nothing new since my last, exceptCapt. Barney in the ship Hyder Aly taking the King ship Monk of 10 nine pounders, in an action of 30 minutes. The Hyder Aly mounted 6 nines & 10 sixes, there never was more execution done by the same force in the same time. The Monk had every officer except two, killed or wounded, amongst the latter was the Capt. She had in all 21 kill'd & 32 wounded. The Hyder Aly had 4 kill'd & 11 wounded, from such slaughter no doubt you'd conclude one of them boarded, but it was not the case, a fair action within pistol shot.

Although the land battles of the American Revolution had ended with the surrender at Yorktown, sea battles continued until receipt of the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The account above refers to Comm. Joshua Barney's capture on 8 April off Cape May, NJ, of the sloop of war General Monk. In a wonderful twist of fate, the intrepid Barney had only arrived in Philadelphia in March — having been occupied since the previous May with his escape, recapture, and second escape from Portsmouth prison! into which stronghold he had been clapped by the British for his previous maritime (infr)actions.

Having, then, been given command of the Hyder Ally (a.k.a., Hyder Ali) only a few weeks previously, and having been charged with clearing the Delaware River and Bay of privateers, Barney had met the General Monk while pursuing that task — and, in a Revolutionary War naval action eclipsed only by that of the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis, took on and thoroughly defeated a King's ship of superior firepower in a bloody, 26-minute battle.

Following this capture of the General Monk, Congress voted Barney a sword for his gallantry and offered him command of his prize after renaming her General Washington. In November, 1782, he was ordered to sail to France in the Washington with dispatches for Benjamin Franklin who was negotiating the Treaty of Paris. He returned with news of the signing of the preliminary peace treaty and with money from the French.

Barney was an American Hornblower!

•  On Barney, see: Dictionary of American Biography and Appleton's Cyclopedia.   Very good condition. Small blank portion of the integral address leaf torn with loss where the sealing wax was attached. Old dealer's (Sessler's) coding in pencil at base of letter.  (31069)

He also gives lengthy synopses of the histories of the Alonso, Usatigui, Barcena, and Rodriguez families and explains the elements of the coat of arms and their significance. Included here, and a most uncommon element of such documents, is the listing of all 26 exemptions and privileges that hidalgos enjoy by right of their status.

The text is written in a competent but not notable semi-calligraphic hand, 22 lines to a page, using sepia ink (sometimes pale though always legible), with rubrics in red outlined in brown and the first line of text in majuscules in red and brown. The coat of arms bears a bearded man’s head above a castle with a lion rampant sinister and a wolf rampant dexter. The border of the shield is set with the heads of men in the four cardinal directions and ladders sinister and dexter. The whole is accomplished in red, blue, silver. purple, and green, but curiously not gold. There is a contemporary orange silk guard protecting the leaf of arms, and the volume ends with endorsements on the last leaf, with the paper seal of the city of Madrid.

Provenance:  20th-century stamp on front free endpaper of the Argentine private library of the Moctezuma family.

An intriguing aspect of the binding is that faintly visible beneath the pastedowns is 15th-century manuscript waste.

•  Contemporary parchment over pasteboards with inked summary of contents and a large tulip-like flower on front cover; evidence of silk ties now missing. Text with some small holes from the very occasional inkburn, else in good and presentable condition.  (40295)

Binding:  Contemporary calf elaborately tooled in gilt using four distinct rolls, a double fillet, andat least ten stamps. Red silk pastedowns.

Additional internal documentations: On the recto of the leaf with the miniature of the family praying is a note showing that the notary who prepared the manuscript and was responsible for the miniatures and illumination was Francisco Perez Grandiola and that the fee was 1800 maravides. There was an additional charge of 12 pesos for silk and 80 pesos for the lead seal no longer present. (There is no information given as to who did the binding or its cost.)

•  Binding as above, worn over all, especially at board edges and spine at the raised bands; still, lovely, with evidence of silk ties at top, bottom, and fore-edges. Paint of initials and the miniature of the king in spots a little rubbed/faded; that of the full-page presentations bright and in notably excellent condition. The lead seal is not present but its silk cord remains; the vellum of the text leaves is clean.A visually appealing document and production evocative of its era, and one incorporating more evidence than is common as to its making.  (40409)

The physical volume was printed by König & Ebhardt of Hanover and purchased in Leipzig; 27 pages bear diary entries, and at the back of the volume are an additional four and a half pages indexing some of the performances attended and tracking certain expenses on the trip — including a coffee machine, a fur cloak, sets of table linen purchased in Dresden and Leipzig, silk for Albert's stockings, etc. The diarist also kept careful track of the gifts she gave and received, with the latter including books, “an ivory book mark,” wine, stollen, and other items, although those are listed in the daily entries and not listed separately; she and her husband exchanged books as gifts in several instances. Towards the end of the journal, the writer describes travelling via train, carriage, and boat to other cities in Germany, Prague, Vienna, and eventually Lugano, Italy, where her closing words are a surprised note that the “landlady” of the Hotel Suisse “is a Englishman!!” (p. 27).

•  Contemporary marbled paper–covered boards with cloth shelfback and bright marbled edges, front cover with handwritten paper label; cloth split along front joint, hinges (inside) reinforced with cloth tape. Front pastedown with Leipzig stationer's ticket. Pages clean and legible. A remarkable overview of upscale American expat life in late 19th–century Germany. (40761)

On the verso of the last leaf are the signatures of “custodians” of the archconfraternity in Rome below which are two paper and wax seals (one lacking the paper) with the seals' owners' names below, attesting to the completion of the application process and the grant ing of the petition.

Binding:  Contemporary crimson morocco, covers lavishly gilt-tooled. The center panel is richly filled with floral motifs and small stars surrounding a center emblem of the hands of St. Francis within a circular border of flames. Surrounding the center panel are four outer frames created by variety of large and small rolls. Marbled paper pastedowns in an unusual “patchwork” style.

•  Binding as above, manuscript recased, without the original ties. Some text rubbed and illegible, clean cracks in fourth leaf, crudely repaired hole in last leaf causing text loss. Curious green tarnishing of the gold. A most attractive binding, a beautifully painted manuscript, an interesting artifact of Catholic social history, anda great tool for teaching about conservation concerns.  (39295)

•  Goff A1246; Hain-Copinger 2068*; GKW 2890; BMC, III, p. 695 (IB. 14206); ISTC ia01246000; Printing & the Mind of Man 3 (for the first edition, 1467).   Late 19th- or early 20th-century half brown leather with tan paper paper sides and endpapers; binding lightly worn and covers with a bit of loss to paper. Fore- and part of upper margins of the first eight leaves damaged with loss and repaired many years ago. Some soiling to the text, chiefly in the margins; old waterstaining; pin-hole worming. Not a rare edition of this text but a nice copy of it withconsiderable added scholarly importance .  (40533)

Provenance:  Sold by the Linga Library of Hamburg as a duplicate. Pencil notes of a Spanish bookseller.

•  Medina, Mexico, 2478; Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 9; Vinaza 271; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl 18 (incomplete, lacking title-leaf); H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 240.   Recased in modern vellum with button and loop ties, some few leaves strengthened at inner margins. Last leaf of text torn in lower margin and expertly repaired, costing small portion of two letters; a bit of staining at some edges, particularly in early part of volume. Small round old stamp “BS” to front free endpaper, leaves filled with manuscript annotation at end as above. Very good, and very interesting.  (34576)

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

•  Very good condition; slight smearing of two words, not impairing legibility.  (33356)

The paper stock used for the interleaving has the classic ProPatria watermark and that and its countermark match Churchill's 151, which has a starting date of 1799.

•  Darlow & Moule 4650; Adams B1711. On the interleaves' watermarks, see: Churchill, Watermarks in paper in Holland, England, France, etc., in the XVII and XVIII centuries.   19th-century half vellum with German pastepaper over boards, spine with tinted and tooled label, text recased and new endpapers; vol. I (only) of this production, without the Epistles and Revelation. Title-page creased and dust-soiled, all leaves before pp. 9/10 rodent-gnawed in lower outside corner with loss of paper but not of text or manuscript annotation, and a bit of light waterstaining to rearmost leaves only. An important edition and a singular copy.  (37032)

Among the doctor's publications was an article on “The Accuracy of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament” (1911), including the Hebrew psalms.

Provenance:  Donated by Mrs. Betteridge to the seminary library, with institutional bookplate noting this on rear pastedown.

•  Recent black moiré silk, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Ex-library with bookplate on rear pastedown as above, pressure-stamp on title-page, call number in lower margin of second leaf; paper brittle, dust- or sometimes soot-soiled(?) at edges, and prone to chipping. Replete with scholia, this isa stunning testament to one scholar's study of the O.T.  (31077)

Binding:  A mid-15th-century bifolium from an Italian manuscript copy of Alexander de Villa-Dei's Doctrinale puerorum has been used as limp wrappers. Accented at each line with red, the text of approximately 140 lines is embellished withtwo two-line red initials and another, five-line red initial accented in green and blue. A very popular versified treatise on grammar, the Doctrinale puerorum was written sometime around 1200–25(ish); it remained popular throughout the Middle Ages and well into the age of print. (We thank Eric Johnson of the Special Collections Department of the Ohio State University Library for help identifying the leaf.)

EDIT16 locates only one copy of this edition of Caracciolo's work and WorldCat, COPAC, and KVK findnone.

•  EDIT16 CNCE 74448. This edition not in Index Aurel. On Caracciolo, see: Steven J. McMichael, “Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce and His Sermons on Muhammad and the Muslims (C. 1480),” in Franciscans and Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 2012); and Contemporaries of Erasmus, I, pp. 295–96.   Bound as above, with a 2.5" tear in vellum of front wrapper without loss and without touching ink; wrapper and text with a line of old pencilling each, old waterstaining (generally light), and signs of arrested mildew. Two small holes in lower margin of title-leaf touching one word on its verso; a few pin-hole type wormholes in inner margins and a few in text. A survivor safe within another survivor.  (40681)

large, magnificent Benedictine Psalter

The text appears here in sepia ink in a large Renaissance rotunda hand, set forth to the point of our bracket above, illuminated and featuringa large miniature of King David filling the center of a large initial B. Along the bottom margin in three medallions are Saints Mark, Benedict (center bottom), and Laurence; the right margin has two additional medallion portraits of unidentified female figures. The margins are garnished with gilt and bright-colored flowers, among which hidesthe small image of a deer — “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God”?

•  Matted and under glass in an elegant 20th-century gilt frame, ready for hanging. We have not opened this to discover whether Psalm 1 continues (or Job concludes) on the other side of the leaf, but the suspicion must be, given the beauty and quality of the side showing, that this is a leaf that would benefit from double-glazing showcasing both sides.  (33296)

Provenance:  This copy is inscribed by the author on a front fly-leaf: “Mrs. Bacon wth the author's affect. respects.” In addition, athree-page autograph letter signed by Bacon is tipped in; the letter pertains to Bacon family heraldic and heritage matters and includes mention of a deposition. The front pastedown bears the pictorial bookplate and small ticket of Robert Heysham Sayre of Bethlehem, PA.

•  NSTC C1166.   19th-century half brown morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and blind-tooled trefoil decorations in compartments; joints refurbished, spine bands and extremities slightly worn. Pages age-toned; six leaves browned from an old stain and a few more with small marginal areas browned; frontispiece and title-page with spots of foxing. Manuscript letter with outer edges creased, some creases partially slit, one small strip detached along an edge fold and laid in. An attractive copy of an interesting text with excellent and interesting additional material.  (33598)

Documents such as these showing the growth and development of haciendas in the central part of Mexico are fairly common but extremely uncommon for the Yucatan. Similarly colonial-era documents in Nahuatl are fairly commonly available in the marketplace but comparable ones in Maya are rare. This is the first gathering of land documents for the Yucatan and the first manuscripts in Maya that PRB&M has had in its decades of dealing in Mexican colonial-era manuscripts — see images below for the latter.

(We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the state archive of the Yucatan in explaining the significance of the stamps of the Land Inspection Section that appear in some of the documents. It is good to be assured that they are indication of private, not government, ownership.)

•  Each cahier is housed in a Mylar sleeve and the five are contained in a blue cloth clamshell box. Condition is extremely variable: as above, one cahier has extensive worm/insect damage, another has faded ink, and others are just fine. Stamps are present as mentioned above. A rare surviving compilation and one that is instructive from multiple perspectives.  (40308)

a Chartist poet, author, and proponent of political and sexual freedom for women

Provenance:  Residue of the stock of Seven Gables Bookshop (1930–79), via the son of Michael Papantonio (2009).

•  Very good condition. Tipped onto a slightly larger sheet. With the integral blank.  (25726)

Evidence of readership: In 1519, a Reformed annotator inscribed on the verso of the title-page, in a German hand, a curious and obscure verse satire against “Simon, prelatum et commissarium gratie” — i.e., “Simon Peter/St. Peter, the first vicar of Christ and the Catholic justification of papal supremacy.” We have only been able to trace this text (with minimal variation) in a German manuscript miscellany (Newberry MS 63) — later in the possession of the humanist Jakob Wimpfeling — where it is dated 1518 (Herding, “Zu einer humanistischen Handschrift,” 158). The satire begins “e reum damnamus, te Symonem detestamur” and ends “Te Symonem damnamus, ut numquam surgas in Infernum.” And in the margins are marks indicating passages that were important to the reader.

Provenance:  Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

WorldCat locates only three copies (UChicago, Bridwell Library, CalBerkeley Law) in the US.

•  Index Aurel. 140889; not in Pettegree & Walsby; Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme a Paris, p. 55; Moreau, Éditions parisiennes du XVI siècle, II, 536.  19th-century boards with German or German-style brown paper speckled in black. Text is clean save for title-page, dust-soiled at edges only, and verso of last leaf, a blank, which is dusty and a trifle soiled, with repair at upper gutter. Significant, handsome, and with intriguing evidence of readership.  (40826)

The loose leaves are not excised from the book but are a mix of internal company documents and communications received from suppliers.

Provenance:  John Donnelly, whose name appears at the top of two loose leaf of technical tables laid in the bound volume.

An important, suggestive resource for 1920s fashion research, industrial chemistry of the period, and American shoe manufacturing.

•  A stationer's blank book with lined paper; boards covered with a faux leather that is separating from them; good condition. The ten separate leaves have been removed from volume and are housed separately in a Mylar sleeve.  (35989)

Binding:  Dark blue morocco framed in gilt double fillets and panelled in a dotted gilt roll with gilt-tooled corner fleurons; spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-framed compartments. Turn-ins tooled to echo covers, cream moiré silk endpapers, all edges gilt.

•  Binding as above, edges and extremities showing slight sunning and wear. Vellum (expectably) cockled. Lovely, unique, beautifully bound, and an impressive showcase both of modern calligraphy and of Follansbee's impact.  (38417)

Evarts writes that he regrets “the unfortunate issue of your attempt to get a philosophical apparatus for your College” and the school's difficulty in raising money. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions holds a note for $1000 that the college owes and Evarts, the organization's treasurer, asks that if the college cannot pay at least some part of the principal, can it at least pay the interest promptly and send a paper guaranteeing payment?

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

•  Written in a clear hand.  (33764)

On stationery imprinted “17, Dean’s Yard, Westminster, S.W.”

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

•  Written in a clear hand, with some abbreviations. Evidence of old mounting.  (33766)

Attached at the bottom of the document is a very fine impression in red wax, surrounded by brown wax, of the prince-archbishop's circular seal.

Provenance:  Early 20th-century bookplate of Count Eric von Rosen and late 20th-century bookplate of Brian Douglas Stilwell to enclosing box; sold to William H. Allen, Bookseller (Philadelphia); sold by WHA to Dr. Wolfgang G. Scholz; acquired via agency from his widow (2019).

•  Housed in a specially designed box, one seam neatly repaired from the inside; bookplates as above. Very good condition, with a few very small worm holes.  (40527)