Pickering & Chatto
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PICKERING & CHATTO N° 1 S T C LEMENT ’ S C OURT L ONDON EC4N 7HB T E L . +44 (0) 20 7337 2225 E - M A I L : [email protected] THE ABA CHELSEA RARE BOOK FAIR 1 – 2 November 2019 STAND 35 Item 19 1.[ABC]. WAGNER, Johann Ernst. HISTORISCHES ABC eines vierzigjährigen Hennebergischen Fiebelschützen. Herausgegeben von Ernst Wagner. Ein Angang zu den Reisen aus der Fremde in die Heimath. Tübingen, in der J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung. 1810.£ 385 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [vii], [i] blank, xvi, 232; with library stamp on title; some light browning and foxing throughout; in contemporary boards, paper spine with paper hand-lettered label; some wear to boards and extremities. First edition of this satirical ABC by the humorist and novelist Johann Ernst Wagner. Wagner’s first steps into literature had been observed and encouraged by Jean Paul (Friedrich Richter), which led to the erroneous assumption that the latter was the author of the preface, which is signed Jean Paul . It is Wagner’s fiction and sets the tone for this satirical ABC book with alphabethical entries on sentiments, reminiscences, impressions, feelings, social observations and childhood memories. Johann Ernst Wagner (c. 1769-1812), after an idyllic childhood (the only paradise no-one can expell us from, according to Jean Paul) lived as an administrator of a large agricultural estate near his birthplace in the duchy of Sachsen-Meiningen. He became a novelist around his thirtieth year, and published several works. He died two years after the present book, titled Historical ABC of a forty year old primary school pupil from Henneberg , after a long and painful disease, which he fought to the end with romantic irony, sarcasm and memories of happier times. 1 The text of this first edition is littered with typographical errors, very atypical of the publisher Cotta. Not even a word in the title, Fibelschütze , was spared. The title is followed by advice for the binder and three pages of errata. A note to the reader apologizes for the unusual amount of typos, which could not be avoided because of a ‘really unavoidable accident’. OCLC records just two copies outside contintental Europe, at Columbia and the British Library. LASCIVIOUS DECORATION 2.[ALABASTER FIGURES]. COMPTOIR ITALIEN D’IMPORTATION [printed label on front cover ]. [Italy, c. 1925]. £ 500 Oblong 8vo album with 53 original silver gelatine photographs of alabaster, metal and onyx sculptures inserted into slots on grey cards; light oxidation to a few photographs; chord bound in blind-stamped flexible boards, printed label on front cover; tears and spots to front cover, marginally frayed. The sculptures, which include a high proportion of lasciviously posing women, appear to have been made to order. The subjects were clearly chosen for their saleability and dwell strongly on sentimentality of a bygone era. Subjects include naked ladies in shells, by pools, in waterfalls or wearing diaphanous clinging and revealing outfits, even the lady atop a mountain decked out in her climbing gear leaves nothing to the imagination. Other figures of children and reworked head and shoulder busts based on renaissance models are less revealing. The skill involved in their production was evidently high and were doubtless bought and sold as ‘high art’ in that age before Freudian analysis. ATTACK ON THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FRANCE 3.[ARTAIZE, Henri de Feucher d’]. NOUVELLES RÉFLEXION D’UN JEUNE HOMME, ou, Suite à l’Essai sur la dégradation de l’homme en société… A Londres, et se trouve a Paris, chez Royez, Libraire, Quai des Augustins. 1787. £ 450 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. iv, 208, [1] ‘Nota’, [1] blank; apart from some minor dust-soiling, a clean crisp copy throughout; uncut and stitched as issued in contemporary wraps, rather worn and dust-soiled, spine defective, but holding firm; a good copy. First edition of this somewhat intemperate attack on the increasingly influential role of women in late eighteenth century France. 2 Artaize appears to have been a young man who had experienced more than his fair share of disappointment in his relations with women, and this was his second polemic against the female sex, the year after his Réflexion d’un jeune homme , which appears equally scarce. Here he continues the themes of the first work, railing against the increasing influence of women in politics and society, warning against their ambition and growing authority, and in particular complaining in exaggerated tones about the developing role and importance of women at court, at a time “quand les femmes dispensent l’honneur et les richesses, quand elles règnent despotiquement, quand tout est femme, et que je puis, en les blamant, me priber de tous les bienfaits du siècle”… OCLC records four copies, at UCLA, BNF, BL and Cambridge. 4.[AUSTRIAN CIVIL CODE]. SVEOBSHTII GRADJANSKII ZAKONIK ZA SVE NIEMATSKE NASLEDNE ZEMLE AUSTRIISKE MONARKHIE [DLC transliteration : Sveobshtii gradsianskii zakonik niemachke naslednie zemlie]. U Bechu [Vienna], Pismeny ts. k. Dvorne i Drzhavne Pechatne [Court and State Printers], 1849. £ 650 FFFIRST SSSERBIAN EEEDITION ... Three parts and index in one volume 8vo, pp. [xiii], 84; [ii], 318; [ii], 45; xlv, [1], woodengraved Imperial eagle on all four titles; apart from minimal spotting to a few leaves an fine copy in late 19 th -century half-cloth over marbled boards; spine lettered in gilt in German; a little rubbed; ownership inscription in ink, Dor Halavacek on front fly-leaf. Rare first, and according to the catalogue of the Austrian National Library, only edition in Serbian of the codified Austrian Civil Law ( Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch ABGB) which was published first in 1811 (reprinted up to 1909 with that date). In the year 1849, after the defeat of the revolution, which saw Croats and Serbs (who lived on both sides of the Austro-Turkish border) uniting and rising up against their Hungarian and Austrian masters, the Austrian code was extended to regulate the societies of Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, leading to the present translation. The code was largely the work of Karl Anton Freiherr von Martini and Franz von Zeiller, and draws heavily on the ideals of equality before the law to be found in the Napoleonic code. Heavily revised during the First World War, it remains the basis for Austrian civil law to this day. The Serbs, however, already had a civil code, the work of Jovan Hadzic in 1844, which remains largely in place, explaining the lack of further Serbian editions of the present code. OCLC locates copies in the University of British Columbia and in Yale. 3 DIAGNOSING AND CURING ILLNESSES 5.BALARDINI, Lodovico. SULLA IMPORTANZA DELLO STUDIO DELLA CONDIZIONE PATOLOGICA nella diagnosi e cura delle malattie universali comprovata specialmente dalla facolta elettiva del remidj… In Padova, dalla tipografia della Minerva. 1820.£ 185 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 20; lightly stained throughout, but still a good copy, stitched as issued in the original publisher’s wraps. First editon of this uncommon essay on the importance of observing and studying pathological conditions when diagnosing and curing illnesses, presented as an address to the University of Padua on the occasion of his medical degree by the influential Brescia physician Lodovico Balardini (1796-1891). Balardini cites authors as diverse as Erasmus Darwin, Bondioli, Tommasini and Rubini in the work, his first. He went on to publish studies on the waters at Salino, mushroom poisoning, pellagra, and cholera. OCLC records one copy at the Berliner Staatsbibliothek. POEMS BY A SHEPHERD BOY 6.BARHAM, George. PASTORAL AND OTHER POEMS, Brighton, printed for the Author by J.C.Dollman, 1854. £ 175 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. viii, 5-162; original cloth, stamped in blind with gilt centre panel, some surface wear to cloth (particularly at foot of upper board, with evidence of damp mark), nevertheless, still a good copy. Rare first edition of Pastoral and other Poems , comprising a significant body of work by George Barham, ‘a Shepherd Boy’. As well as numerous poems, such as ‘The Cottager’s Song of the Seasons’, ‘The Lost Sheep, or Colin in Trouble’and ‘Love of Country; or, England the home of the world’, Epitaphs, Odes, Hymns and Prayers are also included We have found little on George Barham, other than what can be found in the preface: ‘Having been left an orphan early in life, I learned more in the field and fold than ever fell to my lot to learn at school; in truth, I have literally been my own teacher’ (p. iii). OCLC records one copy in North America, at Yale, and two in the UK, at the BL and East Sussex County Library. 7.BEAURIEU, Gaspard Guillard de. LE PORTE-FEUILLE FRANÇOIS, ou Choix nouveau et intéressant de différentes Piéces de Prose & de Poësie… En France, se vend à Paris, Chez Durand, Neveu, rue Saint Jacques, à la Sagesse. Rozet, rue Saint Severin, à la Rose d’or., 1766.£ 285 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. [iv], xxi, [iii] advertisements, A1 (blank) removed, as usual; paper fault in gutter of N1 (not affecting the text), otherwise, apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary calf, spine tooled in gilt with morocco label lettered in gilt, some surface wear and rubbing to extremities, nevertheless, still a handsome and appealing copy. First edition of this collection of poems, essays, and stories, assembled, edited, and in some cases translated by the prolific French littérateur Gaspard Guillard de Beaurieu (1728-1795) Among the aphorisms and poems, there are letters to Mirabeau, an essay on the question of whether lying or truthfulness is more useful to society, a discourse on the philosophical spirit, an ode on the immortality of the soul, and a translation of Catullus 5.