Edinburgh Book Fair
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EDINBURGH BOOK FAIR 7TH & 8TH MARCH 2014 [56 STRAND] BERNARD QUARITCH LTD [email protected] +44 (0)20 7297 4888 1 1 [ACT OF UNION MEDAL.] Silver medal struck to commemorate the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland, engraved by John Croker, chief engraver to the Royal Mint. 1707. Medal, c. 46 mm in diameter, with a fine bust of Queen Anne, crowned and draped, on the obverse, signed ‘J. C.’, and on the reverse a British shield with the garter, crowned, upon a pedestal, supported by a lion and a unicorn; in fine condition. £950 One of three medals struck on the occasion of the Act of Union, which received the royal assent on the 6th of March, 1707 and came into operation on the 1st of May of that year. The Union is indicated here by the impaling of the English and Scottish arms on the British shield, by the conjunction of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew upon the shield held by the unicorn, and by a rose and thistle growing on the same stalk upon the lion’s shield. The engraver John Croker (born Dresden) became assistant to the chief engraver at the Royal Mint in 1697, producing his first English medal in the same year. He succeeded as chief engraver in 1705, designing dies for all the gold and silver coins during the reigns of Anne and George I, plus many similar commemorative medals. Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals 424 (a different obverse die from that in the plate). WITH NINE ALBUMEN PRINTS 2 ANDERSON, William. The Howes o’ Buchan, being Notes, local, historical, and antiquarian, regarding the various Places of interest along the Route of the Buchan Railway … Peterhead: Printed and published at the “Sentinel” Office … [1872?]. 8vo., pp. iii-vi, 100, with nine albumen prints ( c. 58 x 94 mm) including a frontispiece, credited to J. Shivas, mounted on stiff card plates with printed captions; a fine copy, no fading to the prints, in the original brick-red cloth, blocked in black and gilt, all edges gilt. £425 Second edition of an illustrated historical guide to the settlements and estates along the Buchan Railway between Peterhead and Aberdeen, and the sites that can be visited near the stations. It is a charming work, narrated in the form of a rail journey and with unusual details on, for example, the facilities at Peterhead station and the owners of the various properties passed. 2 The first edition had been published by W. P. Nimmo in Edinburgh in 1865 before the railway’s incorporation into the Great North of Scotland Railway. The photographs, by Joseph Collier, are credited here to J. Shivas, who bought Collier’s business when he left Peterhead in 1866, and include images of How o’ Buchan House, Inverugie, and the ruins of Ravenscraig Castle. The railway itself fell out of public use in the 1960s; passenger services were withdrawn in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts, freight services lasted until 1970. It is now used as a walking and cycle route, the Formartine and Buchan Way, one of Scotland’s Great Trails. OCLC and COPAC show copies at University of Rochester, Western University (Ontario), Guelph; NLS, and Aberdeen. 3 [ANNAN, Thomas, photographer ]. John Eaton REID. History of the County of Bute, and Families connected therewith ... Glasgow: Thomas Murray and Son. Edinburgh: Paton and Ritchie. London: Arthur Hall and Co. Rothesay: William Logan. Millport: David Wishart. 1864. 4to., pp. [4], 7, [3], [9]-288, with 8 photographs by Thomas Annan on card mounts with lithograph captions, map hand-coloured in outline, and a double-page folding lithograph of a Celtic sculptured stone; spotting to title, some occasional foxing; original brown grained cloth, recased, hinges marked by glue stains; title inscribed, presumably by an original subscriber, ‘J. Mackirdy’, whose family is noticed in chapter XIX. £950 First edition, large paper copy. This was the first publication to include topographical and architectural subjects by Thomas Annan. The work is more commonly found in octavo without the Annan photographs. This is not surprising as the original price for the smaller format was 7 s. 6d. while this quarto edition cost 25 s. According to The Bookseller for October 31, 1863, the first intention was to publish the octavo with a separate portfolio of photographs; we have not, however, been able to locate a copy in this format, and probably a decision to incorporate Annan’s photographs within the text of large paper copies was felt to be more convenient. The old county of Bute comprised the islands of Bute, Arran, the two Cumbraes, Inchmarnock, Holy Island, and Pladda – all in the Firth of Clyde. Rothesay was its county town. Although Annan was not well known for landscape work the photographs are very fine, including views of ‘Loch Ranza Castle, Arran’ framed with fishing boats in the foreground and the gentle curve of the hill behind, and the tower house ‘Castle – Little Cumbray’, its imposing strength well contrasted to the rocky coastline. The text describes the history and natural history of the islands, ending with a genealogical account of principal families. The author, John Eaton Reid (1822-1883), by profession a lawyer, was independently wealthy, dabbled in art, and was a keen yachtsman who regularly sailed between Glasgow and his home on the Cumbrae. 3 WITH 41 ALBUMEN PRINTS 4 ANNAN, Thomas. Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow. Glasgow: T. Annan Photographer ... J. Maclehose, Publisher and Bookseller to the University ... 1871. Folio, pp. [4], 124, [5] with 41 albumen prints, each approx. 9 x 7 inches (22.9 x 17.8 cm.), titled or with facsimile signatures of sitters on mounts (very occasional foxing rarely affecting plates), original morocco-backed cloth, gilt (rubbed at corners), gilt titling to upper cover and spine, all edges gilt. £3450 A VERY GOOD COPY ILLUSTRATED WITH ALBUMEN RATHER THAN CARBON PRINTS The Introductory Note explains: ‘On 28 th July, 1870, the Senate of the University of Glasgow met for the last time in the Old College Buildings, situated in Blackfriars, High Street, to perform that which is the most distinctive function of a University – the conferring of Degrees. On that site the work of the University had been carried on for upwards of four hundred and fifty years. It seemed desirable to secure some permanent Memorial of the venerable structure before it underwent any change. The views shown in the accompanying Photographs have been selected as embracing all the more interesting parts of the Buildings. ‘The Publishers, conceiving it to be appropriate to include in the Memorial the Principal and Professors who formed the Senate at the time of the removal to the New Buildings, obtained their consent to sit for their portraits; and they are happy in being able to make these a part of the work.’ Better known for the architectural photographs published in The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow , Annan was nevertheless a fine portrait photographer who had been a close friend of David Octavius Hill. ‘When Hill died in 1870, Amelia Hill gave Annan a large collection of calotypes and the portrait lens used by Hill and Adamson’ (Sara Stevenson, Thomas Annan 1829 - 1887 , National Galleries Scotland, 1990, p. 8). She adds ‘The portraits in this publication [ Memorials of the Old College ] are all in the same proportion as Hill and Adamson’s portraits, and it is tempting to speculate that in taking these pictures Annan used the portrait lens given to him by Mrs. Hill.’ This work was published with the same photographs printed in either the albumen or carbon process and is more commonly found with carbon prints. 4 5 5 A[RNOLD, Matthew]. The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems. By A. London: B. Fellowes …1849. Small 8vo., pp. viii, 128; a very good copy in the original green fine-ribbed cloth, covers and spine stamped in blind, spine lettered in gilt. £600 First edition of Arnold’s first book, apart from the Rugby and Oxford prize poems Alaric at Rome and Cromwell . To conceal his authorship as ‘A.’ suggests a certain reticence about the volume, even though it contains a number of his finest early poems, including ‘The Forsaken Merman’. Only 500 copies were printed, but while it may have sold badly, the traditional statement that the book was ‘withdrawn from circulation before many copies were sold’ (W. F. Prideaux) cannot be true as copies were still advertised for sale in Empedocles on Etna in 1852. Hayward 256; Tinker 128. 6 A[RNOLD, Matthew]. Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems. By A. London: B. Fellowes … 1852. Small 8vo., pp. viii, 236, [4, advertisement for The Strayed Reveller and 3 blanks]; a very good copy in the original green fine ribbed cloth, covers and spine stamped in blind, spine lettered in gilt (signature and notes on yellow glazed endpapers). £500 First edition of Arnold’s second book. When reprinting ‘Empedocles on Etna’ in New Poems in 1867, Arnold noted (p. 243): ‘I cannot deny myself the pleasure of saying that I reprint (I cannot say republish , for it was withdrawn before fifty copies were sold) this poem at the request of a man of genius – Mr Robert Browning’. Tinker 130. 7 [AUGUSTINE, Saint , attributed author .] The Meditations of Saint Augustine, from the Latin Original. By the Rev. J. Martin, O.S.A. … Dublin: Printed for the Author, by H. Fitzpatrick … 1798. 12mo., pp. [12], 183, [9, index]; lightly foxed but a good copy in contemporary sheep, spine with remains of paper label; boards chipped, joints starting; inscription on front pastedown: ‘Hassop Mission [Derbyshire] 11 March 1852’.