Istanbul

New edition from the rare Ottoman presses in 1888. Printed in the calligraphy of Mustafa Nazif Efendi. 77 engravings, including 4 full-page, with numerous half-page ornaments and headpieces.

Contemporary Ottoman binding (buffalo or gazelle) in full leather with reddish-brown flap. Flat spine, renewed in the 20th century. Boards elaborately decorated with large framing panels of scrolls and flowers. Central medallion. Part of the upper board restored. Flap with small losses at headcaps and rubbing. Flap uniformly darkened to brown. Endpapers renewed. Paper in perfect condition.

First edition.

Half blue shagreen, spine with four raised bands decorated with gilt floral tools within blind-ruled compartments, blind fillet borders on indigo percaline boards, boards with marginal soiling at foot, brown paper endleaves and pastedowns, modern bookplate affixed to a pastedown, contemporary binding.

Some scattered foxing, a black ink stain on the edge not affecting the text.

Rare first edition, privately printed in small numbers, of this offprint from the Recueil des notices et mémoires de la Société archéologique de Constantine, vol. XXIV.

Only two copies recorded in the French collective catalogue (BnF and Lyon).

Vertical crease visible throughout the booklet.

Preserved in its original grey paper wrappers, without lettering, with the title and author's name handwritten in pencil.

A member of the Congregation of the White Fathers, particularly active in North Africa, Alfred-Louis Delattre (1850–1932) was first sent as a missionary to Algeria, later becoming chaplain of the Saint-Louis Church in Carthage, and eventually...

First edition, at one time attributed to Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, on the loves of a shepherd of illustrious lineage: Mirtil, son of Venus and Adonis. Complete copy with its engraved title page by Louis Legrand and its six plates drawn by Hubert François Gravelot and engraved by Louis Legrand.

Half marbled calf binding, spine with five raised bands decorated with dotted gilt fillets, five compartments richly gilt with fillets and fleurons, pebble-pattern marbled paper boards, red edges, pastedowns and...

A rare run of approximately 250 issues of the Levant Times and Shipping Gazette, the bilingual maritime newspaper published in Constantinople, covering almost a complete year from 1 July 1869 to 3 June 1870. At the centre of this period stands the opening of the Suez Canal on 17 November 1869, an event that transformed the geography of trade between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The present collection records the anticipation, announcement and immediate aftermath of that moment from one of the principal ports of the Ottoman Empire.

Two large folio volumes (31 × 48 cm), bound Bradel-style in half black cloth over beige boards, smooth...

Complete Ottoman Qur'an, lithographed in Istanbul in 1889 after the calligraphic composition of Mustafa Nazif Kadırgalı Efendi, then individually finished by hand with red rubrication, gilding and illumination.

The volume comprises 612 pages printed in black on fine paper with a parchment-like surface. The Arabic text, written in an elegant naskh hand in fifteen lines to the page, is enclosed within black rules heightened in bright and matt gold, the text panels measuring 8.1 x 13.2 cm. The verses are divided by small gilt and polychrome rosettes, while larger illuminated medallions appear in the margins of selected leaves. Chapter...