What's New
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MILNE, A. A. Winnie-the-Pooh.London : 1976
The 50th anniversary edition, number 217 of 300 copies signed by Christopher Milne. The first story book relating the adventures of the "Silly old Bear" and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood was originally published in 1926. This handsome edition is signed by the author's son. Due to production delays, many copies were issued without a... Learn More -
BODIN, Jean. Les six livres de la republique.Paris : 1577
Second authorized edition, revised by the author, of this masterpiece of political philosophy, a crowning work of the French Renaissance and a key theoretical step in the transition from feudalism to nationalism.
This copy was formerly owned by Michel-Étienne Turgot (1690-1751), father of the renowned economist (1727-1781), and may well... Learn More -
LUCRETIUS, Titus Carus. De rerum natura libri sex.Birmingham : 1773
Second Baskerville edition, the first in pocket-size format, in an attractive contemporary binding. Preceding the private press movement by over a century, Baskerville "first introduced into England what is generally termed 'fine printing', by producing a type of superior elegance and an ink which gave additional beauty to the type" (Benton, p.... Learn More -
HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Wissenschaft der Logik.Nuremberg : 1812; 1813; 1816
First editions of the Idealist philosopher's first and most comprehensive statement of his method of logic, the foundation of his philosophical system.
The Wissenschaft der Logik (Science of Logic) brought international acclaim for Hegel, then headmaster of a school in Nuremberg: following publication of the final part, he was appointed to... Learn More -
MORIYAMA, Daido, & Yukio Mishima. La mort en été (Death in Summer).Paris : 2020
Limited signed edition, numbered 69 of 100 copies produced especially for members of Editions du Solstice, from a total of 142 copies printed on Watagami paper and signed by the artist. This copy has the original inserted dedication to Jacques and Elisabeth Manardo, and is signed by the artist in pencil below. This publication juxtaposes the... Learn More -
SOUTH AMERICA. A sammelband of sailing directions in French.Paris : 1850-35-27
A collection of scarce pamphlets on navigating the Falklands, Patagonia, and Peru. The first two were compiled by officers serving aboard HMS Beagle and the third was one of the earliest publications to note the existence of the El Niño current. An institutional search locates the first pamphlet in only the BnF and the Nantes Municipal... Learn More -
RANSOME, Arthur. Swallows and Amazons.London : 1930
First edition. There were 2,000 copies in the first printing. This is the first instalment in the series that "changed British children's literature, affected a whole generation's view of holidays, helped to create the national image of the English Lake District, and added Arthur Ransome's name to the select list of classic British children's... Learn More -
DAHL, Roald. Danny, the Champion of the World.London : 1975
First edition, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in purple ink "Love Roald Dahl". Danny "is perhaps Dahl's most straightforward and lyrical children's book" (Sturrock, p. 467).
The novel is based on a short story first published in the New Yorker on 23 January 1959 and collected in Kiss Kiss (1960). It was adapted into a... Learn More -
CLARKE, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.London : 2004
First UK edition, paperback issue, signed by the author and illustrator on the title page. Clarke's debut novel won the Hugo, Locus, and Mythopoeic awards and was adapted into a 2015 television series starring Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan. The UK edition was published three weeks after the US edition in paperback and hardback. Learn More -
JIJIMUSAI. Kaigai jinbutsu shoden ("Short Tales of Foreign People").[Japan] : 1853
First edition of this biography of Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Tsar Alexis I. It was published in the year of Perry's first expedition, when interest in Europeans was growing, and four years before the first Japanese translation of a Western biography of Napoleon.
The work opens with accomplished woodblock illustrations of the... Learn More -
LED ZEPPELIN - PAGE, Jimmy. The Anthology.Guildford : 2020
First edition, signed limited issue, number 625 of 2,500 copies signed by Page. The Anthology is a continuation of the project begun with Page's self-titled autobiography, profusely illustrated with material from his personal archives. "It has given me the opportunity to showcase the detail behind the detail," writes the guitarist.... Learn More -
STEIN, Gertrude. Four Saints in Three Acts.New York : 1934
First separate edition, inscribed by the author on the title page, "For Ralph [illegible], and Fleur, from Gertrude Stein". Virgil Thomson asked Stein to write this libretto, for which he composed the music.
The opera was first performed by an all-black cast at the Avery Memorial Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, on 7 February 1934. The... Learn More -
WORLD WAR II. Two photograph albums documenting the work of the 806th Engineer Aviation Battalion in Saipan and Okinawa.[Saipan and Okinawa : 1944-45]
A wide-ranging collection of photographs, accompanied by well-written and detailed captions, compiled by an American airman preparing landing strips for the arrival of B-29 bombers. They show the realities of working in the harsh Pacific climate as well as the creativity of the engineers, who scavenged materials from wreckages and built ingenious... Learn More -
SHELLEY, Mary. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.London : 1823
Second edition, being the rarest edition published during the author's lifetime. It is also the first British edition to name Mary Shelley as the author.
Reviewers such as Sir Walter Scott had misattributed the anonymous 1818 first edition to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary Shelley was publicly acknowledged as the author of Frankenstein in the... Learn More -
WORLD WAR II. Photograph album of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, prepared for a wartime photobook.[Manila : c.1942]
An arresting album containing over 200 high-quality photographs taken by the 16th Division (the "Wall Division") in the Philippines. They show soldiers landing on the islands, advancing on Manila, and living in the jungle, as well as the infamous Bataan Death March. The shots were published in Hito sakusen no omoide, a photobook produced in the... Learn More -
WATTS, Alan. "Miniature Art Gallery": napkin inscribed with Buddhist and Taoist calligraphy and doodles.[Perhaps California] : 1970s
A dynamic example of Watts's application of Buddhist philosophy to everyday life, inscribed along the right-hand side, "This miniature art gallery is for Marina. From Alan." Aspirational with the calligraphy brush, he invokes the idea that "the way follows nature" (one of the cornerstones of the Tao Te Ching), the concept of introspection, and the... Learn More -
BIBLE IN ASIA - GOBLE, Jonathan (trans.). Matai fukuinsho (The Gospel of Matthew).[Tokyo] : 1871
First edition, first printing; a milestone in the global history of Christianity. This translation, which preceded Hepburn's work, was produced in secret. Because of anti-Christianity laws, all publishers in Yokohama refused to take the job. It was then suppressed upon publication. There are only two institutional copies of the first printing,... Learn More -
GUTENBERG, moveable-type printing before. A page from a book printed in 1422 with the Kyongja-Ja moveable bronze type.Los Angeles : 1966
Excellently preserved evidence of moveable-type printing in East Asia over 30 years before the Gutenberg Bible (1454-55). Pleasingly, the specimen is a full page. Copies of McGovern's catalogue sometimes only have a half-page sample, as his supply was limited.
Experimentation with moveable type began in Asia in the 11th century. The oldest... Learn More -
LITTLETON, Adam. Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius Quadripartitus. A Latine Dictionary, In Four Parts.London : 1684
Second edition of this accomplished Latin dictionary by the prominent clergyman (1627-1694), first published in 1678. This copy is from the library of the seminal potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795).
Wedgwood drew heavily on Roman examples when designing his products, even naming his Etruria works after the ancient Etruscans. On the opening... Learn More -
FIRST OPIUM WAR. Collection of 40 letters and notes sent to Anne Noble during her imprisonment in Ningbo.1841
A moving and historically significant record of companionship in confinement, Anne Noble being one of the few Western women to see the interior of China before the opening of the treaty ports. These notes, sent surreptitiously by two British officers detained in nearby cells, are the most important surviving artefacts of her extraordinary... Learn More
