Donald Heald Rare Books A Selection of Rare Books & Manuscripts Donald Heald Rare Books A Selection of Rare Books & Manuscripts Donald Heald Rare Books 124 East 74 Street New York, New York 10021 T: 212 · 744 · 3505 F: 212 · 628 · 7847 [email protected] www.donaldheald.com Americana: Items 1 - 34 Travel and Voyages: Items 35 - 54 Natural History: Items 55 - 80 Miscellany: Items 81 - 100 All purchases are subject to availability. All items are guaranteed as described. Any purchase may be returned for a full refund within ten working days as long as it is returned in the same condition and is packed and shipped correctly. The appropriate sales tax will be added for New York State residents. Payment via U.S. check drawn on a U.S. bank made payable to Donald A. Heald, wire transfer, bank draft, Paypal or by Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover cards. AMERICANA 1 BARTRAM, William (1739-1823). Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek confederacy, and country of the Chactaws [sic.]. containing an account of the soil and natural productions of those regions; together with observations on the manners of the Indians. London: re-printed for J. Johnson, 1792. 8vo (8 1/8 x 5 inches). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Mico Chlucco, engraved folding map, 7 engraved natural history plates (one folding). Expertly bound to style full period tree calf, flat spine ruled in gilt, red morocco lettering piece. The first English edition of Bartram’s classic account of southern natural history, exploration and Indian tribes. For the period, Bartram’s work is unrivalled. In this first-hand account of his travels in the Southern States in the years 1773-1778, Bartram writes “with all the enthusiasm and interest with which the fervent old Spanish friars and missionaries narrated the wonders of the new found world...he neglected nothing which would add to the common stock of human knowledge” (Field). Sabin considered this work to be “unequalled for the vivid picturesqueness of its descriptions of nature, scenery, and productions.” The map illustrates the east coast of Florida from the St. Johns River to Cape Canaveral. This edition is preceded only by the Philadelphia edition of 1791. Clark I:197; Coats The Plant Hunters pp.273-76; Field 94; Howes b223, “b”; Sabin 3870; Stafleu & Cowan 329.1a; Vail 849. (#29833) $ 5,400 2 BIBLE IN ENGLISH - Robert AITKEN (printer & publisher). The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Newly translated out of the Original Tongues; And with the former Translations Diligently compared and revised. Philadelphia: printed and sold by Robert Aitken, 1781-82. 2 parts in one volume, 12mo (6 x 3 1/2 inches). [1452]pp., text in two columns. Complete with title-leaves to both the Old and New Testaments, along with the certification leaf from Congress (bound between the OT and NT). Contemporary sheep, spine in six compartments with raised bands (minor loss to lower portion of spine). Housed in a dark red full morocco box. Provenance: Joshua Coit (signature dated 1783); William L. Learned (signature dated 1856). The Aitken Bible, first English Bible printed in America and a major rarity amongst American Bibles and American printing. The Aitken Bible is one of the most celebrated American Bibles, being the first complete English Bible printed in America. During the colonial era, the monopoly on printing English Bibles belonged to the Royal Printer, and the colonies were supplied entirely with Bibles printed in England. The first Bible printed in the British colonies in America was the famous Eliot Indian Bible, in Algonquin, issued in Cambridge in 1661-63 and reprinted in 1680-85. The 18th-century saw the printing of Bibles in German. With the American Revolution, the British monopoly on English-language Bibles naturally ended, and the embargo on goods from England acted to create a shortage. Aitken, a Philadelphia printer, undertook the task, producing the New Testament in 1781 and the Old Testament in 1782. On completion, he petitioned the Continental Congress for their endorsement and received it in September 1782. Because of this official endorsement and the reasons behind its production, the Aitken Bible is often referred to as “The Bible of the Revolution.” This highspot amongst printed Americana has become very difficult to find in any condition. The present example, despite minor faults, is a very good copy of a work usually found in poor condition, here in a contemporary American binding. This copy with provenance to Joshua Coit (1758-1798), a graduate of Harvard who served several terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives before being elected as a representative of that state to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving in Congress from 1793-1798. Darlow & Moule 928; Evans 17101,17473; Hildeburn 4126,4184; Hills 11; NAIP w004490; O’Callahan, p.31; Sabin 5165. (#28338) $ 150,000 3 BIBLE IN GERMAN. Biblia das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments, Nach ver Deutschen Ueberfekung D. Martin Luthers. Germantown, PA: Christoph Saur, 1743. Thick quarto. [4], 995, [1], 277, [7]pp. General title in red and black, ornamental headpieces at the beginnings of Genesis and St. Matthew, tailpieces at the ends of the OT and NT and an ornamental tailpiece at the end of the Register. Text in two columns in fraktur type. Minor losses extending from the lower margin of the title page restored. Contemporary calf over bevelled wooden boards, rebacked. The first Saur bible: the first bible in a European language to be published in America. Saur’s text of the Luther translation was largely based on the Halle Bible, but with the addition of the appendix to the Apocrypha with books 3 and 4 Esdras and 3 Maccabees supplied from the Berlenburg version. Noting these additions on the original title page as “customary” led to sharp criticism by both local Reformed and Lutheran ministers and a new title was set and inserted in all unbound copies. The rushed job resulted in the misspelling of “Parrallelen” on the second issue title (i.e. like the present). Of the 1200 copies of the bible originally printed by Saur, fewer than 150 are thought to have survived, and many of those defective. First bible in a European language to be published in America and just the second Bible printed in America after John Eliot’s Indian Bibles of the 1660s. A landmark in American religious and printing history. Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America 47A; Darlow & Moule 4240; Evans 5128; Hildeburn 804; O’Callaghan 1743.1; Sabin 5191; Wright, Early Bibles of America, pp. 28-50. (#32386) $ 9,500 4 BLOUET, [Guillaume]-A[bel] (1795-1853). Chutes du Niagara. Niagara Falls ... Sketched from Nature in March 1837 by A. Blouet. Drawn on stone by C. Remond. Paris: Delpech, 1838. Folio (22 1/8 x 15 3/8 inches). Title and 4pp. text in French and English. Title with a cartographic vignette. 6 lithographed plates after Blouet, captions in French and English. Contemporary wrappers, lettered on the upper wrapper. Housed in a blue morocco backed box. Very rare plate book of American scenery, depicting Niagara Falls in winter. “These views have been sketched on one of the last days of March 1837 ... Great part of the snow which covered the earth, had been melted by the sun and shone for us but few moments ... The East wind blew the everlasting cloud, and Canada seemed a new found country, covered with ice trees, most part of which had lost half of their boughs ... However, this delightful scene was nearly finished for us, the clouds were heaped up in the sky; at length it began to rain, the mist fell upon us and spread around ... The curtain was soon drawn upon so much majesty; we went away, keeping a long memory of this queen of cataracts” (p. 4). The plates comprise: 1) Vue de la Grande Chute du Fer a Cheval prise de l’Ile de la Chevre / View of the Great Horse-Shoe-Fall taken from Goat-Island 2) Vue de la Chute du Centre prise de l’Ile de la Chevre / View of the Central Fall taken from Goat Island 3) Vue de la Chute de Schlosser prise de la Rive de l’Etat de New-York / View of the Schlosser Fall taken from the New-York Shore 4) Vue de la Chite de Schlosser prise de l’Escalier qui conduit au Passage du Fleuve / View of the Schlosser Fall taken from the Stairs of the Ferry 5) Vue du Passage sous la Grande Chute du Fer a Cheval prise du bas de la Rive du Canada / View of the Passage under the Great Horse-Shoe-Fall taken from the Shore on the Canada side 6) Vue Centrale des Chutes prise de la Rive du Canada / General View of the Falls taken from the Canada Shore Blouet (1795-1853), a French architect noted for his work on the Arc de Triomphe, toured the United States in 1836-1837 with Frederic-Auguste Demetz to study American prison architecture and administration for the French Ministry of the Interior. While his report on prisons is sometimes encountered, the present work is very rare: Lande cites but three known copies (Bibliotheque Nationale, Toronto Public Library and his own). TPL 2043; Lande, Rare and Unusual Canadiana 5218; J.E. Adamson Frederic Church’s Niagara: The sublime as transendence, University of Michigan, 1981 p.148; Dow II, pp.891-892; Eland 137; Lane Impressions of Niagara , p.51; McKinsey: 73; G.