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Arabic — Armenian — Antiochus

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•  First edition of this catalogue of Arabic manuscripts held by the university at Leiden, annotated by Hamaker; the text is printed in Latin and Arabic. That work is followed by one on ancient Armenian manuscripts and another on the last era of Antiochus Sidetes with reference both to numismatic and Biblical sources; these are also in their first editions.

•  Hamaker: Brunet, III, 26-27.   Contemporary half red morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and publication information; binding darkened, corners and joints lightly rubbed. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped, front free endpaper with neatly inked list of contents, half-title with small inked annotation dated 1825. Hamaker: Occasional instances of light spotting, pages otherwise clean. Chahan: Light intermittent foxing; inked marginalia in a neat hand. Tochon: Title-page with inked ownership inscription in upper margin, dated 1848. (20613)

Dr. R's Class

Haney, John Louis, ed.

•  This was Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach's college class. Other members included a number of enterprising women, including one who was a musician and an inventor!

•  Original red cloth, black-lettered on the front. Traces of soiling on covers. Small ink stain on title-page. Author's rubber-stamp on inner margin of p. [5]. Very good. (15956)

Neatly Bound inQuarter Morocco

•  Still a standard bibliography for this aspect of Americana. This copy is no. 74 of 400 copies in royal octavo format. Harrisse provides considerably more information than latter bibliographies such as European Americana, including details of collation by signature.

•  Modern quarter brown morocco. Ex-library with red stamps. Top edge gilt. A few margins with chips or short tears. In all a rather nice copy, one now in a strong and appropriate binding.

Harvard Library Catalogue Signed byPresident Quincy

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•  First of the 19th-century catalogues of Harvard's holdings, hereuncut and unopened in four volumes, including the Catalogue of the Maps and Charts, which was published shortly after the three main volumes.

Provenance:  Inscribed to a Philadelphia social club “from the President & Fellows of Harvard University,” signed by Josiah Quincy.

•  American Imprints 1772 & 7465; Sabin 30729 (vols. 1–3) & 30730 (maps).   Publisher's quarter cloth and tan paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels; worn and soiled/stained but sound, with spines sunned and front lower outer corner of vol. I chipped. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, endpapers with call number, rubber-stamp on title-pages and a few others, no other markings. Front free endpaper of vol. I with inked inscription as above.  (26904)

The Collector asAuthor & Publisher

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth. Very good condition.

(Hofer, Philip).  The Philip Hofer collection in the Houghton Library: Philip Hofer as a collector. A symposium in conjunction with the exhibition of the Philip Hofer bequest to the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts. Cambridge: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 1988. 8vo. [2] ff., 41, [3 (2 blank)] pp.
$15.00

•  Original printed wrappings. Very good condition.

(Hofer, Philip). The Philip Hofer collection in the Houghton library: A catalogue of an exhibition of the Philip Hofer bequest. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1988. Folio. [6], vii–xiv, [1], 218 pp.; 100 illus.
$35.00

•  First edition. Illustrated exhibition catalogue.

•  Paperback. Handsome calligraphed covers. Very good copy.

The MORE! Things Change . . . ?

8T⁶*⁴; [6] ff., xxxvi, 304, 8 pp.
[SOLD]

•  Clean copy of this handsomely printed copy of the infamous Index. The engraved title-page incorporates an engraving of men burning books! Click either image for an enlargement.

•  Vellum over paste boards; spine with tan label, gilt-lettered and ruled. Ex-library: Rubber stamps, including on front pastedown and all edges of closed book, spine with call number label and inked-out area. Paper clean and crisp. All edges marbled red.

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One Daring! Title . . . Jenkins Company, booksellers, Austin. The whole world:  Books and manuscripts on many subjects. Austin: The Jenkins Company, 1980. Folio.
$25.00

•  Catalogue 128. Only a few illustrations, but 1175 items.

•  Original wrappers. Some staining and sun discoloration on the cover.

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The LIST

Jonah & the Woolly whale were breakfasting. . . .  New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, [ca. 1934]. 12mo. 12 pp.
$25.00

•  First edition. A humorous dialogue about the press, accompanied by a trade list of its publications.

•  Sewn plain wrappers with pictorial cutout overlay. Fine. (24123)

His Surviving Oratory & The FIRST BIBLIOGRAPHY Printed in the New World Juan Bautista, fray.  A Jesu Christo S.N. ofrece este sermonario en lengua mexicana ... Primera parte. Mexico: En casa de Diego Lopez Davalos, 1606. 4to (21.5 cm; 8.5"). [26] ff., pp. 1–559, ff. 560–99, pp. 600–39, ff. 640–47, pp. 648–55, 664–709, [1] p., [20 of 24] ff., lacks final 4 leaves.
$27,750.00

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•  First and only edition of this great linguist's sermons in Nahuatl, the first sermonario published in the 17th-century, and only the second such published collection of oratory in Aztec, with, in addition, the first bibliography printed in the New World!

The first collection of sermons in Nahuatl (i.e., Aztec) appeared in 1577, with no others appearing until Bautista published this volume. The collection has been highly regarded since its publication. In his approbation for publication, the famous Jesuit scholar of Nahuatl Fr. Juan de Tovar wrote of this work (sig. *iiir) that “ . . . es tan buena que no ha salido a luz otra tal . . . pues està su lengua con toda abundancia, y propriedad que se puede dessear. Y la materia muy Catholica, y adequadad a ella, con la election [sic], y erudicion que de tales letras se esperaua” (“ . . . is better than any other similar volume yet published . . . for its language is as varied and proper as one could wish. And the material is very Catholic [i.e., doctrinally correct] and adequate to its purpose, the selection and erudition of the same being all one could hope”).

The author was born in Mexico in 1555, entered the Franciscan Order, held the position of guardian of the monasteries of Texcoco and Tlatelolco, and taught in the famous school for sons of Indian princes (i.e., caciques and principales) in Tlatelolco. It was there that he became fluent in Nahuatl, having studied with Jerónimo de Mendieta, Francisco Gómez, and Miguel de Zarate.

A long unnoticed feature of this book is that it contains the first bibliography published in the New World.  On signature **iiii recto and verso is a list of “las obras que hasta agora ha impesso el Auctor” (“the works that until now the author has had published”). The list is not in chronological order nor is it alphabetical by title; nonetheless it is a bibliography and supplies us with information now known only because of its inclusion here. Of the 17 items listed, several have failed to survive in any known copy, including the second part of this sermonario — though at the time of publication of this part one, “de la segunda parte esta ya impresso gran pedaço” (“of the second part a large portion is already printed”).

The volume is enhanced by half-page woodcuts: here, Christ's portrait profile on the title-page, St. Andrew with his Cross, St. Anne with the Virgin as infant (appearing twice), and St. Anthony of Padua. The text is in roman with side- and shouldernotes in italic type. Printer López Dávalos employs an interesting set of very large (5 x 5 cm; 2" x 2") foliated woodcut initials throughout the volume.

Provenance:  18th-century signature in a few margins of Carlos Perez; late 19th- or early 20th-century bookplate of Nicolás León; in the collection of the John Carter Brown Library (deaccessioned).

•  Medina, Mexico, 227; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 13; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 342; Viñaza 114; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl-21; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 235; Palau 23467; Putick & Simpson 154; Schwaller 11. For biographical information on Bautista, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 104, frames 339–73.   Late 19th-century quarter red Mexican sheep with purple and black mottled paper sides. Title- and following leaf with irregular foremargins, loss of blank areas of old repaired; waterstaining in margins of early leaves. Some worming in text costing letters here and there but not impeding sense for the reader. Last four leaves, one bearing an illustration of the Crucifixion, absent (i.e., from the section of Bible citations used in the sermons); last leaves present a bit chipped/gnawed at lower corners and one fore-edge. Old marca de fuego eradicated from top edge; all edges red and corners elegantly rounded. Some 18th-century marginalia in Spanish explicating words and phrases in the Nahuatl text.  (26393)

English Trade Bindings

King, Edmund M.B.  Victorian decorated trade bindings 1830-1880.  A descriptive bibliography. London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 2003.  4to. xxiii, [3], 324 pp.; 16 double-sided color plts.
$98.00

•  First edition of this useful, attractively illustrated bibliography

•  Publisher's blind-stamped blue cloth with gilt-stamped title on the front cover; as new. (11240)

NICE C16 Books for, oh, $65.00 — GOOD Incunables for Less than $200! Kraus, H.P., bookseller, New York.  New acquisitions: Incunabula, XVI century books, Americana, etc. New York: H.P. Kraus, 1946. 8vo. 37, [1] pp.; illus.
[SOLD]

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•  Catalogue 40. Our caption suggests the contents.

•  Stapled in original wrappers, stained and chipped along spine; age-toned.  (26155)

Limited to500 Copies Messerli, Douglas.  Djuna Barnes: A bibliography.  [New York]: David Lewis, 1975. 8vo. xx, 131, [1] pp.
$50.00

•  Limited to 500 letterpress copies; printed at the Stinehour Press. The standard bibliography of this important writer.

•  Very good copy in publisher's cloth.

“The Lighter Side of Papermaking” Morris, Henry, ed.  The Bird & Bull commonplace book. North Hills, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 1971. 4to (31 cm, 12.1"). 65, [3] pp.
[SOLD]

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•  Copy number 30 of 255 printed by Henry Morris's Bird & Bull Press. This miscellany, first conceived as a compilation of poems on papermaking, was expanded in concept to include articles on wasps' nest paper, inventor John Vallance, and “Fun in France with the IPH” (International Association of Paper Historians), as well as essays on Americana and junk mail (the latter including a poem printed on a sheet made from re-pulped junk mail), and an extended joke on the notion of paper found in outhouses. Several examples of exotic types of paper are tipped in or affixed  and the volume is complete with a brass coin in a pocket on the back pastedown — a replica of a brothel token.

•  Publisher's quarter green cloth and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title, in original paper-covered slipcase; spine slightly sunned, slipcase sunned and stained but intact. The beautifully printed book is clean and fresh.  (26045)

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