BULLETIN 47 APRIL 2015

PICKERING & CHATTO 1 ST. CLEMENT’S COURT LONDON EC4N 7HB TEL: +44 (0) 20 7337 2225 E-MAIL: [email protected]

1. [ALLESTREE, Richard?]. THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN, laid down in a plain and familiar way for the use of all, but especially the meanest reader … Aberdeen: Printed by Francis Douglas, and sold at his Shop in the End of Broadgate. 1759. £ 385 8vo, pp. [xvi], 503, [7] contents, [2] advertisements; a clean copy throughout, with near contemporary ownership signature of ‘Millicent Ellis Nov 28th 1772’ on front free endpaper; contemporary calf, upper joint cracked (but holding firm), some chipping at head and tail of spine, and general surface wear, but still a good copy.

Rare Aberdeen printing of The Whole Duty of Man , the bestselling devotional guide which went through twelve editions by 1727, and attained an almost canonical authority in advice manuals of the eighteenth century. ‘ The Whole Duty of Man was intended to show “the very meanest readers” how “to behave themselves so in this world that they may be happy for ever in the next”. This best-selling manual’s prescription of morality and effort was balanced by an emphasis on divine grace and devotional practice: the result was sober, orthodox, common-sense advice pitched at the level of ordinary Anglican parishioners.’ [ODNB] The work is attributed to Richard Allestree (1621/22-1681), noted divine, censor at Oxford and tutor, who was an enthusiastic royalist, working as a courier to the King. He was later canon of Christ Church and provost of Eton College. Three copies recorded worldwide, at the Bodleian (ESTC), NLS (OCLC) and Edinburgh University (COPAC).

2. [ANON]. THE RULE OF LIFE. A collection of select moral sentences, extracted from the greatest authors, ancient and modern, and digested under proper heads. Edinburgh: Printed by and for Gavin Alston. 1772. £ 450 12mo, pp. vi, 259, [1] blank; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary sheep, spine ruled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt, foot of spine chipped, and upper joint cracked, nevertheless still an appealing copy.

A rare Edinburgh printed compendium of moral precepts, covering topics such as law, justice, ambition, hope, fear, vanity, friendship, wealth, luxury, and ‘women, love and marriage’.

6 Cruikshank 1 Allestree 2 [Anon]

‘My endeavour has been, to follow nature , and keep close to truth … It cannot be expected, that every sentence should have the authority of a maxim . Stars differ in brightness: yet those that shine the least, may have their influences’ (p. iv). ESTC records two copies, at the British Library and Illinois, OCLC adds one further copy at The Henry Ford collection.

Rare anti-materialist work

3. ASZTALOS, Elise von. AN DIE DENKENDEN DEUTSCHEN FRAUEN. Leipzig, Heinrich Matthes, 1868. £ 225 FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, pp. xx, 284; a little browned due to paper stock; original very decorative olive publisher’s cloth, lettered and ornamented in blind and gilt, all edges gilt; from the library of Friedrich Freiherr Gross von Trockau with his lithographic armorial bookplate on paste-down.

First edition of this rare anti-materialist work by the little-known artist, actor, and writer Elise von Asztalos, today better known for her memoirs published in 1901 under the title Aus meinem Künstlerleben als Primadonna in Deutschland, Österreich und Italien . Here, Asztalos criticises the materialist tendencies in philosophy and sciences since the eighteenth century. In the preface, written in London the year before, she explains that the purpose of this book is to let women participate in the debate about materialism against romantic, metaphysical and religious views. She furnished her argument with references to, and quotations from, Voltaire, early German idealists, such as Schiller, Hölderlin and Hegel, and the romantic ‘natural philosophers’ Novalis, Schleiermacher, Carl Gustav Carus and others. One passage is printed in French and one in English. OCLC locates only one copy, in the State Library in Berlin.

4. BURET, Eugène. DE LA MISERE DES CLASSES LABORIEUSES en Angleterre et en France; de la nature de la misère, de son existence, de ses effets, de ses causes, et de l’insuffisance des remèdes qu’on lui a opposés jusqu’ici; avec l’indication des moyens propres a en affranchir les sociétés … Tome I [-II]. Bruxelles, Societe Typographique Belge, 1842. £ 950 Two volumes, 12mo, pp. [iv], vi, 7-284; [iv], 342; apart from some light foxing a clean copy throughout; uncut in recent half calf, spines ruled in gilt with green morocco labels lettered in gilt, with the original printed wraps bound in; a very good copy.

Scarce Belgian printing of Buret’s condemnation of the exploitation of the working classes in England. The first of its kind, it preceded that of Engels, and went further in theory and analysis than Villermé in his study of France published the same year. In this book Buret expressed and accentuated the opinions of the rising socialist school. Buret perceived the vice of the industrial system to be caused by the separation of capital and labour. Revolution is, in his view, too destructive a solution, but his own proposals were hardly less profound in their call for social change. The social consequences of intensive industrialisation were far more noticable and more extreme in England than anywhere else in Europe, and European social reformers tended to look to Britain for the illustration of their theories. Buret stands out from his contemporaries as a critical economist in direct line from Sismondi to Marx, with a clear perception of the problems and well-developed and well- written theoretical solutions often found to be lacking in other writers of his time. The work first appeared in Paris in 1840. OCLC records two copies in North America, at Georgetown and Illinois; McCulloch, p. 305; see Kress C5117 & Goldsmiths 31647 for first edition.

5. [COLE, Henry]. ‘Felix Summerly.’ TRAVELLING CHARTS: Or, Iron Road Books, for perusal on the journey: (By Felix Summerly.) In which are noted the towns, villages, churches, mansions, parks, stations, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, cuttings, gradients, &c., the scenery and its natural history, the antiquities and their historical associations, &c., passed by the line of the railway. With hundreds of Illustrations. Constituting a Novel and Complete Companion for the Railway Carriage. London to Rugby and Birmingham (on the London and North-Western.) London, printed by James Holmes, 4, Took’s Court, Chancery Lane. [1845]. £ 250 Folding printed ‘Travelling Chart’ [310 x 21cm] with 136 wood-engraved illustrations; some abrading but no loss. folding down into original wrappers, now overlaid with contemporay brown paper.

The last and the longest of Cole’s inventive Travelling Charts . Cole’s ‘personal railway mania then led him to produce “travelling charts” His innovation here was to make the railway journey itself the central feature. The Railway Travelling Charts: or iron road books, for perusal on the journey included details not only of “towns, villages, churches, mansions, parks”, but also of “stations, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, cuttings, gradients”. These features were all marked on a sort of map, which adopted a traditional format for road maps, in which the road meandered down the middle of a page, with details of places and landmarks on each side. In Cole’s charts the railway line went vertically down the centre, flanked by text, and by illustrations in the form of charming little wood engravings after such artists as Richard Cox, jun., Charles C. Pyne, and Fraser Redgrave, the half- brother of the painter Richard Redgrave. The charts were individually printed on long strips of paper, which folded up into handy pamphlets, and were published from the Railway Chronicle office. They described the lines from London to Brighton, Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton, Tunbridge Wells, Guildford and Birmingham, among others’ (Bonyton & Burton: The Great Exhibitor; The Life and Work of Henry Cole , London: V&A, 2003. p. 71). 6. CRUIKSHANK, Percy. THE LITTLE PEOPLES PANORAMA. WHITTINGTON & HIS CAT [cover title ]. London, Darton & Co., [c. 1850]. £ 500 Lithographic strip panorama, consisting of three sheets conjoined, measuring 14 x 158cm, concertina- folding into illustrated boards, folding down to 15 x 11cm; old tape repairs to folds. covers worn and detached.

Scarce panorama by Percy Cruikshank giving his take on the old London legend of the Lord Mayor’s adventurous cat. Not in OCLC.

6 Cruikshank 7. [DICKENS]. CHEROOT CASE. Double slipcase for cheroots [c. 1837]. £ 450 12 x 7cm purple patterned leather slipcase within approx. 13.5 x 7.5cm lacquered slipcase; on the upper face appears a scene from Pickwick, after Onwhyn, in colour.

Unusual and well preserved spectacle case with the upper side depicting a scene from the Pickwick Papers . The illustration was included originally in The Pickwick Illustrations Thirty-Two Etchings by Thomas Onwhyn And “Sam Weller” published in 1837 and depicts the dramatic scene in chapter 1 from ‘The Madman’s Manuscript’ where the ‘madman’ confronts his confessor exclaiming ‘“Damn you,” said I, starting up, and rushing upon him; “I killed her. I am a madman. Down with you. Blood, blood! I will have it!”’ Probably not the most endearing subject for a cheroot case but an excellent topic for conversation. An unusual item attesting to the early popularity of Dickens.

First Scottish work on Scottish Agriculture

8. DONALDSON, James. HUSBANDRY ANATOMISED, or, an enquiry into the present manner of teiling and manuring the ground in Scotland for most part; and several rules and measures laid down for the better improvement thereof, in so much that one third part more increase may be had, and yet more than a third part of the expence of the present way of labouring thereof saved. Edinburgh, Printed by John Reid, in the Year M.DC.XC.VII. [1697]. £ 2,850

SECOND EDITION . 8vo (in ½ sheets), pp. [xvi], 136; tiny pinhole touching one letter of date, contemporary ownership inscription in ink on title- page (of one James Bennet), later endpapers; contemporary morocco, the sides panelled in gilt in the Cambridge style, spine fully gilt within the compartments with an overall geometric pattern, all edges gilt, joints and extremities worn; a very good copy indeed.

Second edition, however a sole copy of the 1696 first edition survives in the Signet Library (Wing D.1852: Aldis 3553). A brief supplement or postscript was also published later in 1698 but is not present here. The first printed work on agriculture in Scotland. ‘A rare little book … A high estimation has always been placed upon this work, as a valuable production of that early time, and it is considered fully equal to anything of that kind that had appeared to date. Copies are exceedingly scarce.’ [McDonald, Agricultural Writers , p. 142]. This was the first published work of James Donaldson (fl. 1713), who supplies a brief biography describing his farming background in the dedication. He takes a 60 acre holding as the basis for his discussions, which include some calculations of estimated costs and returns. As well as soil management and manuring, the author provides advice on the keeping of horses, cattle and sheep with detailed instructions on Scottish methods of making butter and cheese. Donaldson ends with advice on planting for the husbandman and the ‘sowing and planting of several garden seeds, and roots’, in particular potatoes - at that time still an unusual foodstuff. Fussell (vol.I p.84) additionally notes that ‘the main novelty is that he [i.e. Donaldson] is one of the first farming authors to consider the cost of production.’ Wing D.1853; Aldis 3662; Goldsmiths 3384; Rothamsted p. 48; Perkins 497.

9. [DRUG JAR LABELS]. GUYARD ET HAGEMEYER. SAMPLE BOOK CONTAINING 171 SAMPLES. Brussels: 31, rue Van Artevelde, [c. 1900]. £ 1,750 Oblong 8vo, [23 x 19cm] 80 leaves with 171 samples of colour, silver and gold printed labels; original morocco backed cloth; the inside upper cover chart for estimating the correct label for various sizes of drug jar; the inside back cover with list of ‘Modèles’ with prices per 100, the later examples priced in manuscript.

Guyard et Hagemeyer were a major Belgium manufacturer of glassware, porcelain, appliances and utensils for pharmacies and laboratories. They carried away prizes for their work with gold medal, at Brussels in 1888, silver at Paris in 1880 and bronze at Antwerp in 1885, and probably a prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition too. The catalogue illustrates a dazzling variety of labels each designed to engender a certain amount of awe to any visitor to a nineteenth century pharmacist with its rows of imposing drug jars each with their equally imposing Latin names. The main design feature common to all is the boldness of the the name of the drug jars contents. This is then framed within a thick band of colour or mixture of colour and gold or silver with bold geometric, renaissance or classical borders. We have not found reference to, or handled a similar sample book before. Employment of the Poor and Dishonourable Begging

10. FIRMIN, Thomas. SOME PROPOSALS FOR THE IMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR, and for the prevention of idleness and the consequence thereof, begging. A practice so dishonourable to the nation, and to the Christian religion. In a letter to a friend by T.F. London, printed by J. Grover, and to be sold by Francis Smith, at the Elephant and Castle, and Brad. Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill. 1681. £ 3,000

SECOND , MUCH EXPANDED EDITION . 4to, pp. [ii], 46; with engraved frontispiece; a fine, crisp, copy with good margins, in old (eighteenth century?) marbled wrappers.

Thomas Firmin (1632-1697) had learned to distrust mere almsgiving and made it his business to enquire into the condition of the poor by personal investigation and to reduce the causes of social distress by economic effort. His first philanthropic experiment was occasioned by the trade disorganisation of the plague year (1665). He provided employment at making up clothing for hands thrown out of work. Other schemes involved the building of storage space by the river for corn and coals to be retailed to the poor in hard times at cost price. Early in 1676 he had started a workhouse in Little Britain, for the employment of the poor in the linen manufacture. Firmin employed as many as 1,700 spinners, besides flax dressers and weavers. His arrangements for the comfort and cleanliness of his hands and for the industrial training of children rescued from the streets was admirable. But the scheme never paid. Firmin sold his linens at cost price and the annual loss on the venture was £200. In addition to his philanthropic efforts on behalf of the poor, Firmin was a prison philanthropist and worked hard to alleviate the condition of prisoners, particularly those imprisoned for debt. The present work is his most important and best known publication. It contains, amongst other things, an account of his own Work-House. Wing F.972; Goldsmiths 2435; Kress 1534; Massie 1049.

The First Professional Jewish Woman Writer

11. FOA, Eugénie. SIX HISTOIRES DE JEUNE FILLES par Madame Eugénie Foa. Paris, Louis Janet, Libraire, [1836]. £ 450 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [vi], ii, 294, [1] Table des Matieres, [1] blank; six lithograph plates, three by Louise Marigny; apart from a few minor marks and some light foxing in places, a clean copy throughout; in the original publisher’s calf backed printed boards, upper joint rubbed with short split (but holding firm), boards with minor dust-soiling, but still a very good copy.

Scarce first edition, and handsomely illustrated (in part by a woman), of these six stories for young girls by Eugénie Foa (1796-1852) ‘the first professional Jewish woman author, supporting herself entirely from her writings’. Foa was by descent a Sephardi Jewess, her mother being a member of the Gradis family, and both parents being members of the Bordeaux Jewish community. ‘She wrote children’s books, novels and short stories in the Romantic genre of her day, some of which treated of Jewish subjects. In addition, Foa contributed many articles to contemporary periodicals, sometimes under the pseudonym ‘Miss Maria Fitz-Clarence.’ She was in all likelihood the founder of the Journal des enfants , the first periodical aimed explicitly at a young readership. Foa also became involved in the emerging feminist movement, contributing in 1848 to the movement’s journal La Voix des femmes (Women’s Voice). She was particularly concerned with the challenges faced by women writers, their difficulties in finding financial support and public recognition. In her own day, Foa’s books were extremely popular, going through numerous printings. Several of her children’s stories were translated into English and she had a following in the United States as well as in France’ (see http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/foa-eugenie ). Foa dedicates the present work to her sister Léonie, who became a noted sculptor, and married the composer Jacques-Fromenthal Halévy (1799-1862). The work proved very popular with several further editions appearing throughout the nineteenth century, and one more in the early twentieth century. Her other works include, Le Kidouschim (1830); La Juive: histoire des temps de la régence (1835); Les Mémoirés d’un polichinelle (1839); Le petit Robinson de Paris (1840) and Le vieux Paris (1840). OCLC records three copies, at the BNF, NYPL and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

12. [GOLDSMITH]. DAMPMARTIN, Anne Henri Cabet, vicomte de. NOUVEAUX ESSAIS D’EDUCATION DE GOLSDMITH [sic], Traduits de l’Anglais, et accompagnesde Remarques Paris, chez Ducauroy … Deterville … Bertrand, An XI - 1803. £ 450 FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION, PRESENTATION COPY. 12mo, pp. [iv], 436, [2] blank, 12 adverts; a clean crisp copy throughout; uncut in the original publisher’s wrappers, spine with printed label, some minor marking, but not detracting from this being a very appealing copy, inscribed on verso of half title by the author.

Scarce French edition of Goldsmith’s Essays , translated by the French nobleman, philosopher, and historian Anne-Henri Cabet, vicomte de Dampmartin (1755-1825). ‘In France, as at home, these Essays acquired considerable popularity; translations appeared by Prince Boris de Galitzin in 1787, reprinted in 1805 under the title of Contes Moraux de Goldsmith ; by M. Castena in 1788; by M. Dampmartin in 1803; and again anonymously in 1808 under the inappropriate title of Essais d’Education et de Morale a l’Usage de la Jeunesse. ’ (Prior, Life of Oliver Goldsmith , 1837, vol. II, p. 99). The English first edition appeared in 1765. OCLC records six copies worldwide, two in North America (USC & Saint Norbert College), two in France (BNF & Mazarine) & at Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin.

13. GÜNZ, Justus Gottfried. COMMENTATIO MEDICO-CHIRURGICA de Commodo Parientium Situ. Lipsiae, apud Iu. Christianum Langenhemium, 1742. £ 185 FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. 52, engraved vignette; light browning; plain wrappers with patterned backstrip, as issued. Of Günz’s many publications on various medical subject this work on obstetrics and the position of the women during labour and birth is his most important. In it, he discusses the relationship between medicine and surgery, before examining the influence of the position of the foetus in childbirth on the subsequent health of the child. Günz (1714-51) was professor of physiology, anatomy and surgery in Leipzig and physician to the Elector of Saxony. Blake p. 188; Waller 3796; OCLC further North American copies at Chicago, Harvard, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Hume arrives in Italy

14. HUME, David. SAGGI POLITICI SOPRA IL COMMERCIO [POLITICAL ESSAYS ON COMMERCE.] del Signor David Hume. Traduzione dall’Inglese di Matteo Dandolo… Tomo primo [-secondo.] Venezia, appresso Giammaria Bassaglia e Luigi Pavini, MDCCLXVII [1767]. £ 2,500 FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN. Two volumes, 8vo, pp. xvi, 213, [3] blank; [viii], 165, [3] blank; apart from evidence of a light stain in margin of first gathering a clean crisp copy, on thick paper; bound in later half vellum over marbled boards, spine titled in ink, some surface wear and rubbing to extremities, but still a very desirable copy.

Scarce first Italian translation of Political Discourses , with text in English and Italian on opposite pages, containing the first eight of Hume’s discourses.. ‘In the Sixties translations in italian language begin to circulate. The one which deserves attention is the previously mentioned edition by Matteo Dandolo in 1767. It is a bilingual edition. After the first edition the English text disappears. The translation by Dandolo includes only eight essays, out of the twelve written by Hume. His translation of Hume’s Essays included ‘Of Commerce’, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’, ‘Of Money’, ‘Of Interest’ (vol. I), ‘Of the Balance of Trade’, ‘Of the Jealousy of Trade’, ‘Of Taxes’ and ‘Of Public Credit’ (vol. II). ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations’ was excluded, and although Dandolo had said he wanted to translate it, it never appeared: possibly he did not perceive its relevance to current economic policy. The reviewers of the Political Discourses, one in the Magazzino italiano and the other in Francesco Grizelini’s Giornale d’Italia, liked both the introduction and the text very much. According to the Giornale d’Italia , Dandolo gives his peers one of those “useful works that tend to enlighten us, especially in the science of commerce”, a science which “is the most useful and necessary to improve the condition of the nations”. Dandolo’s edition seems to be the Italian version of Le Blanc’s first volume. It also recalls the Essai sur le commerce printed in Lyon in 1767’ (Giulia Bianchi Editions and Translations of David Hume’s Political Discourses (1752) a paper read at the University of Pisa). A second Italian edition followed in 1774. Goldsmiths 10268; Higgs 3970; Jessop, p. 25 (unseen); not in Chuo, Einaudi, or Kress; OCLC records copies at Minnesota, McGill, National Library of Scotland and two in Italy.

15. [JESUITS]. LETTERE D’UN VENEZIANO ad un prelato di Roma, contenenti La Storia d’una celebre Causa, che molto interessava l’inclita e sempre venerabile Compagnia di Gesu. Trattata a’ 20. Settembre 1766 dinanzi l’Eccellentissimo Consiglio di Quaranta Civil Nuovo, e deffinita con inapellabile sentenza del medesimo. Con in fine una Lettera del medesimo Autore sopra i nuovi Gianizzeri. In Venezia, appresso Paolo Colombani, MDCCLXVI [1766]. £ 850 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 200; some soiling and browning in places, and light staining to final few leaves, but generally fresh; in contemporary carta rustica; a good copy.

First edition of this uncommon and waspish account of a controversy which arose in Venice and Bergamo on the death of the priest Andrea Zucchi, a canon at Bergamo cathedral. Ostensibly about an inheritance dispute, the letters give a rare insight into the status of the Jesuits in enlightenment Italy, and into questions of temporal and religious jurisdiction and power. Although the Jesuits had been readmitted to the Venetian States in 1666, Bergamo maintained a ban on any transfer of goods to the Jesuits through bequests and inheritance. The Society had already lost one case after; the present case was contested by the parents of the Archpriest of Bergamo cathedral, after his will had left his property to the Jesuits, with the intention that they might set up a Jesuit college in Bergamo. The case was heard not in Bergamo, but in Venice, in front of the quarantia , who found in favour of the family, arguing that the Jesuits had no business trying to have the case heard in Venice, rather than in Bergamo where they knew they would lose. The letters describing this case are throughout satirical in tone, and accuse the Jesuits of “occult plots” and hunger for temporal goods. Of particular interest is the bizarre last letter, linking (with reference to Kepler and Maupertuis) the course of a recent comet to the role of the Jesuits as the Janissaries of the Church, at first guarding and protecting it, but latterly controlling it. OCLC records three copies outside continental Europe, at Yale, Penn, and Cambridge.

16. [JOHNSON]. EXTRACTS FROM THE PUBLICATIONS of Mr. Knox, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Pennant, and Dr. Johnson; relative to the northern and north-western coasts of Great-Britain. London: Printed by C. Macrae, Orange-Street, Leicester-Square. May, 1787. £ 150 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 31; apart from minor evidence of worming in outer margin to final few leaves, a clean copy throughout; stitched as issued in the original blue wraps, some minor loss to extremities, but still a very good copy. Scarce pamphlet intended to promote public expenditure for the encouragement of the Scottish fisheries. The extract from Johnson is a short passage from the Journey to the Western Isles , on the distress of the natives. ESTC T77020; not listed in Courtney or Chapman.

17. [JUVENAL]. THE THIMBLE RESTORED, or The Idle Girl converted to Habits of Industry. London: Printed for Harvey and Darton, Gracechurch-Street. 1821.£ 450 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. 67, [1] blank; four engraved plates within classical borders, slightly spotted; original printed pink wrappers, spine worn.

The protagonists of this delightful tale are Mrs Foresight and her god daughter Emily, and Mrs Faulty and Lucy her very naughty daughter. The story revolves around Lucy hiding Emily’s thimble so that they can go ‘romping’ together. As can be imagined Emily’s petticoat is torn and she falls from her swing with all kinds of moral instruction and teaching required to bring Lucy round to become a good girl. Of course as a good girl Lucy takes to her needle and pianoforte lessons and also prevents Emily from going astray. An excellent and rare example of this moral work, atypical of Regency propriety, something akin to the works of Jane Austin in Juvenile form. OCLC records four copies, at the BL, UCLA, Florida, and Brigham Young.

18. KAMEN’SHCHIKOV, N. P. SOLNTSE. Astronomicheskii ocherk. Riga, P. P. Soikin, 1915. £ 285 FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. 32, with three colour plates and one illustration in red and black mounted on front cover, 50 text illustrations (including tail-piece); clean and fresh in the original printed and illustrated wrappers with the mounted illustration, front cover lightly rubbed.

A fine popular-astronomical publication on the sun, reflecting the latest research and observations carried out in Russian and other observatories, including solar photography with documentations of eruptions and protuberances on the surface of the sun and illustrations of observatories. The carefully executed colour illustrations are of a photo of a spectacular solar protuberance taken on the 21st of May, 1907 (old style) on the front cover, a painting of a solar eclipse over the Baltic coast, the solar eclipse of the 8th August 1914 (old style) above the rooftops of Riga and a comparative table of the solar spectrum and the spectra of certain chemical elements. - This beautiful work appeared in the series “Znanie dla Vsekh” (“Knowledge for Everyman”) which covered subjects of both human and natural science. ‘Soikin was a major vehicle for bringing space exploration - in both its scientific and fantasy forms - to the masses during the imperial era. His publishing company facilitated and engendered an international exchange of information on the fantastic possibilities of space exploration by publishing a stream of foreign space-themed fiction, translated mostly from English or French. The most important Soikin publications in this regard were those by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but others, such as Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’un Savant Russe by French authors Henry de Graffigny and Georges Le Faure, about a team of French and Russian scientists who explore the solar system, were just as popular’ (Asif A. Siddiq iThe Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957 CUP, 2010, p. 34). Not in OCLC. 19. [LACE]. SAMPLES OF LACE TRIMMING. A French travelling salesmen’s sample case. [France] [c. 1880]. £ 850 A shallow folding box (45 x 28 x 9cm folded) in four sections each of the sections divided into three columns in which the samples are set in vertical rows; original cloth covering, some later repairs.

An unusual and rare survival of samples of lace trimmings housed in the original travelling case which allowed the salesmen to add to their wares as they were updated or fell out of production. The samples are numbered 19698 to 19742, each with a pink paper manuscript marker identifying the name, length and variants of the individual pattern. Cost code information is provided for the travelling salesman to make their calculations when discounting. Each of the patterns also have the sample code of the manufacturer or the wholesaler. The samples include material to finish off the neckline, cuffs and fringes with such names as, ‘ruche encolun,’ ‘petit ruche mous’ and ‘brais mous’ and include examples made from cotton, silk and a few of woven metal thread.

20. LALANDE, Jerome de. LADIES’ ASTRONOMY. Translated from the French … by Mrs. W. Pengree. London, Printed for Darton, Harvey, and Darton, 1815. £ 300

FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION . 12mo, pp. xxxi, [i] blank, 124, [1] errata, [1] blank; with engraved frontispiece and one engraved plate; occasional light foxing, and one inch tear to foot of one leaf, but otherwise clean and fresh; in contemporary paper-backed boards; spine worn.

First English translation of Jerome de Lalande’s popular Astronomie des Dames , which first appeared in 1795 with editions in French still being produced as late as 1900. Lalande, in his preface, notes that ‘Since Newton’s time, every branch of astronomy has been brought to still greater perfection. The figure of the Earth, the inequalities of the Moon, of the planets, and the satellites of Jupiter, the small motions of the stars, the return of the comet in 1759, and the real distances of the planets from the Sun and the Earth, have been correctly ascertained to which we may add, the discovery of five new planets, whose existence was not even suspected. All these subjects will be explained in the little volume which I now offer to my fair readers. May they be induced by its perusal, to seek, in a more extensive work, for a further knowledge of the sublime spectacle of the universe’. To that end, Lalande discusses the motion of the heavens, the measurement of the earth, the constellations, the apparent motion of the sun, the moon, the calendar, eclipses, gravity, measurement of distance in space, comets, the plurality of worlds (after Fontenelle), tides, and the discovery of new planets. The translator, Mrs. Pengree, is probably the lady in charge of a Ladies Boarding School situated in Colehern-house, Earl’s Court near Brompton in London in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Relic of the Mary Rose

21. [MARY ROSE]. NARRATIVE OF THE LOSS OF THE MARY ROSE at Spithead, July 20, 1545. From original manuscripts, &c. in the British Museum. Bound in the wood of the wreck. Portsea: Printed & Published by S. Horsey, Sen., 1842. £ 1,250 FIRST EDITION. 32mo (8.9 x 5.5cm), pp. v, iii-vi, 7-96; a clean copy throughout; original black sheep- backed wooden boards, title gilt to the spine, all edges gilt, pale pink endpapers, lower board detached, polished oak boards slightly warped, but otherwise in excellent condition.

Scarce relic of the mid nineteenth-century exploration of the wreck of the Mary Rose by ‘Mr [John] Dean, that indefatigable diver, [who] first descended in his diving dress in the year 1836’ and whose operations are described on pp. 89-96. ‘Henry VIII embarked upon a programme of ship building on his accession, including the Mary Rose which was built between 1509 and 1511. As the English flagship, she took part in many of the naval conflicts of Henry’s reign. Her last engagement was in the Solent against a French invasion fleet in July 1545. With Henry watching from Southsea Castle on the mainland, the Mary Rose sank with the loss of around 500 men. The wreck of the Mary Rose lay undiscovered for nearly 300 years until its accidental discovery by fishermen in 1836, leading to diver John Deane recovering timbers and other relics over the next few years. A history of the ship’s demise was published by Samuel Horsey; copies of his book were bound using samples of wood recovered during Deane’s expeditions’ (Henry VIII quincentenary exhibition catalogue, Royal Collection). There is a printed slip pasted opposite the title which reads: “The Wood from which the Covers of this Book are made, was purchased Nov. 12th, 1840, at Mr. Dean’s Public Sale of Articles recovered by him from the Mary Rose. A certificate of which may be seen on application to the Publisher. The Public may confide on its being a Genuine Relic of that unfortunate Ship”. Further editions of the work appeared in 1844 and 1849. Uncommon, OCLC locates just three copies, at the National Maritime Museum, Plymouth and the BL, with just three further copies of the 1844 and 1849 editions, all of them in the UK. Scarce Victorian Educational Handkerchief

22. [MOTHER GOOSE]. VICTORIAN CHILD’S HANDKERCHIEF divided into eleven compartments depicting animals and scenes of children at play, accompanied by four nursery rhymes from Mother Goose. [n.p., n.d., c. 1850].£ 450 Handkerchief printed on linen (36cm x 31cm), border unevenly cut in places, but this not affecting the printed area, otherwise in good original state.

23. [NAPOLEONIC WARS]. A SMALL, DIVERSE ARCHIVE OF MATERIAL. [London & elsewhere, 1790-1815]. £ 550

1. ALS from Major John Cochran to Doctor Polhill, Leghorn, requesting the return of Stevens, addressed Porto Ferrara (Elba), 24th Feb. 1794, with integral address leaf and wax seal. 1 page . 2. FOOLSCAP MS. (copy) order to the Vice Admiral of Kent ordering an embargo on Spanish ports and Spanish vessels trying to enter harbour; and on integral leaf, confirmation signed by Lord Dorset, dated Knole Sept 30th 1796; addressed verso ‘Mayor of Margate, Kent,’ ink stamp for Sevenoaks, and another frank, folded where posted. 3. WAR OFFICE printed document, filled in ms., signed by Palmerston, 1816. 4. WAR OFFICE printed pay form (made out in ms.) in favour of Capt Adolphus F. Duncker of the 6th West India Regt., date 2nd Dec. 1801. (a web search reveals that Duncker served as a 2nd Lieutenant, Ditfurth Unit, in the American Revolution); and four other pay documents for 1804, 1810, 1818, relating to other personnel, of which two relate to Lieut. Col. Baron Charles Hompesch for his half-pay as a Colonel of Cavalry (presumably the same man whose German Mercenary Dragoons were guilty of looting Wexford in 1798). 5. COMMISSION for a supernumerary military draughtsman and surveyor (John Hills, Gent.), on vellum, trimmed, signed by the Earl of Mulgrave, dated 1813. 6. A SMALL QUANTITY of Napoleonic era English newspapers and Parliamentary Acts.

24. [PAINE]. FRESTON, Rev. Anthony. A DISCOURSE ON LAWS. Intended to shew that legal institutions are necessary, not only to the happiness, but to the very existence of man … [London?] Printed for the author. And sold by Deighton, London; Robbins, Winchester; Collins, Salisbury; Baker, Southampton; Hollis, Romsey; and all other booksellers, 1792. £ 550 FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. 22; a little foxed throughout, due to paper stock; with authorial corrections throughout; in recent marbled boards.

Scarce first edition of this discourse by the Anglican clergyman Anthony Freston, né Brettingham (1757–1819) attempting to answer Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. The publication of Rights of Man caused a furore in England and spawned an incredible amount of literature. Poor Freston is slightly out of his depth as he tries to use the ten commandments and the original sin in defending the status quo. Various sentiments are vented by Freston but all tend to long established principles of property and hereditary rights: ‘But were men thus originally equal, they could not long continue so… when the Increase of numbers, and extended Population, had raised the value of property by increasing the Demand for it … Without the Adherence to some Laws, not even Thieves can preserve Society … and those writers who would bring them back to to a state of Nature, are certainly deceived themselves, or have some selfish End in deceiving others, and should be treated, not as the friends, but as the Enemies of Liberty.’ Freston’s later sermons all strongly reflect the contemporary concern that the teaching of the established church should support civil obedience and duty although possible evidence of evangelical influence can be discerned towards the end of his life. Freston matriculated at Oxford as a commoner of Christ Church, 26 December 1775, and proceeded B.A. in 1780. Having married a Cambridge lady, the widow of Thomas Hyde, he removed in 1783 to Clare Hall in that university, where he was incorporated B.A., and graduated M.A. the same year. In 1792 he was licensed to the perpetual cure of Needham, Norfolk, in his own patronage, and in 1801 he was presented by a college friend to the rectory of Edgworth, Gloucestershire. George Huntingford, bishop of Gloucester, appointed him rural dean of the deanery of Stonehouse. He died on 25 December 1819. ESTC records one copy only, at Cambridge, COPAC adds a further copy at the BL.

Don’t wake the Sleeping Cat!?

25. [PARLOUR GAME]. DE SLAPENDE POES onder de Vogels. Lotterij-Spel. [Amsterdam, C.A. Arum, c. 1825]. £ 550 Original game consisting of twelve hand coloured cards, ten of which depict birds, one of a cat and another of an empty bird cage, housed in the original cardboard box (11 x 9 cm) with printed label depicting a sleeping cat with a bird in foreground; accompanied by a part facsimile of the original printed rules; the game was originally sold with six dice, which are not present here; cards lightly dust- soiled and foxed, box similarly rather worn with bottom joint split, nevertheless, still an appealing copy. Rare survival of this original lottery game whose title translates as ‘The Sleeping Cat Amongst the Birds’. We have been unable to decipher the original rules but the premise of the game would seem to be for the birds to make their way to the empty birdcage without waking the sleeping cat. Although standard reference works note it as just ‘an amusing parlor game’, evidently it was very popular given the well used condition of the present copy, coupled with its rarity on the market. We have located only one other copy, at the Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem.

Prison and Lunatic Asylum reform in Gloucester

26. PAUL, Sir George Onesiphorus. A COLLECTION OF FIVE PAMPHLETS BY PAUL, all relating to Gloucestershire (the new prison, lunatic asylum, the shire hall, prison regulation, and prisons in general). Gloucester, 1792-1809:

1. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A GENERAL MEETING OF THE NOBILITY, GENTRY, CLERGY, AND OTHERS, assessed to the county rate for the County of Glocester, convened by the High- Sheriff, for the purpose of receiving a statement of the proceedings of the committee appointed to carry into execution the resolutions of the said County, to rebuild the gaol and bridewells thereof; - and held on Monday the 9th of July, 1792. n.p. [Gloucester], published by permission of the author. 8vo., pp. vii, [i], 72; wanting the half title, but with a large folding table (A general abstract of the whole cost of building of the different prisons of the county of Gloucester - short closed tear at one fold), old dampstain at foot of title. FIRST EDITION : very scarce. ESTC, OCLC & COPAC locate copies at five libraries (Cornell, BL, NLS, Gloucester R.O. , and the Wellcome) together with a severely incomplete copy at Goldsmiths (15352). 2. MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS RELATIVE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A GENERAL LUNATIC ASYLUM, near the city of Glocester. Including a digest of a scheme for such an institution: addressed to a general meeting of subscribers, held at the Glocester Infirmary, on the 14th of July, 1794. n.p. [Gloucester], Printed at the special request of the committee appointed to carry the design into effect. 1796. 8vo, pp. 70, [2], 22. FIRST EDITION? Rare. Copies found only at Cambridge, Sir John Soane’s Mus. and Gloucester R.O. Not in BL. 3. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A GENERAL MEETING OF THE COUNTY OF GLOCESTER: convened by the High Sheriff, and held on Tuesday, January 11, 1803; for the purpose of considering the necessity or expediency of erecting a new Shire-Hall for the said county; or of adopting such other measures as the dilapidated state of the present Booth-Hall might require. Glocester, printed at the request of the general meeting; and (by permission of the author) sold for the county rate …… 1803. 8vo, pp. [ii], 128; wanting the half-title . FIRST EDITION : very rare. The only copy listed by COPAC & OCLC is at the BL. 4. ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY’S JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF GLOCESTER, on the administration and practical effects of the system of prison regulation, established in that County: delivered at their Epiphany General Quarter Sessions, 1809. Glocester: printed by D. Walker; published for the benefit of the Fund for Prison Charities in Glocester Gaol. 1809. 8vo, pp. 158; including a folded table. FIRST EDITION : scarce. 5. RULES AND ORDERS FOR THE REGULATION AND CONTROUL [sic] OF PRISONS. Revised and recommended to the Magistrates of the County of Glocester. Glocester: printed by D. Walker, at the Office of the Glocester Journal. 1808. 8vo, pp. [ii], ii, 84. Rare: copies located only at Princeton and Glasgow. Not in BL. £ 1,500 8vo., various paginations (see above); bound together in a single volume ca. 1810 in diced russia gilt, with the contemporary bookplate on front pastedown of John Paul Paul (1772-1828); in fine state of preservation.

This is altogether a particularly good and coherent group of material all written by the Gloucestershire prison reformer and philanthropist Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, Bart. (1746-1820). A cautious political reformer, Paul had begun to have an influential role in the public life of Gloucestershire as early as 1780. Following damning visits to the county gaol by John Howard in 1777 and 1784, when he found the inhuman and insanitary conditions typical of the period, Paul launched his campaign to reform the county prisons. ‘In 1785 a committee under his direction secured an act of parliament for building a new gaol at Gloucester and four houses of correction in other parts of the county, the sites chosen being Littledean for the Forest of Dean; Northleach for the central Cotswolds; Horsley for the populous clothmaking valleys of the west Cotswolds; and Lawfords Gate, Bristol, for south Gloucestershire. Work began in 1788 and the five new buildings were completed in 1792 at a total cost of £46,438, raised mainly by loans on the credit of the county rate. They were designed by William Blackburn, the specialist prison architect favoured by Howard, but Paul himself undertook much of the detailed planning and supervision, his labour made more intense by Blackburn’s illness and death in 1790. That very personal involvement continued after the opening of the prisons: until almost the end of his life he paid close attention to all aspects of their administration. ‘Paul’s scheme, having been brought to a successful conclusion, provided a model for the magistrates of other counties, who were able to benefit from his printed addresses on the subject and from his detailed rules and regulations for the Gloucestershire prisons, published in the first of several editions in 1790. In 1810 Sir Samuel Romilly cited the new Gloucestershire prisons, with that at Southwell, as the most remarkable of recent improvements, and Paul was called to give evidence to the select committee of the Commons considering the matter in 1811. He had won a national reputation in his field…. ‘Having demonstrated a talent for analysing and planning complex matters, Paul found himself consulted by colleagues in various fields. For his fellow governors of the county infirmary at Gloucester he reported in 1794 in his customary exhaustive detail on the possibility of admitting lunatics; a letter on the treatment of criminal and pauper lunatics he wrote to the home secretary in 1806 influenced the drafting of an act on the subject in 1808.’ [Nicholas Herbert in ODNB]. 27. [PAVIA]. DIZIONARIO DOMESTICO PAVESE-ITALIANO Parte Prima [-Seconda]. Pavia, dalla tipografia Bizzoni, 1829. £ 600 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 129, [1] errata; some light foxing throughout; in contemporary blue mottled boards; some slight wear but still a good copy.

First edition of this uncommon dictionary of the Pavese dialect, spoken in the province of Pavia in Italy. OCLC records six copies, at the Newberry Library, Harvard, NYPL, Cleveland Public Library, and the Universities of Illinois and Leeds.

28. [PEEPSHOW]. LE MARCHÉ AU BEURRE DE PARIS. / Der Butter Markt / The Butter- market of Paris. [Germany? c. 1836.]. £ 1,500 Hand coloured lithograph concertina-folding peepshow with four cut-out sections. Front-face, measuring 14 x 19.6 cm, forms lid of cardboard box containing peepshow; extending by paper bellows, left and right to approximately 66 cm, some wear to box lid with some loss of border, but still a very appealing item.

The peepshow shows a typical day at the Paris Butter Market (presumably Marché au Beurre, aux Œufs, et au Fromage, St Germain). The coloured label on front of the box consists of the titles within three arches, a scene of the exterior of the market with vendors and customers, and an oval peephole. ‘Peering through the peep-hole reveals the scene within the market building. Galignani’s New Paris Guide (1837) describes the Marché au Beurre’ as a triangular building in the Marchés des Innocents complex erected in 1822. It was open every day from 6 to 11 in the summer and from 7 to 11 in the winter. Despite the title, fish are on sale, as well as ducks and geese’ (Gestetner-Hyde Paper Peephows , p. 131). Gestetner-Hyde 97.

An important rarity in textile design and colour theory

29. PERSOZ, Jean-François. TRAITÉ THÉORIQUE ET PRACTIQUE DE L’IMPRESSION DES TISSUES … Ouvrage avec 165 figures et 429 échantillons intercalés dans le texte, et accompagné d’un Atlas in-4 de 20 planches. Tome Premier [-Quatrieme]. Paris: Victor Masson, 1846. £ 2,750 FIRST EDITION. Four text volumes, 8vo, pp. [viii], lx, 569, [1] blank; [iv], 558; [iv], 458; [iv], 560; illustrated with 429 fabric samples mounted throughout; Atlas volume: 4to, pp. [vi], with 20 plates of which three are chromolithographs; lightly foxed in places due to paper stock; text volumes bound in contemporary red morocco backed marbled boards, spines decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt, small chip to head of vol. IV, and light rubbing to boards and extremities, Atlas volume in calf backed marbled boards, spine decorated and lettered in gilt, light surface wear and rubbing to extremities, otherwise an appealing copy.

Persoz (1805-1868), a chemist and Professor in the School of Pharmacy at Strasbourg, wrote this work for the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (founded 1802) for which he won a medal, but more importantly they agreed to publish his work. The first volume describes the technical aspects of colouring and chemistry, while the following volumes include vibrant fabric samples from the principal calico printers in England, Scotland, Alsace, Switzerland, Normandy and Paris. George Seurat, the famed pointillist painter, was an early adherent of Persoz’s work. Martin Kemp, in his book The Science of Art , wrote that ‘Persoz’s brilliantly illustrated Traite attracted Seurat’s attention, to the extent that the painter transcribed a section of the text.’ He was much taken by the Indian origins of the dyes used and the patterns created with them. Seurat regarded them in terms of the mystical and the occult rather than in the western ideas light and dark and scientific theory, although he was also well acquainted with the writings of Chevreul. The present copy, although having the Atlas volume bound differently, is still a nice set with all four hundred and twenty-nine fabric samples present. Poggendorff II, 109; Bolton I, 732; Darmstaedter 440. 30. [POPE]. [COLARDEAU, Charles-Pierre, translator ]. LETTRE D’HELOISE À ABAILARD, traduction libre de M. Pope. Par M. C***. Au Paraclet. MDCCLVIII [1758]. £ 400 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 23, [1] blank; in recent wraps.

First edition of this loose translation by Colardeau of Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard (1717). The translator, Charles-Pierre Colardeau (1732-1776), was a poet made famous by the present work and a translation of the first two sections of Night-Thoughts by Edward Young (1770). ‘In 1755, with the recall of the Parliaments, Colardeau was able to return to Paris where he finished his tragedy Astarbé which he read to the Comédiens-Français in July 1756. Before the welcome given to his work, he decided to abandon the law to devote himself entirely to his literary career. Astarbé however, was not performed immediately, and the assassination of Damiens led Colardeau to withdraw it, however, he composed an imitation of Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard , which was a great success and made him immediately famous’ ( Wikipedia ). OCLC records four copies in North America, at Loyola Marymount, UCLA, Florida State and Dartmouth College.

Referring to Newton & Locke

31. [PRANDI, Girolamo]. LETTERA CRITICA INTORNO AL SENSO MORALE Scritta ad un Amico da Girolamo Prandi, P. Professore nella R. Universita di Bologna e membro del Collegio Elettorale dei Dotti … [Colophon: ] In Bologna per Giuseppe Lucchesini. [1808]. £ 285 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 28; a clean crisp copy in recent mottled boards.

First edition of this rare essay on the moral sense by the Bolognese philosopher and historian Girolamo Prandi, in which he examines and criticises the idea, paying particular attention to its use by John Locke, Isaac Newton, Frances Hutcheson and by Michele Araldi, whose Pensieri sulla credulità appeared the previous year. Not in OCLC. The Whitby Quaker - Scarce first English Printing

32. RIPLEY, Dorothy. THE BANK OF FAITH and Works United. By Dorothy Ripley, Citizen of this World, but Gone Above to the New Jerusalem. Whitby, Printed for the Authoress by G Clark, 1822. £ 225

SECOND EDITION . 12mo, pp vi, 306, woodcut of an iceberg in text on p. 35; apart from a few minor marks, a clean copy throughout; in modern boards; spine with printed label; a little dusted.

‘Second edition’ but the first English printing, previously published in Philadelphia in 1819. The work describes missionary travels in America, with visits to the Oneida Indians, during 1805 by Dorothy Ripley, the Whitby quaker, including some interesting observations on slavery. OCLC records just four copies, at Earlham College, Sunnyvale Public Library, Kent State, and the University of Manchester; see Smales, G. Whitby Authors 1867, pp. 44-46 for an account of this author and her works.

33. [ROUSSEAU]. CHAILLET, Samuel. INFORMATION DE LA COMPAGNIE DES PASTEURS de la Principauté de Neuchatel & Valangin, pour l’édification du public. [n.p., Neuchâtel?] MDCCLXV [1765]. £ 450 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 26, [2]; title lightly dust-soiled, otherwise a clean copy throughout, with contemporary ownership signature on title; in later marbled wraps.

This rare pamphlet, by the Serrières cleric Samuel Chaillet, attempts to calm the theological controversies between the Compagnie des pasteurs of Neuchatel and Rousseau, while Rousseau was staying at Val-de-Travers. The Compagnie had been accused of treating Rousseau excessively harshly in response to his criticisms of them; Chaillet attempts a moderate response, condemning the attacks on Rousseau: “Quant aux violences éxercées contre M. Rousseau, au mépris de la Protection immédiate de sa majesté dont il étoit honoré, au mépris des Loix, et au mépris de la Réligion, nous ne saurions assez dire combien nous détestons ces atentats. C’est trahir la Réligion que de prétendre la défendre par de telles armes” (p. 24). Conlon 320; OCLC records four copies, at UC Berkeley, Augsburg and two in Switzerland (Geneva & Neuchâtel). 34. ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. DISCOURS QUI A REMPORTE LE PRIX A L’ACADEMIE DE DIJON. En l’annee 1750. Sur cette question proposee par la meme Academie: Si le retablissement des Sciences & des Arts a contribue a epurer les moeurs. Par un Citoyen de Geneve. A Geneve, chez Barillot & fils. [1750]. £ 1,500 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. [vi], 66; with engraved frontispiece; in recent marbled boards.

Uncommon first edition of the prize winning essay which made Jean-Jacques Rousseau famous. In his Discours , written in response to the Dijon prize question for 1750: Has the progress of the sciences and arts contributed to the purification of morals , Rousseau denied moral progress and proclaimed the well known ‘paradox’ that mankind deteriorates as civilization advances. This was to start a controversy that lasted for the next three years and prompted a number of refutations from a ‘tribe’ of writers rushing to defend the arts against slander. ‘One day, I took the Mercury, of France , and, in walking along, while looking over it, I fell on this question proposed by the Academy of Dijon as the prize for the following year … The moment I read this I beheld another universe, and I became another man … On arriving at Vincennes, I was in excitement which bordered on delirium. Diderot perceived it, and I told him the cause. He exhorted me to give my thoughts to the essay, and contend for the prize. I promised to do so, and from that moment I was ruined. All the rest of my life and my misfortunes were inevitable effects of this moment of mistake’ (Craddock: Rousseau, As Described by Himself [1877], pp. 28-29). Dufour 13; Cioranescu 54709; Tchemerzine X, p. 25.

35. [ROUSSEAU]. [LENORMANT, Charles-François]. J.J. ROUSSEAU, Aristocrate. A Paris, chez les Marchands de Nouveautés. 1790. £ 550 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 109; a clean copy throughout; in contemporary mottled calf, boards ruled in gilt, spine tooled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt; a handsome copy.

First edition of this uncommon work by Charles-François Lenormant (d. 1816), in which he argues that Rousseau’s arguments in the Contrat Social were essentially counter-revolutionary, and could be used to attack the justification given for the new Assemblée nationale. The work was prompted by seeing a bust of Rousseau among those of Washington and Franklin in the hall of the Assemblée; what could have prompted this? Rousseau, Lenormant argues, ‘loin d’être l’auteur de la révolution de 1789, en [a] été l’adversaire et le fléau’ (p. 5), and falls squarely under the designation of “aristocrat”; Lenormant illustrates with passages from both the Contrat Social and other works, showing that Rousseau would have had little sympathy for the Revolution - in common with Ferrand, Lenormand argues “that Rousseau’s conception of the inalienability of sovereignty rendered the operations of a representative democracy fundamentally illegitimate” (Swenson, p. 172). See James Swenson, On Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Stanford University Press, 2000; OCLC records four copies in North America, at Syracuse, Michigan State, NYPL and the Newberry Library.

A Darwinian missing link

36. SCROPE, George Julius Poulett. PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY deduced from the Natural Laws of social Welfare, and applied to the Present State of Britain… London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, Paternoster-Row, MDCCXXXIII [1833]. £ 850 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xvi, 457 [1] imprint; engraved frontispiece map (see above); contemporary polished calf, spine decorated in gllt with red skiver label; ex library from Queen’s College, Oxford with discreet ink stamps.

First edition of Principles of Political economy , called by McCulloch “a work of considerable talent and acuteness”, in which Scrope “proposed to correct the legal standard of value, (or at least, to afford to individuals the means of ascertaining its errors) by the periodical publication of an authentic price- current, containing a list of a large number of articles in general use, arranged in quantities corresponding to their relative consumption, so as to give the rise or fall, from time to time, of the mean of prices; which will indicate, with all the exactness desirable for commercial purposes, the variations in the value of money; and to enable individuals, if they shall think fit, to regulate their pecuniary engagements by reference to this Tabular Standard” (pp. 406-407). Scrope wrote numerous pamphlets on economical questions; his opposition to the Malthusian theory of population, defended the Poor laws, advocated unemployment insurance and criticised the gold standard. ‘It has been argued forcefully, and I believe correctly, that the application of “population thinking” to living organisms (as opposed to “essentialist” or “typological” thinking) was a major element in the “Darwinian revolution” … . Hence he may have derived his “population thinking” about organisms, at least in part, from Lyellian biogeography … But I would suggest in addition that Lyell may have derived his “population thinking” about lava-flows, mountains, islands, and organisms from the geology of Scrope’ (Rudwick, p. 210). George Julius Poulett Scrope (1797-1876) geologist and political economist, was the leading volcano expert in Britain. After his scientific travels on the Continent ‘Scrope had become increasingly concerned with economic and social affairs since his return to England in 1823. Settling at Castle Combe, which his father-in-law had vacated, Scrope’s duties as a magistrate made him acutely aware of the social problems of rural poverty, and he became a forceful critic of the poor laws’ ( Oxford DNB ). ‘Scrope spoke only rarely in parliament: “a parliamentary reputation is like a woman’s”, he once said; “it must be exposed as little as possible” (Sturges, 25, n. 26). He preferred to make his points in essays for the Quarterly Review and in brief pamphlets, the profusion of which earned him his nickname of Pamphlet Scrope. His earlier pamphlets exposed the iniquities of the poor laws in England; later, he vehemently criticized government and absentee landlords for the still worse problems of Irish poverty. On the local level he was, in the aristocratic manner, an enlightened landlord and a compassionate magistrate; on the national level, a vehement critic of the poor laws and of Malthusian doctrines’ (ibid. ). Einaudi 5198; Goldsmiths 27877; Kress C.3610; McCulloch p. 19; Palgrave III, p. 369; Schumpeter 489- 90; Sturges 58. See ‘Poulett Scrope on the Volcanoes of Auvergne: Lyellian Time and Political Economy’ Martin J. S. Rudwick The British Journal for the History of Science Vol. 7, No. 3 (Nov., 1974), pp. 205-242.

Is the fair sex more beautiful?

37. SECKENDORFF, Christian Adolph Freiherr von. IST DAS SCHÖNE GESCHLECHT AUCH WIRKLICH DAS SCHÖNE? Allen Schönen gewidment … Leipzig, im Comptoir für Literatur, 1810. £ 385 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. iv, 60; clean and fresh throughout, stitched as issued, with later marbled backstrip.

Rare first separate edition of this humorist essay on the question whether the fair sex is also the more beautiful. Adolph Freiherr von Seckendorff (1767-1833), a writer on various subjects, had written an early version in 1802 for private circulation, which a friend of his reworked and published in a rare periodical Der Widersprecher ( The Contradictor ). Seckendorf now re-established the original form of the essay where he ‘proves’ that actually men should be called the fair sex and where he deals with gender differences at various stages of life. Not in OCLC.

The Living Skeleton: A Curiosity of Nature

38. SEURAT, Claude Ambrose. THE LIVING SKELETON, now exhibiting at the Chinese Saloon, Pall Mall. An account of that most extraordinary and interesting phenomenon, Claude Seurat, called the Living Skeleton; giving an accurate description of his person, and every particular relative to his singular habits, customs, &c. &c. Embellished with a whole-length portrait of this curiosity of nature. London: J. Limbird. [n.d., c. 1826]. £ 850 8vo, pp. 24; woodcut frontispiece portrait, finished in colour; neatly bound recently in cloth, gilt lettered; a good, uncut, copy.

Claude Ambrose Seurat (1798-c. 1832), better known as ‘The Living Skeleton’. This pamplet, published when Seurat was 27 and was one of a number of similar accounts published, no doubt to accompany his self-promotional journey across Europe, and provides a number of observations about his life, physiognomy and characteristics, together with a brief synopsis of professional observations upon his condition. Seurat was one of a number of ‘human skeletons’ (notably Harry V. Lewis, J. W. Coffey, Isaac W. Sprague at Barnum’s American Museum, and George Anderson) who gained notoriety for their extreme emaciation. The Frenchman Seurat travelled throughout Europe during the 1820s and 30s, and became not only a popular attraction with audiences and royalty alike, but was the wonder of artists, naturalists and physiologists, being examined by leading physicians such as Astley Cooper in London and Dupuytren and Dubois in Paris in 1828 and 1829, and the subject of a crayon drawing by Goya who saw him at the Bordeaux fair in 1826, parading his bony frame for a fee of 10 sous. Unsurprisingly he also came to the attention of Dickens and warranted a brief mention in ‘Pickwick Papers’. It is likely that Seurat’s condition was physiological and that he was suffering from acute musculat atrophy which resulted in withered limp arms and legs, but a normal head. His appearance clearly alarmed and amazed spectators, however for although feeble and with a weak voice, he was otherwise perfectly healthy. ‘His show was described by the British medical journal ‘Lancet’ as ‘one of the most impudent and disgusting attempts to make profit of the public appetite for novelty.’ Yet Seurat countered that he was making money in order to retire in his homeland, adn that exhibitors had saved him ‘from a profitless, wandering life of self-exposure in France’ (Jay, Extraordinary Exhibitions , p. 68).

Other accounts published around the same time include ’A Living Skeleton’ (London, Fairburn, 1825, 20pp and with three engravings drawn by Robert Cruikshank), described as ‘an authentic memoir of that singular human prodigy Claude Seurat, denominated the living skeleton, who arrived in London from the continent in July 1825’; and Interesting Account and Anatomical Description of Claude Ambroise Seurat (London, Glindon, 1825, 16pp). Cohn 494; OCLC records three copies at Harvard, Indiana, and Pittsburgh; see Jay, Extraordinary Exhibitions , p. 68 and 138; see Nickell, Secrets of the Sideshow, pp. 102-3.

39. [SHAKESPEARE]. ORIGINAL FRAGMENT OF WOOD FROM SHAKESPEARE’S MULBERRY TREE. Bearing the seal of John Doubleday and inscribed with manuscript note added to the face above by Doubleday, [Stratford-upon-Avon] [n.d., c. 1800]. £ 1,000 Wood measures 26.2 x 8.5cm, approx 2mm thick, snapped in half but sympathetically repaired, and mounted in a custom made modern frame.

Rare survival of a fragment of wood from Shakespeare’s Mulberry tree, bearing the seal of John Doubleday and with a manuscript note added to the face above by him: ‘A fragment of the Mulberry Tree planted by Wm. Shakespeare at Stratford upon Avon, given me by the Revd. Thos. Rackett, one of David Garrick’s executors’. John Doubleday produced a number of relics commemorating the burning down of the Houses of Parliament in 1834. On one of these he describes himself as J. DOUBLEDAY DEALER IN CAST OF OLD SEALS/ GREEKS COINS ETC, 18, LITTLE RUSSELL STREET BLOOMSBURY, LONDON. His image is in the National Portrait Gallery where it is noted: ‘Originally a printer, John Doubleday took up business as a copyist of coins, medals and ancient seals and was employed by the British Museum as an antiquities restorer. His greatest triumph was the restoration of the Portland Vase, after it had been wilfully broken into numerous pieces in 1845.’ The Rev. Thomas Rackett, ( 1757-1841), was a man of wide interests, archaeological, scientific and literary. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a protégée of David Garrick, and his correspondence with a varied circle of friends and ‘kindred spirits’ produces much interesting material.

40. [SHAKESPEARE]. FINELY CARVED PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE executed at the turn of the nineteenth century. [n.d., c. 1800]. £ 750 Oval portrait measures 9 x 6.5 cm, carved in bone? and set on glass, backed in blue, depicting the sitter in profile, head to the left; portrait mounted in modern glazed oval wooden frame, a very desirable item.

Finely carved portrait of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. Although never revered in his lifetime, by 1800 Shakespeare was firmly enshrined as the national poet and it is likely that the present portrait was carved around this time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, his reputation also spread abroad and among those who championed him were Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Victor Hugo. During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of German Romanticism. In the nineteenth century, critical admiration for Shakespeare’s genius often bordered on adulation. “That King Shakespeare,” the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, “does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible”.

Miss Hilton’s Benefit Concert, Printed on Silk

41. [SILK PRINTING]. BROADSIDE PRINTED ON SILK FOR A BENEFIT CONCERT “Most Respectfully Presented to R. Gaunt Esq. For the Benefit of Miss Hilton” [Leek?] J. Thornhill, Printer [1829]. £ 185 Broadside printed on silk, approximately 15.5 x 29cm in size; worn and frayed to right hand edge, small amount of wear towards head just catching text, but without loss of sense.

Unusual printing on silk of this broadside advertising the second benefit concert for Miss Hilton, including a version of Sheridan’s The Rivals , but perhaps most intriguing is the ‘celebrated comic dwarf dance … including the whimsical transformation of the dwarf, 3 feet high to that of Mad Moll, 6 feet high’. It is likely that Thornhill, the printer, was local, but the only printer with that surname in the BBTI is located in Hanley (near Leek) in 1815. Several of the actors also have the surname Thornhill, so he was probably a relative.

42. SMITH, Adam. RICERCHE SOPRA LA NATURA E LE CAUSE DELLA RICCHEZZA DELLE NAZIONI di Adamo Smith. Traduzione eseguita sull’ultima edizione inglese del sig. MacCulloch preceduta dalla vita dell’autore, del sig. V. Cousin. Torino, cugini Pomba e. comp. Editori-Librai. 1851. £ 850

FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION, S ECOND ITALIAN TRANSLATION . 8vo, pp. lxxx, 704; apart from some light browning just visible in places, a clean copy throughout; in contemporary green morocco backed mottled boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, light rubbing to extremities, nevertheless, still a good copy of this rare translation.

Rare second Italian edition, and a new translation, of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations , published as part of the economic journal Biblioteca dell’ Economista . The Wealth of Nations , the greatest classic of modern economic thought, did more than any other book on economics in the West to create the subject of political economy and develop it into an autonomous systematic discipline. Its publication was a mile-stone in the economic progress of Britain and subsequently the rest of the world. Here are developed the theory of laissez-faire and the right of individuals and States to carry on their economic activity unimpeded. Moreover, it also contains a history of economic development, a virtual demolition of the mercantile system and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic reform. ‘Where the political aspects of human rights had taken two centuries to explore, Smith’s achievement was to bring the study of economic aspects to the same point in a single work … The certainty of its criticism and its grasp of human nature have made it the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought’(PMM 221). The present translation is taken from the 1828 J.R. McCulloch edition, and particularly interesting as it contains a lengthy ‘Discorso di Vittorio Cousin’ on the life of Adam Smith, as well as Italian translations of the introductions by Blanqui and Garnier for their editions of the Wealth . As far as we are aware the Biblioteca dell’ Economista , printed in Torino, ran from 1850 to 1923. The present work, whilst published as volume II of this series, is complete in itself and was also intended to be sold separately. The first Italian translation, published under the title Ricerche sulla Natura, e le cagione della ricchezza delle nazioni , appeared in Naples in 1790-91. OCLC records three copies, at Yale, Kansas and the National Library of Scotland.

The Hunt Copy

43. SMITH, John. ENGLAND’S IMPROVEMENT REVIV’D: In a Treatise of all manner of Husbandry & Trade by Land and Sea. Plainly discovering the several ways of improveing all sorts of waste and barren grounds, and enriching all earths; with the natural quality of all lands, and the several seeds and plants which most naturally thrive therein. Together with the manner of planting all sorts of timber-trees, and under-woods, with two several chains to plant seeds or sets by; with several directions to make walks, groves, orchards, gardens, planting of hops and good fences; with the vertue of trees, plants, and herbs, and their physical use; with an alphabet of all herbs growing in the kitchin, and physick-gardens; and physical directions. Also the way of ordering cattel, with several observations about sheep, and choice of cows for the dairy, all sorts of dear, tame conies, variety of fowles, bees, silk- worms, pigeons, fish-ponds, decoys: with directions to make an aviary. And with accounts of digging, delving, and all charges and profits arising in all fore-mentioned: and a particular view of every part of the pleasant land: with many other remarks never before extant. Experienced in thirty years practise, and digested into six books, by John Smith, Gent. Published for the common good. London, printed by Tho. Newcomb, for Benjamin Southwood, at the Star next to Sergeants-Inn in Chancery lane; and Israel Harrison near Lincolns-Inn. 1673. £ 1,250 FIRST EDITION, S ECOND ISSUE WITH CANCELLED TITLE . 4to, pp. [xiv], 270; wanting the initial blank, Bookseller to the Reader leaf & title-page laid down, title-page with critique of book around margins in ink (‘a most excellent work considering when it was written’), cut close at head very occasionally touching the running title, some paper browning, well bound in the late 19th/early 20th century in dark blue crushed morocco, spine gilt and lettered with raised bands, all edges gilt. A very good copy.

A reissue of the 1670 edition with a new title. Amongst other things, Smith drew attention to ‘the great wastes and decay of all woods and timber in England’, and the need for replanting. ‘Besides dealing with forestry, the book is concerned with livestock and the reclamation of waste land. The sixth “book” contains an interesting description of the islands of Orkney and Shetland and the fishing industry in those parts’ (Henrey). The work is prefaced by a report by John Evelyn, written at the request of the Royal Society. ‘The present work [was] completed in 1668, but not published until 1670 for lack of means. Evelyn in his commendatory letter refers to the second edition of his Sylva , then preparing, but observes that the two books may be published ‘without the least prejudice to each other’. Smith’s book was re- issued with a cancel title in 1673’ (Keynes). Hunt 328 (this copy); Keynes John Evelyn 145; Kress 1345; Sabin 82865; Wing S4093.

A ‘Profound’ contribution to 18th Century Feminist Thought

44. [“SOPHIA, A PERSON OF QUALITY”]. WOMAN NOT INFERIOR TO MAN: or, a short and modest vindication of the natural right of the fair-sex to a perfect equality of power, dignity, and esteem, with the men. By Sophia, a Person of Quality. London: Printed for John Hawkins, at the Falcon in St. Paul’s Church-Yard. 1739. £ 4,250 FIRST EDITION. 8vo., pp. [iv], 62; including the half-title but without the final leaf of advertisements, the half-title a little soiled, a few leaves creased; recently bound by Trevor Lloyd in contemporary style half calf over marbled boards, spine gilt and lettered with raised bands; a very good uncut copy, with the early ownership signature of John Calcraft, dated 1789 on half title.

Scarce first edition: Authorship not agreed: suggestions include Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the Earl of Pontefract’s daughter, Sophia Fermor, later Countess Grenville (who would however have been only 18 years old in 1739). Whoever the author, this is a significant, and some would say important, text in the history of feminism. The author evidently shared many of Mary Astell’s ideas about the nature of society and the fallacy of male superiority. The author W. Lyon Blease thought it “a most remarkable pamphlet” (The emancipation of English women, 1910, p.43). A much more recent scholar, Phillip Hicks, acknowledges the “profound” role that the Sophia essay (and its sequels) has played in 18th century feminist thought. (Women worthies and feminist argument in 18th century Britain, 2014. Woman not inferior to man presents a powerful and carefully- resourced case for equal opportunities for women in all walks of public life, including the law, Parliament and the Army (but not, I believe, the Church!). Set custom and prejudice aside, the author declares (and it seems almost certain that the author is indeed a woman), and true equality will be possible. Having mentioned the army, the government, the judiciary, magistracy, teaching, medicine, university professorships &c. &c., where it was then extremely “odd” to imagine women being in such positions, she suggests that ‘if women are but consider’d as rational creatures, abstracted from the disadvantages imposed upon them by the unjust usurpation and tyranny of the Men, they will be found, to the full, as capable as the Men, of filling these offices’ (pp. 36-7). Having disposed of the long-held prejudices with which all men have been conditioned, she brings her case to the measured conclusion that it would be to the joint interest of both men and women for there to be an equality of esteem and opportunity. The greatest stumbling block, though, to any practical equality was women’s minimal opportunities for a proper education. ‘Men, by thinking us incapable of improving our intellects, have entirely thrown us out of all the advantages of education; and thereby contributed as much as possible to make up the senseless creatures they imagine us …’ (pp. 56-7). Woman not inferior to man was republished twelve years later (in 1751), together with two further complementary essays by the same author. Together, these three essays were given the new, composite, title: Beauty’s triumph: or, the superiority of the fair sex invincibly proved . ESTC T2977.

The bad influence of British philosophy

45. TABARAUD, Mathieu Mathurin. HISTOIRE CRITIQUE DU PHILOSOPHISME ANGLOIS, depuis son origine jusqu’à son introduction en France, inclusivement … Tome Premier [- Second]. A Paris, chez L. Duprat-Duverger, rue des Grands-Augustins, 1806. £ 225 FIRST EDITION. Two vols, 8vo, pp. [iv], iv, 504; [iv], 466, [1] Table, [1] blank; lightly foxed in places, otherwise clean throughout; uncut in the original pink publisher’s wrappers, spines with labels titled in ink, some rubbing and a few minor marks, otherwise a very good copy.

First edition of this comprehensive survey of British philosophy and “philosophism” by the French theologian and philosopher Mathieu Mathurin Tabaraud. Originally planned merely to be a section of a projected Histoire du philosophisme François , the work is designed as a survey of the influence of English philosophy on French thought, and a study of the characters of several notable English philosophers. The Jansenist theologian and writer Mathieu Mathurin Tabaraud (1744-1832) is characterized in the Nouvelle biographie Française as a ‘controversiste’ who emigrated to England after the revolution, and contributed articles to the Times and anti-republican periodicals. In the present work he accuses British philosophers (many of the ‘English’ philosophers were actually Scots) of having undermined religion in France, and thus paved they way for the revolution. He uses the term ‘philosophisme’ as an opposite to ‘christianisme’.

46. WAGRET, J-F. REMEDE SPECIFIQUE Pour guerir seurement les Pluresies, donné au Public par ordre de S.A.R. Monseigneur le Duc d’Orleans Regent du Royaume, pour les Hôpitaux du Roy. … A Beziers, Chez Estienne Barbut. MDCCXVIII [1718]. £ 250 4to, pp. 8; with attractive wood-cut headpiece; clean and fresh throughout; in modern marbled boards, morocco label on spine, lettered in gilt. An attractive and very rare provincial printing, in the same year as the first edition, of this guide to the treatment of pleurisy. The author, who also published works on smallpox, as well as Observations de medecine et chirurgie: faites dans les hôpitaux du Roy (1717), and was a doctor at the royal hospitals at Valenciennes, gives instructions for the production of his remedy, before describing its application in patients at various stages of the disease. The work is recommended to be printed and distributed “à tous les Hopitaux des Places du Roy”. The printer of the present copy was active at Béziers between 1692 and 1735. This edition not in OCLC, which records a Paris edition of the same year, at the National Library of Medicine.

Working Sketchbooks of the ‘City’ Artist

47. WATT, Frances. A LARGE COLLECTION OF SKETCHBOOKS, comprising over a 1,000 drawings, largely dating from the 1960’s and early 1970’s, and including some ephemera and personal items. [London and elsewhere]. 1960-1992. £ 1,500 Comprising 28 Sketchbooks with over a 1,000 drawings mostly relating to the City, but some of Scottish places she visited, nearly all in graphite, a few in pen and ink and several with watercolour washes, often several on one sheet of paper, condition is generally excellent, some pages, and parts of pages have been excised, some are simply rough sketches; also included are some personal items including sketches and newspaper clippings, mostly about her father; some wear and tear, sunning to sketchbooks and with some leaves loose, but generally in very good state.

(Edith) Frances Watt (1923-2009) was an immensely talented artist who never received the attention she deserved. Born in Falkirk in 1923 she moved to Geneva at the age of 3 where she lived until 1936. Her father was the Reverend Thomas M Watt, D.D. a minister of the Scots Church in Geneva and also the League of Nations correspondent for British Weekly. They then moved back to Ballater, Scotland until 1938 when her father died. Watt then aged 15 moved to Highgate in London (Southwood Lawn Road) with her mother, with whom she lived for the rest of her life. By then she was calling herself Frances. She attended the Hornsey School of Art (1946) and the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting. Things then went quiet and we have found no works dated between 1946 and 1953. She then began work on a series of works with religious themes - unsurprising, in that her father and two of her uncles were prominent churchmen. She was active in the Highgate Choral Society. ‘Watt’s big break apparently came when she was commissioned by the Council of the Stock Exchange to record the daily life in the Square Mile. This commission seemingly suited Watt, seen in the finesse of the works, as well as the sheer quantity. The paintings are largely monochrome – grey, black and white – perhaps a result of their ‘documentary’ function and the fact that many of the pictures were intended for the Times newspaper, where colour would not feature. But it does also seem apt for the subject, the city traders, the trading floor, and also the city architecture; cool, stylish and confidently executed, they seem to embody the 1960s, masculine world they depict, where deals are done and stakes are high’ (see http://www.sulisfineart.com/blog/cat/articles/post/artist-spotlight-discovering- frances-watt/#.VS0PHPnF_A9). During the 1960s her paintings and illustrations of the “old” Stock Exchange were included in the Stock Exchange Journal , The Times newspaper and the Lord Mayor’s Art Awards exhibition . The present collection includes views of Lloyds, The Royal Exchange, and also The Discount Market together with are a large number of drawings that were used as illustrations to The Times . ‘Over the next 20 years she was brilliantly placed to observe the enormous changes taking place in the great institutions of the Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London. She exhibited at the Royal Academy, her first exhibit being Stockbrokers Talking, 1961’ (see http://www.tathagallery.com/artist/frances- watt/#biography). She also exhibited at other institutions including The Glasgow Institute at Paisley Art Institute and at Kensington Artists Group. Today, Watt has two works in public collections: Interior of Lloyds, 1963 (City of London Corporation) and Park with a Boating Lake, 1952 (Bruce Castle Museum, Tottenham). Watt moved back to Perth (Myrtle Cottage, Main St, Bankfoot) in November 1992. The latest work in the collection is dated 1992 and we have no information after that date. One wonders why she was not better known in her lifetime. It was certainly not for lack of ability. Raised in a patriarchal home, never married, always lived with her mother, was never represented by a gallery, and never properly promoted her own work, probably goes some way to account for her anonymity. Hopefully with the emergence of the present sketchbooks her time has now come.

48. WILSON, Thomas. A DESCRIPTION OF THE CORRECT METHOD OF WALTZING , THE TRULY FASHIONABLE SPECIES OF DANCING that, from the graceful and pleasing beauty of its movements, has obtained an ascendancy over every other department of that public branch of education. Part I. Containing a correct explanatory description of the several movements and attitudes in German and French waltzing…Illustrated by engravings, from original designs and drawings, by J.H.A. Randall. London: printed for the author, 2, Greville Street, Hatton Garden: published by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones. 1816. £ 2,750 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, printed on rectos only, ff. [i], lxi [1], 63-113, [1], [4], folding coloured engraved frontispiece showing couples waltzing, and six engraved plates, (without the inserted final advertisement for New Works referred to by Abbey); original pink boards with green glazed paper spine, printed title label, some wear to head and foot of spine, entirely uncut.

Scarce first edition of this milestone in the history of English dance. Thomas Wilson (fl. 1800-1839), dancing-master and writer, was active in London during the early 19th century. His career probably began at the King’s Theatre Opera House; from the early 1800s he taught at his own dancing academy, variously based at Bedford Row, Ludgate Hill, and Hatton Garden, where he was assisted by his wife and sufficient staff to form sets for any of the social dances then popular. When in 1816 Wilson published A description of the correct method of waltzing , it ‘probably followed the appearance of the shocking new dance at the Prince Regent’s ball on 13 July 1816*, and its introduction to Almack’s assembly rooms by one of its patronesses, Princess Lieven, a leading London society hostess. …… Wilson’s work at the theatre - where he would have helped to train many of the opera dancers-together with his teaching and writing activities, had a direct impact on the style and performance of social dancing. He was very much a traditionalist, preferring the allemande or German style of waltz, in which the dancers had intertwining arms, to the close hold which so scandalized sections of society, and which became beloved of the aristocracy. Wilson’s manuals explain the figures in text and illustration, and several are accompanied by music suitable for each dance, and all fully describe the correct style and manner of performance, together with the correct ballroom etiquette expected of both ladies and gentlemen. This was an issue on which Wilson was at great pains to instruct his readers, as he feared standards of dancing would be ‘perverted into a chaos of riot and confusion’ if left to decline any further. … Some modern writers have commented that Wilson’s figure descriptions can be difficult to follow, and that the more complicated, balletic steps that Wilson included were in fact the province of only a few extremely accomplished dancers. Despite Wilson’s traditional and conservative stance, later generations are indebted to him for a comprehensive description of the most popular social dances of this period’ (Gail Ford in ODNB). The plates in this book are worth noting. The extended coloured frontispiece of a ballroom with nine couples dancing the waltz, with a seven-piece orchestra in a box at the side of the room, the women in a variety of most elegant and colourful Empire-style dresses, the men in white cravats and tails. The other engravings include one showing “the five positions (of the feet) in dancing”, another a “sketch shewing the movements performed within the circle formed in waltzing”, while the remaining four plates are of music adapted to various named waltzes. * It is worth noting that the coloured plate here was published by Sherwood & Co. of London on July 14th 1816. C.W. Beaumont, Bibliography of dancing 1929), pp. 194-195. Abbey, Life , 420; Magriel, Bibliography of Dancing , 1936, p. 107.

A Working School for Poor Children in London

49. [WORKING SCHOOL]. A PLAN FOR THE ESTABLISHING A WORKING-SCHOOL, for the Maintenance, Education, and Employment of Poor Children, especially Orphans. And also Rules for the Execution and good Government thereof. Proposed to the Consideration of all who are or may be Subscribers thereto. London, John Ward, 1758. £ 2,250 FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. 15, [1]; margins a little dusted in places, printed on heavy paper; in early nineteenth century half calf over marbled boards, rebacked with spine lettered in gilt; with the armorial bookplate of Ferguson of Raith on front pastedown; a very appealing copy.

Rare first edition of the Plan for the establishing a Working-School in which the author proposes a school for poor children, especially orphans, from the ages of six to fourteen years old, the plan containing the rules covering such matters as diet, medical inspection, education, work to be undertaken etc. The Orphan Working School was established by a group of nonconformists in 1758, at Hoxton, for the reception of 20 destitute boys. In 1771 it moved to the City Road and two years later a building was erected for 35 boys and 35 girls. By 1846 1,236 children, both boys and girls, had been received into the institution when it was proposed to move the school again, this time to a healthier position at Haverstock Hill, in the vicinity of Belsize Park. In 1988 the school, now called the Royal Alexandra and Albert School, was relocated in Reigate (Surrey). This was one of several similar proposals for social reform, including the establishment of charitable institutions for poor children in London during the 1750s. [See, e.g. others by Fielding, Hanway, Massie and Saunders Welch]. The present proposal was evidently based on purely philanthropic and Christian (but non-denominational) motives. ‘Amongst the various objects calling for compassion, and the aids of charity, poor children, especially orphans, always have been justly esteemed some of the principal,’ claims the author of the present Plan . ‘Witness, amongst other excellent institutions, the great number of charity schools, in and about this city, erected and supported with the kindest design, and at no small expence. And yet experience has long shown, how ineffectual these are to promote their valuable intention; how little they answer the expence at which they are carried on. Their defects are too obvious to need enumerating; the subject of daily complaint; and lamented most by those who are most conversant in such matters. Children are formed for stations above what Providence designed them, or the public good requires. In the intervals between learning, they are left exposed to all the snares of indigence, evil example, and bad company. And for want of being trained to industry and diligence, contract habits of sloth and idleness, and are sadly exposed to the temptations thereof. Strange therefore it would be, if in an age so distinguished for charity as the present is, this important object of it should alone be neglected: and that while so many are wishing for something further to be done, none should attempt it. Such an attempt is now made…’. Goldsmiths’ 9415.13; Higgs1817; Kress 5747; ESTC records two copies, at Harvard and Massachusetts State; COPAC adds copies in the National Library of Scotland, in Durham and at London University, not in the British Library, OCLC does not give additional locations.

50. [YELLOW FEVER]. OPUSCOLO INTERESSANTISSIMO a forma di Lettera d’un Celebre Medico d’Italia sull’ Attuale Febbre Petecchiale e sui Preservativi contro di Essa. Milano, 1817. £ 185 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 19, [1] blank; a clean fresh copy, in recent marbled wraps.

First edition of this anonymous letter on the treatment of yellow fever. The author (who initials the text at the end “ G. P .”) recalls how he tried to cure yellow fever during the epidemic of 1803 with very basic remedies, such as tartar emetic to induce vomiting, purgatives based on tamarind, and by forcing the patients to drink large amounts of water, or water with vinegar. He then points out widespread erroneous beliefs about yellow fever, such as that the disease is caused by a disorder of the humoral system, which has to be corrected by stimulating medicines and ‘substantial’ ( i.e . alcoholic) drinks, that the disease is caused by poisonous atmosphere, or that it can be prevented by wearing certain amulets. Not in OCLC; ICCU locates a single copy, in Rome.