Categories
Shopping cart (0 items € 0)
Advanced search

Literature & Linguistics

First Aldine edition of Martial: one of the first books set in the world’s first italic type

MARTIALIS, Marcus Valerius. [Epigrammata].
(Colophon: Venice, Aldus Manutius, December 1501). 8vo (16 x 10 cm). With 15 (mostly 6-line) spaces with printed guide letters left for manuscript initials. Except for an occasional word in Greek, the book is set entirely in the world's first italic printing type (with small upright capitals, which are also used, usually letterspaced, for running heads, headings, the opening line of each liber, etc.). Francesco Griffo cut it for Aldus, who uses it here 8 months after he introduced it in his Virgil. Tanned sheepskin (ca. 1700?), gold-tooled spine and board edges. [381], [3 blank] pp. Full description
€ 4,750
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Satire disguising the French elite as Arabs

MELON, Jean-François. Mahmoud le Gasnevide, histoire orientale. Fragment traduit de l'Arabe, avec des notes.
Rotterdam, Jean Hofhoudt, 1730. 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, gold-tooled spine, boards, board edges and turn-ins, both boards with the gold-tooled coat of arms of Louis Marie Alexandre, Duc d'Aumont, gilt edges. [2], VI, 162, [4] pp. Full description
€ 1,500
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Instructions for Carsten Niebuhr's expedition to Arabia

MICHAELIS, Johann David. Recueil de questions, proposées à une société de savants, qui par ordre de Sa Majesté Danoise font le voyage de l'Arabie.
Amsterdam, S.J. Baalde; Utrecht, J. van Schoonhoven & comp., 1774. 4to. Set in roman type with incidental Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac and 1 word in Coptic. Near-contemporary tanned sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. [4], XLIV, 256, [16], 38, [2 blank] pp. Full description
€ 3,500
Order Inquire Terms of sale

First edition of a play recounting the discovery of Brazil by the Portuguese

MIMOSO, João Sardina. Relacion de la real tragicomedia ...
Lisbon, Jorge Rodriguez, 1620. 4to. With the elaborate woodcut coat-of-arms of the dedicatee, the Duke of Braganza, on the title-page, and the woodcut coat of arms of Portugal and/or King Philip II of Portugal at the head of his dedication on leaf [6]r, all text is set within a double fillet frame, and with woodcut decorated initials. Contemporary parchment binding with manuscript title on spine. [10], 163, [1] ll. Full description
€ 9,500
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Very rare French edition of the popular Palmerin romance

[MORAES CABRAL, Francisco de and Jacques VINCENT (translator)]. Histoire du preux, vaillant et tres-victorieux chevallier Palmerin d'Angleterre, fils du roy Dom Edoard, contenant plusieurs faits d'armes & amours, & les estranges adventures par luy mises à fin.
Paris, chez Michel Sonnius (colophon part 2: Jean d'Ongois), 1574. 2 parts in 1 volume. Small 8vo. With a woodcut printer's device on the title page of the first part, a typographical woodcut vignette on the title page of the second part, numerous decorated woodcut initials, woodcut headpieces, and vignettes in the text. Contemporary gold and blind tooled brown calf. [8], 346; [6], 280 ll. Full description
€ 4,850
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Rare "oriental" pastiche

MORELL, Charles (pseudonym of James Kenneth RIDLEY). The tales of the Genii; or the delightful lessons of Horam, the son of Asmar.
London, printed for G. and T. Wilkie, 1786. 2 volumes. 12mo. With 2 letterpress title-pages and 14 engraved plates (including the 2 frontispieces) illustrating the various tales. Near contemporary, uniform calf (ca. 1800?), gold-tooled smooth spines in 6 fields, with a green (title) and red (volume) label in the 2nd and 4th fields, gold-tooled board edges, blind-tooled turn-ins. xxxvi, 285, [3 blank]; [1], [1 blank], 338 pp. plus 2 frontispieces and 12 other plates. Full description
€ 1,500
Order Inquire Terms of sale
450 books found / Show all