An Englishman in New York
This selection from Stephen C. Massey's library offers an opportunity for us to celebrate his private collecting instincts. His library is not so much a display of trophy pieces as a cabinet of memories: books Stephen kept as mementoes of sales conducted, collections dispersed, and friendships made. The underlying quality is of the highest order. Each item has been chosen with discrimination, informed by experience, and expressive of Stephen’s cultivated bibliographical eye.
-
COSWAY BINDING - BACON, Francis. Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine.[London] : 1629
First edition, in a lovely Rivière Cosway binding with a miniature of Isabella Infanta of Spain by Caroline Billin Currie. The style of binding was much imitated by leading bookbinders, but Cosways by the original miniaturist remain the most prized, especially those stamp-signed by Currie in gilt on the rear pastedown, as... Learn More -
RASTELL, John. Les Termes de la LeyLondon : 1636
Revised edition, formerly in the library of the lawyer and antiquarian Daniel Fleming (1633-1701), of this popular legal textbook in English and French, in an unsophisticated contemporary binding.
Les Termes de la Ley was originally published as The exposicions of ye termys of the law in 1527 by the printer and barrister John Rastell... Learn More -
THATCHER, Margaret (her copy)- OSBORNE, Francis. Advice to a Son.[Oxford and London : 1658-1662
A superb and unique political artefact: a book owned by Britain's first and longest-serving prime minister, Robert Walpole, and by the first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
The volume is a collection of the writings of Francis Osborne (1593-1659), one of the leading essayists and political observers of the 17th century. Walpole... Learn More -
NANI, Giovanni Battista, as Anania Zen. Il cavallo di razza,Venice : 1658
Rare first edition, illustrating and describing over 100 early horse brands in use in the Veneto, Lombardia, and Romagna regions of northern Italy. This copy, finely bound for Count Pierre de Mornay, was exhibited at the Grolier Club in January 1895.
We have traced only one copy of this edition in auction records in over 60 years, and fewer... Learn More -
MOORE, Jonas. Modern Fortification: or, Elements of Military Architecture. Practised and Designed By the Latest and most Experienced Ingeneers of this last Age, Italian, French, Dutch, and English.London : 1673
First edition, finely bound for presentation and inscribed by the author on the title page to Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex (c.1631-1683). As befitting the presentation, this copy is printed on large, thick paper.
Moore (1627-1679) came to the attention of Charles I as a young man and was appointed mathematics tutor to the Duke of York.... Learn More -
MILTON, John. Poems, &c. upon Several Occasions.London : 1673
Second and expanded edition, finely bound by Roger de Coverley, stamp-signed on the rear doublure. For this edition, Milton revised the poems he first published in 1645 and added four others, including his sonnet on blindness ("When I consider how my light is spent...") and "At a Vacation Exercise", both printed for the first time.
De... Learn More -
FLATMAN, Thomas. Poems and Songs.London : 1674
First edition, in a well-preserved period binding, with the requisite blanks. The author was a qualified lawyer and a well-known artist of miniature portraits. However, verse was "the real centre of Flatman's creativity" (ODNB). Poems and Songs is a collection of pindarics, light verse, translations, and pastoral poems, and went through four... Learn More -
LIGHTFOOT, John. Horae Hebraicae & Talmudicae,London : 1674
Early edition, bound for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and later purchased and marked "collated & perfect" on the pastedown by Thomas Rowlandson.
This scriptural commentary - the fifth part of a series of commentaries published under the same title - begins with an essay on sacred geography summarising the places mentioned in the Gospel of Luke.... Learn More -
WILLUGHBY, Francis. Ornithologiae libri tres.London : 1676
First edition - a tall, wide-margined copy on thick paper - of this important illustrated work on ornithology, "the first systematic attempt to comprehensively itemise the British avifauna" (Callahan, p.28), from the library of the Earls of Macclesfield.
The two authors, Francis Willughby (1635-1672) and John Ray (1627-1705), met at... Learn More -
FLETCHER, Thomas. Poems On several Occasions, and Translations:London : 1692
First edition, a most attractive copy with a distinguished provenance.
"The first book of the Aeneid is translated in heroic couplets, part of the second and also part of the fourth in blank verse. The volume also contains a translation of the second epode of Horace, and of part of the first book of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiæ,... Learn More -
SWIFT, Jonathan, and others. An Excellent New Ballad: or, the True E---sh Dean to be Hang'd for a R-----pe.Dublin & London : 1695-1730
A substantial pamphlet volume of rare political, legal, and ecclesiastical tracts, a coherent archive of Irish High-Church and Tory pamphleteering from the decades in which Swift was politically active, including several items relating to controversies in which Swift was directly or indirectly engaged. The latest piece included is the first... Learn More -
ELIZABETH AND ESSEX. The Secret History of the Most Renown'd Q. Elizabeth, and E. of Essex. By a Person of Quality.Cologne [i.e. London] : [c.1700?]
Early edition of this scandal-mongering tale, in which the author spins a clandestine amour between Elizabeth and Essex for titillating effect. This copy, complete with the erotic woodcut frontispieces, is in a fine binding by Roger de Coverly, the mentor of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.
The work was first published in French in 1678 as Le comte... Learn More -
CONGREVE, William. The Works.London : 1710
First collected edition of Congreve's works, printed on fine paper. The first editions of the author's texts were often produced quickly and cheaply, to meet public demand. When he came to issue the collected edition, Congreve worked closely with his publisher to ensure that the works were edited and presented to his exacting... Learn More -
L'ISLE, Guillaume de. L'Asie divisée en ses Principales Regions, et ou se peuvent voir l'estendue des Empires Monarchies, Royaumes, et Estats qui partagent presentement L'Asie.Amsterdam : [c.1700-30]
A map of Asia and the Middle East based on the Sanson-Jaillot map published in Atlas nouveau, contenant toutes les parties du monde (first released in 1681). The map extends from Russia and Mongolia in the north to New Holland (Australia) in the south, from the Mariana Islands in the east to the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea in the... Learn More -
TAYLOR, Thomas. The Gentlemans Pocket Companion for Travelling into Foreign parts.London : 1722-23
First edition of this pocket guide for English tourists in Britain and on the European continent, the first part illustrated with charming maps and entirely engraved, the second with a useful phrasebook in English, Italian, German, Spanish, French, and Dutch.
The textual sections provide information on the distance between London and major... Learn More -
DALACOURT, otherwise DE-LA-COUR, James. A Prospect of Poetry:Dublin : 1734
First edition, a finely bound dedication copy, inscribed by the Earl of Orrery on the front flyleaf: "sent to Me by the Author from Corke. 1734". De-La-Cour wrote A Prospect of Poetry while studying for his MA at Trinity College, Dublin. It became his best-known work and the only one reissued during his lifetime.
James De-La-Cour (1709–c.... Learn More -
ALBIN, Eleazar. A Natural History of Spiders, and Other Curious Insects.London : 1736
First edition, illustrated with finely engraved and hand-coloured illustrations showing almost two hundred species.
Active between 1690 and 1742, "Albin was the first of the great entomological book illustrators of the eighteenth century, the author of the sumptuous Natural History of English Insects, first published in 1720, and also of... Learn More -
MOTTLEY, John. Joe Miller's Jests: or the Wits Vade-mecum.London : 1739
First edition of this popular joke book. So many editions were subsequently published that the term "Joe Miller" entered the language to refer to a stale joke.
Joe Miller (1683/4-1738) was a comic actor, known for his reputation as a comedian off-stage. The "jests" included, however, were mainly drawn from earlier sources "and had little to... Learn More -
CASTRO, Jacob de. Grammatica Lusitano-Anglica, ou Portugueza, e Ingleza.[Lisbon : after 1751]
Scarce first edition in Portuguese of this pocket English grammar book for Portuguese students, in a contemporary Portuguese binding.
Jacob de Castro Sarmento (1690-1762) was a Portuguese converso who, after a degree in medicine, moved to London in 1721, where he spent several decades. He first published his grammar in London in 1731 -... Learn More -
EVELYN, John. Sculptura; or, The History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper:London : 1755
Second edition, the attractive Macclesfield copy. The second edition of the famous diarist's work on copper engraving follows the first of 1662, incorporating Evelyn's corrections and adding a biography and portrait.
The work "represents Evelyn's project (evident as early as his manuscript notes from the 1650s) to fulfil one of Bacon's... Learn More
