Firsts
Browse our showcase of rare books and treasures, including a letter written and signed by Adam Smith, a luxury portfolio of paintings and photographs by James McNeill Whistler, and a bright copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
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VERGILIUS MARO, Publius (Virgil). The.xiii. bukes of Eneados of the famose poete Virgill translatet out of Latyne verses into Scottish metir,London : 1553
First edition of the first complete translation of the entire Aeneid into any form of English, rendered in Middle Scots, which at the period functioned as a fully developed literary language closely related to (and intelligible to readers of) contemporary English. Gavin Douglas (c. 1474-1522), Bishop of Dunkeld and a leading figure of the Scottish... Learn More -
HORATIUS FLACCUS, Quintus (Horace); DRANT, Thomas (trans.). A Medicinable Morall, that is, the two Bookes of Horace his Satyres,London : 1566
First edition of the first translation of Horace published in English, and the first and only edition of Drant's translation of the Book of Lamentations. According to Drant's address to the reader, both authors teach how to avoid sin, but while Horace laughs at it, Jeremiah weeps at it.
Drant (c.1540-1578) is a somewhat overlooked figure,... Learn More -
MUN, Thomas. A Discourse of Trade, From England unto the East-Indies:London : 1621
Rare first edition of Mun's first publication, the first systematic presentation of his ideas about trade within a defence of the East India Company's monetary policies which included the exportation of money under certain trade conditions. Written in response to the specific charge that the Company's trade with India had caused the economic... Learn More -
BILLS OF MORTALITY. London's Dreadful Visitation:London : 1665
First edition of this complete annual sequence of the London bills of mortality for 20 December 1664 to 19 December 1665, issued at the height of the Great Plague. First instituted in 1592 and placed under the control of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks in 1611, the bills formed the essential statistical substrate for John Graunt's Natural... Learn More -
HOBBES, Thomas - CLARENDON, Edward Hyde, Earl of. A Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and pernicious Errors to Church and State, in Mr. Hobbes's Book, Entitled Leviathan.Oxford : 1676
First edition, large and thick paper copy, handsomely bound in contemporary English black morocco, and with the near-contemporary bookplate to the front pastedown of John Evans as Bishop of Bangor. Clarendon's fiercely critical Survey is the most significant and sustained early response to Hobbes's Leviathan.
Clarendon (1609-1674) was chief... Learn More -
SKELTON, Sir Bevil. A catalogue of the Dukes, Marqueses, & Earles, with their Armes, Wives and Ishue since the Conquest untill this present year 1678.[England or Vienna] : 1678
An imposing heraldic manuscript, one of four known works commissioned or very likely executed by Sir Bevil Skelton (1641-1696), the English diplomat, fervent loyalist, and envoy for Charles II and James II. Beautifully illuminated, the work is noteworthy for the comments, in the biographical sections, of the political behaviour of the subjects,... Learn More -
SHAKESPEARE, William. Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.London : 1685
The Fourth Folio, the last and the most grandly produced of the 17th-century editions of Shakespeare's works. The Fourth Folio contains the seven additional plays, of which Pericles is authentic. This copy includes three 18th-century ownership markings, the earliest being that of "Ann Wallis, her book. 1752".
The text was set from a copy of... Learn More -
IAKOVLEV, Ioann, & Pëtr Aleksandrov. Genealogy of the Romanov tsars from Adam and Eve.[Russia : 1752-70]
A rare, decorated genealogy of the Romanov tsars to Empress Elizabeth Petrovich, daughter of Peter the Great. Manuscript genealogies of the Russian tsars are rare on the market and uncommon institutionally, with the National Library of Russia catalogue listing less than ten exemplars, all from the 18th and 19th centuries, and Cleminson's catalogue... Learn More -
SMITH, Adam. Autograph letter signed, to the Earl of Shelburne on the sickness of his son.Glasgow : 1760
One of very few remaining Adam Smith autograph letters in private hands, written to the Earl of Shelburne to detail the sickness of his son Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice, Smith's student and lodger. Mossner & Ross's census counts 232 letters written by Smith, 53 of which could not be traced (p. vii). Virtually all are in public... Learn More -
SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.London : 1776
First edition of this fundamental work of political economy, from the library of the Earls of Dundee at Birkhill Castle in Fife, a family which included a close friend and confidant of Smith.
The title pages have the ownership signature of Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn (1755-1841), made prior to his elevation as 7th de jure Earl of Dundee in... Learn More -
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. Complete set of the Journals of Congress.Philadelphia : 1777-88
First editions, a complete set of the Journals of Congress, the principal printed record of the Revolutionary and Confederation eras, and a foundational document of the American Republic.
Covering the full span of the Continental Congress from 1774 to its final session in 1788, the Journals chart the nation's course from resistance to... Learn More -
WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Men,London : 1790
First edition of the precursor to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which Wollstonecraft disputes the conservative assumptions made in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). It is bound with the third edition of Burke's tract - published in the same year - along with Joseph Priestley's... Learn More -
GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust. Ein Fragment.Leipzig : 1790
First edition of the Faustfragment, the preferred Einzeldrucke issue. Goethe's first commercially available version of Faust was published in April 1790 in a print run of 4,000. Of these, 3,000 were issued as Volume 7 of the complete edition of his works, the Schriften, and 1,000 were issued as Einzeldrucke.
The subject of Faust... Learn More -
LIBERTINE WOMEN. Clémentine, ou La Jeune Lesbienne, histoire galante et philosophique.À Lampsaque [Paris] : An VII [1796]
A clandestine Revolution-era publication. Clémentine uses a pseudo-classical lens to portray a woman enlivened by intellectual and sexual emancipation. It is notable for the term "lesbian"; although the term does not here refer to homosexuality, the author uses it to imply female sexual nonconformity, anticipating its future use. We have located... Learn More -
SMITH, Adam. The Penny of Scotland.Scotland : 1797
A very good example of the one ounce Penny of Scotland commemorating Adam Smith. The portrait of Smith is after the Tassie medallion of 1787, which is described by John M. Gray as follows: 'The head, which appears turned in pure profile to the right of the spectator, shows a particularly full forehead, a full nose, slightly aquiline in its curve;... Learn More -
NELSON, Horatio, Viscount Nelson (his copy). Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society, instituted in Bengal,London : 1799
A reputed survivor from Nelson's cabin on the Victory at Trafalgar. This set passed to Nelson's sister, Kitty, who married George Matcham at Nelson's birthplace, Burnham Thorpe, in 1787. Matcham was the East India Company's resident at Bharuch, Gujarat.
A pencil note by Matcham on the front pastedown of Volume I elucidates the book's... Learn More -
WORDSWORTH, William, & Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads, with other poems.London : 1800
First complete edition, comprising the first edition of the second volume and the second edition of the first. This finely bound copy is from the library of William Alfred Foyle (1885-1963), the founder of Foyles bookshop, and has his Beeleigh Abbey bookplate (sold in his sale, Christie's, 13 July 2000, lot 758).
Wordsworth here prints for... Learn More -
WORDSWORTH, William. Poems.London : 1807
First edition, first issue, one of 500 copies. This attractively bound set is from the library of Bloomsbury Group member Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) and includes his bookplate designed by Dora Carrington. This set has the first state full stop after "Sonnets" in Volume I, page 103, and "function" spelled incorrectly in Volume II, page... Learn More -
GEORGE III. The Reign of George III from his Accession to the Throne October 25th 1760 to the Present Period.London : 1812
This visually arresting and minutely detailed chronology presents two concentric spirals radiating from a central portrait of George III, offering a spectacular timeline of a half-century of conflict embellished with portraits of the king, Pitt, Fox, Nelson, and Wellington.
The inner delineates the "various administrations formed during his... Learn More -
TECHNOLOGY. Album of lithographic elliptograph prints, with two related technical guides.1820s-30s
An album of mechanically produced elliptical designs in an unusual embroidered binding. It is accompanied by two 19th-century works explaining models of automated drawing machines: John Holt Ibbetson's "Geometric Chuck" and Ernest Karl Fruhwirth's "Elliptograph". Together, they exemplify early techniques in automated and machine-drawn art, a field... Learn More
