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* Early and uncommon American insurance item, with a nice woodcut title-page vignette of a tree. The company was originally founded in 1784 and incorporated in 1786; it produced its first deed of settlement in 1801, the text of which is here amended to conform with changes made to the original act of incorporation.
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* Evans 32952, 34688, & 36479; ESTC W11750; Sabin 15502, 15503, & 15504. Contemporary treed calf, rebacked with calf, spine with gilt-stamped bands and gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; leather of boards (but not spine) crackled, chipped/chipping, and discolored from a fire, with rear board most affected and with one corner lost (3/4" up and across from the point, this showing in our extra photograph). Front pastedown with old institutional bookplate; title-page with early inked...
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* ESTC (electronic, accessed April 2000) T175355. Modern wrappers. Soiling to paper tops, title-page, pp. 30 31, and back page; circular stains from p. 55 to end, and stains at upper corners from title-page to about p. 42. First few leaves chipped, and with short tears at edges and bottom outer corners; fore-edges of first two leaves embrittled. Minor repairs to title-page; abrasions near bottom corner contributing to loss of a bit of printing. Faint pencilling and rubber-stamp on title-page...
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* Curiously enough, the dedicatee of this work, Caspar Plautius, is certainly also its author, writing under the pseudonym of Honorius Philoponus. Plautius was abbot of Seitenstetten in Lower Austria, and no doubt wrote as a compliment to a fellow Benedictine: Bernard Buil or Boyl of Montserrat, appointed by the pope vicar general of the Indies, who, with others of the order, accompanied Columbus on his second voyage as missionaries. In the style of a medieval legendary, Nova typis transacta...
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* An nice compilation for personal use of wordplay exercises that were popular at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. There are 97 numbered conundrums and an additional 23 unnumbered brain exercises. Includes such classics and timeless chestnuts as "When is a door not a door?" and "Why is a mad man like two men?" Other less common puzzlers are: "Why is a man in a crimson coat the fittest person for the president of a library society?", "What is it...
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* Burke (ca. 1710–76) was a Dominican who after 1759 served as Bishop of Ossory. Throughout his life he was an important intermediary link between the Catholic Church of Ireland and the Vatican. His chief published work is this history of the Dominican Order in Ireland, which exists in four states: with or without episcopal rank of the author spelled out as opposed to abbreviated with ellipses on the title-page; imprint reading Cologne or Kilkenny. The British Isles origin of the “Cologne” printing...
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* William Forsyth (1737–1804) was superintendent of the royal garden of St. James and Kensington, where he was so successful in his work on trees that Parliament voted him thanks and a monetary reward. His Treatise was first published in 1802 in both Britain and America and saw a number of editions. In it he discusses a wide variety of fruit trees, how to care for them, and the various uses to which they may be put; the 13 plates illustrate the various trees under discussion. Its American publication...
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* A Democratic-Republican party handbill, signed in type by seven members of the “Committee of Correspondence,” of the faction supporting Gov. Morgan Lewis of New York, the so-called “Lewisites” or “Quids,” against the faction led by DeWitt Clinton. It concerns a controversy over the Council of Appointment in New York state, and warns of “apostates and federalists” meeting in secret, publishing an “impudent Address,” and causing disunion within the party. It ends with an exhortation to defeat the...
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Schultz goes on to tell Grinnell that he is currently writing a story “whenever a lessening of neuritis pain permits.” There are two paragraphs about Eli Guardipee, a Métis, who has been with him for a month helping him with the Blackfeet language. He writes, “I gave him a very pleasant time of it, good room and meals, plenty of good beer, and sent him to a motion picture show nearly every evening. . . . He knows the Blackfeet language better than any mixed blood or white man I ever knew, and loves...
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This is a rare book with only nine U.S. libraries reporting ownership: Several of those copies are lacking either one, two, or three of the plates, and it is certain that the book was issued unbound, as a gathering of 31 individual leaves, thus accounting for copies with less than the “requisite” engraved title and 30 plates. This copy in fact confirms that the plates spent part of their lives unbound, as two of them are touched by small instances of worming that have not touched their next neighbors...
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* The Revolution Society was a left-wing political club created for the express purpose of celebrating the centennial of the Glorious Revolution. In 1788, the celebration of the centenary was a truly nationwide and politically charged affair. This is evident in the account of the meeting of 4 November 1788, which is included here with the Abstract , a copy of the Bill of Rights, and copies and translations of letters from the National Assembly of France. The meeting, at London Tavern, was attended...
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* Third of a series of annual “Notes on the Royal Academy” (1855–9), this issue contains brief descriptions and critiques of numerous paintings. The series was extremely popular with the public but provoked hostility from some artists. DNB says that “Ruskin hoped that certain criticisms passed by him on a friend's picture would ‘make no difference in their friendship.’ ‘Dear Ruskin,’ replied the artist, ‘next time I meet you, I shall knock you down; but I hope it will make no difference in our friendship...
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* Improvements in farming founded on a scientific basis made British agriculture one of the strongest in Europe in the 18th century. Though called to the bar, Jethro Tull (1674–1741) never practiced law, but devoted himself to farming on land that had belonged to his father. From the beginning he set about trying to discover ways of doing things better, including inventing a number of implements, as this work reveals both in text and in image. His work proved very successful—Tull’s “seed drills...
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The text of the grant of arms is elegantly indited in a standard court semi-round gothic in sepia ink and is enclosed on the left, right, and top sides by an illuminated and historiated sash-like border. In the upper left and right corners are miniatures of Justice and Knowledge in sylvan settings. Running between those two along the top of the document is a decorative panel incorporating flowers, fruits, mythic animals, and cherubs. Below this, the king's name is...
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* ESTC T12986; Goldsmiths-Kress 12495. Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, edges of boards tooled in gilt. Joints cracked and weakly holding. Covers darkened along top and outer edges; leather lost on corners. Light foxing to a few early and later leaves, including title-pages; offsetting from leather affecting only first three and final three leaves, at edges. Each volume pressure-stamped on the title-page and one other page. Title-page rectos marked...
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* First edition : Sweet, domestic tale of a family removed to a small town in Maine, coping without their father but blessed with the guidance of a loving, dedicated mother. The novel is illustrated with 10 color-printed plates from drawings by Alice Barber Stephens. In 1938 it was made into a film of the same name, staring Anne Shirley, Ruby Keeler, James Ellison, and Walter Brennan. It was later filmed by Disney, under the title “Summer Magic” with Hayley Mills.
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* First edition. This account of a mission to Polynesia and Tahiti (funded by the London Missionary Society) supplies, it must be said, much more by way of the missionary travellers' interested observations of lands and people's exotic to them than it does reports of the proselytizations they pursued; it was compiled by chief mate William Wilson from his own journals and those of Captain James Wilson. Dr. Thomas Haweis, co-founder of the London Missionary Society, edited the work and the Rev. Samuel...
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* ESTC S106924; STC (2nd ed.), 1169; Gibson, Bacon , 171. On Bacon, see: Dictionary of National Biography . 18th-century calf framed in gilt single fillet, spine with recent gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, board edges with gilt roll; a little rubbed and covers with portions darkened. All edges stained yellow. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Some pages gently age-toned, with occasional minor spotting. Small hole to added engraved title-page just beneath publication information...
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"Porta's system . . . leads him constantly to conclusions of analogies between plants, animals and men. Similar humours are found in various apparently unrelated organisms. Plants and animals that correspond in shape are interrelated. A leaf formed like a stag horn shares the character of the deer. The horse is a noble animal, therefore it is a sign of nobility to walk erect with the head held high. Men who resemble a donkey are like that animal: timid, stupid, ...
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* Darlow & Moule 4725; Dibdin, I, 143–46; ESTC T94899. On Mill, see: Oxford DNB online. Period-style black calf framed and panelled in gilt rolls, frame embellished with blind-tooled roll, panel with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with original gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Board edges and turn-ins tooled in blind; binding signed in blind on lower rear turn-in by Grace Bindings. Lower edges of closed book institutionally...
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* ESTC T5785; Goldsmiths'-Kress 15080; Sabin 58244; Stephans, Paine Collection of Richard Gimbel , 1. Recent quarter calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations between gilt-ruled raised bands. Title-page and a few others with oval,19th-century institutional rubber-stamp; lower (closed) page edges rubber-stamped sometime later. Variable, mild to moderate foxing and other spotting, especially “in from edges”; occasional...
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* Renouard 48:10 and 308:22; Baudrier, VII, 20; Adams S137; Shaw 44; Aldine Press. Catalogue of the Aldine Collection, UCLA , 1115. Full dark walnut modern calf old style: Spine with raised bands accented with gilt and blind rules, the blind ones extending onto covers to terminate in trefoils; burgundy leather author label and gilt date; gilt tools to spine compartments. Blind double fillets framing covers. Heavy browning to the first two and a half signatures and again in the last gathering...
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* Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) della Porta (1535?–1615) was a natural philosopher and physician who made significant scientific contributions—he was first, for example, to recognize that light rays have a heating effect. However, his approach employed many principles now known to be invalid and in his pursuit of the ancient pseudo-science of physiognomy he tried to determine a man’s character from his outward resemblance to animals. "Porta's system . . . leads him constantly...
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* Not many of the leaves in this autograph book (manufactured for and published by the New York firm of J.C. Riker, ca. 1850) have been inscribed, but those that have are appealing in content: A possibly original poem labelled “To My Augusta” praises her “mild but bright blue eye,” while another poem exhorts the recipient to “Hope! . . . Smile! . . . Remember Your Friend.” Some of the datelines give Mount Pocono, Bethlehem, and Easton (all in Pennsylvania) as locations, while “Phil.” presumably...
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* First English edition of the memoirs of France's notorious chief police officer during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Era. As Minister of Police under the Directory, Joseph Fouché (1759 or 1763–1820) was instrumental in reorganizing and centralizing the police system in France and was kept on by Napoleon until he fell out of favor in 1802. However, his network of intelligence gathering proved invaluable to Napoleon, who reinstated him in 1804 (until 1810) and again during the Hundred Days...
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