BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS
A-C   •   D-G   •   H-N   •   O-Z

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Keepsake . . .

•  From Governor Winthrop's journals we know that the "Oath of a Free-Man" was the first thing printed on the first press in what is now the U.S.  No copy of it is known to exist, but the notorious Mark Hoffman, a.k.a. "The Mormon Bomber," created what he attempted to palm off as the "recently discovered, only-known copy" of this literally legendary historical document. It was a convincing fabrication for many, but not all, and his inability to sell it led to the financial crisis that precipitated his bombing spree and led to the discovery of his many, many forgeries of historical autograph documents supposedly by mountain men, Alamo figures, Mormon founder Smith, and Emily Dickinson.

This is Keepsake no. 60 of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, although this copy does not include the laid-in sheet noting that detail. Important study by the head of the John Carter Brown Library on the Oath.

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover with printed paper label. Clean and fresh. (14191)

Banned! in Mexico

•  Will Pascal ever be admitted to the libraries of devout Roman Catholics? The author of this extended essay, who styles himself "Un Leonés" and who signs himself with the initials "J.I.A.," cautions a supposed subscriber to a new edition of Pascal's letters that they are riddled with Jansenist heresy and that the pope still prohibits the devout from reading them.

•  Sutro 756 ("19p." being a typographical error for collation given here); not in Steele, Independent Mexico: A Collection of Mexican Pamphlets in the Bodleian Library. Folded and never sewn or bound; as issued.

A Great Exhibition — A GreatReference Work

•  The greatest Bible exhibition in America since the Brandeis show of 1968. An essential reference book.

•  Paperbound; new.

First Edition

•  A combined bibliography of Wilson's books, poems, essays, and other writings and of writings about Wilson's oeuvre. The first edition.

•  Publisher's cloth and dust jacket.

For the Collector ofEstiennes

•  Absolutely essential bibliography for collectors of Estienne imprints and required reading for any collector of 16th-century books. This is a facsimile of the definitive second edition of Renouard's bibliography and family history of this famous French and Swiss-exile family of scholar printers, originally published in 1843.

•  Teal publisher's cloth, spine stamped in gold. Clean and unworn. (15677)

A “Graphic Arts” Souvenir

•  Printed for those attending the presentation of the medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts to Rollins, long (and influentially) the University Printer at Yale and a master of printing, typography, and type design. The sentiments here are conservative and nostalgic to the point of being cranky; the booklet is lovely.

•  Sewn in publisher’s printed paper wrappers; clean and all but unworn, with the lower outer corners just slightly bumped.

Manuscript Guide

•  Indexed catalogue of an important collection of original manuscripts, including major holdings of Cortés and Cortés-related items. Provides provenance data.

•  Publisher's cloth.

PRINCE OF FORGERS

•  First English language edition, translated from the French edition of 1870. Lucas, a self-educated provincial clerk, was so audacious in his astoundingly numerous forgeries that he attempted to sell letters (written in modern French) allegedly signed by such luminaries as Cleopatra and Alexander the Great.

•  Dust jacket and binding as new. (5948)

BOOKS Cloaks Daggers Dastards

•  First edition. One of 600 copies. Jack Quinn, a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, is asked by an American customer to discover what had happened to the papers of Gerald Despain, a fanatical anti-Semite and British traitor, who flew to Germany on the outbreak of the war in September 1939 in order to join the Nazis. The papers had been sold in Marlow to a buyer who gave the name `Mr. Principle.' This enquiry sets Quinn off on a picaresque quest in which he questions a highly successful art dealer, a devious auctioneer's clerk, the widow of a very wealthy Conservative MP and a much decorated British general. In part it is a journey back into the past, to the period of the 1930's when Despain was living in Kenya, at a time when it was said that the Wanhohi river ran with cocktails and `Cocaine was taken like snuff in the Happy Valley.' As Quinn's enquiries continue three cold blooded murders take place, all connected, in an odd way, with Gerald Despain. Quinn finds personal reasons for persisting with his quest, little realizing that it may take him into danger.

•  Original patterned boards, pictorial dust jacket. New. At right, in picture above.

“Have You aTamerlaine in Your Attic?”

•  First edition, second printing (stated) of this classic compilation of engaging anecdotes about book hunting, selling, collecting, binding, etc., written by the Toronto-born and Chicago-based novelist, newspaperman, Baker Street Irregular, and famed bibliophile, Vincent Starrett. Articles are well illustrated.

A difficult book to find in its dust jacket.

•  Publisher's green cloth, in publisher's printed paper dust wrapper; jacket slightly darkened, taped to boards, chipped at back upper edge, and nicked at corners and spine extremities; very neatly applied pen and ink call number on spine of jacket. Front (inside) hinge tender; front pastedown with institutional bookplate. Offsetting to endpapers from cover tape, otherwise clean internally.  (24656)

Standard . . .    

•  Fully revised for the first time since its original publication in 1955, this work discusses the history of the book in western civilization and the role of the printer as an agent of cultural change. This revised edition includes over one hundred illustrations chosen from the rich collections of the British Library.

•  New. Paperback.

"What are the Correct Questions, I Kept Asking . . ."

•  Carol Z. Rothkopf selected the essays and edited them; Stephen Weissman provides the preface. Must reading for all bibliophiles. By one of the towering figures of the library/book world of the last 50 years.

•  New.

Printing in America BEFORE the Bay Psalm Book

•  Printing in North America began not in 1640 in Massachusetts, but in 1539, in Mexico, at a point in printing history when technique, typography, and aesthetic norms were widely first-rate. The European printers who came to the New World to produce the "incunables" and other "early printed" works of Mexico and Peru maintained the high standards of their homelands in a degree that astonishes those whose understanding of early American printing has been based purely on familiarity with the works produced a hundred and more years later in what is now the U.S.

Thirty-nine Books and Broadsides describes works that well represent the earliest Mexican printing, the rarities including 14 New World incunabula, 9 only known surviving copies (3 described for the first time), several second known and several more earliest known copies, and a number of works with woodcut illustrations — all from a major private collection. All entries are illustrated and provide exact collations; notably, the bibliography provides the very first accurate system of description for sixteenth-century New World broadsides.

•  Cloth bound and limited to 250 copies.

TEXAS-SIZE FRAUD!

•  Masterful account of the history of the plundering of Texas archives in the period 1950 to 1980 combined with the related story of the fabrication, beginning in the 1960s, of fake copies of important, early, printed Texas historical documents. Taylor names those implicated and tells of how the fakery was slowly discovered. A must read.


•  New; publisher's quarter cloth with paper sides with a reproduction of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

Much to Learn from This
   “Coffee Table Book”

•  First American edition; with 40 color and 250 b/w illustrations. A great coffee table book about great books and great collectors by a highly respected London-based bookseller of great books and manuscripts.

There is much learning in this text; it is not just a pretty book.

•  Publisher's yellow cloth-covered boards with brown spine. Illustrated dust jacket in full color. Fine condition.  (22342)

With a Photo ofthe Printers in Their Garret

•  Nice look at the Goudys' body of work at the Village Press, with an introduction by Will Ransom and a tipped-in photographic illustration of Frederic and Bertha Goudy at the press. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Sewn in publisher's printed paper wrappers; wrappers slightly age-toned, otherwise a clean, handsome copy.  (14424)

Copiously & Usefully Illustrated

•  Short bibliographical essays on such topics as Spanish-language printing in Italy in the 16th century, Spanish books on chess and on women in the 15th through the 17th centuries, and the Ibarra press. Click the images for enlargements.

This copy with an authorial inscription to a recipient whose name has been gently, but entirely, obliterated!

•  Good quality red cloth, original wrappers bound in; grey spine label. Very good copy.  (21546)

Chancery Cursive Humanistic Cursive Etc.

•  Essentially Wardrop's lectures given at King's College, University of London, in 1952, with footnotes supplied and illustration (in black and white) added.

•  Publisher's red cloth; dust jacket. Top of dust-jacket is a little frayed with tiny tears with slight loss of paper; short tears to front crease of the dust jacket at base of spine. A very good copy.  (21998)

For CALLIGRAPHY / WRITING,  click here.

Lovely Little Production — Illustrations byJohn De Pol

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Typhophile Monographs XXXVI. 350 copies, out of a total press run of 1200, were designated for the typophiles. This is #9. Illustrated with engravings by John De Pol. This is copy no. 9 of 1200.

•  Fine, in original wrappers.  (10226)

Revelation Scholarship

Willoughby, Harold Rideout; & Ernest Cadman Colwell, eds.

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  First edition: Reproduction, with scholarly commentary and annotations, of a ca. 1600 translation of the Apocalypse of St. John into Greek, illustrated with two color frontispieces and 77 black and white plates. Vol. I is subtitled “A Greek corpus of Revelation iconography” and vol. II “History and text.”

•  Publisher's blue cloth, spines with gilt-stamped titles; lacking dust jackets and front free endpaper of vol. I with affixed publisher's blurb clipped from same; spines with inked call numbers. Neat institutional rubber-stamps on front pastedowns, first text pages, and lower and outer page edges of closed books (not title-pages). Pages clean. (20791)

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