Theatrum Terrae Sanctae is famous for its engraved maps, but the work is justly sought for its descriptions of Palestine and the antiquities of Jerusalem. Additionally the work contains a chronology from Adam to 1585, the year of the author's death.

The work begins with an engraved allegorical title-page, has woodcut initials and tailpieces, and bears12 folding or double-page engraved maps. The text is printed in roman type in double-column format.

The format suggests this was printed for mailing to hospitals, medical societies, doctors, and newspapers. Whether it was printed in Florida is a bit problematic. There were presses in Florida, even one in St. Augustine in 1829, but the publication has no printer's slug anywhere. The typography is very good, perhaps indicating printing in Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, but that remains for a type historian to determine.

Apparently very scarce: NO other copies traced through the standard sources including OCLC and the OPACs of the State Library of Florida, the University of Florida Library, and Florida State University Library.

An interesting American medical publication, an interesting early American tourist item, and definitely a good piece of Floridiana.

•  Not in Servies, Bibliography of Florida; but see I,1430 for a version that appeared in a newspaper. Not in Shoemaker.   Old folds suggesting this was once folded to fit in a pocket. Waterstaining. Two small tears repaired with archival tissue.  (23078)

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)

Provenance: Front free endpaper with inked inscription reading “Henry Pratt’s Book, Bought in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eleven, third month twelfth day”; front pastedown with inked inscription reading “Matilda Miller’s Book 1898.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14380; Sabin 2180; Howes A352. Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; leather much worn and abraded, spine with inked call number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate (affixed above and not obscuring inscription), front free endpaper and fly-leaf with inscriptions as above, title-page unobtrusively pressure-stamped, first text page with inked annotation in inner margin and stamped numeral in lower margin. Pages age-toned and spotted. Upper outer corner of one leaf torn away, with loss of a few words; four leaves torn, touching a number of lines of text but not generally affecting sense. Occasional small pencilled check marks.

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The work is highly illustrated and the engravings, being16 folding maps/plans, and 18 folding plates, are of battles, plans of fortresses, maps of areas, statutes, etc. Three double-page engraved tables are of scripts. The in-text illustrations, which are just as detailed and impactful, are numerous.

An important book on the rising Dutch presence in the East Indies and concomitant diminution of the Portuguese hegemony. This is the first edition in German; a Dutch-language edition also appeared in 1672.

•  Landwehr, VOC, 557. 18th-century calf, gilt spine extra. Binding shows wear, with abrasions and leather lost; joints starting. Once in a library and bearing the odd pencilling, but no stamps. Clean copy.

The volume is illustrated withtwo steel-engraved plates, one view of Tahiti and one of Pitcairn's Island.

•  American Imprints 11221; Hill, Pacific Voyages, 70.   Publisher's speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; edges and extremities rubbed, spine darkened, spine leather with fine cracks, spine head covered with dark cloth tape extending onto sides. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, inked numerals on front free endpaper, title-page pressure-stamped. Pages with scattered spots of staining; last page with series title pencilled across — quite decoratively!  (26390)

Binding:  Publisher's textured tan cloth, covers and spine with stamped in brown with small pictorial vignettes evoking “the road”; title and author stamped in gilt. All edges subtly blue-sprinkled.

•  Spine very slightly darkened and virtually no wear otherwise. One signature loosening; one page with a scrape (with a bit of loss to type), this and a few others with the ink's having offset or adhered pages together (usually separable); and all otherwise clean and crisp. A handsome copy.  (26680)

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The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Dominique Bouhours (1632–1702) was best known to English readers as the author of this much-reprinted work and an earlier life of Ignatius of Loyola; for a long time these were “the most widely circulated biographies” of the two saints. Bouhours also achieved prominence for his anti-Jansenist writings.

The pair of volumes were nicely printed, with some nicely engraved head- and tailpieces. The text offers sidenotes.

Rare.  A search of OCLC records only two copies, of which this is one, now deaccessioned.

•  De Backer-Sommervogel, I, 1904–1905; Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 146.   Recent full calf, covers framed and panelled with single gilt fillets and with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spines gilt extra, with gilt-ruled raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, gilt publication date at foot, and elaborately gilt-tooled floral decorations in compartments; marbled endpapers. Tear in outer margin of pp. 269/270, just barely touching sidenotes; very occasional foxing; offsetting from leather of previous binding affecting first and last leaves at margins, including title-pages. Ex-library, with faint penciled notations on verso of title-page and at base of following page in each volume. Vol. I lacks the frontispiece portrait. Faults noted, still a good copy and in an attractive binding.  (24526)

Affixed to the rear pastedown is a xylographically printed map of the Holy Land with sites in Thai characters. This is surely one of the earliest maps printed in Thailand, if not the first.

Rare: Via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 we trace only two copies in U.S. libraries and this one of those two, now deaccessioned.

•  Publisher’s patterned cloth and orange paper sides; rubbed, soiled, and chipped with joints starting. Some bubbling of paper to front pastedown. Ex-library: front pastedown with library bookplates and a rubber-stamped five-digit number (repeated on another leaf), title-page and one other page pressure-stamped, and one margin inked with a four-digit number. Front free endpaper torn in gutter margin. One leaf chipped at fore-edge, with loss of several characters loss unlikely to affect the sense); pages otherwise free of chipping or tearing — clean.

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for an enlargement.

The first London edition appeared in three volumes, but the present edition in two, as stated on the title-page.

•  Howes B-745. Publisher’s charcoal blind-stamped cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; cloth showing mild wear overall, with spine gilt attractively oxidized. Front free endpapers with pencilled owner’s inscription dated 1869. Pages slightly age-toned, with scattered small spots of staining. Quite a nice set.

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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)

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author.

•  Howgego, II, C2.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels. Five plates and one map lacking (frontispiece present); two leaves each with tear along inner margin, not touching text; foxed throughout but without embrittlement.  (24387)

Provenance:  First in the University of Miami Library, deacessioned; then in the library of Robert Chamberlain and later in that of Franz V. Scholes, both noted scholars of the Yucatán. Their signatures are on the front free endpaper and their notes are penciled in the margins of many pages.

If you were heading “West” in 1839 or the early 1840s, you probably had a copy of this to help you travel safely and expeditiously.

•  Sabin 82931; Howes S-615; Checklist of printed maps of the Middle West to 1900 1-0816; Karpinski, Bibliography of the printed maps of Michigan, 146.   Publisher's green ribbed cloth covers stamped in blind with a plaque and lettered in gold. Old water crinkling to text block and some associated soiling. Map backed with Tengoju Japanese paper and the case binding with minor repairs using Japanese paper toned with acrylic. A delicate book and a very delicate map, now not delicate at all and housed in a blue cloth clamshell case with leather spine label. A good ++ copy of an important and scarce work.  (24796)

This copy bears the full-page woodcut portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf, which is not found with all copies. Additionally, the title-page bears an interesting 14-piece composite woodcut border and the verso of that page has a stunning full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, to whom the letter is addressed. The coat of arms is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes; the lay-out is elegant and there is one large, handsome woodcut initial.

As usual, the letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et insulis noviter repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered islands of the West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost Cortés letter.

One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico and of the first encounter of the West with the Aztec civilization, this is a work of bedrock importance to the New World. No complete copy has appeared for sale since 1985.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 524/5; Sabin 16947; Harrisse, BAV, 125. Sanz 933–34; Medina, BHA, 70; Church 53; Burden 5; JCB, German Americana, 524/4; Streeter Sale 190.   18th-century half vellum and sprinkled paper over boards, gilt red leather label. Map supplied in expert facsimile; blank leaf H8 lacking. Bookplate of John Carter Brown (Library) on front pastedown, with deaccession stamp. Occasional very minor soiling in the text, else very good — a copy clean and even crisp.  (26808)

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•  Sabin 16953.   Contemporary treed calf, front joint (outside) starting at top to open. A good+ copy — in fact, a rather nice one.  (20510)

•  NSTC 2C42639; Goldsmiths’-Kress 26080; not in Maggs, Bibl. Asiatica. On Crawfurd, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Publisher’s dark green cloth, blind-stamped, spines with gilt-stamped title; spines very slightly sunned and showing faint traces of now-absent paper labels, cloth lightly rubbed at corners and spine extremities. Hinges cracked (inside). Front pastedowns rubber-stamped (no other institutional markings). Title-pages with pencilled owner’s name in upper margins; contents pages with inked owner’s name dated 1865. Frontispiece, plates, and a few pages in proximity to plates lightly to moderately foxed; one plate in vol. II torn from inner margin, tear not touching image. Absorbing reading, evocative images.

The volume is illustrated withan oversized, folding panoramic view of Quebec along with 13 other plates, including two maps of the Niagara Falls region; views of Bristol, DE, and Chester, MA; and a bucolic depiction of the “Water Works of Philadelphia on the Schuylkil,” all engraved after De Roos's own designs.

Binding:  Contemporary hunter green diced calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets and an interior blind rule with small gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine gilt extra in five compartments. Board edges and turn-ins decorated with gilt rolls; rich blue marbled endpapers; all edges marbled.

•  Howes D268; Sabin 19677.   Binding as above, corners/joints scuffed and back joint starting from head; spine a little sunned, evenly and attractively. Scattered light foxing, pages and plates otherwise clean. An admirable book in a nice copy.  (26665)

illustrated with 60 copper-engraved and aquatint plates, one folding map, and one folding chart.

•  Anderson, Book of British Topography, 373; Lowndes 638; NSTC D1044. Not in Abbey, Life in England; not in Ray, The Illustrator & the Book in England. On Dibdin, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter caramel morocco and ochre cloth. Light to moderate foxing; mild offsetting around plates; four pages with patch of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item. Plates depicting people all with small area of waterstaining to upper inner portions, just touching corner of platemark without affecting images; scenic plates unaffected. All edges marbled. A solid, handsome, satisfying set.  (26939)

This is illustrated with a good many half-tones.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with black-stamped title; spine sunned and with inked call number, spine head chipped, corners slightly rubbed. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper faintly rubber-stamped.  (24822)