Happy Holidays
This catalogue brings together a wide-ranging selection of rare books and thoughtful gifts for the festive season. From literary first editions and works of American history to science, art, and beautifully bound classics, the selection offers something for everyone. Browse the catalogue below and find something special to give this holiday season.
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FINLEY, Anthony. A New American Atlas, Designed Principally to Illustrate the Geography of the United States of North America;Philadelphia : 1826
First folio edition of one of the most handsome and important American atlases of the early 19th century. The maps range from continental maps of the Americas to detailed regional maps of the expanding United States, including the western states and territories at an early stage of development.
Finley was active as a Philadelphia map... Learn More -
GRIMKÉ, Angelina (contrib.); WEBB, Samuel (ed.). History of Pennsylvania Hall, Which Was Destroyed by a Mob, On the 17th of May, 1838.Philadelphia : 1838
First edition. The book prints in full Grimké's speech delivered on the evening before the attack, together with commentaries by leading abolitionists. Hostility to women and fears of miscegenation meant that the speech provoked violent protests. This copy belonged to William L. Rakestraw, a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.
Built... Learn More -
DANA, Charles A. The United States Illustrated:New York : [1855]
First edition of this splendid pictorial record of the antebellum United States, showcasing its landscapes, cities, and public buildings in the years before the Civil War. Learn More -
RUSSELL, William Howard. A Memorial of the Marriage of HRH Albert Edward Prince of Wales and HRH Alexandra Princess of Denmark.London : [1863]
First edition of this lavish commemorative volume celebrating the marriage of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The wedding was Britain's first major public celebration following the death of Prince Albert in 1861 and was marked by great fanfare. Russell's text records the ceremony and accompanying... Learn More -
TWAIN, Mark. The Prince and the Pauper.Boston : 1882
First American edition, second state. This was Clemens's first historical novel, set in 1547 and inspired by Charlotte Yonge's Little Duke (1854), which Clemens found in his sister-in-law's library at Quarry Farm.
The London and Montreal editions of this work "were issued some days prior to the Boston edition." The text in this state is... Learn More -
TWAIN, Mark. Life on the Mississippi.Boston : 1883
First American edition, first state, of Twain's autobiographical account of his years as a young Mississippi steamboat pilot and his return to the river more than two decades later.
"Almost all of Mark Twain's readers have accepted Life on the Mississippi for what it is, a book to be ranked with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as one of the... Learn More -
FLAUBERT, Gustave. Madame Bovary.London : 1886
First edition in English to be printed in Britain. Madame Bovary was first translated into English by Mary Neal Sherwood under the pseudonym John Stirling in 1881, but her edition was immediately criticized as a sanitized version for an American readership. Marx's translation is widely considered more faithful to Flaubert's original French and is... Learn More -
VERNE, Jules. North Against South, A Tale of the American Civil War. With Numerous Illustrations.London : 1888
First British and first fully illustrated edition in English. Otherwise known as Texar's Revenge, the novel was serialized as "Nord contre Sud" in Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation in 1887. Its critical reception was weak in the United States due to the many historical inaccuracies that plagued the text, causing it to fade into relative... Learn More -
WILDE, Oscar. An Ideal Husband.London : 1899
First edition, trade issue, one of 1,000 copies. Wilde's political comedy premiered at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895 and ran until 6 April. His arrest the day before the production closed precipitated his "utter social destruction" (ODNB), and the play was not published in book form until two years after his release from prison.
An Ideal... Learn More -
KEATS, John. Sonnets.[c. 1900]
A consummate example of British provincial fine binding: this elegantly printed selection of Keats's verse was bound by the renowned Staffordshire firm of Bagguley. The bindery employed some of the generation's best finishers; the quality of their work is clear here from the filigree-like medallions, carefully built up with many different... Learn More -
AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility.London : 1908
First deluxe Brock edition, a lovely, bright copy in the publisher's vellum. Charles Brock and his brother Henry were the first to illustrate Austen's world with colour plates, producing an edition together in 1898. Almost a decade later, Dent commissioned Charles alone to produce fresh illustrations for their "Series of English Idylls", which... Learn More -
FORSTER, E. M. A Room with a View.London : 1908
First edition of the author's classic novel of contemplation and conflicted love.
Forster started planning A Room with a View while at university in 1902, but it was several years before he finished it. The dedicatee was Hugh Owen Meredith, one of Forster's friends at university and an early object of his affections.
The book was... Learn More -
POTTER, Beatrix. The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes.London : 1911
First edition, deluxe issue, in green cloth. There were two impressions of the first edition, both with the year 1911 on the title page. The first impression was published in October and the second in November. These impressions "are believed to be indistinguishable" (Linder).
"It is believed that The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes was written... Learn More -
WILSON, Woodrow. The New Freedom:New York : 1913
First edition, first printing, signed and inscribed by the author with a lengthy quotation on the American constitution, to C. E. Stowe in New York, 27 February 1913, just days before Wilson's inauguration on 4 March.
The quotation, taken from Wilson's History of the American People, summarizes his interpretation of the constitution as a... Learn More -
BURROUGHS, Edgar Rice. Tarzan of The Apes.Chicago : 1914
First edition in book form, first issue, of the first Tarzan story, introducing a global icon of literature and popular culture. "In Shanghai, Bombay, and Egypt, Tarzan broke the record of all the movies released by RKO in its history". It was estimated in 1963 that "one out of every thirty paperbacks sold [in America] was a Tarzan novel" (see... Learn More -
RILKE, Rainer Maria. Die Sonette an Orpheus.Leipzig : 1923
First edition, deluxe issue, number 129 of 300 copies on handmade paper by W. Drugulin, deluxe copy in the full calf binding by H. Sperling. Copies are known in both green and blue calf. The sonnets were composed alongside the completion of Duino Elegies during the "savage creative storm" of February 1922, when Rilke produced the two works he... Learn More -
WOOLF, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway.London : 1925
First edition, Hugh Walpole's copy, with his morocco bookplate and ownership signature, dated May 1925, to the front endpapers. The two writers had a long, affectionate friendship, often reading each other's novels and discussing their writing over tea or in letters.
They first met in 1928, when Walpole presented Woolf with the Femina Vie... Learn More -
HARDY, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles.London : 1926
Signed limited edition, one of 325 copies printed on large handmade paper, attractively bound, and signed by the author.
This was the first edition illustrated by the skilled wood engraver Vivien Gribble. It was her swan song and, with its strikingly simple depictions of pastoral life, "perhaps her finest work" (Horne, p. 227). Gribble... Learn More -
WOOLF, Virginia. Orlando. A Biography.New York : 1928
True first edition, number 509 of 800 copies signed by the author, from a limited edition of 861 copies. It precedes by nine days the first trade edition, issued by the Hogarth Press on 11 October. Inspired by Vita Sackville-West, the novel was described by her son Nigel Nicolson as "the longest love letter in history". Learn More -
CUMMINGS, E. E. Christmas Tree.New York : 1928
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the first blank, "From E.E.C. for Aunt Jennie with a Merry Christmas, '28". The book was later acquired by Cummings's friend and French translator, David Jonathan Grossman, and has his shelf label on the glassine.
Grossman (1922-1990) first met Cummings whilst attending Peter... Learn More
