Rhetorica divina Guillermi Parisie[nsis]

Paris: Andre Bocard, for Jean Petit, 1500

THIRD EDITION of William of Auvergne's meditation on the subject of prayer. This work was first published in 1491 and again in 1492.

Octavo. 152 printed leaves. Beautifully rebound in (early) printed leaf over boards with vellum manuscript leaves on paste-downs. Printers device on title and verso of final leaf; rubricated in red and blue. Small hole to margin of first few leaves; occasional light dampstaining to margins; a superb and quite desirable copy.

$3,750

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An Essay on the Study of Literature

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. Small octavo (12.5x18cm) Recent antique-style full marbled calf, blind tooled boards, 5 raised bands and 2 blind rules to spine, red Morocco label, modern endpapers. Significant repair to upper blank margin of title page, text generally clean with occasional spotting.

$1,500

Romanorum Imperatorum Effigies

1592 Edition of Cavalieri's Lives of the Roman Emperors, superbly illustrated with 157 engraved portraits (on 152 leaves). Octavo, bound in contemporary vellum. Engraved title within architectural border, crown at top, full-page engraved coat-of-arms of Cavalieri (browned), 157 portraits (on 152 leaves) by Cavalieri, printer's device on verso of final leaf. Early stamp to lower margin of frontispiece. Occasional light to moderate toning. An attractive copy in a lovely vellum binding.

$4,000

Personal Memoirs of P.H. Sheridan

FIRST EDITION. Octavo. Publisher's original cloth binding. Steel-engraved portrait frontispiece, plates and maps throughout, some of which are fold-out. A fine set.

$450

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

FIRST EDITIONS. "To this task Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equalled to this day; and the result was clothed in an inimitable prose" (PMM, 222). Six volumes. Quarto. Contemporary tan calf rebacked with old red and green lettering-pieces laid down, gilt in compartments. Engraved portrait frontispiece in Vol. I, 2 folding maps in Vol. II, 1 folding map in Vol. III, without half-titles in Vols. II and III, others present. Frontispiece slightly foxed as usual, some offsetting, a few gatherings slightly foxed, a very good set. With portrait frontispiece of Gibbon (in vol. I), 1 folding map of Europe adjacent to Constantinople (in vol. II) 1 folding map of the Eastern Roman Empire and 1 folding map of the Western Roman Empire (in vol. III). The portrait of Gibbon "engraved by Joseph Hall from an original picture painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds" published by Strahan and Cadell in 1780 and issued with the second volume, has been moved by the binder to the appropriate place, at the beginning of vol. I. That volume is in the second of two variant states, without the cancels X4 and a4.

$27,000

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST STATE of the most famous and most beloved biography in the English language. One of only 1750 copies of the first edition printed (both first and second states combined). p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; color: #424242; -webkit-text-stroke: #424242} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} "Anyone interested in biography soon becomes interested in Boswell's Life of Johnson. It stands next to other biographies as Shakespeare stands beside other playwrights: towering above them all. For more than two centuries it has been continually in print, and in that time it has won innumerable admirers. No other biography has given so much pleasure; no other biographer has created such a vivid central character. It has become a truism that, as a result of Boswell's extraordinary book, Samuel Johnson is better known to us than any other man in history" (Sisman, Boswell's Presumptuous Task, xv). First state with "gve" on page 135 of vol. I. Quarto. Two volumes. Contemporary calf, skillfully rebacked. Gilt compartments, double-labels. A wide margined copy in a handsome binding. With frontispiece (after Sir Joshua Reynolds) and the two engraved plates in vol. II. Courtney & Smith, pp. 172-73. Pottle 79. Grolier English Hundred 65. Rothschild 463.

$9,000

Bozzy and Piozzi, or, the British Biographers, a Town Eclogue

SECOND EDITION.“On the death of Doctor Johnson, a number of people, ambitious of being distinguished from the mute part of their species, set about relating and printing Stories and Bons Mots of this celebrated moralist. Amongst the most zealous, though not the most enlightened, appeared Mr. Boswell and Madame Piozzi, the Hero and Heroine of our Eclogues...” London: Printed for G. Kearsley, 1786. Oblong quarto. Etched frontispiece. Engraved portrait of Pindar affixed to verso of title. 19th-century quarter morocco, spine lettered in gilt. A clean, attractive copy.

$1,200

The Man With the Golden Gun

James Bond drank down the rest of his beer and got slowly to his feet. He walked towards Scaramanga and was about to pass him when the man reached out a languid left arm and caught him at the biceps. He held the snout of his gun to his nose, sniffing delicately. The expression in the dead brown eyes was far-away. He said, 'Mister, there's something quite extra about the smell of death. Care to try it?' He held out the glittering gun as if he was offering James Bond a rose...FIRST EDITION, second state (as usual), without the rare gilt golden gun on the front board. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. A FINE COPY.

$750

The Naked and the Dead

FIRST EDITION, MAILER'S OWN COPY. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED: "from my library / Norman Mailer" on half-title. With letter of provenance from Mailer's nephew Peter Alson.Written when Mailer was just twenty-five, The Naked and the Dead is one of the classic novels of World War II. Both a critical and commercial success (it remained at the top of The New York Times best-seller list for eleven weeks), it launched Mailer's career and remains one of the most influential American novels of the century. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, dust jacket a little toned at flaps, some rubbing to extremities.

$14,000

1939-1962 Photographs

FIRST EDTION, THE EXTREMELY RARE HARDCOVER ISSUE; one of an estimated fifty copies bound for presentation. “[T]his is an almost perfect monograph. It begins and ends with Sommer’s exquisite abstractions, and includes some of the best examples of Sommer’s work in portraiture, collage, landscape, and still life to date. Every two-page spread reveals something more about the images through their juxtaposition. And then there is the text. It is very unusual to have writing at this level, uninfected with either sentimentality or pomposity, from an American photographer, but what’s more unusual is to have an artist who makes images and text and can combine them in a way that deepens and extends the effects of each. This early enactment of Sommer’s ideas about the workings of linguistic and pictorial logic is a gem” (David Levi Strauss. The Book of 101 Books). Roth 101.Complete with 30 black and white photographs. New York: Aperture, 1962. Small folio (235x205mm), original white cloth with black lettering. Only a few spots of soiling to cloth. A magnificent copy.

$3,500

In Cold Blood

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Original cloth, original dust jacket. First issue dust jacket with "1/66" code on the front flap; "Publishers of the American College Dictionary and the Modern Library" on rear flap. A superb copy.

$550

Octopussy and The Living Daylights

"...And all this because of a man called Bond, Commander James Bond, who had turned up at ten thirty that morning in a taxi from Kingston."FIRST EDITION. Original cloth, first state dust jacket with the price intact on the front flap. Near fine copy in a very good or better example of the original dust jacket. A very desirable copy.

$375

tse

ates

GUILLERMUS, BISHOP OF PARIS [WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE]