WorldCat locates only two U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. First page with inked numerals in lower inner corner, slim marks from now-absent clip in upper inner corner. Slightly age-toned with a very few small spots, otherwise clean.  (33250)

Binding: Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind, front cover with gilt-stamped urn of flowers, back cover with same design in blind. All edges gilt.

•  Faxon 655.   Bound as above, corners bumped/rubbed and base of rear joint and spine a little rubbed; gilt bright. Endpapers with early pencilled inscriptions, frontispiece with adhesion of a sliver of paper from title-page along inner margin, title-page with brown spot in lower margin offset onto lower edge of frontispiece. Sewing loosening with some early and final leaves starting to separate, title-page all but separated. Pages generally clean, with a few scattered spots; one upper margin with pencilled inscription mostly erased. A read and cherished copy, still sweetly sentimental and interesting to look at.  (30368)

Binding:  Publisher’s grey cloth with light and dark blue lettering on spine and front board, decorated with images of a plum tree (get it??) growing dollar signs stamped in light blue, dark blue and ochre. The cream dust jacket bears the same design with green decorations and lettering. Signed by Rome K. Richardson.

•  BAL 15961 (for first ed.); Minsky, Art of American Book Covers, p. 93.   Bound as above, with age-toned and chipped dust jacket having small tears along edges and larger tears at joints and fore-edges, bottom two inches of spine detached but present. Volume with small tear at spine-head, extremities of boards bumped; a handful of leaves with creased corners and bumping to fore-edges (not margins), and wrinkling to p. 383 that appears to have occurred during printing. A rather nice copy, seemingly uncommon in the dust jacket.  (37904)

Provenance:   From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  This ed. not in Brunet, Graesse, Gumuchian, WorldCat.   Later plain paper–covered light boards; spine and joints lightly worn. Some leaves trimmed closely, occasionally touching first or last letters or headers; a few pages with minor staining. One page unevenly inked by printer, with about a dozen words only faintly legible. Overall an unusually clean, fresh copy of this seldom-seen edition, clearly untouched by youthful hands.  (40737)

Promising “a fresh attempt at negotiation” in his message to Congress of 16 May 1797, John Adams appointed John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney as part of a peace commission charged with negotiating a new treaty with France. Unfortunately for the commissioners, Secretary of State Thomas Pickering's instructions asked for much and gave away little, thus giving them a weak hand with which to bargain. In addition, they were later approached by three agents of the French foreign minister Talleyrand, identified in their dispatches as X, Y, and Z, who demanded a bribe as a precondition to negotiation. Pinckney refused and news of the XYZ Affair, released to Congress by the President on 3 April 1797, led the more extreme Federalists to press for an immediate declaration of war.

This is Secretary of State Thomas Pickering's instructions, dated July 15, 1797, to the peace commission to France.

•  Evans 34837.   Sewn, edges untrimmed, now in a Mylar folder. Title-page with a little bug-spotting, edges darkened, top-right quadrant waterstained throughout.  (12331)

•  Evans 36546; ESTC W26008. Period-style quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title. First two leaves with a bit of light spotting in margins, otherwise clean.  (13802)

In addition to a finely engraved frontispiece portrait of Savonarola, there areeight plates, numbering four engraved coats of arms, for the Atestina, Medici, Borgia and Sforza families, and four large foldout letterpress family trees, for the author's family, the Atestina, Medici, and Borgia, who are all related in some way or another to Savonarola's story.

•  BM STC French, P1013. On Pico della Mirandola, see: NCE, XI, 347–48, and C.B. Schmitt, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola ... and his Critique of Aristotle (1967). On Billaine, see: B. Montagnes OP, “Éditions et éditeurs de Savonarole dans la France d'Ancien Régime,” in Archivium fratrum praedicatorum, LXXV, pp. 159–78.   Vellum over boards with yapp edges, ink title to spine and blue speckled edges; vol. II, “Additiones,” not present. Unnoticeable pin-type wormhole to frontispiece, title-page rubbed with loss to part of two words and with small hole to its blank area; small spottings to Medici fold-out plate and a few other leaves; Borgia fold-out plate repaired and with a diamond-shaped waterstain; a few tears in lower margins, two resulting in a bit of loss and one of these given an old repair.  (30276)

WorldCat locates only four U.S. libraries reporting ownership, and at least one of the reported sets is incomplete. The publication date given here is that suggested by the Osborne Collection.

Provenance:   From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  Osborne Collection, p. 765.   Blue textured paper over cardboard slipcase; embossed red paper onlay on front, printed in gold and titled “Picture books”; chromolithographed paper onlay on front (as described above). One of the chapbooks has small repairs, others variously displaying a small chip, a light stain, or a bit of creasing; else and indeed, very good.  (39521)

WorldCat locatesonly three U.S. institutions reporting holdings of this 1767 printing, and just a handful of the 1766.

•  Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped title and pomegranate decorations in compartments; joints and extremities rubbed, with back joint starting from foot. All edges stained red. Pages with a very few scattered small spots or smudges, overall clean.  (40294)

•  Brooks 782; Giani 130; De Lama, II, 141.   Bound as above; faintest dust-soiling to vellum, spine slightly darkened. Front pastedown with elegant, 19th-century French bookseller's label. A lovely little book, notably clean and unfoxed. (40182)

The text is in Latin printed in roman and italic, divided into sections for each pope and the additional treatises: De falso & vero bono, dialogi; Contra amores; De vera nobilitate; De optimo cive; Panegyricus in bessarionem doctissimum patriarcham Constantinopolitanum; and Oratio ad Paulum II . . . de bello Turcis inferendo. Woodcut initials in criblé, historiated, and floriated styles decorate the text, which is enhanced by side- and shouldernotes. Two large sections list the popes in chronological order, charting relevant dates with notes. The printer's device, incorporating Psalm 64:12 (Vulgate numbering), adorns the title- and final page.

•  VD16 P 3263; Adams P-1420; Graesse, V, 313. On Platina, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, XI, 430.   20th-century glossy black paper over boards, gilt title to red leather spine label, all edges green. Ex-library: neat 19th-century bookplate and early ink marking, front pastedown, and label to lower spine but no stamps. Light waterstaining on first 20 or so leaves and in top margin of later ones, crossing text over corner in index; hole from re-sewing in lower gutter of about 11 leaves and final quire reinforced at gutter; pin-type wormholes in upper right corner of final two leaves; negligible tear in lower corner of one leaf. Foxing, generally light, and a few stains. Minute manuscript note in ink on title-page; three instances of marginalia (two a bit cropped) on three pages including the last (dated 1677).  (30348)

Eugene Karlin (who signed the colophon) created thedelicate fine-pen illustrations; of these, 20 are full-page and 9 are in-text. The drawings of lovers engaged in the act of lovemaking are both tasteful and erotic; they are mostly heterosexual, with one — non-explicit — depicting two men). Robert L. Dothard designed the edition, which is limited to 1500 copies (of which this is numbered copy 1002), using a monotype Emerson font; the binding is quarter goatskin vellum with the title stamped in gold on a brown skiver label, and the sides are Swedish tan paper with a gold-stamped design on the front. The appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 409.   Binding as above, in original glassine dust wrapper and slipcase; wrapper with lower corners chipped, slipcase with minor rubbing to gilt spine label, vellum spine with a few tiny brown spots (possibly as issued — the club newsletter for this volume says “Goats are real individuals, and that goes for their skins too; connoisseurs in such matters prize the mottled and stained appearance, which the skins come by quite naturally”). The whole generally clean and unworn; pages fresh and crisp. A beautiful copy.  (30460)

The second sheet is for Stanfield's “Grand Local Diorama,” the grand finale of which involved the “magnificent display of the Falls of the Virginia Waters, seen through the Fairy Temple of Luminaria” — facilitated by a hydraulic apparatus capable of discharging 39 tons of water, “forming a coup d'oeil never before witnessed on any stage.”

A contemporary of Stanfield's once called him “the prince of scene-painters,” and his dioramas were legendary for their beauty and immersive effects.

•  Split halfway up center fold and neatly repaired from rear; one untrimmed outer edge slightly ragged. Gently age-toned. Delightful (and very displayable) piece of theatrical ephemera.  (36575)

Vol. I here bears an extensive and interesting list of subscribers.

•  ESTC N20527.   Contemporary speckled calf, spines with raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title-labels, and gilt-stamped volume numbers; volumes rubbed and covers only gingerly holding with front free endpapers separated. Vols. I and II only, of six; vol. I spine label lost, vol. II label chipped. Text blocks strong with some light age-toning and occasional foxing, only, and first and last few leaves with offsetting. Priced according to condition and with reading, engravings, and provenance all still pleasurable to engage with.  (37174)