics, and the reasons for its study, the first part examines the growth and diminution of discrete quantities, the nature of imaginary quantities, and decimal roots. The second section examines the equality of discrete quantities, discussing the resolution of linear, quadratic, and cubic equations, and associated problems.
In the third section, Minzele goes on to discuss the evolution of algebraic and continuous fractions, geometrical series, and the construction of logarithmic tables, while the fourth section applies some of the principles outlined above to practical and commercial calculations, including a discussion of probability and the mathematical rules governing lotteries. The final section examines the integration of logarithmic and exponential functions, and discusses infinitesimal quantities. Throughout the work, Minzele cites a number of philosophers and mathematicians, including Euler, Leibnitz, Newton, Wolff, and d’Alembert.
Rare: not recorded by OCLC; KVK records one copy, at the Public Library of Brindisi.
The Russian View of Women in the USA
68 MIZHUEV, Pavel Grigorevich. Zhenskoe obrazovanie i Obshchestvennaia deiatelnost’ zhenshchin v soedinennykh shtatakh severnoi Ameriki. Saint Petersburg, I. N. Skorokhodov, 1893.£ 250
FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. Large 8vo, pp. 70, [2, advertisements]; evenly browned due to paper stock, uncut in the original publisher’s printed wrappers with cloth back-strip; multiple stamps and shelfmarks on both title and front wrapper, two pages with repeated stamps; edges a bit frayed, worn but stable.
Separately paginated offprint from issues 1 to 4 of the educational periodical Russkaia shkola; a report on Women’s Education and Social Activity of Women in the United States of North America. Mizhuev (1861-c.1917) was a left-leaning sociological writer who published works on women’s liberation, the eight-hour day, democracy, working class movements and a political history of the United States (see Robert V. Allen, Russia Looks at America Library of Congress, 1988).
OCLC locates two copies only, at Stanford and Ohio State University; Russkaia shkola not in BUCOP.
The Philosophers’ Oil as Mnemonic Aid
69 [MNEMONICS]. ALBERTI, Giovanni Michele [sometimes CARRARA, Giovanni Michele Alberto]. De omnibus ingeniis auge[n]de memorie. [Colophon:] Bologna, Platone de’ Benedetti, January 24, 1491.£ 9,500
FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. [24]; first leaf with marginal paper flaw; occasional light spotting; still a fresh, unpressed and unwashed copy in early 19th century boards using a German manuscript; extremities a little worn, spine restored.
Giovanni Michele Alberti of Carrara’s treatise on mnemonics is one of the earliest separately printed Renaissance works on that subject. Alberti (1438-1490) was a doctor and humanist, who wrote - in both the vernacular and in Latin - works on medicine, the sciences, and natural history, as well as an autobiographical comedy in rhymes, L’Armiranda. He served the Bergamo Condottiere Colleoni as physician and was part of the humanist circle of Ermolao Barbaro, the Aristotle scholar. This is Alberti’s only separately printed work during the 15th century, and served as the template for Guglielmo Gratarolo’s De memoria reparanda of 1553, and Lodovico Dolce’s Dialogo nel quale si registra del modo di acrescere e conservare la memoria (1586). It is therefore a seminal art of memory treatise, which influenced writers on that genre for almost 100 years.
Referring to Cicero, Simonides Medicus, Albertus Magnus and Averroes, memory is held to be the fixation of images in the mind, after they have been transported from the surface of perception to the memorative mind. Alberti then deals with artificial memory, which is the application of art of memory techniques in order to enhance retention of memory. Artificial memory employs images and places in imaginary architecture or fields in tables. The author recalls that his father, a humanist and medical doctor as well, applied the images of various animals, divided into five separate body parts, as a mnemonic aid. The second part of the book, beginning on leaf a6 verso, is on medicines supporting and enhancing the memory. Alongside Galen’s and Avicenna’s humoral pathology, the four temperaments and the corresponding or contradictory qualities of various foodstuffs, Alberti gives recipes for compound drugs, which invigorate the brain, using ginger, juniper berries, majoram, oregano, coriander, amongst the more familiar ingredients. Here once again, Alberti refers to this father’s practice of administering oleum philosophorum, and gives the complex recipe in detail. Other recipes follow and are as detailed as the ones in the pharmacological treatises of the period.
Provenance: From the collection of the notorious mathematician, bibliophile and book thief Guglielmo Libri (full name: Count Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja, 1802-1869), with a contemporary note referring to one of his sales of books in London in 1849.
ISTC ia 00210000; Goff A 210, Klebs 252.1, BMC IV, 824; Walsh 3204; Krivatsy Incunabula 1; Young, Bilbliography of Memory, p. 4; OCLC adds copies at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and in Göttingen.
70 [MNEMONICS]. [SAINT-OUEN, Mme Laure Boen de]. NOUVELLE MNÉMONIQUE APPLIQUÉE`A L’HISTOIRE D’ANGLETERRE. Pour faire suite à l’histoire de France d’après la même méthode. Par Mme ***. [n.p., n.d. but probably ca. 1823-1824].£ 3,750
Neat and legible manuscript in a single hand, 8vo, pp. [xviii], 24, [vi], [ii] plate, [27] - 534, 536 - 561,[6] nos 464 - 468; with 52 exquisitely hand-drawn ink and wash plates containing 104 original drawings; some light foxing, soiling and some ink staining throughout, with prominent ink? stain affecting outer margins of pp. 93-111, and damp-stain affecting upper margins between pp. 225-300 and from pp. 486 to the end; with further neat corrections in pencil throughout in the same hand; in contemporary full red diced morocco, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, head of spine a little bumped,covers a little stained and soiled with some light scuffing, extremities lightly rubbed and bumped with minor wear; still a most attractive copy.
A unique and most attractive manuscript proof(?) copy of this rare mnemonical and historical work on the Kings and Queens of England, by the noted nineteenth century French pedagogue Laure Boen de Saint-Ouen (1799-1838), including 52 elegantly hand-drawn plates done in ink and wash, which provide a new and effective method of teaching history.
Though here titled Nouvelle mnémonique, it seems probable that the present manuscript eventually came to be published as Volume I of a proposed series of works under the title Tableaux historiques des peuples modernes européans, composés de médallions, etc, accompagné d’un text explicatif (Paris, 1825). This work had the half-title of Histoire d’Angleterre, with a second edition published in the year of her death under the title Tableaux mnémoniques de l’histoire d’Angleterre (1838). Saint-Ouen had first revealed this novel and eye-catching mnemonical method in 1822 in her Tableaux mnémoniques de l’histoire de France, and the success and positive reception of the work had prompted her to embark on a series of similar formats covering the nations and people of Europe: in addition to the history on England, the author planned similar works discussing Germany, Russia and Spain.
Providing a history of England from Egbert in 800 to the reign of George II in 1727, the manuscript spans almost 600 pages and contains 104 original drawings done with ink and wash, comprising 52 portraits and the same number of mnemonical medallions. As these vividly demonstrate, hers was very much a pictorial system: for each reign Saint-Ouen includes a portrait of the monarch, with the medallion below including several small emblems designed to represent a significant event: for example a small chariot signifies a victory in battle, whilst an upside down chariot depicts a loss in battle. A sword represents an assassination (as in the case of Edward II on p. 165), in contrast to an hourglass signifying a natural death (see Elizabeth I opposite p. 272). The date to remember is found beneath the relevant emblem - for example the invasion of the Spanish Armada is attractively illustrated by galleons approaching the coast of England and dated 1588. The manuscript notes then provide a brief description of the reign. We have been able to locate only one copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and so have been unable to compare the final published result: it is uncertain therefore whether these are merely provisional notes - or whether they form the actual text. The numerous corrections in pencil throughout suggest that this may be close to the final version however.
This method - described by contemporary reviewers as being ‘well-conceived and well executed’ was used subsequently by Saint-Ouen in her work of 1837 Histoire Ancienne Mnémonique, and which also included a number of exercises and questions to test the student. Her intended series of European histories seems to have been curtailed by her untimely death. Through the present work, however, together her other popular and oft-reprinted historical works, notably her History of France (1827) Saint-Ouen helped to revolutionise the way that history was taught in French elementary schools, and was a leading educationalist. See Querard, La Littérature Française Contemporaine, VI p. 285; see also the website of the Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique at www.inrp.fr for biographical information and a list of her works.
71 MORRES, Rev. John. An Essay on Schism: to which was adjudged a premium by the society for promoting christian knowledge, and church union, in the diocese of St. David’s, in the year 1817 … Melton-Mowbray: Printed and Sold by J. Day; sold also by T. Combe, Leicester; and Messrs. Rivington, St. Paul’s Church-yard, London. 1818.£ 125
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 38; a clean copy, in recent boards; ownership signature at head, and mss. note at foot of p. 19, and head of p. 20; a very good copy.
First edition of this rare provincial Essay on Schism, by the rector of Nether Broughton in Leicestershire, Rev. John Morres.
‘In such an age, an enquiry into the nature and sinfulness of schism, is a subject which imperiously demands the attention of every one who is anxious to discover and hold fast the truth; and Mr. Morres’s Essay on the subject is not the less likely to prevent error and promote unity; because it is calm, dispassionate, and candid in language as it is just in observation, and powerful in argument’ (British Critic, Vol. IX, 1818, p. 85).
Not in OCLC.
Murry on Astronomy and Natural Philosophy
72 MURRY, Anne. The Sequel to Mentoria; or, the young ladies instructor, in familiar conversations on a variety of interesting subjects, in which are introduced, lectures on astronomy and natural philosophy, expressed in terms suited to the comprehension of juvenile readers … London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry. 1799.£ 285
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. xii, 325, [1]; with frontispiece and two large folding engraved plates, two tables (one folding); apart from some minor foxing in places, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary sprinkled calf, spine ruled in gilt with recent label lettered in gilt, joins cracked (but holding firm) and some rubbing to extremities, but still an appealing copy.
Uncommon first edition of Ann Murry’s Sequel to Mentoria, introducing lectures on astronomy and natural philosophy, which had not been covered in the original work, first published in 1778.
Ann Murry was a writer of instruction books for young people, especially women. She became a private tutor when family fortunes changed, and by 1791 was Preceptress in the royal nursery. ‘Her first book, written for her pupils and dedicated to the Princess Royal, was Mentoria, or The Young Ladies Instructor, 1778, in the form of dialogues between a governess and two aristocratic pupils. It ranges over grammar, politeness, geography, arithmetic, history - all within the framework of Christian virtues. Its mix of information and rules for conduct was very popular (12th ed, 1823)’ (Feminist Companion to Literature in English, 1990, p. 782).
Included are attractive large folding engraved plates of the northern and southern celestial hemispheres, together with a folding table of constellations and stars.
Osborne I, p. 208.
73 [NECKER]. Dialogue sur les opérations de M. Necker. [N.p.] 1781.£ 250
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. 80; save for some minor dust-soiling and some contemporary numbers in ink on title, a clean crisp copy throughout; stitched as issued in contemporary mottled wraps, with labels titled in ink on spine, wraps rather dust-soiled, but still a desirable copy.
Scarce first edition of this discussion on the proposed reforms by Necker, between a young man from the provinces visiting his uncle in Paris, his female cousin and a philosopher.
There appear to have been two issues of this work, another is recorded with 87 pages. No precedence has been established, and both are rare.
OCLC records two copies in North America, at Columbia and Cornell, and one further copy in the Netherlands at the International Institute of Social History.
74 NEGRI, Ada. Fatalità. Milano, Fratelli Treves, Editori. 1892.£ 225
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xvi, 252, [16] advertisements; minor light foxing in places, otherwise clean throughout; in contemporary red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, light rubbing to extremities, but still a very good copy; contemporary ownership inscription at head of title.
This is Ada Negri’s first volume of poetry, prefaced by Sofia Bisi Albini (see item ; Ada Negri composed the inscription of her tombstone), the writer and the editor of the Rivista per le Signorine, a leading women’s magazine. Ada Negri (1870-1945) ‘was born in Lodi. Her working-class origins and poverty-stricken childhood inform many of her writings. Negri passed quickly from teaching in the public schools to a relatively clamorous success with her first collections of verse’ (The Macmillan Dictionary of Italian Literature).
Ada Negri’s poetry was translated into many languages and incorporated in socialist and feminist working class brochures and periodicals all over the Western word, certainly for the lack of other good working class women poets. ‘Today … Negri is considered one of this century’s most important forerunners in Italian women’s literature’ (Russel, The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature).
OCLC records three copies in North America, at Boston, New York Public Library and Carleton University, and not a single copy of the first edition.
75 NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Utrenniaia zaria. Razmyshleniia o nravstvennykh poniatniiakh. Perevod s Nemetskago E. G. Moscow, D. P. Efimov, [1907].£ 385
FIRST EDITION IN RUSSIAN [?]. 8vo, pp. 383; evenly a little browned due to paper stock; a few leaves with minor spotting; overall well-preserved in contemporary Russian cloth-backed patterned boards; light wear to extremities; contemporary library stamp of the library of Farforov Zavod, the seat of the Lomonosov porcellain manufacturer in Saint Petersburg inside front cover, Russian ownership inscription, dated 1933 on title.
Very rare second issue of the first edition in Russian of Nietzsche’s Morgenröthe (Dawn; first, 1886), translated by E. Gertsyk, who worked for the Saint Petersburg publisher Efimov, who published several works by Nietzsche. The first edition, according to the bibliographical checklist in Nietzsche in Russia, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, who admits that bibliographical evidence is rather sketchy, was published as volume III of collected works by M. V. Kliukin in Moscow in 1901 (translated by E. Gertsyk; 2400 copies printed), and in the same year as volume VIII of another collected works edition, published by V. V. Chicherin in Moscow (translated by L. I. Sokolova[?]). Our copy is possibly a re-issue of the first edition, with a new cancel title, not mentioning this work as part of the collected works; however, the first leaves of each gathering are marked in the lower margins as T. VIII, which would speak for the Chicherin edition. However that may be, this re-issue is not mentioned in the checklist.
The publication of Nietzsche in Russian began slowly in 1894 with minor and shorter works. In the second half of the 1890s Nietzsche was eagerly read in Imperial Russia and left a deep and lasting influence on Lunacharsky, the later Bolshevik Commissar for People’s Enlightenment, who sometimes is described as a Nietzschean Marxist, Maxim Gorky, whose Übermensch was the idealized Russian hero from the sub-proletariat, or the poets Bal’mont and Alexandr Blok, Skriabin, the Russian constructivists and other avantgarde movements. In this study of Kulturkritik Nietzsche detects that the concepts of objectivity and free will are actually illusions, and juxtaposes the contemporary weakness of contemporary German culture with strong figures, such as Goethe, Dostoievsky, or the Greek Sophists.
OCLC lists one copy of the first issue, in Boston public library, which ends with gathering 22 and page 352, and one complete copy of the present issue, at Stamford; three volumes of Kliukin’s collected works are located at Ohio State University.
76 [NORFOLK - POACHING]. A Small manuscript archive of documents on poaching in Norfolk. [London, Norfolk and Fakenham, 1788-1789].£ 850
Eight manuscripts in legible handwriting on laid paper, one with small tear at head;
I. STOKES, William. REWARDS. One page, folio (324 x 203 mm). Dated December 1788 on verso.
‘Whereas the County of Norfolk has for several years past been infested by divers Idle and disorderly persons who desert their lawful Occupations and go out in the Night time in Gangs with fire Arms and other offensive Weapons, and not only take kill and carry away great Quantitys of Game; But also plunder Farmers and others of their domestic Poultry and Committ other Outrages.’ - This document specifies the rewards for information leading to conviction, and was written by the Attorney at Law at Fakenham.
II. MURRANT, Moses, and John SHALLARD. THE REPORT OF MOSES MURRANT AND JOHN SHALLARD, Officers belonging to the Public Office in Bow Street London. Four pages (two with text), folio (324 x 203 mm). Dated December 19, 1788 at the end.
William Stokes had asked the Bow Street Office in London to send these two men to investigate the ‘depredation of Night poachers in Norfolk’. They listened into conversations in Public Houses, which were notorious for the illicit game trade, where they got the names and identities of several suspects, but not enough concrete evidence to arrest them. In Norwich they spoke with ‘old Bunkal’, who denied having anything to do with game since he had been ‘put to troubles about it’. ‘They were unable to get sight of young Bunkal, though it was said … that he was the first man in the Game way in the City’. John Shallard got into trouble himself in a Pub, the name of which he forgot, when he was uncovered as a detective and threatened by a tall man ‘if he did not quit the room he would knock his head off’. - The results were meagre; however, the expenses must have been substantial.
III. ABSTRACT OF THE CONFESSION OF WILLIAM BUNNELL LATE OF COLKIRK [and] ABSTRACT OF THE CONFESSION OF JOHN BUNTING LATE OF BRINNINGHAM. Two documents on one folio double leaf (326 x 200 mm), dated January 17, 1789 on verso of the second document.
Despite the failed mission to Norfolk of Murrant and Shallard, the authorities caught a number of rural Norfolk criminals. One note on the verso of the first confession reads ‘Stephen Home carries a Gun that unscrews in his Coat Pocket & he shoots remarkably well’.
IV-VIII. Five signed letters (4to, 2 to 3 pages) by William Stokes of Fakenham (see above) discussing steps against poachers and the above report by the two Bow Street officers, and reporting on meetings with the Association against Poachers. Fakenham, December 20 to 31, 1788.
This archive gives a detailed insight into rural crime in Norfolk during the step-by-step enclosure of common land, ‘privatisation’ of game, fire wood and other natural commodities. The language of the Pubs and streets in some of the documents is of particular interest for its vigorous and raw nature.
77 [OAKLAND BAY BRIDGE - ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS] James Rolph, JR. Bridge Between San Francisco and Oakland California. Record of Caisson Construction at the works of MOORE DRY DOCK COMPANY, Oakland, California. [n.p.] 1934.£ 450
Oblong 4to, pp. [28] typescript, 19 original photographs (linen backed); in the original limp black cloth, lettered in gilt on the front cover.
Fascinating photographic record, together with typescript, of the building of the San Francisco Oakland Bay bridge in 1934.
‘The need of more adequate means of intercommunication between San Francisco and the cities of Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, has been recognised for years. Each day some 60,000 commuters crossing the Bay on the ferries, journey between these metropolitan centers. These ferries, we are told, had their beginning in 1851 and it was in those post gold rush days that the feasibility of bridging the Bay was first talked of’ (p. 1).
The photographs show the construction to the end of October 1934 and largely depict the first phase of building between San Francisco and Yerba Buena Island. Some of the photo’s show workers precariously working on the towers, with San Francisco in the background, which are resonant of pictures of the building of the Empire State Building.
The bridge was designed by Charles H. Purcell, and opened for traffic on November 12, 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge.
78 PAGEZ, Jean. Les Essais de Maistre Jean Pagez Docteur en Medecine. Sur les miracles de la creation du monde. Et Sur les plus merveilleux effects de la Nature. Dedié a Monseigneur le Cardinal de Richelieu. A Paris, Chez Nicolas Rousset, MDCXXXI [1631].£ 2,250
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [xvi], [i] blank, 234, [15] table, [1] blank; with occasional mispaginations; aside from some occasional spotting, clean and fresh throughout; in contemporary calf, spine tooled and lettered in gilt, with “MAGH” in gilt on upper board, along with nineteenth century paper library label; spine and boards worn, spine chipped at foot and repaired at head, but still a good copy.
First edition of this very rare survey of creation, strongly influenced by alchemical and hermeticist principles, by the French physician Jean Pagez or Pagès (fl. 1626-1634).
Pagez divides his work into eleven chapters. The first affirms that there is one God who created the fundamental principles of the world, while the second explains the ways in which this creation was effected. In the third chapter, Pagez discusses the ways in which the first elements (earth, air, fire and water) are produced and joined together to create the world, while the fourth examines the nature of the heavens, describing the movement and properties of the stars. The fifth chapter deals with the notions of sympathy and antipathy between substances, following Aristotelian lines, while the sixth discusses the tides in the light of these notions.
In the seventh chapter, Pagez goes on to examine the nature of sympathy and antipathy between elements, metals, minerals, plants, animals, and spirits, while the eighth turns to a discussion of the properties of poisons, and the ninth an examination of contagion. The final two chapters discuss the end of the world; firstly, whether it is possible to prove the end of the world by natural reasons, and finally, a demonstration that the world will only come to an end through the power of God, who created it.
Little is known of the author, who may be the same as the Jean Pagès who published Oeconomie des trois familles des Mondes Sublunaires in 1625. This earlier work, however, was largely anti-alchemical in its approach, and heavily criticised the Rosicrucians, which suggests either that the author had a change of heart in the intervening six years, or that the present work is not by the same Jean Pagez.
“Jöcher calls the author a ‘philosophus’ at Paris, who flourished between 1626 and 1634 (…). (This book) deals first with God and the creation of the universe, angels, the heavens, and after that a large part of the book is taken up with sympathy and antipathy. I have not found anything about the author” (Ferguson).
Ferguson, II, 162; OCLC: 43238175 records only one copy, at Oxford.
Living in Genoa compared with living in London
79 PALLAVICINO, Camillo. Considerazioni Economiche sopra l’Ampliazione ed Abbellimento della Citta di Genova … Chiavari, Stamperia Provinciale Argirofso, 1838.
[bound with:] DELLE LOTTERIE PUBBLICHE discorso, ricorrendo l’Annua esposizione e solenne distribuzione dei premii per l’industria patria, 1841. Firenze, coi tipi di Gio. Mazzoni. [1841].£ 385
FIRST EDITIONS. Two works bound in one volume, 8vo, pp. 109, [1]; 24; apart from some very minor foxing in places, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary cloth backed mottled boards, spine lettered in gilt, light rubbing to extremities, but still a very appealing item.
First editions of two works by the Italian economist and politician Camillo Pallavicino, who was later to become deputy mayor of Genoa.
The first work contains four dissertations on the consequences to the Genovese economy of the planned expansion and beautification of the city. In the first, Pallavicino argues that it is not the role of the city to build houses itself, and that expansion should be left to private citizens. The second essay discusses the establishment of building companies, while the third describes in detail the projects proposed for the expansion and renovation of the city, while the final essay examines the distribution of the city’s inhabitants, divided by class, and compares the middle classes of Genoa, and their living arrangements, with those of London.
The second work in the volume is a brief study of public lotteries, and includes appendices with the Genovese regulations for lotteries.
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I.Not in OCLC; II. OCLC records one copy only, at NYPL.
80 PARKES, Bessie Rayner. Vignettes. Twelve Biographical sketches … Alexander Strahan, Publisher. London and New York. 1866.£ 125
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. vi, [ii], 448; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; in the original red publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in gilt, upper board blocked in black and gilt, short splits to joints and rubbing to extremities, nevertheless, still an appealing copy.
Uncommon first edition of these twelve biographical sketches of various ladies of note, by poet, essayist, feminist and mother of Hilaire Belloc, Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829-1925).
Parkes notes that three of the sketches are ‘strictly’ original (Madame Luce, Madame Pape-Carpantier and Mrs. Jameson), five (of Madame Swetchine, La Soeur Rosalie, Harriot K. Hunt, Madame de Lamartine and Madame Mojon) are translated and abridged from books almost entirely unknown to the English public, and the remaining four (Mrs Winthrop, Miss Cornelia Knight, Miss Bosanquet and Mrs Delany) were biographical reviews cast into the shape of a short story.
Parkes had an interesting and varied life. Amongst other things she was responsible for establishing the English Woman’s Journal (1858), with the aim of advancing ideas on the reform of women’s education and legal rights, eventually giving rise also to a women’s employment bureau, reading room, clerical school, and the Victoria Press. Among her circle of friends and acquaintances were Elizabeth Gaskell, Anna Jameson, George Eliot, Matilda Hays, Adelaide Procter, Isa Craig, Thackeray, Trollope and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.