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DICTIONARIES
ALSO GRAMMARS, SIGNIFICANT WORD LISTS, LANGUAGE STUDIES
& SELECTED BOOKS
IN
“EXOTIC”
LANGUAGES
A-E F-K L-P R-Z
Early
ILLUSTRATED Effort
at a DICTIONARY
for
the Masses
(A
Delight to Work or Play With). Bailey, Nathan; Philip Miller;
Thomas Lediard; George Gordon. Dictionarium Britannicum: Or a more
compleat universal etymological English dictionary than any extant ... illustrated
with near five hundred cuts, for giving a clear idea of those figures, not so
well apprehended by verbal description ... the second edition with numerous additions
and improvements. London: T. Cox, 1736. Folio (35.5 cm, 13.9"). [460] ff.; 1 plt.,
illus.
$1900.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Second, expanded and revised edition of this enormously popular dictionary, following the first of 1730. The DNB says, “Bailey's English dictionaries gave a new prominence to etymology and to lexical comprehensiveness, including dialect terms, scientific terms, common words, and even vulgar ones; they also (in the second octavo volume and in the folios) made the first extensive use of pictorial illustration.” Dr. Johnson owned a copy of this edition, and annotated it extensively prior to compiling his own dictionary.
The title-page is printed in red and black; a full-page plate shows an orrery (for which word there is an unusually long entry) from multiple perspectives, while many of the in-text woodcuts are depictions of heraldic terms, or mathematical and scientific concepts. Etymological information is provided in “Antient British, Teutonick, Dutch Low and High, Old Saxon, German, Danish, Swedish, Norman and Modern French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, &c. each in its proper Character” (from the title-page).
Our photographic detail, third image from left, above, highlights the (endearing!) ambition and achievement of this large volume.
ESTC T87976; O'Neill B-5; Vancil 12. On Bailey, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Contemporary mottled calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets, rebacked, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands; sides acid-pitted and scraped. 19th-century endpapers. Title-page with old-fashioned, round institutional pressure-stamp; light soil and old inkblots (also light!) in upper portion. Pages a little browned right at edges; light or faint waterstaining visible in first third of volume, usually to lower margin only; one leaf with tear from outer margin just touching text, without loss; one lower outer corner torn away, with loss of one letter from catchword.
A sound, pleasant copy of this handsome and interesting production. (25002)



The
FIRST
Latin Gradus
Aler, Paul. Gradus ad Parnassum, sive Novus synonymorum epithetorum, et phrasium poeticarum thesaurus ... Lipsiae: Apud Michaelem Blochbergerum, 1738. 8vo (17.7 cm, 7"). [8], 48, 768 (i.e., 760) pp.
$250.00

Expanded 18th-century edition of this dictionary of Latin prosody, originally published in 1602 by Aler, a French Jesuit, schoolmaster, and poet. The title “Steps to Parnassus” (home of the Muses) was later applied to a variety of literary, artistic, and musical instruction manuals, with Gradus becoming a sort of shorthand signifier for any such dictionary-style guidebook; but Aler's work marked the first appearance of both this title and this style of Latin reference book.
DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1092–95 (for other eds.). Contemporary vellum, spine with inked title; lightly soiled, front cover with partially effaced early inked ownership inscription and back cover with faded early inked inscription. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped, front free endpaper lacking, title-page with early inked ownership inscription partially effaced (resulting in small holes). Pages age-toned, with occasional foxing. (24349)

Extended MANUSCRIPT in an
UNCOMMON PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE
Antonio Lobato de Santo Tomás. Manuscript in Ibanag on paper: “Quinque sermones in quinque precipuis festivitatibus B. Maria Virginis. Quibus accedunt sermo in feria quarta cinerumz et sermo in dominica 2o post octavam trinitatis. Per R. P. fray Antoniium Lobatao de Sto. Thomas. Tuguegarao, The Philippines: 1776–80. Small 4to. 196 pp.
$30,000.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Precious few manuscript sources in the Ibanag language survive from the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines. Only a handful of missionaries worked in the region of the northeastern Philippine provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, most notably in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan, where the language was/is spoken; and not all mastered the tongue. Fray Antonio Lobato was one of those who did and it was he who took Fr. José Bugarin's Ibanag–Spanish dictionary, created in the previous century, and edited it to a usable work — though the result was not published until the 19th century, and, apparently, no other work was published in the language during the 16th, 17th, or 18th centuries.
The importance, then, of
a large body of work set down in the Ibanag language, from the 18th century and as written/spoken by one of the seminal scholars of the language, should be obvious for anyone researching the language as understood by missionaries, as used by missionaries, as influenced by Spanish, and as held out by Spaniards of authority as the model of Ibanag speech to be emulated. Beyond this, of course, is the interest of the sermons themselves, letting us see what the Ibanaq speakers were hearing from their missionaries — or, at least, this missionary — in this place, in this period.
Fray Antonio's sermons are here written in a clear, easy to read hand and the dates of composition or of delivery are often noted.
Provenance: A signature “Fr. Antonio Lobato de Sto. Thomas” appears at the bottom of the last page and is almost certainly that of the the friar himself, which would mean that this is his autograph manuscript of the sermons.
Contemporary very stiff vellum. Binding gnawed by a rodent with loss. Written on a good quality European paper, with some soiling and an occasional stain. No faults are serious and overall this is a remarkably good survival for an 18th-century Philippines manuscript. Now housed in a blue cloth clamshell box. (23668)
“Iroquoian”
Studies
1915
Barbeau, Cornelius Marius. ...Classification of Iroquoian radicals with subjective pronominal prefixes. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1915. Large 8vo. [2] ff., 30 pp.
$145.00
The author provides a one-and-a-half page introductory assessment of philological research on "characteristic classification of Iroquoian noun and verb stems" before launching into his own study. At head of title: "Canada Department of Mines . . . Geological Survey. Memoir 46. No. 7, Anthropology Series."
Not in Banks. Not in Evans. Stapled into original stiff printed wrappers,
very good condition. Inner hinges of cloth tape.
Those interested in American Indian Languages may like to
browse the button dedicated wholly to
AMERICAN INDIANS, WITH MUCH IN
THEIR LANGUAGES
— Click here.

Defining
“Child” for Baptismal Purposes — RARE
Barker, Thomas. The duty, circumstances, and benefits of baptism, determined by evidence ... with an appendix, shewing the meaning of several Greek words in the New Testament. London: B. White, 1771. 8vo (20.5 cm, 8"). x, 208, [6 (index & errata)] pp.
$650.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Sole edition of this examination of the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers as pertaining to the great infant baptism controversy.
Closing
the work is a collection of New Testament usages of various Greek words for
“child” or “children,” with analysis of their contexts
and connotations.
The author was a dedicated observer of meteors and comets and published
several well-received works on those subjects in addition to his religious
and philosophical treatises.
Rare: OCLC and ESTC locate only
one U.S. holding, since deaccessioned; there are only two holdings found in
the U.K.
ESTC T68482. Recent marbled paper–covered boards,
spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; yellow wrapper with early hand-inked
title bound in. Title-page institutionally pressure-stamped and a five-digit
number inked twice to the first page of the preface; no other markings. First
and last few leaves with minor foxing; other scattered spots mostly confined
to margins. Occasional pencillled annotations. (25768)

A
Modest Beginning
for An
Influential Work
Bartlett, John, comp. A collection of familiar quotations, with complete indices of authors and subjects. Cambridge [Mass.]: John Bartlett, 1855. Small 8vo (18 cm; 7"). vii, [1], 295, [1] pp.
[SOLD]
First edition of what has come to be known as Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, one of the most successful and influential books of this reference genre. The first edition was self-published and so had a smaller print run than if it had come from an established publisher.
Grolier, American 100, 64. Publisher's brown cloth stamped in blind, volume cocked; spine with head pulled and area of discoloration on spine, otherwise light edge wear only. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on front pastedown, lacks front free endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Paper good and quotations delightful. (26307)
Bergman, Jean Théodore. Handwoordenboek der Grieksche taal, volgens etymologische orde, ten dienste der scholen. Te Zutphen: H.C.A. Thieme, 1822.
8vo in 4s (22.5 cm, 8.8"). 2 vols. in 1. XXII, 532, [4], 533–996 pp. (pagination skips 305–08, text apparently uninterrupted).
$500.00
Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.
Sole edition of this scarce, early 19th-century Greek-Dutch dictionary. Both volumes are here bound in one, with a separate title-page for the second part; the text is printed in roman and Greek typefaces.
Provenance: Covers gilt-stamped “Gymnasium Velavicum.”
Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped bands and decorations within compartments; vellum chipped over spine extremities and showing moderate dust-soiling. Upper portion of front free endpaper excised; half-title crumpled, with inner and outer margins chipped. Pagination skips from 304 to 309, with signature complete and text apparently uninterrupted. Some edges and corners waterstained and a few lower margins inkstained, with occasional instances of edge chipping. Creasing to a handful of index leaves.
Bhagavadgita.
Bhagavadgītā Bhagavad-Gita, id est Thespesion melos sive
almi Krishnae et Arjunae colloquium de rebus divinis, Bharateae episodium. Textum
recensuit, adnotationes criticas ed interpretationem latinam adiecit Augustus
Guilelmus a Schlegel. Bonnae: in Academia Borussica Rhenana Typiis Regis, Prostat
apud E. Weber, 1823. 8vo (23 cm; 9"). xxvi, 189 pp.
$3000.00

First printing in the West of the Bhagavadgita, here in Sanskrit and Latin and with Latin notes by August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845). The Gita is part of the epic poem Mahabharata and a summation of the Vedic, Yogic, Vedantic and Tantric philosophies—a major sacred text of Hindu thought, religion, and philosophy.
Click either image
for an enlargement.
Provenance: From the collection of 19th-century scholar Dr. Johann August Neander (1789–1850), a convert from Judaism who became a leading scholar of Christianity.
Uncommon: Of U.S. institutional copies we trace fewer than 10.
19th-century German black mottled paper over boards. Binding shows wear. Ex-library with call number tag on spine; bookplate.
BIBLES
The Eliot Indian Bible A Leaf from Daniel/Hosea
Bible. Algonquian. Eliot. 1663. Mamusse wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament. Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe Wuttinneumoh Christ noh asoowesit John Eliot. Nahohtãoeu ontchetãoe printeuoomuk. Cambridge [Mass.]: Printeuoop nashpe Samuel Green kah Marmaduke Johnson, 1663. 4to (19 cm; 7.5"). [1] f.
$2000.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
A leaf from the first edition of the Eliot Indian Bible — the first complete Bible printed in the New World, the first complete Bible in an American Indian language, and “the earliest example in history of the translation and printing of the entire Bible in a new language as a means of evangelization” (Darlow and Moule).
The text is Daniel 12:3 (being the end of Daniel's apocalyptic vision of the end days) though Hosea 1–3:5 (with its promises/foretelling of Israel's destruction). It is printed in roman brevier type, in double-column format, with generally 62 lines per column. It took 139 and a half weeks to set the type and print the Bible.
The Bible was a monumental undertaking and achievement in its day and it remains an American monument today.
Evans 73; Wing (rev. ed.) B2755; ESTC W38287; Darlow & Moule 6737; Pilling, Algonquian, 139–152; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 1175–77; Winship, Cambridge Press, pp. 208–44. Removed, inner margin slightly irregular; edges chipped (never approaching text) and light soiling.
Definitely, a treasure. (26071)
Bible.
N.T. Polyglot. Hutter. Selections. 1601.
Lectiones evangeliorum & epistolarum, anniversariae. Ebraicé, cum radice,
literis servilibus, & Latina lectione. Græcé, Latiné,
& Germanicé. Harmonicé & symmetricé...editæ
ab Elia Huttero.... Noribergae: 1601. 8vo. (19 cm, 7.5"). A–Z8
Aa–Zz8 Aaa–Ccc8; 781, [1 (blank)] pp., [1 (blank)]
f.; plts.
$1750.00
Altogether Hebrew, italic, Greek, gothic, and roman fonts were
used to print this most unusual polyglot that features
a
Hebrew translation of the liturgical epistles and gospels
for use at Mass, accompanied by a transcription of the Hebrew into Latin letters,
as well as the Greek, Latin, and German versions. The Hebrew text incorporates
some small handsome woodcut initials, and the printer has also employed some
interesting woodcut headpieces.
Elias Hutter (1553–1609) was an orientalist and professor of Hebrew
at Leipzig. The text here is drawn from his famous and sought after polyglot
New Testament in 12 languages (Nuremberg, 1599), and so shares in the censure
Hutter received for there translating and inserting "in some versions missing
passages which he found in others" (Darlow and Moule)—but, he was open
about that.
The
present work was apparently for devout students of Hebrew,
both to further their knowledge of that language and to give them comparative
texts for study and meditation on the week’s lessons.
Polyglot
lectionaries are not common, and this is the only polyglot lectionary of the
epistles and gospels listed by NUC
Pre-1956 before the 19th century.
Not in Darlow & Moule, but see 1430, 1431, 1432, 1433, and
1434 for Hutter’s polyglot New Testament in 12 languages, and his St.
Matthew’s Gospel, St. Mark’s Gospel, polyglot Psalter, and polyglot
New Testament in four languages. Sheep, spine simply gilt with a red leather
title label; leather rubbed and abraded, front joint opening. Pages with some
instances of light waterstaining or browning. All edges red.

Revised
First Marathi
N.T. First
American Press in INDIA
Bible. N.T. Marathi. Hall et al. 1836. The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Translated from the original Greek into Maráthí. [Bombay]: The Bombay Auxiliary Bible Society (pr. at the American Mission Press), 1836. 8vo (21 cm, 8.25"). [662] pp.
$800.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Scarce second edition of Allen Graves's revision of the first complete Marathi translation of the New Testament, originally done by Gordon Hall, Horatio Bardwell, Graves, and others, and first published in 1830. This work was printed for the Bombay Auxiliary Bible Society by the American Mission Press — the first American printing press in India, founded in 1818.
Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only three U.S. holdings, one of which has been deaccessioned.
Darlow & Moule 6673; Book of a Thousand Tongues (2nd ed.) 818 (for 1830 ed.).
Contemporary half sheep with marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped title; rubbed, scuffed, and faded, spine with small area of discoloration from now-absent shelving label. Front cover slightly sprung, front hinge (inside) strongly reinforced some time ago with cloth tape. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate and rubber-stamp, title-page verso also stamped; front free endpaper with pencilled ownership inscription; rear pastedown and free endpaper with light pencilled annotations. Pages age-toned, with scattered spots of light foxing; some corners dog-eared; one leaf with small hole with loss of a few letters. Occasional inked and pencilled
annotations (in Marathi). (25144)
Uncommon
Edition of
Martyn's
Landmark Translation
Bible.
N.T. Persian. 1841.
Martyn. The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated
from the original Greek into Persian, at Sheeraz.... Calcutta: Pr. at the Baptist
Mission Press for the American & Foreign Bible Society, 1841. 8vo (24.2
cm, 9.5"). [4], 584 pp.
$425.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Revised edition of the Rev. Henry Martyn's Farsi New Testament, translated by Martyn with the assistance of Mirza Saiyad Ali Khan and first published in 1815. Darlow and Moule note that the translation “won the encomiums of Persian scholars for the beauty of its style”; it became the basis of “all other Persian versions of note,” according to The Book of a Thousand Tongues. The present edition states that “there has been made by the editors, a slight alteration in a few of the theological terms.”
Scarce. OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only one U.S. holding of this edition.
Darlow & Moule 7340; Book of a Thousand Tongues (2nd ed.) 1047 (for first ed.). Publisher's blue textured cloth, spine with printed paper label; boards and spine sunned (spine more so), with cloth cracked at joints and rubbed at extremities, spine label chipped and faded, spine with small area of discoloration and inked shelving number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplates. Two leaves towards front and last two leaves each with inner margins reinforced some time ago. Pages slightly age-toned, with occasional small pencilled marks of emphasis and marginalia in both English and Farsi. (25151)

First Printing of
Any Portion of the Bible in This Language
Bible. O.T. Genesis. Fang. 1894. La Genèse, premier livre de Moïse. Londres: Societé Biblique Britannique et Étrangè, 1894. 12mo (16 cm; 6.25"). Frontis. color map, 186 pp.
$750.00
Fang is a Bantu language (Niger-Congo genetic) that is spoken in many dialects in northern Gabon, southern Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea.
This is the first printing of any portion of the Bible in Fang (here Gabon-Fang). The translator was A.W. Marling of the American Presbyterian Mission.
Rare: We trace only two copies in U.S. libraries.
North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 387. Publisher's black flexible leather (very black, not the charcoal that our photo seems to show!) stamped in blind and gold: chipped at edges and spine repaired. Now in a cloth clamshell case with a leather spine label. (25426)
Bibles,
& indeed Bibles in Languages that
most people think of as “Exotic,”
are a PRB&M specialty.
For
our BIBLES & TESTAMENTS,
click
here.



Blogg/Bloch on
Hebrew
Blogg, Salomon Ephraim. Aedificium Salomonis, enthaltend: Eine vollständige Geschichte der hebräischen Sprache, des Thalmuds und vieler merkwürdiger Begebenheiten des Alterthums, die bis dahin gänzlich unbekannt geblieben ... Hannover: Ernst August Telgener, 1832. 4to. xv, [1], 143, [1] pp.
$400.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Second edition, following the first of the previous year: A study of the Hebrew language, written in German and Hebrew. The author was a scholar and teacher of Hebrew also known as Shlomo ben Ephraim Bloch.
Zedner, Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum, 153. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Light age-toning and a bit of faint foxing. (23145)
Twa Ballads in
Dialect
Bonnie baby Livingstone; to which is added the twa martyr's widows. Glasgow: Pr. for the booksellers, [1850]. 12mo. 8 pp.
$75.00
Bopp, Franz. A comparative grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic languages ... second edition. London & Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate; New York: B. Westermann & Co., 1860. 8vo (22.2 cm, 8.75"). 3 vols. in 1. [8], xvi, 456, [2], [457]–952, [2], [953]–1462, [2] pp.
$500.00
Second edition of Edward B. Eastwick’s translation — the first English rendition — of Bopp’s complete Grammar, which had originally appeared in German in six parts issued from 1833 through 1852. The preface notes that this second edition has been checked and approved by Professor Bopp himself, “so that numerous errors, which, from the great length of the work were perhaps hardly to be avoided in the first edition, have now been corrected.” All three parts, with their separate title-pages, are here bound into one volume.
Bopp, who studied under de Sacy in Paris, was the chair of Sanskrit at the University of Berlin and a member of the Royal Prussian Academy; his work was highly influential in developing a morphology of Indo-European languages, and indeed dominated the field of comparative linguistics for a significant portion of the 19th century.
NSTC 2B41650. Contemporary half red morocco with paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; sides and edges showing minor scuffing, spine slightly darkened. Front pastedown with bookseller’s ticket of B. Westermann & Co., private collector’s 19th-century bookplate, and institutional stamp (no other markings). Pages faintly age-toned. A sturdy copy of this hefty tome.
Bos, Lambert. Exercitationes philologicae, in quibus novi foederis loca nonnulla ex auctoribus graecis illustrantur & exponuntur ... editio secunda
multis partibus aucta. Accedit dissertatio de etymologia graeca. Franequerae: Wibium Bleck, 1713. 8vo (19.9 cm, 7.8"). [12], 305, [11 (index)], [2], 46 pp.
$300.00
Second edition: Greek etymology and New Testament commentary originally printed in 1700, written by a Dutch scholar and grammarian whose Ellipses Graecae (1702) was an important and oft-cited reference for Greek literary usage. The title-page of the first work here is printed in red and black; the “Dissertatio de etymologia Graeca” has a separate half-title and pagination.
Brunet, I, 1122. Contemporary vellum, spine with inked title; spine and edges mildly dust-soiled. All edges speckled red and blue. Front pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp; front pastedown torn and back pastedown lifted away from cover. Pages clean.

“Genuine Specimens of Native Literature”
Maya & English Presentations — With Notes
Brinton, Daniel Garrison, ed. The Maya chronicles. Philadelphia: D.G. Brinton, 1882. 8vo (24 cm, 9.4"). [2], 279, [1] pp.
$150.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition, uncut copy.
First printing in the U.S. of any pre-Columbian text in the original Maya. This is no. I in the “Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature” series, opening with a description of the Maya and including selections from the books of Chilam Balam of Mani, Tizimin, and Chumayel, along with the chronicle of Chac Xulub Chen. Each Mayan text is accompanied by an English translation and the editor's notes.
Not in Pilling, Proof-sheets; not in Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection. Publisher's brown textured cloth framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities a little rubbed, spine a bit sunned. Ex–social club library: call number on front fly-leaf, half-title and title-page rubber-stamped. No other markings. (26511)
Some
Songs in
DIALECT,
Some
--- Not
Bundle and go; to which are added, Donald and Mary, The wonders, Sweet Kitty o' the Clyde. Stirling [Scotland]: W. Macnie, [ca. 1825?]. 12mo. 8 pp.
$85.00
Song lyrics, with a woodcut title vignette of a figure seated in a chair with two small children. Macnie was active between 1820 and 1830.
NSTC 2B57765. Removed from a nonce volume. The front edges of the title and verso are darkened, else very good. (16759)
For more CHAPBOOKS,
many having dialect interest,
click here.

Japan during the
Years of Seclusion, for an American Audience
Busk, Mary Margaret, & Philipp Franz von Siebold. Manners and customs of the Japanese, in the nineteenth century. From the accounts of recent Dutch residents in Japan, and from the German work of Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1841. 12mo (15.7 cm, 6.2"). Add. engr. t.-p., [2], 298 pp.
$150.00
First U.S. edition, printed in the same year as the London first, here part of Harper's “Family Library” series. The volume was edited by Mrs. William Busk (Mary Margaret Busk), an author and literary critic; Busk nicely summarized what was then known of Japan via the Dutch traders at Dejima, using as her sources not only the writings of von Siebold, but also those of Engelbert Kaempfer, Hendrik Doeff, Germain Felix Meylan, and Overmeer Fischer. The additional title-page bears a steel-engraved vignette depicting a Japanese man courting a fan-wielding lady, and there are chapters on “Social and Domestic Life,” “Language, etc.,” and the “Religion of Japan.”
Click the images for enlargements.
Binding: Publisher's olive-brown vermiform embossed cloth of Krupp's style Mis1, spine with gilt-stamped series and individual title.
American Imprints 41-3339; Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 475–76. Binding as above, cocked and front board slightly warped, sides with light discolorations; spine faded and head with strip of dark cloth tape extending onto sides. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate and call number on front pastedown, first three leaves pressure-stamped, no other markings. First half of volume with pages faintly waterstained in upper portions and cockled; a sound book and as good a “read” as it was for the club members. (26428)

One of Buxtorf's
TWO Great Lexicons
Buxtorf, Johann, the elder. Lexicon hebraicum et chaldaicum: Complectens omnes voces, tam primas quàm derivatas, quae in sacris Bibliis, Hebraeâ, & ex parte Chaldaeâ linguâ scriptis, extant ... Accessit lexicon breve rabbinico-philosophicum, communiora vocabula continens, quae in commentariis passim occurrunt ... editio sexta, de novo recognita, & innumeris in locis aucta & emendata. Basilae: Johannis König, 1655. 8vo (17.4 cm, 6.9"). [24], 976, [76 (index)] pp.
$500.00

Buxtorf's famous and standard Biblical Hebrew-to-Latin lexicon was first published in 1607; this is its sixth edition, revised. A leading Hebrew scholar of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the author was a friend and correspondent of Bezè and Grynaeus, and the compiler of two important Hebrew–Latin dictionaries: The one at hand should not be confused with the Lexicon chaldaicum, talmudicum et rabbinicum which he left incomplete at his death and which his son completed and published in 1639.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
VD17 12:131988L. 19th-century marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; paper rubbed with spine paper chipped, cracked, and shelving number inked at bottom. Pastedowns with institutional bookplates, free endpapers and lower (closed) edges institutionally rubber-stamped, title-page with early inked numeral in upper portion. First third of work with early inked annotations and underlining (some marginalia shaved), this tapering off in frequency with close of volume untouched. Two leaves with small portions of outer margins excised. Occasional small stains, pages mostly clean. (25818)
A FAMED but UNLUCRATIVE
Polyglot Dictionary
Castell, Edmund. Lexicon heptaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Æthiopicum, Arabicum, conjunctim; et Persicum, separatim. London: Thomas Roycroft, 1669. Folio (44.9 cm, 17.6). 2 vols. in I. Frontis., [8] pp., 44 columns (43 & 44 repeated in numbering), [2] pp., 573 columns (402, 403, 421 & 422 repeated in numbering; 340, 341, 399, & 400 skipped), [1] p., 4008 columns (376–78 & 391–93 incorrectly numbered; 484–86, 538, 1936–38, 3220–25, 3773–78, & 3950–51 repeated in numbering; 487–89, 535, & 3226–3231 skipped).
$1500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition. Intended as a companion to Bishop Walton's Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, in which endeavor the author assisted, this seven-language dictionary is “probably the greatest and most perfect work of the kind ever performed by human industry and learning” according to Dr. Clarke; Dibdin says of the erudite and somewhat erratically organized Lexicon that it “has long challenged the admiration, and defied the competition, of foreigners; and . . . has raised an eternal monument of literary fame.” Castell was an orientalist who spent 18 years and (according to Dibdin) the whole of his patrimony laboring over the Lexicon, only to find the undertaking woefully unsuccessful on the market despite its much-lauded scholarship.
The frontispiece portrait was done by William Faithorne, and the title-page is printed in red and black. The text is printed first in two columns and then in three per page, and is ornamented throughout with decorative capitals. The columns are erratically numbered, but the text is complete.
Provenance: Signature on fly-leaf of Hampus Kristoffer Tullberg (Lund), 19th-century Swedish scholar of Hebrew and other languages.
ESTC R16460; Wing (rev. ed.) C1225; Vancil 46; Lowndes 386; Dibdin, I, 31–35. On Castell, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. 18th-century speckled calf, covers bordered with a darker calf band blind-rolled and then framed with single gilt fillet; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, darker-leather raised bands gilt-stamped/blind-tooled, and compartments gilt- and blind-tooled enclosing gilt-stamped floral decorations. Binding rubbed, with leather significantly lost in top compartment and and lost also at foot. All edges marbled. Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription as above dated 1837; title-page with old institutional pressure-stamp. Frontispiece with outer margin reinforced some time ago. One leaf slightly oversized and creased, intermittent soiling in many upper margins, one leaf with text affected but not obscured, small sections with light waterstaining to outer or upper margins; over all, a book both impressive and pleasant. Columns erratically numbered, text complete. (25792)

Important
Early Christian Hebrew Grammar
Chevalier, Antoine-Rodolphe. Rudimenta Hebraicae linguae, accurata methodo & breuitate conscripta. Eor undem rudimentorum praxis, quae viuae vocis loco esse possit. Vitebergae: Iohan. Cratonem, [colophon: 1574]. 4to (20 cm, 7.9"). [16], 331, [1 (blank)] pp.
$3250.00
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Handsomely printed third edition of this Hebrew grammar, first published in 1560 and highly regarded by prominent scholar and humanist Joseph Scaliger. The French Protestant Chevalier, a.k.a. Antonius Rodolphus Cevallerius, was the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge while exiled in England; he also published an Alphabetum Hebraicum.
Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only two U.S. holdings of this edition, one since deaccessioned.
Adams C1301; Index Aurel. 136.352; VD16 C2255. Period-style full calf, covers framed in blind double fillets with single decorative roll; spine with gilt-stamped title/date, gilt-stamped compartment decorations, and gilt- and blind-accented raised bands, their blind tooling extending onto the covers and terminating in fleurons. Title-page institutionally pressure-stamped long ago, with early inked inscription in upper margin almost entirely excised and upper outer corner repaired; two other pages pressure-stamped. Some smudges to endpapers and occasionally a spot or stain to an interior leaf; a very few small, early inked annotations.
A nice copy. (25649)
Cuoq, Jean-André. Études philologiques sur quelques langues
sauvages de l’Amérique. Par N.O. Montréal: Dawson Brothers, 1866. 8vo (24.5 cm, 9.6"). 160 pp.
$825.00
Click the middle or right image for an enlargement.
Contained here are a critical examination of some philological works on New World languages by Schoolcraft and Duponceau, a study of the principles of the grammatical structures of Algonquian and Iroquois, and finally comparative lexicons of the Algonquian and Iroquoian languages based on McKensie, Duponceau, Schoolcraft, Catlin, and others. The initials N.O., adopted by Father Cuoq and appearing upon the title-pages of a number of his works, are the first letters of the names given him by the Indians among whom he lived — the first, Nij-kwe-natc-anibic, being a Nipissing name meaning the beautiful double leaf; the second, Orakwanentakon, a Mohawk name meaning a fixed star.
Father Cuoq (1821–98) was an extremely accomplished linguist as evidenced by his becoming fluent in both Algonquin and Iroquois; Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 93) writes glowingly of his mastery of these languages. His life as a missionary of the Order of Sulpitians, notably among the Nipissing at Lake of Two Mountains, certainly aided in his scholarly achievement.
Pilling, Algonquian, 100-101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 952; Field 391; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Algonkin-14; Sabin 17980. Not in Banks; not in Evans, Masinanhikan. Original printed green wrappers, spine reinforced some time ago, edges chipped. Half-title with pencilled annotations. First text page rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution; pages otherwise clean.
Cureton, William. Spicilegium syriacum: Containing remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose and Mara bar Serapion. London: Rivingtons, 1855. 8vo (26.2 cm,
10.3"). [4], iii, [1], xv, [1], 102, [54] pp.
$200.00
Single-click any image for an enlargement.
First edition: First publication of these early Syriac texts from “writers . . . among the most celebrated in the earliest ages of the Christian Church,” here edited and with English translations and Greek and Latin annotations by the Rev. Cureton. Cureton was an industrious and respected Orientalist and Syriac scholar who discovered a number of important manuscripts.
NSTC 2C47117. Publisher’s cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine embossed and with gilt-stamped title; front cover detached, cloth chipped at spine extremities and rubbed at edges. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper and title-page rubber-stamped, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1870. Early inked marginalia to one page.

ABCs around the WORLD Illustrated
Diderot, Denis. Caractères et alphabets de langues mortes et vivantes (Extracted from the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers). [Paris: ca. 1750–72]. Folio (30.5 cm, 12"). 24 double-p. plts. (of 25).
$500.00
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Eye pleasing and mind instructive, this volume contains
24 double-spread engraved plates of alphabets for various languages. They were engraved for the article on alphabets in the Diderot Encyclopédie, a massive 20-year project aiming to encompass every branch of human knowledge that was a landmark of Enlightenment-era philosophy, attacking superstition while promoting science, rationality, and scholarship. Many of the volumes were supplemented with illustrations, such as the plates present here, designed to facilitate comparing and contrasting the alphabets and basic writing conventions of “dead and living” languages.
Languages charted in these tables include “Tartares Mouantcheoux,” Tamoul, Telongou, Persian (ancient and modern), Armenian, Russian (ancient and modern), Coptic, Hebrew, etc., with the
engraving done by master artisan Robert Bénard (fl. 1750–85).
Half green calf with green marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; slight wear to corners and spine extremities. Lacking one plate (#25). (24823)
As
If It
JUST
Arrived from the Print
Shop . . .
Observations on “Muhhekaneew”
EXTRAORDINARY
CONDITION!
Edwards, Jonathan. Observations
on
the
language of the Muhhekaneew Indians.... New-Haven: Pr. by Josiah
Meigs, 1788. 8vo (21 cm, 8.25"). [1] f., 17, [1 (blank)] pp.
$7000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
After studying the language of the Mohegan Indians of Stockbridge, the noted theologian Jonathan Edwards "the younger" (1741801) wrote this short dissertation and presented it before the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences. In it he seeks to show how widespread was the use of the language in North America, to explain "its [grammatical] genius" and some of its peculiarities, and to point out "some instances of analogy between" it and Hebrew.
Evans 21068; Pilling, Algonquian, 124; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Mohegan-2; Field 487 (giving date erroneously as 1787); Sabin 21971. Uncut, unopened copy retaining original sewing and preserving the often missing preliminary leaf. In a Mylar envelope.
As darn near a fine copy as is obtainable.
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