Literary Miscellany The Secular and The Sacred Catalogue 293 WILLIAM REESE COMPANY 409 TEMPLE STREET NEW HAVEN, CT. 06511 USA 203.789.8081 FAX: 203.865.7653 [email protected] www.reeseco.com TERMS Material herein is offered subject to prior sale. All items are as described, but are consid- ered to be sent subject to approval unless otherwise noted. Notice of return must be given within ten days unless specific arrangements are made prior to shipment. All returns must be made conscientiously and expediently. Connecticut residents must be billed state sales tax. Postage and insurance are billed to all non-prepaid domestic orders. Orders shipped outside of the United States are sent by air or courier, unless otherwise requested, with full charges billed at our discretion. The usual courtesy discount is extended only to recognized booksellers who offer reciprocal opportunities from their catalogues or stock. We have 24 hour telephone answering and a Fax machine for receipt of orders or messages. Catalogue orders should be e-mailed to: [email protected] We do not maintain an open bookshop, and a considerable portion of our literature inven- tory is situated in our adjunct office and warehouse in Hamden, CT. Hence, a minimum of 24 hours notice is necessary prior to some items in this catalogue being made available for shipping or inspection (by appointment) in our main offices on Temple Street. We accept payment via Mastercard or Visa, and require the account number, expiration date, CVC code, full billing name, address and telephone number in order to process payment. Institutional billing requirements may, as always, be accommodated upon request. ________________________________________________________________ We invite you to visit our web site www.reeseco.com where over thirty-five thousand items from our inventory are searchable and may be ordered directly via a secure server. Images associated with many items from this catalogue are also posted on our web site, and significant new acquisitions are posted there long before they appear on any of the collective databases. Those wishing to receive e-mail notification of the posting of new catalogues and lists to our website may request same by forwarding expressions of interest to [email protected] ___________________________________________________________________ William Reese Company 409 Temple Street New Haven, CT. 06511 USA Phone: 203.789.8081 Fax: 203.865.7653 e-mail: [email protected] Members ABAA and ILAB 1. Acton, Harold [trans]: THE LAST OF THE MEDICI...WITH INTRODUCTION BY NORMAN DOUGLAS. Florence: Privately Printed for Subscribers by G. Orioli, [1930]. Gilt decorated boards, gilt spine label. Portrait frontis printed by Emery Walker. Plate. Boards a bit sunned at top edge, mild tanning to textblock, but a very good copy, in quite chipped and worn dust jacket. First edition. One of 365 numbered copies (350 for sale), printed on Binda handmade paper, and published as No. 2 in the Lungarno Series. Signed by Douglas at the conclusion of his introduction, and by Acton at the conclusion of the Translator’s Preface. Certain passages in the text led to a temporary seizure of a portion of the edition at the request of the British Home Office, but the Italian court found in favor of the publisher and the copies were returned. Douglas observes in his introduction that this account of the foibles of Gian Gastone is “strong fare, indeed. I am not anxious to pose as a prude, but, absorbing as the book is, I should hesitate to recommend it to any boy under twelve years of age. There are indications, apart from the main evidence of the following pages, that His Highness had a screw loose....” RITCHIE A6. WOOLF B5. $350. 2. Adams, Mary M.: THE CHOIR VISIBLE. Chicago: Way & Williams, 1897. Pictorial cloth, decorated in gilt, t.e.g., others untrimmed. Decorative title in red and black. Spine tips a bit rubbed, a few streaks of offsetting along fore-edge of upper cover, slight dampmark around toe of spine, faint tide mark at toes of endsheet gutters, otherwise very good and bright. First edition. Inscribed presentation copy from “the author,” dated 1898. A handsomely produced volume, printed on fine laid paper from W. King Alton Mill, with a title and binding design by Frank Hazenplug. KRAUS 53. $125. 3. Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham: A SAXON TREATISE CONCERNING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. WRITTEN ABOIUT THE TIME OF KING EDGAR (700 YEARES AGO) BY ÆLFRICUS ABBAS, THOUGHT TO BE THE SAME THAT WAS AFTERWARD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURIE ... AND HEREUNTO IS ADDED OUT OF THE HOMILIES AND EPISTLES OF THE FORE-SAID ÆLFRICUS, A SECOND EDITION OF A TESTIMONIE OF ANTIQUTIE, &C .... London: Printed by Iohn Hauiland for Henrie Seile ..., 1623. [60],[24],12-43 (duplicated),[19],14 (duplicated),[23]pp. (lacking final blank). Quarto. Old limp vellum (somewhat soiled and partially uncased), occasional minor tide marks in margins and gutters, early ink marginalia on E2v, tiny worm track in upper margin of T2 to end, one foremargin trimmed irregularly, modest tanning; a good copy. Early engraved bookplates: (“F.S.”) and Coker Court. First edition in modern English of the first treatise, translated by William L’Isle, and preceded by a long dedicatory poem by him. The Anglo-Saxon and English texts are printed in parallel, with each having its own page numbering sequence. The supplementary works have their own divisional titles, but the register is continuous. L’Isle worked from the manuscript in the Cottonian Library, and though his reputation rests on his Anglo-Saxon scholarship, The Saxon Treatise ... was Lisle’s only work of in that field to be printed in his lifetime, his other publications being primarily translations from classical texts into French and English. ESTC S100438. STC 160. $1500. 4. [Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham (trans)]: HEPTATEUCHUS, LIBER JOB, ET EVANGELIUM NICODEMI; ANGLO-SAXONICE. HISTORIÆ JUDITH FRAGMENTUM; DANO-SAXONICE. Oxoniæ [i.e. Oxford]: E Theatro Sheldoniano ... Typis Jvnianis, An. Dom 1698. [8],168,32pp. Large octavo. Quarter modern black morocco and marbled boards, raised bands, gilt label. Engraved frontis, headpiece, and initial. Top margins very occasionally a trace dusty, otherwise a very good, crisp copy. First edition of this collection of translations into Anglo-Saxon of selections from the Old Testament and Apocrypha, edited by Edward Thwaites. The translations of the Heptateuch and Job are ascribed to Aelfric. The fine frontispiece and headpiece are the work of M. Burghers. “Thwaites’s most important contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies was his 1698 edition of hitherto unedited parts of the Old Testament in Old English, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and the book of Job, together with the apocryphal Judith and the Gospel of Nicodemus. ... Although some of his contemporaries criticized Thwaites’s edition — partly because it included apocryphal material, partly for its lack of a Latin translation and notes — it was for its time a ground- breaking enterprise and one that was not repeated until 1922, when S. J. Crawford edited the Heptateuch afresh, using a different base manuscript. Thwaites’s edition had been based on Bodleian MS Laud misc. 509, and his text was reprinted, with some emendations, by C. W. M. Grein in 1872. Thwaites dedicated his edition to George Hickes, at that time still proscribed as a nonjuror, and this caused some political embarrassment to the vice- chancellor, who threatened to suppress the edition unless Thwaites cut out the dedication. He bluntly refused — and prevailed” – DNB. ESTC R4371. WING B2198. DARLOW & MOULE 1606. $1750. 5. [Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham]: Elstob, Elizabeth: [translator]: AN ENGLISH-SAXON HOMILY ON THE BIRTH-DAY OF ST. GREGORY: ANCIENTLY USED IN THE ENGLISH- SAXON CHURCH. GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH FROM PAGANISM TO CHRISTIANITY. TRANSLATED INTO MODERN ENGLISH, WITH NOTES, &C. London: Printed by W. Bowyer, 1709. [10],lx (with misnumbering as per ESTC),[2],44,[4],11,[3],49,[7]pp. Octavo. Extracted from nonce pamphlet volume. Engraved frontis (here bound before Appendix) and engraved vignettes by S. Gribelin. Some foxing, first and last two leaves exhibit some dust soiling and smudging, old tidemark early and late, and scattered elsewhere, early ink ownership initials in lower fore-corner of title; just a sound copy of an interesting and important book. First edition of the second separate (but first substantial) publication by Elstob, a highly significant figure in the development of 18th century Anglo-Saxon studies, and future author of Rudiments Of Grammer For The English-Saxon, First Given In English (1715). Elstob was as well prominent among feminists of the era, and counted Mary Astell among her circle of friends. The final leaves print a substantial list of subscribers, along with errata. This edition “is a lavishly produced book equipped with copious text- critical and explanatory notes, with a modern English translation facing the Old English text on each page and a lengthy introduction and appendix dealing inter alia with the role and enduring importance of Gregory in the English church. The historiated initial of the modern English translation of Ælfric’s text contains Elizabeth Elstob’s portrait engraved by Simon Gribelin ... Elizabeth Elstob’s scholarly œuvre is on a par with the best work produced in Anglo-Saxon studies at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Moreover, her concept of writing her Old English grammar in English, and of providing her editions with a critical apparatus, introductions, and translations—all in English—at a time when scholarly publications in the field were almost invariably written throughout in Latin, clearly pointed to the future” – DNB. The location of over one hundred copies by ESTC might be taken as demonstrative of the esteem in which Elstob’s text has been held.