BERNARD QUARITCH LTD
A LIST OF NEW ACQUISTIONS FOR JUNE 2015 1. COBDEN-SANDERSON, Thomas James. Ecce mundus: industrial ideals and the book beautiful. Hammersmith, Hammersmith Publishing Society, 1902.
Small 4to, pp. [38], [2 blank]; clean and crisp in the original buff paper boards with parchment spine lettered ‘Ecce Mundus’; a very good copy with a presentation inscription on the front free endpaper, ‘G. M. Anderson T. J. Cobden-Sanderson 14 October 1917’. £200
A handsome copy, elegantly printed at the Chiswick Press, and signed by the author in the same year in which he closed the Doves Press. The book was sold at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, where Cobden-Sanderson had moved with his family in 1897 and which was close to the homes of William Morris and Emery Walker.
Published after he had established the Doves Bindery (1893) and the Doves Press (1900), Ecce Mundus comprises two essays. In the first, Cobden-Sanderson explains his ideal for an Association of Bookbinders, including a plan of lectures, and of an Association of Miners, presenting his views more generally on what Trade Guilds might achieve. In the second essay, The book beautiful, he discusses calligraphy, typography (with mention of William Morris), and illustration, writing in conclusion: ‘if the book beautiful may be beautiful by virtue of its writing or printing or illustration, it may also be beautiful, be even more beautiful, by the union of all to the production of one composite whole.’ 2. [DECORATED WRAPPERS]. Sacra congregatione particulari a Sanctissimo deputata [...] Aesina collectarum super pertinentia bonorum in specie. Pro Ill.ma civitate Aesina, ac in ea, eiusque territorio possidentibus. Rome, Rev. Camera Apostolica, 1751.
Folio, pp. 76; a very good copy, bound in outstanding eighteenth-century decorated wrappers, with gilt floral tracery and motifs on red background. £350
A very attractively bound copy, rare, of a restrictus determining the ownership and pertinence of taxation in the Marche city of Jesi, which had belonged to the Papal States since 1580. The recent prosperity of the city, which had seen the treasury’s income from trade and rent increase sharply since the beginning of the eighteenth century, made this legislation all the more important. Taxation sources and prerogatives of levy are detailed in their substance as well as origins, from castles and agrarian rent in the surrounding area, to grains, woodland, city rent, fines, and custom.
Not in ICCU. 3. EDGEWORTH, Francis Ysidro. A collection of offprints. 1884-1923.
27 offprints; in very good condition. £5750
A substantial collection of mathematical contributions by Edgeworth, including ‘The law of error’, ‘the most important of the papers relating to this subject’ (Bowley), and the landmark essay on measurement On the probable errors of frequency-constants.
‘Francis Ysidro Edgeworth was an economists’ economist: almost the whole of his literary output was addressed to his fellow economists, taking the form of elegant technical essays on taxation, monopoly and duopoly pricing, the pure theory of international trade and the theory of index numbers . . . . His exposition was terse and obscure at the best of times and his personality was retiring, with the result that most of his ideas were and still are continually being rediscovered by those who arrive at them in their own way. Marshall for example, was decisively influenced by Edgeworth on a number of technical points and yet Edgeworth always deferred to Marshall as the master at whose feet he sat. When the Economic Journal was founded in 1891 as the organ of the Royal Economic Society, Edgeworth became its editor, a task he carried on for 35 years [. . .]
‘Edgeworth’s contributions to economics are legion, and there is space to mention only a few of them: he was the first to define the laws of diminishing returns in terms of the decline of the marginal product of a variable factor, whereas everyone before him right back to Malthus and Ricardo always defined it in terms of the decline of the average product; he was the first to define a “generalised utility function”, the utility of a good depending not just on the quantity consumed of that good but on the quantities of all other goods consumed by the individual, thus bringing substitutability and complementarity between goods squarely within the purview of utility theory; he was also the first to introduce indifference curves, the loci of combinations of two goods conveying equal total utility (drawn upside down as compared with the way they are nowadays drawn), as well as the “contract curve”, the locus of tangency points of the indifference curves of different individuals. But his most beautiful contribution is the theory of the core of an exchange economy . . . . [His] insight has proved valuable to modern games theorists in proving the existence of general equilibrium à la Walras [. . .]
‘Of all the great economists in this book, he is (apart from Bernoulli and Slutsky) the only one to have made original contributions to mathematical statistics’ (Mark Blaug, Great economists before Keynes, 1986, pp. 69-71).
For a full listing and individual prices please contact us. REVISED BY HENRY FIELDING
4. [FIELDING, Sarah.] The Adventures of David Simple: containing an Account of his Travels through the Cities of London and Westminster, in the Search of a real Friend. By a Lady. In two Volumes. The second Edition, revised and corrected. With a Preface by Henry Fielding Esq: London: Printed for A. Millar, 1744.
Two volumes, 12mo, pp. xx, 278, [2, advert.]; [2, title-page printed as O6], 322; occasional slight toning, split in blank inner margin of L6 in volume I, catchword torn away from D2 in volume II, else a good copy in contemporary polished calf, red morocco labels, a little worn. £650
Second edition. David Simple, disillusioned by the discovery that his cherished younger brother has attempted to rob him by means of a forged will, sets out to try to rediscover true friendship. His first experiences convince him that mercenary motives govern the world. Then he meets Cynthia, excluded from her father’s will and ill-treated by her employer, and the distressed brother and sister, Valentine and Camilla, whose stepmother has alienated their father’s affection. The four young people wander about London discussing what they see, telling and listening to stories, until, inevitably, David and Camilla, and Valentine and Cynthia are betrothed. The novel offers an excellent picture of the London scene.
In the important new preface, first published here, Henry Fielding disclaims authorship – he was away on circuit when his sister’s novel came out and returned to find that the book was being attributed to him. ‘I have been reputed and reported the Author of half the Scurrility, Bawdy, Treason and Blasphemy, which these few last Years have produced’. He desires ‘to do Justice to the real and sole Author of this Book, who, notwithstanding the many excellent Observations dispersed through it, and the deep Knowledge of Human Nature it discovers, is a young Woman’. He refers to his theory that works of this kind are comic epics in prose, and observes that in David Simple the incidents are everywhere natural, and ‘that every Episode bears a manifest Impression of the principal Design.’
Fielding’s absence from Town also prevented him from correcting ‘some Grammatical and other Errors is Style in the first Impression’, which he has corrected ‘though in great Haste’ in the second edition. Sarah, like many women authors, was addicted to the dash, and Henry took most of them out. His principal change, however, was to expand the hero’s meditation on friendship. MILLENNIAL PROGRESS TOWARDS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
5. HODÉ, Jacques. L’Idée de féderation internationale dans l’histoire. Les précurseurs de la Société des Nations. Thèse pour le doctorat (sciences, politiques et economiques) présentée et soutenue le 7 juin 1921 par Jacques Hodé, diplômé de l’Ecole des Sciences Politiques. Paris, Vie Universitaire, 1921.
8vo, pp. 294, [2 blank]; some very small tears to fore-edge where opened, slight creasing and browning; a clean copy in the original printed wrappers and glassine wrappers; small loss and tears at foot of spine. £200
A heartfelt history of and rationale for the League of Nations by a student of the law faculty at the University of Paris, submitted for his doctorate just two years after forty-four states signed the League’s Covenant. To those who hoped the League would be an ‘all-powerful goddess’ and found instead a ‘little girl’ taking her first steps, Hodé advises patience. To those who claimed the League was a new tower of Babel built on sand, he replies that its formation is the result of an evolution going back to the dawn of civilisation, and over the next 290 pages he endeavours to prove his thesis.
What follows is a chronological gallop through European history identifying precursors to the League, beginning in ancient Greece and moving swiftly through the Pax Romana, medieval Christian Europe under pope and emperor, to the ideas of Pierre Dubois, George of Podebrady̌ , and Francisco Suárez. Having discussed the ‘grand design’ for a Europe of fifteen equal states by the duc de Sully, Hodé describes Emeric Crucé’s Nouveau Cynée as ‘one of the most remarkable precursors of the League of Nations’. Then comes Fénelon, Gottfried Leibniz (‘ardent pioneer of the pacifist idea’) and William Penn, before the author examines the abbé de Saint-Pierre’s project for perpetual peace in Europe and Rousseau’s thoughts thereon. Following Jeremy Bentham comes Immanuel Kant, whose 1796 essay on perpetual peace Hodé quotes at length, concluding that ‘Wilson’s credo is above all a magnificent amplification, a masterly interpretation of Kant’s credo’. The American and French revolutions are followed by the comte de Saint-Simon and Augustin Thierry’s plan to politically unite Europe under France and Britain. The Holy Alliance, Metternich, the 1830 and 1848 revolutions, and Napoléon III follow in swift succession before a quotation from Victor Hugo’s 1872 address to the Peace Congress of Lugano, stating his certainty that a European republic was on its way. Discussion of the ‘iron peace’ following 1871 takes the reader up to the catastrophe of world war, Versailles and the establishment of the League, the Covenant of which is given in an appendix. While Hodé agrees that the 1919 treaty had not suddenly reformed the world, and that the United States’ failure to join the League was a blow, he concludes in hope: ‘The League of Nations is not downcast. It exists, it lives. We must either kill it off or let it grow. To kill it would be to deliberately destroy what little peace we have; to accelerate its growth would be to achieve the great peace of the people, true peace, the only peace worthy of its name.’
Hodé’s subsequent career is unknown and he does not appear to have published any further works. One can nevertheless imagine his despair at the outbreak of war in 1939, and at the League of Nations’ powerlessness to preserve the peace about which he had written so passionately in his youth.
COPAC records only four copies. THE TRAGIC FATES OF KINGS AS LESSONS FOR PRINCES
6. IMBONATI, Carlo Giuseppe. Chronicon tragicum sive de eventibus tragicis principum, tyrannorum, virorumque fama vel nobilitate illustrium. Rome, Heirs of Corbelletti, 1696.
Two parts bound in one volume, 4to, pp. [xvi], xlviii, 140, [8]; 364, [16]; additional title engraved by Arnold van Westerhout in each part; a fine copy, clean and crisp, bound in contemporary vellum, lightly soiled, title and imprint manuscript to spine, a few contemporary marginal annotations. £700
First and only edition of Imbonati’s didactic work, a speculum principum aiming to educate and guide princes and politicians ‘seeking the truth’ through the examples of many rulers of the past and the tragic events that led to their deaths. Divided into two parts, the first deals with tyrants and rulers from the beginning of the world to the birth of Christ (from Nimrod to Herod Antipas) while the second continues up to the late seventeenth century (including members of the royal families of England, Scotland, France, Russia, Italy, Spain and the Ottoman empire).
Chronicon tragicum is dedicated to Cardinal Celestino Sfondrati (1644–1696), Benedictine theologian and Prince- Abbot of St. Gall. It is the last known work by the Cistercian theologian and Hebrew scholar Carlo Giuseppe Imbonati. 7. IMHOF. ‘Livre d’heures’ travel alarm clock. [Switzerland, mid twentieth century.]
Travelling alarm clock, face 2 x 2 inches (5 x 5 cm), housed in sturdy metal case designed as book in 12mo (4⅜ x 3⅝ inches (11.1 x 9.2 cm)), full calf covering with decorative gilt border on covers and spine, gilt fillets on raised bands, ‘Livre d’heures’ in gilt on spine, all edges gilt; both covers open to reveal either the clock face or the operating mechanism within, clock face panel spring-loaded, converting book into bedside clock; winds up and keeps time, alarm not fully functioning but will ring; a couple of minor marks, but in remarkably good condition. £300
A novelty alarm clock presented as a Book of Hours.
Arthur Imhof of La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland was a renowned purveyor of fine table-top clocks and alarm clocks of innovative design and often issued in small series.
Serial number and further details available on request. 8. KIERKEGAARD, Søren. Tre Taler ved tænkte Leiligheder. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1845.
8vo, pp. 100; light staining at beginning. First edition. [bound with:]
--———. Lilien paa Marken og Fuglen under Himlen. Tre gudelige Taler ... Anden Udgave. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1854. 8vo, pp. 52. Second edition. [and:] —————. “Ypperstepræsten”—“Tolderen”—“Synderinden”, tre Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen … Anden Udgave. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1857. 8vo, pp. 42. Second edition. [and:] —————. En opbyggelig Tale. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1850. 8vo, pp. 22, [2 blank]. First edition. [and:] —————. To Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen … Anden Udgave. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1852. 8vo, pp. 32. Second edition. [and:] —————. Guds Uforanderlighed. En Tale. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1855. 8vo, pp. 22, [2 blank]. First edition.
Six works bound in one volume; contemporary half roan, flat spine lettered in gilt; spine scratched, and worn at extremities, corners worn; bookplate of H. P. Rohde, the author of several works on Kierkegaard, and curator of the centenary exhibition at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in 1955. £500
An early collection of three first editions (Three dissertations on imaginary occasions, An edifying discourse, and God’s unchanging nature) and three second editions (The lilies of the fields and the birds of the air, “The High Priest” – “The Publican” – “The Woman who was a sinner”, and Two discourses at communion on fridays). The Discourses, often written to accompany philosophical works published under pseudonym, had an explicitly religious character. They outlined the features of the three forms of life, three choices available to people, each with its appeal, and its consequences: the aesthetic life, the ethical, and the religious.
Himmelstrup 76, 114, 256, 128, 131, 200. 9. KIERKEGAARD, Søren. Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand. Copenhagen, C. A. Reitzel, 1847.
Three parts in one volume, 8vo, pp. [iv], 155, [1 blank]; 64; 140; each part with a special title-page; some uniform light browning, but a good copy in contemporary half calf decorated in gilt, restored by Hennin Jensen. £300
First edition of the Edifying discourses in various spirits, in three parts.
‘Alongside [his] already impressive and entirely pseudonymous production, Kierkegaard had also published in parallel twenty-one “edifying” (opbyggelige, also translated “upbuilding”) discourses, signed works, some of them appearing simultaneously with works written under pseudonyms’ (Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard).
Kierkegaard’s reflections on Hegel’s and Goethe’s ideas regarding nature and reason led him – by contrast – to identify the need for expressing the experience of disharmony, fracture, sin and guilt. The first part of the book questions those who deny the experience of guilt. ‘Is not evil, just like evil people, at odds with itself, divided in itself?’; ‘What is it to be more ashamed before others than before oneself but to be more ashamed of seeming than being?’; ‘What means do you use to perform your work; is the means just as important to you as the end, just exactly as important?’. The second part challenges the idea that nature is perfect. ‘No individual can be present, even though in silence, in such a way that his presence means nothing at all by way of comparison. At best, this can be done by a child, who indeed has a certain likeness to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air’; ‘The individual animal is not isolated, is not an unconditionally separate entity; the individual animal is a number and belongs under what that most famous pagan thinker has called the animal category: the crowd. The human being who in despair turns away from those first thoughts in order to plunge into the crowd of comparisons makes himself a number, regards himself as a beast, no matter whether he by way of comparison is distinguished or lowly. But with the lilies the worried one is isolated, far away from all human or, perhaps more correctly, inhuman comparisons between individuals’. The third part identifies Christ as the concrete person (as opposed to the types in Either/Or, called in abstract terms A and B whose example men ought to follow in order to pursue true unity of mind. Division, duplicity of the mind is the nature of all sickness of the spirit.
Himmelstrup 101; McGill p. 53 (1 O63). MORAVIAN HYMN-TUNES
10. LA TROBE, Christian Ignatius. Hymn-Tunes, sung in the Church of the United Brethern, collected by Chrn. Igns. La Trobe. London. Printed for the Author, by J. Bland, [1790].
Oblong 8vo, pp. [10], 80, [8], title-page and hymn-tunes engraved, preface and index letterpress; contemporary calf, rebacked, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; a fine copy on thick paper. £1250
First edition of the first English collection of Moravian hymn- tunes, based on the Rev. C. Gregor’s Choral-Buch (Leipzig, 1784), but also introducing ‘some tunes particular to our English hymns’, thirteen of them probably La Trobe’s own compositions. The singing of hymns was a central feature of Moravian worship from earliest times. ‘Scattered as we are’, wrote Gregor, ‘in all parts of the world, we may nevertheless, in this part of our worship . . . be perfectly uniform’. La Trobe’s Hymn-Tunes remained in use for over a century.
Born in Yorkshire but educated in Germany where he taught the organ for a time, La Trobe (1758-1836) returned to London in 1784 and became secretary of the Moravian church in Britain, took part in missionary work, and was active in opposition to the slave trade. As a musician his first compositions were instrumental, including three piano sonatas dedicated to Haydn, with whom he was on friendly terms. He edited much church music both for Moravian and general use, collections which are indispensable to the study of the Moravian church (Oxford DNB, New Grove).
ESTC lists three copies: British Library, Library of Congress, and the Moravian Archives. ANNE LINDBERGH OVER CHINA AND JAPAN, A VERY GOOD COPY
11. LINDBERGH, Anne Morrow. North to the Orient. With Maps by Charles A. Lindbergh. New York: Quinn & Boden Company, Inc. for Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1935.
8vo (202 x 134mm), pp. 255, [1 (blank)]; half-tone frontispiece, 20 head-pieces, of which 19 maps; original blue cloth blocked in silver with airplane design on upper board and lettered in silver on the spine, pictorial dust-wrapper, retaining price, map endpapers, top edges blue; dust-wrapper very lightly rubbed and creased at edges, two short tears, lower panel lightly scratched, nonetheless a very good, bright copy; provenance: Witkower’s Booksellers & Stationers, Hartford, CT (early bookseller’s ticket on rear free endpaper). £550
First edition, first issue, with misspelling ‘Abacadabra’ on p. 11. In this celebrated autobiographical work Anne Lindbergh narrates her flight of 27 July through 19 September 1931, which was intended to prove the viability of the Great Circle Course, from the West to the East via the Arctic Circle. The Lindberghs’ aircraft was a Lockheed Sirius, a low-wing monoplane adapted with a sliding cockpit canopy and floats to make her fit for overwater journeys. Their route went from New York, then North Haven, Maine, through Canada (Ottawa, Moose Factory, Churchill, Baker Lake, Aklavik) to Alaska (Point Barrow, Shismaref, Nome) and thence Siberia and the Kurile Islands to Japan (Tokyo) and China (Nanjing).
As Charles Lindbergh’s wife and co-pilot, Anne had secured her pilot’s licence relatively recently. The stakes were high, the dangers of flying for even the most expert pilot tangible: Anne’s father, the politician and diplomat Dwight Morrow (whose biography would be written by Harold Nicolson, husband of writer Vita Sackville-West) had even altered his will to accommodate her premature death. Anne Lindbergh’s passion, enthusiasm for technical detail and sense of the significance of this flight, however, were undiminished: ‘It was a magic caused by the collision of modern methods and old ones; modern history and ancient; accessibility and isolation. And it was a magic which could only spark about that time. A few years earlier, from the point of view of aircraft alone, it would have been impossible to reach these places; a few years later, and there will be no such isolation’ (p. 10). Her narrative provides lively dialogues, personal associations and memories of practicalities as well as gripping reports of encounters with indigenous peoples at every stop of the plane. Charles Lindbergh’s maps, used as headpieces for each chapter, make the distances covered by the Sirius tangible, while an appendix listing provisions for emergency landings on land and sea, and the essentials for both pilots, provides not only detail on technical equipment, but also conjures up images of a young couple in electrically heated flying suits trading home life for adventure, dried soup and crackers.
Although the public perception of her in the pre-war period was largely marked by her husband’s achievements and the notorious abduction of their third child after the couple’s return from China, Anne Morrow Lindbergh secured her own place in history as a skilled aviatrix and writer. In 1934 she received the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Award; North to the Orient won the inaugural National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was internationally well received: for instance, it was given to Virginia Woolf by Harold Nicholson shortly after publication. Her most popular work, Gift from the Sea (1955), which was on the New York Times bestseller list for eighty weeks, is considered a classic of pre-feminism. ‘Her lyrical writing style, intimate tone, and precise observations were praised by the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Alexander Woollcott’ (ANB).
Bennett, A Practical Guide to American Book Collecting (1663-1940) p. 236. A WELSHMAN’S TALES FROM CHINA
12. MIDSHIPMAN IN CHINA (The); or, Recollections of the Chinese. London, Religious Tract Society, [c. 1845?]
12mo, pp. iv, 104, with 13 engraved illustrations; a very good copy in the original embossed red cloth, lettered gilt; two ownership inscriptions dated respectively 1850 and 1856 on front free endpaper. £350
First edition of an attractive account of Chinese life and customs aimed at a juvenile audience, as recounted by a young seaman recently returned to his family in Barmouth, North Wales.
Subjects covered include: the consumption of dogs as food, tea, the Great Wall, the condition of women, inventions (gunpowder, printing, the compass), opium, Confucius, and the introduction of Christianity to China (mentioning the missionaries Morrison, Medhurst, Gützlaff etc.).
COPAC and OCLC together show four copies: Bodley, BL, Trinity College Dublin, and Koniklijke Bibliotheek NL. HEATHROW EXPANSION: 60 YEARS AGO
13. [MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT AND CIVIL AVIATION.] London airport: developments in the central terminal area. London, Published for the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation by H. M. Stationery Office, 1954.
Folio, pp. 46, including 21 architectural drawings (some folded) and 10 photographs of architectural models; corners slightly bumped; original buff printed wrappers; a few marks, tears to head and tail of spine, staples rusting; ex-Grimsby Public Library copy with its embossed stamp to a number of pages, ink stamp to verso of upper cover, old shelf marks inked to first page; a good clean copy. £250
An important document in the history of the development of Heathrow airport. Renamed Heathrow in 1966, London Airport was opened for civil aviation on 1 January 1946. By 1952, according to this report, it was handling 845,000 passengers and 20,000 tons of mail and freight per annum. ‘London Airport’, the introduction states confidently, ‘is the busiest airport in Europe and one of the world’s largest international air terminals. Its design and construction embody the results of many years of study and experiment and no effort has been spared to ensure that the aesthetic appeal of the buildings matches the importance of their function. The runway system should be able to handle all the traffic expected for many years . . . . The tower of the new control building is planned as the focal point of a highly complex system . . . . It is expected that these technical facilities when installed will be the most advanced and comprehensive in the world’.
The report details and illustrates three new buildings designed by the architect (Sir) Frederick Gibberd (1908-1984), who worked on the airport between 1950 and 1969: the control building, a passenger handling building, and an airline operation building, all due for completion in 1955-56. The public was to be provided with a news cinema, a beer garden, a grill room with a dance floor, and a ‘roof garden “waving base”, where passengers’ friends can watch the departure of the aircraft’. The greater part of the report comprises detailed architectural drawings and attractive photographs of models of Gibberd’s new buildings. ‘REVOLUTIONARY’ MILITARY TACTICS FOR THE ITALIC LEGION
14. [NAPOLEON.] BONETTI, Luigi (translator). Regolamento concernente l’esercizio e le manovre dell’infanteria. Rome, Luigi Perego Salvioni, 1809.
Two volumes, 8vo, pp. 390; 88; with 40 folding engraved plates; woodcut Napoleonic crowned eagle emblem (symbol of the Kingdom of Italy) on titles; light marginal waterstain affecting a couple of quires in volume one, a few light spots (mostly marginal), but a very good set, uncut in the original decorated wrappers, printed paper lettering piece on spines; some loss to vol. I spine. £380
First edition printed in Rome (preceded by a 1799 Milan edition) of the Italian translation of Réglement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie (Paris, 1792), a manual of infantry drill and tactics for the training of the Italic Legion, formerly the Cisalpine Legion, the most important contingent of Italian soldiers fighting for Napoleon during the Italian campaign.
Comprised of six infantry divisions, one cavalry regiment and an artillery company, the Italic Legion contained over four thousand men, including soldiers from Piedmont, Lombardy, Naples, Rome and a few volunteers from Poland.
All editions of this manual are rare; we have been able to locate only one copy of this edition outside Italy, at the University of Minnesota Library; no copies are recorded in the UK.
15. NORMAN, George Warde. Papers on various subjects. [London] Printed for private circulation by T. & W. Boone, 1869.
8vo, pp. iv, 261, [1 blank]; some very light spotting to the endpapers and title-page, otherwise a very clean copy; original green cloth, gilt lettering to spine; upper board a little marked; inscribed ‘From the author’ and ‘Belper’ on front free endpaper. £300
A nice association copy of this collection of fifty-two essays, letters and petitions by the financial writer and merchant banker George Warde Norman (1793-1882), from the library of Edward Strutt, first Baron Belper (1801-1880). The pieces collected here, many of which originally appeared in The Spectator, The Times, The Economist, and The South Eastern Gazette, date from 1821 to 1869 and represent the wide range of political, economic and social questions with which Norman engaged during his distinguished career.
Having cut his teeth in the timber trade, banking and insurance in his father’s firm, Norman became a founder member of the Political Economy Club and a director of the Bank of England in 1821. His advocacy of monetary reform foreshadowed the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which he actively defended in subsequent financial crises. He was interested in taxation and free trade too, and, as a friend of Nassau Senior, in the formulation of the new Poor Law. He was politically active in the City of London and in West Kent, presiding over the West Kent Agricultural Association.
The potpourri of papers printed here cover: market gardeners; arguments against the political economist Robert Torrens on the ‘condition of England question’; the Poor Laws; the Reform Bill; the export of silver to India; the money market; the Malt Tax; the 1866 monetary crisis (during which Norman disagreed strongly with Walter Bagehot’s views of the Bank of England as the lender of last resort); questions of nationality; the ownership of land in England; capital, labour, and the effect of Trade Unions on wages; the middle classes; Ireland; and democratic government. There are also papers on defence and the military, including the conduct of the Crimean War, in which Norman lost his eldest son.
Baron Belper, to whom this copy belonged, was close to Jeremy Bentham and to James and John Stuart Mill, and, like Norman, a friend of George Grote. ‘Belper became a recognized authority on questions of free trade, law reform, and education and earned the respect of many eminent contemporaries, including Macaulay, John Romilly, McCulloch, John and Charles Austen, George Grote, and Charles Buller’ (ODNB). THE ICE TRADE AND PROFESSIONAL MIGRATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY: A LOG JOURNAL WRITTEN EN ROUTE FROM BOSTON TO BUENOS AYRES IN 1858
16. [NAVAL MANUSCRIPT LOG.] ‘Boston to Buenos Ayres 1858 - Bark Augusta Mayhew Captain Thorpe’. Onboard the Augusta Mayhew, 5 September-1 December 1858.
4to in 8s (278 x 220mm), 121 ll., ruled, pp. 1-32 numbered and written in ink, and penultimate, unnumbered l. recto written in pencil in one nineteenth-century hand, the remainder blank; small ink sketch of fish (p. 12), four clippings from contemporary publications loosely inserted, one typed l. containing a description of the MS contents, another with handwritten notes on the same, both second half of the 20th century; initial 2 ll. and 8 ll. towards the end removed; some light browning and occasional spotting, 2 short pen trials on one p., light marginal marking affecting some ll., some light offsetting of loose inserts of papers and plant, most now lost, on several pages; contemporary half black roan over marbled boards, spine ruled in gilt, speckled edges; extremities rubbed, traces of adhesive tape on upper board, pencil notes and adhesive label on endpapers, otherwise in very good condition. £1200
Written at sea, aboard the bark Augusta Mayhew, this journal documents an eloquent emigrant’s journey from Massachusetts to Argentina in 1858. The Augusta Mayhew was involved in the trade between the East Coast of North America and South America, and delivered, among other things, sugar and honey a from Southern America, and was ‘insured in Wall Street for about $18,000’. Built at Millbridge in 1857, she would be wrecked in 1860 and be subject of a fraud case (New York Times, 7 February 1860; , 26 July 1859, 9 November 1861 et var.). Whether the wreckage of the highly insured vessel a year after the Augusta Mayhew had encountered dire financial straits was coincidental remains a matter of speculation. While this journey of 1858 was primarily dedicated to the Massachusetts ice trade and the leather trade (‘ice and tan’, p. 18), the Augusta Mayhew also appears to have carried passengers. The author of this journal seems to undertaken the journey to Argentina for sheep farming, a branch of agriculture that attracted many Irish immigrants from the mid-nineteenth century onwards – his trade log is written in pencil towards the end of the volume. He was an experienced traveller by sea, as a ‘sailor boy’ to California aboard the Mary Mitchel ten years prior to his current trip, (pp. 7-8), and on other occasions. He ‘manage[d] to pass the time away quite agreeable. What, with reading, keeping Capt. Thorp’s Abstract Log, according to the directions of Lieut. Maury, and lending a hand on deck at times, I get through the hours of the day [inserted: very well]. So, when the night comes, and eight bells are rung, some the watch of night attentive keep, while I, profoundly in my hammock sleep’ (p. 11). The final three lines in this passage are quotations from the heroic poem ‘Donald Bane, Lord of the Hebrides, or Western Isles’; elsewhere the author emulates poetry and literature, and quotes Falconer’s popular poem ‘The Shipwreck’ (1762), the sonnet ‘Supposed to be written by the unhappy poet, Dermody, in a storm, while on board a ship in his Majesty’s service’, and other poems, which lift the journal’s comparatively mechanical records of route, weather and progress.
Anecdotes of life on sea are particularly entertaining. The author made wagers with Captain Thorpe for cigars depending on the ship’s progress (p. 19), which was painfully slow for weeks, especially in the Horse Latitudes. He also marks the custom of ‘crossing the line’ upon (finally) crossing the equator (7 November) by throwing his mattress overboard for Neptune, ‘so that he could have something on which to lay his bones’, and justifying the act by the presence of ‘vermin’, ‘left by former occupants of my berth’ (p. 22).
Most interestingly, this journal is of scientific significance: the author provides an eye-witness account of the comet of 1858 (later known as Donati’s comet, named after Giovani Battista Donati, who had discovered it on 2 June), which the author recalls, a few days after the event, first having seen on Friday 17th September as the ship, mid-Atlantic ocean, just passed the latitude of Williamsburg (36.53° N, 49.00° W): ‘a comet with a long tail. To which the Capt. Ascribes the late storm’ which had upset the progress of the bark (p. 8; see also the entries for September 23rd, October 3rd and 6th, 7th). Donati’s comet, which captured the popular imagination and created commercial possibilities for artists as well as observation opportunities for scientists, had developed a tail in September and made its nearest approach to Earth on 10 October 1858. A week prior to its peak, the log writer notes that the comet ‘has been in sight all the last week, and each night it appears larger, with its fiery tail increasing, both in length and width’ (3 October, p. 12). Furthermore, the journal is rich in observations on the environment around the travelling bark, covering sea and land (dolphin fishing, catching sea perch, birds and the passing of other international ships).
A full description is available on request. 17. [OLIVEWOOD BINDING.] ‘Photographs and Flowers of Hl. Land’. [Jerusalem, early twentieth century.]
Oblong 4to, pp. 37, comprising title-page + 18 photogravures + 18 arrangements of pressed flowers; on thick card; photographs and flowers titled in French, English and German below; photogravures on versos, with flowers on adjacent rectos, each with tissue guard; ‘To Betty & Arthur, A souvenir of Jerusalem, 4/4/18’ inscribed in pencil on front free endpaper; some spotting to tissue guards, flowers delicate with loss to small areas (one composition with significant loss); in olive-wood boards, Jerusalem cross carved into upper board, ‘Jerusalem’ in English and Hebrew painted in ink on lower board, red Morocco spine with title in French, Jerusalem cross and decorative motifs in gilt on spine; light stain and a tear to endpapers, minor loss to head and foot of spine, some faint scratches on wood, but generally good. £450
A traditional Holy Land souvenir, bound in symbolic olivewood with its deep colour and richly patterned grain. This example is illustrated with photogravures rather than the more commonly found chromolithographed postcards.
The numerous Biblical references to the olive tree meant these albums were a poignant memento for pilgrims to the Holy Land, along with their contents, which evoked experiences of their visit to each of the locations through the flowers and landscapes. The tradition of olivewood carving was taught to Bethlehem Christians by Franciscan monks and developed into an industry by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The olive trees are not cut down to provide material – since they require regular pruning, the offcut wood is usually utilised instead.
The plates comprise Jaffa (‘View from the sea’); Jerusalem (‘Jaffa Gate’, ‘Panorama from St. Anne’, ‘Tomb of David on Mount Zion’, ‘Church of Sepulchre’, ‘Holy Sepulchre’, Via dolorosa’, ‘Pulpite of Omar’, ‘The Jews’ wailing place’, ‘Damascus Gate’, ‘Garden of Gethsemane’, ‘Mount of Olives’); Bethany; Bethlehem (‘Christmas day’, ‘Grotte of the Nativity’), Jericho (‘General view’); the Jordan; and the Dead Sea. 18. [OLIVEWOOD BINDING.] FIORILLO, L., and AMERICAN COLONY, photographers. ‘Flowers from the Holy Land’. [Bethlehem and Jerusalem, 1890s.]
Oblong 8vo, pp. 25, comprising title-page + 12 photographs (nine albumen prints and three gelatin POPs) + 12 arrangements of pressed flowers; on thick card; photographs all numbered and majority titled (in French, three also in English) in typescript in the negative, mostly also labelled ‘L. Fiorillo, Phot.’ in typescript in the negative, three labelled ‘American Colony, Jerusalem’ by hand in the negative, flowers titled in French, English and German below; photographs pasted on versos, with flowers on adjacent rectos, each with tissue guard; small blank paper label pasted on title-page; occasional lights spots, a couple of tissue guards loose, card a little warped, some loss to final tissue guard and flower arrangement, photographs somewhat faded, occasional minor scratch; in olivewood boards, Jerusalem cross carved into upper board, ‘Jerusalem’ in English and Hebrew painted in ink on lower board, red Morocco spine with title in English, French and German, fillets and floral decoration; some bumps to spine, but in good condition. £750
An attractive olive-wood album of portraits and types, unusual in its combination of photographs with the traditional pressed flowers found in souvenir books.
Italian photographer L. Fiorillo started a photographic studio in Alexandria in the early 1870s. He made photographs for souvenir albums, as here, and also photographed a wide range of subjects and places, such as the photographs of Alexandria which he took during the bombing of 1882 – the ‘Souvenir d’Alexandie - Ruines’ – which is the most comprehensive record of the destruction. In the 1880s he merged businesses with another photographer, signing photographs ‘Marquis and Fiorillo’ and by 1893 his widow and sons were running the firm, signing prints ‘V. L. Fiorillo et Fils’.
The American Colony, Jerusalem was a Christian pilgrim group originally from Chicago. To further grow their tourist enterprise as a source of income they opened a photographic department in 1898 and photographed with an energy which some of the older studios had lost.
The photographs comprise: ‘Femme Negresse’; ‘Campement de Bohémiens’; ‘Chanteur arabe’; ‘Porteur d’eau’; ‘Campement de Bédouins’; ‘Femme juive Tunis’; ‘Bédouine’; ‘Pauvre Arabe’; an untitled portrait of a woman reclining on couch with hookah; ‘Types de marchands arabes’; ‘Saïs (Avent- coureur)’; and ‘Décrotteurs de Jérusalum’.
See Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839–1925, by Ken Jacobson; Focus East: early photography in the Near East 1839-1885, by Nissan Perez. item 17
item 18 A REFUTATION OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM
19. [PAULET, Jean-Jacques.] L’antimagnétisme ou origine, progrès, décadence, renouvellement et réfutation du magnétisme animal. ‘Londres’ [i.e. Paris, Desenne?], 1784.
8vo, pp. [iv], 252, with a satirical aquatint frontispiece depicting Mesmer being crowned by a jester while carrying out one of his experiments; the odd spot, dampstain to lower corner of a few quires, but a very good copy, uncut in the original plain light blue wrappers; spine restored. £400
First edition of Jean-Jacques Paulet’s vehement critique of Mesmer’s doctrine on animal magnetism. In this work, Paulet accuses Mesmer of being nothing other than a charlatan exploiting the Parisian penchant for the irrational and mysterious; L’antimagnétisme includes the full text of Mesmer’s Discours sur le magnétisme, with notes and comments by Paulet showing all the flaws in Mesmer’s theory and the influence (and sometimes plagiarism) of other authors, such as Fludd, Newton, Kircher, Paracelsus and Descartes, together with a refutation of each of Mesmer’s famous 27 Propositions.
In 1785, following strong criticism by the French scientific community and an investigation into animal magnetism launched at the behest of Louis XVI, Mesmer left Paris and moved to Austria. Paulet’s L’antimagnétisme, however, as well as the works of many other critics, was soon translated into German, bringing to an end Mesmer’s success.
Crabtree 94. 20. POSTEL, Guillaume. De originibus, seu, de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsyderata historia, quorum totius Orientis, tum maximè Tartarorum, Persarum, Turcarum, & omnium Abrahami & Noachi alumnorum origines, & mysteria Brachmanum retegente. Basel, Johannes Oporinus, [1553].
8vo, pp. 135, woodcut initials in the text; a very good copy in modern vellum; a few contemporary marginal notes and underlinings, mainly at the beginning. £4750
First edition of Postel’s investigations into the original language as a means to regain the primordial unity of mankind.
During the immensely productive years 1552 and 1553, Postel constantly emphasized the need for action in order to unify the world. ‘He was explicit about the practicality of his aims. Late in his career he wrote to Masius that his life’s work had been a long effort to persuade Christendom to act. If it would only exert itself, how easily the world would pass from its terrible disorders into the eternal peace proclaimed by Christ! His sense of active purpose permeated even his most apparently academic works, such as his treatise De originibus of 1553. In this book he offered a profoundly Augustinian statement of purpose: “I have aimed to treat of both the original relationships of things and the methods by which we can reconcile them again in the completest peace; and I have tried to promote that end for which the world was created, universal peace”’ (Bouwsma, Concordia Mundi p. 214).
‘Postel believed that language, that is, to know the names of things, was god’s greatest gift to man . . . . In the De originibus seu de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita aut inconsyderata historia . . . Postel argues according to logic about God’s gift of speech to mankind. Man is different from other animals because he can reason and speak. Therefore, the Greeks called man “animal logicum” because indicates speech or conversation no less than reason . . . . All men take their origin from Adam, who as first parent was taught by God about the names of everything in the universe: “Since there was no man, before the first man, who could speak an exterior voice, he necessarily conceived all the names of things by an interior voice”. When Adam was alone in Paradise, God and Adam communicated by the emanation of Idea which was called an inner voice . . . . Adam divinely received the words from Wisdom or from the agent intellect of which we are all members; however, in order to teach posterity, it was necessary to bring forth all things with an exterior voice . . .
‘It is clear that Postel’s desire to know languages was fuelled by his concept of the divine origin of language … God gave to Adam the ability to speak and to write in order to teach mankind God’s Law. God’s Law was transmitted through the first parent, Adam, through Enoch, through Noah, and through Moses … The gift of language and God’s Law cannot be separated in Postel’s thought’ (Marion L. Kuntz, The Original Language as Paradigm for the restitutio omnium, in: The Language of Adam. Die Sprache Adams (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen vol. 84), pp. 131-132).
Adams P2022; VD16 P4482; not in Caillet. AROUND THE WORLD WITH ‘MR BORAX’: A PRESENTATION COPY OF A RARE previously imported from India. An advertisement from 1876 encourages potential WORK ON TRAVELS AND TRADE customers of his company to ‘order from your grocer one penny packet of Arthur Robottom's pure Californian borax and one penny packet of borax dry soap’. Robottom 21. ROBOTTOM, Arthur. Travels in search of new trade products. London: sold the company two years later, whereupon it became the Patent Borax Company of Milton Smith & Co. for Jarrold & Sons, 1893. Birmingham.
8vo (180 x 123mm), pp. vi, 167, [1 (blank)]; half-tone frontispiece, 2 maps (one double- The publication of Travels was overseen by Robottom, whose business mind was set on page), 24 wood-engraved and half-tone illustrations, of which 14 full-page; original a large distribution with a concomitant profit. In an interview-turned-review, recorded textured wrappers, upper wrapper blocked in green; extremities lightly rubbed, slightly before but published after publication of the trade edition (which was first advertised in marked, one corner bumped, short cracks on joints, otherwise a very good, clean copy; The Times, 21 August 1893, with a very positive review three days later), Robottom provenance: ‘With Arthur Robottom’s compliments and very kind regards’ states his intention to bypass selling ‘through the discount-booksellers, and at the (presentation inscription on verso of title). railway stalls’ and to retail the work directly: ‘I am a novice at book-writing, but I will £250 do my publishing my own way. I had the work printed at my own expense, and shall sell it myself at one shilling net’. He goes on to explain that he expects his colleagues at First edition. Written by the Birmingham businessman Arthur Robottom (b. 1825), the Commercial Sales Rooms in Mincing Lane, London to buy a copy each, and to Travels in Search of New Trade Products is an autobiographical account the author’s promote further sales through ‘some good friends among you newspaper-people’ – a interests, travels, and transactions, particularly his journeys through North, Central and plan that would succeed by the time this review went into print, leaving Robottom with South America, Asia Minor and the West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century, to further ambitions: ‘he has ordered, he says, 20,000 copies of the book to be printed, and explore international products for import into the UK market, especially those ‘capable knows that they will sell. But what he wants now is a circulation of 100,000, and only of being utilized in our home industries’ (preface). Robottom had developed a business when that figure is reached will he feel completely happy’ (The Chemist and the Druggist, sense as a child, as well as a curiosity and magpie tendencies in his approaches to trade 23 September 1893, p. 486). The present copy has been inscribed by the author, and the products: in the course of his lifetime he identified, evaluated and made accessible wrappers edition precedes the near-parallel publication of a more luxurious edition in fibres (he was later credited with the introduction of Piassaba for brush-making to boards with gilt decoration, allowing the text one and a half times the space of the trade England), lard, tallow and waxes, petroleum and paraffin (in which he became a edition with some emendations, which contains a list of errata on the reverse of the list competitor to James ‘Paraffin’ Young of Glasgow/Manchester). The work also of illustrations which are not addressed, or listed, in this trade edition (see the following discusses, among other things, ginseng and ‘vegetable ivory’ (tagua), nitrates and item). borates. On the content of the book (especially slavery and Mormonism), please see the Indeed, Robottom became best known as ‘Mr Borax’. As he recounted in a letter to The description for the following item. Times: ‘the first idea of the great antiseptic properties of boracic acid was brought about by my visit to Death Valley in the extreme south of California . . . it has become Both editions are scarce and COPAC only records five copies in UK libraries. recognized by the medical profession of the world as a curative of many diseases and complaints’ (8 April 1899, p. 13). Publicised by surgeon Joseph Lister for wound care, borax was further used in the purification of water. However, borax was also intertwined with the Victorian problem of food adulteration, and Robottom was interviewed by newspapers, as an expert on borax, on the occasion of the conviction of a milk dealer for adding water and boracic acid to his milk (Bay of Plenty Times, 8 December 1897). Overall, Robottom’s Californian discovery would make the material cheaper and more accessible to the British trade than the crude borax, or tincal, FIRST EDITION IN BOARDS
22. ROBOTTOM, Arthur. Travels in search of new trade products. London: Milton Smith & Co. for Jarrold & Sons, 1893.
8vo (183 x 125mm), pp. [2 (title)], [6 (preface, blank, contents, illustrations, errata)], 224; half-tone frontispiece retaining tissue guard, one engraved folding map, 24 wood-engraved and half-tone illustrations, of which 14 full-page, and one further full-page map; tissue guard lightly browned, initial quires slightly shaken; original green cloth, boards blocked in brown with ornamental border and ornament, upper board and spine lettered in gilt, floral endpapers; extremities very lightly rubbed, cloth of upper board very slightly bubbled in one corner, minimal spotting on free endpapers, overall a very good copy; provenance: Dr James Wigg, 36 Haverstock Hill, London (fl. 1890s/1900s, contemporary ownership inscription on front free end paper). £350
Second, corrected edition, the first in boards. (On Robottom, please see previous item). Robottom’s lively narrative – which spans the period from his childhood to the early 1890s and mostly consists of short autobiographical pieces interspersed with sections on famous inventions, notable people and significant events – is particularly noteworthy for its documentation of and insights into current affairs. His chapter on the slave trade relates his encounter in Brazil with the Portuguese ‘Captain Monel Gonsalvas Costa’, around the time of the formal abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888. Costa owned ships ‘despatched from New York or Boston and entered at the Customs to sail for a port in the West Indies’, but actually Africa- bound, with retractable masts in order to escape British observation. Robottom’s perspective on slavery, probably significantly influenced by Costa’s views, combines remarks on the (in his eyes good) care of the slaves and their relative autonomy within the system with historic-political observations: ‘the general impression is that the English cruisers were the cause of the stoppage of the slave trade between Africa and Brazil; but Costa showed me that this was far from being correct’ – the explanation offered is the introduction of a law granting freedom to all slaves who landed at Brazilian ports after a certain date and prohibiting slave dealers from paying for them (p. 56).
Robottom’s account of the ‘Mormons’ includes his visit to Salt Lake City (which the Mormons had ‘turned . . . from a howling wilderness to a beautiful and fruitful region’), in which he made the acquaintance of Brigham Young (illustrated in an engraving based on ‘a Photograph presented to the Author’, p. 115); it also provides an account of the history of the Mormons, their exodus and search for a home, and the settlement in Utah, as told to Robottom by ‘one of the leading Mormons who first joined Joe Smith’, with whom he had travelled over Nebraska, Wyoming and part of Utah (p. 114). Further of interest are similarly historically-personally tinted sections on Kit Carson, ‘The First Locomotive’, the invention of the Woodbury type (a section also covering an account of the earliest photography on Java: ‘the native princes even were drawn to the photographers, and were so charmed with the portraits produced, that they gladly paid ten guilders for a single copy’ (pp. 83-84)), and a section on coca, its use in treating addictions to opium and morphine, closing with a note that ‘Christy & Co., [the pharmaceutical manufacturer] of London, have introduced coca in a new form which is said to be most useful as a medicine’ (p. 153).
The illustrations in Travels in Search of New Trade Products are as varied and engrossing as the narrative. They range from engravings of botanical and zoological interest (‘Pulque Plant and Gourd’, ‘The Llama’) and landscapes and bridges to photographs of Lima, various indigenous peoples (e.g. ‘Peruvian Indian Girls’ and ‘Chilean Peasants’), and images of much more personal pertinence, including an illustration of Robottom’s ‘First Sight of Borax’.
This edition in boards corrects errata noted in the first edition, and extends the text proper to 224 pages from 167. This was previously in the library of the London physician Dr James Wigg, who established a practice in Kentish Town in the late nineteenth century, which survives to the present day, and it would presumably have been of interest to him for professional reasons.
Both editions are scarce and COPAC only records five copies in UK libraries. 23. TURNER, Thomas. Manuscript notebook containing notes of new building work on his house; measurements and notes on weather stick barometers; and mathematical questions and answers. [England, Lancashire, c. 1705.]
Small 8vo (162 x 100 mm.), English manuscript notebook written in a neat legible hand, in brown ink, 50 leaves and a number of blanks at the end (mss pagination: pp. [2], 11, [5], 9, [1] (blank), 15, [1] (blank), 1, [3] (blank), [2], [14] (blank)), with 2 leaves with mss in the same hand loosely inserted; crisp and clean in contemporary drab wrappers, stitched, lower wrapper repaired. £1000
An interesting and curious notebook by an English gentleman, who signs himself on the front leaf: ‘Thomas Turner, huius libri possessor est: Anno Domini 1705’. The notebook is filled with ‘Questions of Measuring’ often related to the building trade, with the calculations and fractions underneath and the answers given. The many questions relate to paving measurements, door measurements, amount of glazing for any given house, timber measurements.
This is followed by interesting and detailed notes (five pages) on a variety of building work which has taken place at Thomas Turner’s house. In July 1709 Turner had extensive glazier work done on his own house. He employed a glazier called William Nelson, with smith work undertaken by one Ralph Law. Law also did a number of brick-work jobs for Turner. All these building works are listed in great detail with costs incurred noted.
Then there are several pages of ‘Questions of the Extraction of the Square Root’, followed by extractions of the ‘Cube Root’. The final pages are devoted to a number of stick barometers which had aroused the author’s interest when visiting a neighbour. The neighbour was the Catholic landowner ‘Joseph Bolton of Croston’ [Lancashire]. Turner also notes that the instrument had been erected by ‘Mr. Matterson Arithmetician’. Stick barometers were the first barometers available for reading the weather in England and were sold for domestic use from the 1680s. Not many of these early barometers have survived.
24. UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. ‘Palestine’, from ‘The Underwood Travel Library’. [Circa 1900.] [with:] UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. ‘Old Testament Travels Through the Stereoscope’, from ‘The Underwood Travel Library’. [Circa 1900.]
116 gelatin silver print stereoviews, approximately 3¼ x 6 inches (8.2 x 15.3 cm.), mounted on thick grey card, 3½ x 7 inches (8.8 x 17.9 cm.), number and title printed in ink on front of mount, with studio details and copyright notice, printed titles in up to six languages on verso, some with fuller text in English; presented in two book-form cloth-covered boxes, lettering, fillets and small floral motif stamped in gilt on spine; some light rubbing to edges of cards and extremities of boxes, with some fabric a little worn, generally very good condition, the photographs mostly excellent. £800
A visual introduction to Palestine for Europeans and Americans at the turn of the last century – the first to be so accessible, in-depth and vivid.
The sequence of images simulated the tour of these locations either as mementos for travellers or for those who had neither the means nor the ability to travel abroad. They experienced these places in 3D, in the comfort of their own homes and at a reasonable cost. The firm of Underwood and Underwood enjoyed great success in their business of producing and marketing stereoscopic cards, leaving ‘a vast and invaluable resource showing the modernization of the world’. Most of the archive is at the University of California Riverside, including 350,000 original stereoscopic negatives.
The series ‘Palestine’ comprises 95 views and ‘Old Testament Travels’ comprises 21 views. There is some duplication of numbers within each set (no duplication of views) and numbers missing, as is often found. Commonly the groups would be compiled from the stereocards relevant to the subject which happened to be available in stock when required. It is also possible that customers swapped cards with other purchasers of the Travels series.
David Burder, ‘Underwood, Bert and Elmer’ in The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, pp. 1417–1420.
ROYAL SWEDISH TOUR ALONG THE NILE
25. VICTORIA, Crown Princess of Sweden. Vom Nil. Tagebuchblätter während des Aufenthalts in Egypten im Winter 1890/91 . . . . Mit Lichtdruckbildern nach eigenen photographischen Aufnahmen und einer Karte. Als Manuscript gedruckt. Karlsruhe, Braun’sche Hofbuchdruckerei, 1892.
Large 4to, pp. [iv], 163, [1], with a heliogravure frontispiece, 34 heliogravure plates and a folding coloured map; 162 illustrations in the text; an excellent, fresh copy in the original richly decorated and gilt light brown pictorial cloth by Hasert of Stuttgart, edges stained red; minor wear and a few tiny marks, covers a little bowed. £1800
First edition, rare. Printed for private circulation only, this work records a journey along the Nile made between October 1890 and April 1891 by Princess Victoria of Baden (1862–1930), later Queen Victoria of Sweden (queen consort 1907–1930).
Written in the form of a diary, the Princess’s account of her travels is richly illustrated with her own accomplished photographs depicting the major monuments as well as landscape views and studies of the different ethnic groups encountered.
Provenance: Otto Hack Roland Printzköld (1846–1930), Lord Chamberlain to the King of Sweden, with his armorial bookplate on front pastedown.
OCLC records only one copy outside Germany (National Library of Sweden).