•  ESTC T117287; Pforzheimer 611.   Period-style calf, covers framed and panelled in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and central decoration, spine with with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription (William R. Williams) in upper outer corner; preface with early inked initials in upper corners, partially effaced, resulting in small holes to upper outer corner (touching two letters of text without obscuring sense). Occasional early inked corrections and annotations; partial topical index filling final blank. One leaf with short tear from upper margin not extending into text, another with portion of lower foremargin torn away just touching (but not really “affecting”) print; scattered light smudges and a handful of pages with old marginal stains, ink-drop to fore-edge (closed) in Latin section, otherwise clean.  (30851)

Provenance:  On the front pastedown, the bookplate of Brian Douglas Stilwell.

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership of this edition (Harvard, Kansas, University of Texas-HRHRC, Princeton Theological).

•  Brooks 507; Giani 44 (pp. 47–48).   Binding as above, rubbing to extremities and to spine/joints; somewhat noticeable scrape to length of front board and bump to bottom edge, very small spot of discoloration to top edge of front board, small scrape to rear board and rubbing to fore-edge. Without the initial and final blanks (i.e., two blank leaves total). Provenance marks as above; occasional light foxing to leaves, interior otherwise in very nice condition.  (40159)

Here he sends a thoughtfully reminiscent note of sympathy on the death of the Rev. Dr. Shields (Charles Woodruff Shields); his “Mrs. Stockton” was probably Charlotte, Mrs. Bayard Stockton, the deceased's daughter.

Provenance:  Ex–Allyn K. Ford Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, recently deaccessioned.

•  Very good condition. Low's is not a very difficult hand, but someone has lightly, interlinearly pencilled in the words s/he found hard to decipher.  (33395)

•  BAL 13228.   Contemporary half calf with marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges with single gilt fillet, spines gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; spines and extremities rubbed, spine labels chipped, leather with minor discoloration, joints starting from heads. A few signatures opened roughly, some unopened (most in vol. II). A worn but still distinctive set.  (33162)

•  ESTC T113648.   Recent quarter calf, old style; raised bands, gilt ruling above and below the bands as accents, gilt center devices in spine compartments. Deep red spine labels lettered in gilt; marbled paper sides, with dark wedge of soil crossing bottom 3/4-inch of front cover’s paper and line of same soil also to turn-ins of back cover. Faint off-setting to top and bottom margins of early leaves from old binding; medium-light waterstains in margins of index (i.e., last 6 leaves), and the odd spot or bit of soil elsewhere. Generally, a very nice clean book.  (25318)

Soledades de la vida y desengaños del mundo was first published in Madrid in 1658 and was reprinted m any times in the subsequent decades, attesting to its continued popularity during the “Edad de Oro.” Essentially a miscellany, it is composed of two distinct parts, the Soledades and the Persecuciones de Lucina, dama valenciana, y tragicos sucessos de Don Carlos. The first is essentially a four-part pastoral novel about love and life while the second is an eight-part novel concerning a pair of young lovers whose parents oppose their friendship with the expected result of the youngsters running away together and having adventures and misadventures.

Provenance:  No individual's name appears, but the title-page is inscribed in an 18th-century hand with the name of a little town in southeast Puebla, Sto. Tomas Hueyotlipan.

•  Not in Palau, but see 142879 for a related 1722 edition.   Recent vellum, old style, with ties. Some gatherings washed; first leaf of text (only) defective with loss of three lines on each side; early leaves with good repairs of tears and irregular margins; signature “S” supplied from a different copy. Some leaves with creasing, some worming in foremargins, and one leaf with a foremarginal burnhole; otherwise, but the very occasional stain here or there. A pleasing copy.  (30535)

This is the uncommon first edition of this much-sensationalized true crime story, and the first publication to assign the name “Lucretia” to Cannon (née Martha Hanly), who does not seem to have used it during her lifetime. The wood-engraved title-page vignette depicts Cannon in the midst of one of the most horrific acts of which she was accused: burning a five-year-old to death in her fireplace. The frontispiece, captioned “Lucretia P. Cannon and her gang firing at the Slave Dealers,” centers on the dealers rather than the gang members, with Cannon appearing disguised asa sketchy figure in masculine dress.

Provenance:  From the chapbook collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  American Imprints 41-3679; Wright, I, 1942.   Removed from a nonce volume, sewing loosening with frontispiece separated; edges and top corners waterstained, spots of foxing, frontispiece with short tear from outer edge without loss and with some chipping to inner and upper edges. Scarce 19th-century American “true crime” that highlights crimes of particularly American, particularly horrible sorts.  (41211)

Provenance:  Frontispiece recto with early inked inscription of Henry Hall and inked inscription of Henry Ebel, London, 1960; title-page with early inked inscription of Thomas Gibbes; lower portion of final dedication page with early inked inscription reading “Thomas Hull his Book,” with another marking from Hull in the lower margin of one of the preliminary praise poems.

•  ESTC R213825; Wing (rev. ed.) L3449B; Schweiger, II, 579; Brunet, III, 1222 (for 1682 & 1714 eds.). On Creech and his subsequent Latin edition, see Dibdin, Greek and Latin Classics, II, 201.   Contemporary polished calf framed in gilt double fillets with gilt-tooled corner fleurons, rebacked in complementary calf with gilt-stamped leather title-label and blind-ruled raised bands; original leather much acid-pitted, with cover gilt all but lost. Lower edge of frontispiece trimmed (removing artist attribution). Ownership inscriptions as above; pages age-toned with occasional smudges and small ink stains, one outer margin with smeared early inscription and one with illegible early annotation. Edge wear and minor edge chipping to first and last few leaves; some corners bumped or chipped. A well read, “nice” old book.   (40985)

In the present volume, this great epic poem in May’s translation is accompanied by its translator’s English rendition of his own sequel, originally written in Latin verse. This Continuation advances the action through Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar (May depicts the Egyptian queen with “snowie necke” and “golden tresses”), the death of Cato, and various additional battles before arriving at Caesar’s death. At the time, May’s work was thought highly enough of that Charles I allowed the Continuation’s dedication to bear his name.

•  Pharsalia: STC 16888; Schweiger, II, 567; ESTC S108868. Continuation: STC 17712; ESTC S108892. 20th-century black morocco in imitation of early, severe style, with raised bands from which blind-tooling extends onto covers; spine with gilt-stamped title and date, and turn-ins elaborately tooled in blind. Moderately worn, spine faded not unattractively, and leather rubbed over joints. Front pastedown with bookplate, inked date of 1986; front free endpaper with inked gift inscription dated 1944. T1-2 trimmed differently and possibly surviving from another copy; A3 of the continuation also possibly supplied. Occasional instances of very minor staining; mostly clean. Pleasant on shelf and in hand. (7101)

This is Baskerville's second printing of Lucretius and the first in twelvemo format: The 1772 first printing had been a quarto. The text is printed using his Bourgeois font and the Greek seems to be Caslon's Long Primer. Gaskell tells us that following Baskerville's death, 980 copies were remaindered in 1775.

Provenance:  Bequest to Yale University of Norman Holmes Pearson, properly deaccessioned.

Binding:  18th-century red morocco with a gilt roll forming a border on the perimeter of the boards; round spine divided into compartments using a roll featuring chain links, with author's name gilt in one compartment and the five others each with the center device of a lyre, Greek key roll in gilt at base of spine. Board edges tooled in gilt with a rope design; turn-ins tooled using two rolls, one of which is dentelles. Green stone-pattern endpapers and all edges gilt.

•  Gordon 20A; Gaskell 50; ESTC T50366.   Binding as above. Front joint (outside) cracked, abraded, and with loss of most leather; scuffing to both joints and to spine ends. Library bookplate on front pastedown, discreet deaccession stamp on verso of title-page. A “decent” copy of a good press book.  (39839)

Provenance: Monograms as above and vol. I front fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscription of Irish-born poet and playwright Robert Jephson (1736–1803); fly-leaves also with pencilled inscription of American engineer, educator, and musical innovator Henry Ward Poole (1825–90, brother of influential librarian William Frederick Poole), dated 1860. Front pastedowns with bookplate of American author, bibliographer, and book collector Jacob Chester Chamberlain (1860–1905). First text page in each volume with early inked inscription reading “Miss Mupendens”; one fly-leaf of vol. II with early inked ownership inscription of William C. FitzGerald of Christ Church, Oxford. Most recently in the residue of the stock of the F. Thomas Heller bookselling firm (est. ca. 1928).

•  Schweiger, II, 580. Re: provenance, see: First Editions of Ten American Authors (catalogue of the collection of J.C. Chamberlain, pt. II), 780; Catalogue of the Library of the Late Henry Ward Poole 1557.   Personalized armorial bindings as above, light wear overall with joints and extremities rubbed, vol. I with minor refurbishing of wear. Bookplates and inscriptions as above. Frontispiece of vol. I slightly oversized, with outer edge folded in; front. of vol. II with outer edge trimmed very closely along border, shaving lower portion of border and a tiny bit of image. Pagination skips from 72 to 93 in vol. II, with signatures and text uninterrupted. All page edges stained yellow, with stain sometimes slightly affecting page margins. Two leaves with vol. II each with short tear from outer margin, extending into text without loss. The work that long most agreeably facilitated French Lucretian reading, here in its most attractive edition and with an impressive pedigree. (40495)

Uncommon: WorldCat locatesonly two U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Publisher's printed green paper wrappers; spine and edges lightly worn, back wrapper with affixed Olympia Press paper price label, partially torn away. Two leaves with lower outer corners proud and now ragged; five leaves with small holes near center, touching letters without loss of sense. Overall a very reasonably fresh copy.  (35684)

Provenance:  Ownership inscription of Bryan Tompson, 1735 (fol. 166r); also on A2r, undated, family name spelled “Thompson” and with notation of cost of book as 5/3. Late 19th- or early 20-century ownership inscription on front free endpaper of G.P. Hesketh, of Beltrami Cty., MN; later given (1907) to Dr. Charles Schwartz.

•  ESTC S108962; STC (rev. ed.) 16973.   18th-century English speckled sheep, recently rebacked; late 19th- or early 20th-century endpapers. Title-page cut down close to text (supplied from a different copy?), mounted to restore page size and expose type on verso; leaf soiled. Top margins throughout closely cropped, costing the top line of text on five of the eight preliminary pages and the running heads and folio numbers on many (not all) text leaves; staining in portions in margins and sometimes into the text of the upper outer sixth of a leaf; longitudinal hole on fols. 259 to 262 costing three words total. Not a perfect, but a decent copy of a Lutheran mainstay in an edition not often found on the market.  (34166)

•  Publisher's half roan and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and arabesque decorations; mildly to moderately scuffed overall, spine sunned and with small tear in upper part of leather. Paper browned and slightly embrittled; one preliminary leaf with a tear from outer margin extending into text without loss. Front joint (outside cracked in top portion, hinge (inside) cracked and with an old repair, board holding nicely. Good condition with faults noted.  (35823)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription of Caroline Duffield, dated Feb. 22, 1830; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  NSTC L2746.   Contemporary treed calf, covers framed in gilt rolls, spine with gilt-stamped red leather title-label and gilt-ruled compartments, turn-ins with gilt roll; leather — sometime shellacked or otherwise “sealed” — showing expectable acid-pitting and crackling, front joint cracked (sewing holding) and leather chipped along back joint, edges and extremities rubbed, spine head chipped. Half-title lacking. Two leaves each with short tear from upper margin, not touching text. Pages lightly age-toned, with minor offsetting from plates; minor foxing to plates. A dignified and attractive copy, reflecting an 18th-century aesthetic.  (41042)