Antique Books

New edition, reproducing that originally published by the same publisher in 1573.
84 letters, text on 36 lines.
Contemporary full vellum binding with overlapping edges. Smooth spine. Lower compartment clumsily restored, as well as an angular lack to the lower corner of the second board. Light worming to the first endpaper and the first three leaves not touching the text. A pale dampstain to the lower margin of half the volume. Manuscript annotation on title page "ExLB MMagdal Rochesse 1713".
Theodore de Bèze alone embodies and personifies Christian humanism; above all a churchman, he was the undisputed leader of Protestantism from 1575 and directed the Church of Geneva for...

New illustrated edition in first printing. The illustration comprises three frontispieces by Cochin, Moreau and Eisen, engraved by Gaucher, Ponce and Née; and 20 headpieces by Eisen, engraved by Helman, De Longueil, Masquelier and Massard. Elegant illustration with careful page layout.
Full blonde tortoiseshell calf bindings. Spines with five raised bands decorated with gilt compartments and fleurons, as well as red and green sheep title and volume labels. Covers framed with triple gilt fillets. Gilt dentelles framing the pastedowns. All edges gilt. Head and foot of first volume with small lacks, those of the other two volumes rubbed. Five corners bumped. Numerous and scattered foxing...

First edition, rare, decorated with a frontispiece portrait by Delinck and illustrated with 6 title headpieces and 6 tailpieces by Sébastien Le Clerc. Printer's device on title page, with the fleur-de-lys of Florence.
Contemporary brown sheep binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label. Head and tail caps and joints restored at head and foot. Corners worn.
The work appeared barely a few days after the Histoire de Ximenez by Marsolier and whose comparison sparked controversy until the 19th century. While Fléchier's work tends to illustrate the Cardinal's saintliness, that of Marsolier, more critical, addresses "libertines, to that party of philosophers who...

The rare first edition, long attributed to Madame de La Fayette, and published the same year as La Princesse de Clèves, then to Courtilz de Sandras and even to Pierre Daniel Huet.
Late nineteenth-century full morocco binding signed Bellevallée glazed old red. Jansenist spine with raised bands. Wide gilt inner border. Date at foot. Very fine copy, perfectly established, with wide margins, and unwashed.
Unlike La Princesse de Clèves, or La Princesse de Montpensier, the Mémoires de Hollande is not a historical novella, but presents itself as a novel of manners that uses modern first names. The work describes, through the love affair between a Jewish woman and a Lusignan, life in the...

Fifth edition statement for the first volume, and second edition for the second. The first volume was first published in 1727, with a sequel added in 1738. It is illustrated with a frontispiece by Scottin (placed at the head of the second volume and dated 1738), two title vignettes, 51 headpieces by Kent and Wooton in the first volume and 16 large figures by Gravelot for volume II.
Later full calf binding. Spine ca. 1800, decorated with cold-stamped fillets and roulettes. The flamed calf boards have been added. Rubbing. One corner trimmed. One corner restored. 2 small lacks to headcaps.

First impression by this publisher. Volume II is in two parts and has two title pages, the first completing the Acts of the Apostles begun in the first volume.
Contemporary full brown morocco binding. Decorated Jansenist spine with raised bands (blind fillets). Red morocco title and volume labels (with rolls and fillets). Double fillet on leading edges. Interior roll. Beautiful and rare gilt dominotier paper (scattered stars and dots). Edges gilt. Slight lack at head of volume I. Lacks at foot of volume I. One corner bumped. Lacks at head of volume II; slight lack at foot; 3 corners bumped. Despite the noted defects, a handsome and well-preserved copy in contemporary morocco.
This...

The first edition appeared in 1763 at the same address under the title: L'arretin, ou la débauche de l'esprit en fait de bon sens.
Contemporary full citron morocco binding. Smooth spine decorated. Green morocco title-label. Triple fillet frame on covers. Edges gilt. Handsome copy. Upper joint lightly rubbed.
L'arretin consists of 25 essays and tales on subjects as diverse as Les nègres, L'agriculture, La chasteté ou le célibat, Histoire de maître Pierre, etc. These are all violent critiques, sometimes direct, sometimes satirical or allegorical, of Biblical teaching, the church, and its history. Abbé Du Laurens (1719-1793) was a polemical and anti-religious writer whose...

First editions of these 5 texts concerning Jansenism and Parliament. The collection forms a rare ensemble.
Contemporary full blonde calf binding. Decorated raised spine. Red morocco title label. Corners slightly bumped. Good copy.
To understand the significance of these editions, it is necessary to go back a little in history: The papal bull Unigenitus (1713) takes up and perfects the various bulls against "Jansenist heresy" by particularly condemning the theses of Quesnel and Arnauld, it would give rise to a religious dispute in France that would gradually worsen into a major political crisis over confession tickets and refusal of sacraments to those who opposed the bull. Not only...

New edition, after the original of 1623. This edition is illustrated with 2 charming frontispieces and 11 unsigned figures. Each of the figures has an upper and lower part, as if they were two vignettes. All illustrations have beautiful contrast and have been perfectly printed. This edition of the Hackes is part of the Elsevier collection. "The most beautiful and most sought-after edition". Brunet III, 1931.
Full fawn morocco binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with date at foot. Blind-ruled frieze border on boards and double fillet border. Decorative gilt board-edges. Edges gilt. Handsome copy, in excellent interior and exterior condition. Unsigned master binding.
The...

Elzevier edition of these tragedies by Seneca with the highly esteemed notes by the English grammarian Thomas Farnaby (or Farnabie). The first edition with Farnaby's notes is that of London, 1613. Brunet V, 286. Illustrated with an engraved title-frontispiece.

Contemporary full navy blue morocco binding, raised spine decorated in grotesque style (rolls composed of lozenges within circles), sawtooth fillet border and wave roll border on covers, gilt edges, interior fillet.

Very handsome antique morocco binding.

Second edition, the First edition of 1605 is extremely rare. Illustrated with a frontispiece depicting a hermaphrodite, with the inscription 'Je ne suis ni male ni femelle...' ["I am neither male nor female..."].

Contemporary sheep binding, worn. Decorated spine with raised bands. Lacking the title label. Light dampstaining to margins at end of work.

Considered the first French anti-utopia, this journey of a Frenchman weary of his country's ills to an island inhabited by effeminate characters, made-up and devoted to festivities and pleasures, is a satire of the disorders of Henri III's court, himself represented by king Hermaphroditus, woman king or man queen. The work...

A counterfeit of the first edition published the same year in Holland.
Full sheep binding with raised spine, spine in four compartments decorated with double panels and gilt fleurons, brown calf title-label, date at foot, elegant pastiche binding signed Desnaux. Engraved headpieces, initials and tailpieces.
One manuscript endpaper concerning the work at rear.

ROSA Salvatore
Figurine. Varia et concinna delineamenta
N. n., n. p. n. d. [circa 1656], small in-4 (15,5 x 22 cm), one frontispice et 60 plates, restoration-period binding
62 etchings on thick paper. Very rare.
Salvatore Rosa made these etchings around 1656 in a collection originally entitled Figurine. This collection has a different title in the cartouche on the frontispiece, just as another copy in the Soares dos reis Portuguese National Museum bears the title: Has ludentis oty Carolo Rubeo singularis amititiae pignantes. D. D. D. The copy in the Portuguese museum is cataloged as a posthumous edition from the 18th...