Incunabula, editio princeps and first editions of major works from 15th to 18th century

Charming edition illustrated with a frontispiece, a framed title and 9 half-page illustrations, reproducing vignettes by Fokke after De Sève - with the final illustration for L'Adroite Princesse, newly added. 

Complete with the Épître dédicatoire by P. Darmancour [Charles Perrault] to 'La Grande Mademoiselle', Anne-Marie d'Orléans, cousin of Louis XIV.

Half-sheep binding, smooth spine ruled in gilt, and a diagonally stamped gilt title. Beige paper boards, speckled edges. Small paper defect in the margin of page 75, scattered foxing, a small brown stain affecting the illustration of Cinderella. A name written in ink in the lower margin of page 21.
 
This...

First edition of the prophecies of Isaiah in Antoine-Eugène Genoude's translation, with a dedication to the King, a preliminary discourse on Hebrew poetry and on Isaiah, and notes on the eloquence of Holy Scripture. Copy bound without "La délivrance d'Israël", "Chœur imité de l'Écriture", "À Son Altesse Royale Madame, Duchesse d'Angoulême", the table of contents, and the errata leaf.

Fine binding in full long-grained red morocco, gilt roll-tooled border alternating lotus, palmettes, and fleurs-de-lys on the covers, gilt arms of Charles X at the center of each cover, smooth spine with five compartments, special small gilt tools depicting a bow...

First edition.

Contemporary full tree-grained sheepskin, spine with five raised bands, gilt compartments and fleurons between the bands, blond leather lettering-pieces, gilt fillet to the board edges, shell-paper pastedowns, red edges. Some rubbing and losses, corners lightly bumped, upper corner of the rear board damaged, a manufacturing flaw to the pastedowns, minor foxing and soiling.

The fundamental work of sensualist philosophy, in a strictly contemporary binding.

First edition. A few head-piece vignettes, ornamental bandeaux, decorated initials, and tailpieces.

Contemporary full mottled sheep, spine with five raised bands, gilt panels and fleurons between the bands, gilt-lettered tan leather label, doublures of French curl paper, red edges. Upper corners lightly bumped, a few rubbed patches and small losses, a dampstain to the first leaves, a few minor paper losses to some leaves.

Published several decades before the results of Edward Jenner's research on vaccination, this collection brings together the principal texts on inoculation, the procedure that constitutes its direct forerunner.

First edition, illustrated with twenty plates, including one folding plate. Three vignettes and several ornamental initials.

Full basane binding, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, spine with six raised bands decorated with gilt compartments, fleurons and rolls, green morocco title-piece, gilt fillet on the board edges, gilt inner dentelle, stone paper boards. Binding rubbed and scuffed, with abrasions and losses, upper joint split and lower joint partially split at the foot, old traces of mould staining in the margins of several leaves at the beginning of the volume.

Manuscript inscription "Sansac" on the title page.

A counterfeit edition of Rousseau's celebrated essay, bearing the date of the true first edition.

Illustrated with a title vignette, one initial, and two head-pieces.
Contemporary full brown roan, spine with five raised bands, beige calf lettering-piece, small pomegranate gilt tools and fillets, gilt rolls to the board edges partly rubbed, all edges red. Corners bumped and rubbed, a tear with loss of leather to the front board, surface rubbing and white staining to the back board, loss of leather to the lower edge of the back board.

A pleasing copy of this masterpiece, a superb portrait of humankind that gave Voltaire "the longing to go on all fours" (letter to...

French first edition, translated by Louis Champion de Cicé, of this treatise by Longobardo, bound with Lettre d'Eusèbe romain by Mabillon (Grenoble, Etienne Bon, 1698, 88 pp.); and Lettre à Madame de Lionne by Bernardino della Chiesa (n.p., n.d., 84 pp.)

A rare copy of one of the principal Western sources on Chinese philosophy, written by the Jesuit missionary Longobardo, who succeeded Ricci as superior of the Jesuit China mission. Also with an uncommon Grenoble edition of Mabillon's pamphlet, which opened the debate on the validity of the cult of the catacomb saints. At the end of the volume, in echo of...

First edition, illustrated with 4 plates, one folding, and a large vignette on the dedication leaf.

Contemporary full fawn calf, smooth spine gilt in compartments with gilt floral tools, olive-green shagreen lettering-piece, minor rubbing to the joints, boards framed with triple gilt fillets, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillets to the board edges, all edges gilt.

Contemporary ownership inscription on a free endpaper.

Internally in pleasing condition.

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and a folding plate.

Bradel binding in half red morocco-grained shagreen with small corners, smooth spine richly decorated in the grotesque style, orange paper-covered boards with a few small areas of paper loss and some staining, yellow edges.

A few minor spots of foxing.

After witnessing the plight of enslaved Black people in the West Indies, the Danish botanist Paul Erdmann Isert returned from his travels as a fervent abolitionist. His writings prompted Prince Frederick of Denmark to abolish the triangular trade throughout his dominions in 1803.

First editions of eight plays bound in one volume.

Arioste gouverneur ou Le Triomphe du génie, written by Jean-François Roger in collaboration with Jean-Louis Brousse-Desfaucheret, is accompanied by a musical score.

The last three plays in the collection, signed under the pseudonym MM ***, were the result of Jean-François Roger’s collaboration with Auguste Creuzé de Lesser.

Half fawn basane binding, smooth spine richly gilt-decorated, fawn long-grain morocco spine label, speckled paper boards, marbled edges.

Boards rubbed, some scuffing to the leather, corners bumped, minor soiling to the leaves, a marginal tear with no loss of text on page 43 of the...

First edition, actually printed in Nantes by Malassis despite the Paris imprint on the title-page, as revealed by a manuscript note by Mangourit himself cited by Barbier.

An anonymously published pamphlet, with a typographical vignette on the title-page.

Copy preserved in its original stitched state and therefore without wrappers, with a pencilled manuscript note on the title-page identifying the author.

Our...

A complete set of the astronomical writings of Jean Sylvain Bailly, partly in first edition. This is the main work of the author,  first Mayor of Paris, elected during his lifetime to three French academies, a distinction previously achieved only by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle.

The present set comprises the second edition of the Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, the new edition of the Histoire de l'astronomie moderne, and the first edition of the Traité de l'astronomie indienne et...

First edition of this dictionary compiled by the Reverend Magnus Swederus, who in the first part of his life was a leading figure in the Swedish book trade, with several important works of chemistry among his publications, notably Carl Wilhelm Scheele's Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer and Torbern Olof Bergman's Opuscula physica et chemica, published in 1777 and 1779 respectively. Swederus was also behind a considerable number of periodicals, as well as lending libraries.

Brown...

First edition, first printing, complete with its engraved title page and dedication page, as well as its 59 maps, most of them multicoloured, all mounted on guards. Our copy is bound with the "Catalogue des ouvrages, tant anciens que modernes, du fonds du Sr Desnos, Ingénieur-Géographe pour les Globes & Sphères" for the year 1765.

Contemporary binding in full tree-calf, spine with five raised bands and gilt-tooled compartments decorated with pomegranate fleurons, red morocco lettering-piece, triple blind-ruled...

Rare first edition of a work by the "German Beccaria," unrecorded in French libraries according to WorldCat, composed while the author held the chair of feudal law at the University of Leipzig, a position obtained at the age of thirty, three years prior.

Contemporary full brown sheep, smooth spine gilt with fleurons, light brown morocco lettering-piece, red edges. Bookplate of Count Giacomo Manzoni, former Finance Minister of the Roman Republic, concealing an ownership inscription written in...

First edition of an important work by Charles Sorel, historiographer of France and novelist, in which he surveys with severity and wit the literary production of his time, which he considered overly given to fiction.

 Complete with its eagle headpieces.

Contemporary full mottled brown calf, spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt compartments and gilt title, gilt roll on the board edges, red mottled...

First edition of this ambitious work recounting the history of power in France from Clovis, by a man of letters who two years later would be elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Contemporary bindings in marbled brown calf, spines with five raised bands framed by a gilt roulette, further decorated with compartments of gilt fleurons in the form of pomegranates, light brown morocco title and numbering pieces, gilt fillet on the board edges, red edges, pastedowns and endpapers of shell-pattern...

First edition, decorated with provincial coats of arms, as well as elaborately engraved headpieces, initials and tailpieces. 

Contemporary mottled brown calf, spine richly gilt with fleur-de-lys tools, red morocco title and numbering pieces, gilt roll to the board edges, red mottled edges, marbled endpapers and pastedowns.

Spine headcaps lacking, wear to the hinges, boards slightly warped, gilding rubbed to the board edges, scuffing and scratching to the boards, corners and board edges rubbed. 

Occasional light foxing throughout.

Likely first edition of a theological and juridical work, unrecorded on WorldCat, complete with its woodcut title-page bearing multiple allusions to the Franciscan Order, including the cord and the arms of the Order. The lay members of the Confraternity of the Cord of Saint Francis, to whom the papal indulgences confirmed herein are addressed, were thereby enabled to associate themselves spiritually with the Franciscan Order without taking religious vows. Several preliminary pieces accompany the treatise, attractively embellished throughout with foliate, zoomorphic, and figural headpieces and...

First edition of this work published by the Société du Bout-du-Banc, the celebrated literary salon presided over by Mademoiselle Jeanne-Françoise Quinault and the Comte de Caylus. This intimate circle, originally comprising eight members, would gather on Mondays at dinner to exchange ideas and to write; at the close of each meal, every distinguished guest was required to set down a few lines (whether in the coarse poissard style or in a more refined vein) on paper. It was in this context that Les Fêtes roulantes, ou les regrets des petites rues came into being, in the wake of the celebrations...

First edition of a play regarded as historically significant, performed for the first time nineteen days before the execution of Louis XVI, which set all of Paris and then France ablaze to the point of interrupting the King's trial, by a constitutional monarchist playwright.

Nineteenth-century Bradel binding in half brown percaline, smooth spine decorated with a gilt fleuron, red morocco lettering-piece, pebble-pattern marbled paper boards, edges lightly red-speckled.

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...

First edition of a work by an Illuminist author, also a barrister at the Parlement, known for his licentious and libertine writings, including L'Histoire de Dom Bougre, portier des Chartreux. This work was also at one time attributed to Pierre Lambert de Saumery, who published under the pseudonym "de Mirone."

Midnight blue half morocco with corners, spine with five gilt raised bands decorated with compartments richly gilt with arabesques, fillets and small stars, marbled paper boards framed with gilt...

First French edition, illustrated with 69 statistical tables on 24 folding plates (cf. Sabin 79632. Goldsmith's 22782. Kress C 619.)

Contemporary full sprinkled calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt ornamental tooling, covers framed with gilt rolls and fillets, marbled edges, gilt edge-lines.

Spine expertly restored, particularly at the upper right corner, occasional foxing.

The first French edition of this comprehensive statistical survey of the United States, covering population, commerce, navigation, fisheries, public lands, and the revenues and expenditures of the federal government.

Adam Seybert (1773-1825), a distinguished physician, chemist, and...

Rare collection of pamphlets printed in Toulon or Marseille, notably during the Restoration period, several of which implicate senior military figures of the First Empire.

The first item is: "Ordonnance du Roi, Portant règlement sur les Franchises du Port de Marseille et Suite de l'Ordonnance..." printed in Toulon, by Alx (sic) Curet, (1815), 16 pages, comprising an extract from the Moniteur of 24 February 1815.

Bound in half ivory vellum with corners, smooth spine, manuscript inscription in black ink to spine, blue pasteboards with some surface abrasions, contemporary binding.

Some foxing. A few nicks to the edges.

Bound in continuation:

1)...

First edition of the French translation established by Bergier (cf. Atabey 973. Not in Blackmer.)

Bindings in fawn half sheep, smooth spines decorated with gilt friezes, red shagreen title-pieces and green shagreen volume-numbering pieces, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, bookplates pasted on the pastedowns, 19th-century bindings).

Sir James Porter served as ambassador to Constantinople from 1746 to 1762.

A pleasant copy.

Complete year for 1787, with 50 issues, of this health journal with continuous pagination (pagination error between nos. 48 and 49).

Contemporary half marbled sheep, smooth spine, bronze sheep lettering-piece, rubbing to the spine, domino-patterned paper boards, a few scuffs to the boards, corners worn and small nicks to the edges, red edges, contemporary binding. 

The journal, founded in 1773 by Jean-Jacques Gardane, doctor-regent of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, would run for 17 years, with one volume per year, except for the years 1773-1774.

Jean-Jacques Gardane distinguished himself in the establishment in Paris of treatment houses for the poor and in the...

First edition of this speculative theological inquiry into the date of the end of time, based on scriptural data.

Contemporary full mottled fawn calf, spine in five raised bands richly gilt with fleuroned compartments, red morocco title label, loss to the headcap, joints split at head and foot and restored, some rubbing to the spine, covers framed with a blind fillet, marbled endpapers, gilt edges to the boards with a few nicks, red-speckled edges, corners worn, binding of the period.

A few pencilled markings and marginal annotations to certain passages, library stamp on the title page, a light dampstain to the upper edge of one leaf, not affecting the text. 

The author...

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with a plan of Macao and 51 engraved plates by S. Simon after drawings by William Alexander (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 2387).

In the train of Lord Macartney’s embassy, by Mr Holmes, sergeant-major of his guard; to which have been added the Views, Costumes, etc., of China, by Mr W. Alexander, the plates from the original atlas of the embassy omitted from the French translation, together with their explanations. Translated from the English (…), revised and published with observations on the political and commercial relations of England and France with China, and notes by L. Langlès. 

Nineteenth-century binding in tan...

First edition illustrated at the end of the volume with 2 folding engraved plates by Gobille after drawings by Guillet, depicting an ancient theatre and a plan of Athens with its surroundings (cf. Blackmer 766. Weber 364. Brunet, Table, 22855.)

Contemporary full brown sheep binding, spine with four raised bands decorated with compartments tooled in gilt, now very rubbed, restorations to the spine and covers.

First historiographer of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, to which he was admitted in 1682, Guillet de Saint-George (Thiers, circa 1625 - Paris, 1705) became known through several writings, the principal ones relating to Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with 14 hand-coloured engravings depicting costumes (cf. Colas 961.)

Bindings in blue half morocco, spines slightly faded, with five raised bands and minor rubbing, dates gilt at the foot, illustrated wrappers preserved, marbled paper boards, comb-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled top edges, corners slightly bumped.

Foxing, small paper flaw to the corner of page 37 and misbound leaves in volume 1.

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with 28 hors-texte plates of Chinese ideograms (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 1735-36; Backer & Sommervogel II, 1168 (2)).

The table of plates lists 27; Backer records 29; our copy contains 28, whereas most copies indeed call for 27.

Modern half fawn calf, smooth spine ruled in gilt with double fillets and gilt floral tools, brown speckled paper-covered boards, speckled top edge. The sole edition of a work thoroughly informed on the ideogrammatic origins of Chinese characters, thereby contradicting the thesis advanced by the English orientalist Needham concerning the supposed analogy between Chinese writing and the Egyptian...

First edition, published in Paris by Nepveu in 1812 in six volumes, illustrated with 72 engraved plates by Lambert, most of them reduced from those in Dalvimart’s Costume of Turkey, published in London in 1802. Complete with all plates; without the binder’s directions and the leaf concerning the orthography of Arabic words, both of which are absent from many copies.

Contemporary full mottled tan calf. Smooth spines, slightly faded, decorated with gilt...

First edition (cf. Barbier, IV, 232. Palau, 260438.)

Contemporary full tawny calf binding, spine in five compartments ruled with gilt garlands and richly decorated with gilt tools, gilt rolls to the caps, a small loss at the foot of the spine, red morocco lettering-piece, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillets to the edges, lower corners bumped, speckled edges, binding of the period.

Some light foxing.

First edition.

Minor spotting to the boards.

Our copy is preserved in its original wrappers, under plain white provisional covers.

Then French minister to the Court of Saint Petersburg, Louis-Philippe de Ségur (1753-1830) intervened in the constitutional debate that was stirring the National Assembly concerning the attribution of the right to declare peace and war (to the King? to the Assembly?).

Illustrated first edition, lacking the frontispiece portrait of Hippocrates, but complete with its five plates, fine decorative initials and large tailpieces.

Contemporary full tree calf, smooth spine richly gilt with, among other decorations, a palmette roll, tan morocco lettering piece, gilt roll on board edges. Ink ownership inscription on the front pastedown: "J. E. Petrequin \ lyon, nov. 1856," in the hand of Joseph Pierre Eléonor Pétrequin, chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon, who received the...

First edition by a forgotten Ferrarese polygraph and historian, which nevertheless enjoyed considerable success upon publication and was followed by two subsequent editions in 1577 and 1599. According to Marc Adam Kolakowski, Alessandro Sardi, together with Johannes Boemus, pioneered the use of "antiquarian and ethnographic perspectives" in the study of ancient religions.

Fine historiated initials depicting various Greco-Roman deities.

First edition, complete with the two posthumous volumes issued in 1800 and written by Chaptal, Parmentier, Biot, and others. It is illustrated with 248 plates, several of them folding, a frontispiece in volume 10, and a map of France in volume 1; together with several folding tables. Text printed in double columns.

Contemporary full brown calf. Spines with raised bands, decorated with two grotesque compartments and two urn tools. Black calf lettering and volume labels. Losses to the headcaps of volumes 9 and 10. In volume 1, the outer margin trimmed over approximately 10 cm. In volume 1, the headcap partly worn, and a brown dampstain in the upper margin of the final leaves. Two or...

First edition limited to only 250 copies, which were not offered for sale but given to the author's close circle. This former minister under Louis XV composed these essays in 1736, and his son, the Marquis de Paulmy, had them published nearly fifty years later.

Contemporary half brown calf, grained paper boards, spine with five raised bands decorated with five compartments featuring double gilt fillets, red morocco lettering piece, red speckled edges.

An intriguing first edition, complete with its engraved frontispiece of the author by Giovanni Volpato after Domenico Corvi, and its introductory poem by the Abbé Luigi Godard. A copy unrecorded in non-European libraries according to WorldCat.

Contemporary binding of fawn mottled calf, smooth spine divided into five gilt compartments by gilt rolls, brown morocco lettering-piece, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, double gilt fillet on the board edges, blue speckled edges, and shell-pattern marbled pastedowns and endpapers.

The lower cap lacking, some surface...

First edition.

Our copy is preserved in its original plain pink paper waiting wrappers.

Ink annotations to the front cover, a few short tears; internally a clean and agreeable copy.

As it was never ratified, this concordat never came into effect, and France therefore remained under the regime of the Concordat of 1801 until the Law on the Separation of Church and State in 1905.

Rare first edition, illustrated with an engraved frontispiece (cf. Barbier II 802; Cioranescu 65461).

Contemporary full mottled brown calf, spine with five raised bands tooled with rubbed gilt fillets and decorated with gilt compartments containing floral tools, gilt roll-tooling to the head- and tailcaps, rubbing to the joints, mottled edges; contemporary binding.

The work is attributed to Claude Vanel, who served as counsellor at the Cour des Comptes in Montpellier.

Provenance: from the library of Jacques Charreton, a Lyon jurist contemporary with the publication; his armorial bookplate (Meyer-Noirel C 0949) appears on the pastedown.

Manuscript shelf-mark in...

Rare and important first edition.

Our copy is sold unbound. A minor worm-trail on all leafs' heads, not affecting text. 

The work describes the dress, headdress, arsenal and equipment of soldiers and officers of the French army; it also addresses the cavalry, dragoons, and hussars.

The chapter devoted to the distinctive uniform of each regiment includes a list of these regiments, some of which took part in the American Revolutionary War. 

First edition (see Sabin 97501).

A light dampstain to the right margin of the opening leaves.

Half brown cloth binding, smooth spine with a brown sheep lettering-piece, boards with marbled paper; a modest later binding.

After distinguishing himself—at times infamously—during the wars of the French Revolution, notably in Vendée, Louis-Marie Turreau [1756–1816] later served in Italy and captured the city of Susa.

He held the post of Ambassador to the United States from 1804 to 1811 and was created Baron of the Empire upon his return. His Aperçu of 1815 offers a bitter critique of the federal government. Turreau’s name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe...

Copy in parts, unbound, each one of them a first edition. 

According to the CCFr, the Lunéville media library holds the first text in manuscript copy form. On May 28, 1777, France renewed in Solothurn (Switzerland), for fifty years, its long-standing treaties of alliance with the thirteen cantons. The privileges specified in the second text are chiefly commercial and financial in nature; they derive, to varying degrees, from the Treaty of Perpetual Peace of 1516 (Treaty of Fribourg).

First edition of this in-folio broadside signed "Phelypeaux", printed on one side only and in two columns.

A scarce and pleasing copy despite traces of central folding.

First edition, illustrated with five engraved plates (see Crowley 894; David 258; Poletti 182).

Scattered foxing, otherwise a pleasing copy.

Contemporary half sheep, the flat spine gilt with decorative rolls and small tools, black morocco lettering-piece, headcap worn, some rubbing to spine and joints, marbled paper boards.

"… Serres did research into the development of the bones and teeth…" (D.S.B., XII, 315).

Rare first edition, illustrated with four plates at the end of the volume (cf. Polak 8728).

This practical treatise was reissued repeatedly until the end of the Ancien Régime.

Our copy is offered in its original state, stitched in the temporary blue paper wrappers.

A waterstain in the right margin of the first fifty leaves, with another affecting the lower margins of the subsequent leaves; title page detached.

Gilles-François Segondat (1724–1791), deputy commissioner of the navy, was to conclude his career as an ordinary commissioner of the ports.

Rare illustrated first edition, with 5 copper-engraved plates hors-texte, including 2 folding plates (cf. Barbier II, 302. Schwab, 517. Hage Chahine, 4320. Wilson, 200. Absent from Blackmer and Atabey.)

Our copy lacks the two dedication leaves to Rouillié, often missing, with repairs to the joints and one corner, and a manuscript ex-libris on the title-page.

Contemporary full mottled fawn calf, spine with five raised bands gilt and decorated with gilt compartments and floral tools, tan calf title-label, gilt fillets to the edges partly faded, speckled edges.

Sanson, a zealous apostolic missionary, tireless traveller and accomplished diplomat, arrived in Persia in...

First edition.

Our copy is preserved in its original wrappers beneath a plain cover, the spine split with losses to the paper and the title label also with defects.

Pleasing condition internally, with only occasional foxing.

Among the finest works relating to naval medicine; a substantial section (pp. 90–212) is devoted to scurvy.

The author, a physician in the Dutch navy, composed this work entirely from his own firsthand observations. 

A substantial section (pp. 90–212) is devoted to scurvy.

Each of the disbound parts is in its original edition.

With: "Supplément au Précis justificatif de la société commerciale de la nouvelle Compagnie des Indes. Pour servir de réponse aux inculpations contenues dans le rapport fait à la Convention nationale, le 3 août 1793", printed in Paris by Lottin, also in 1793 (4to, 14 pp.), likewise disbound, printed in two columns, one for the "inculpations" and the other for the "réponses", on bluish paper.

These texts constitute refutations of the allegations levelled against the Compagnie des Indes, founded in France by Colbert in 1664 and whose privilege had been abolished on 3 April 1790.

During the Terror, the...

Second edition, revised and expanded (see Backer & Sommervogel VI, 1557). Only three copies recorded in the CCFr (BnF, Dijon and Nîmes).

Contemporary full mottled calf, spine with five raised bands and richly gilt compartments, modern burgundy morocco lettering-piece, some rubbing to spine and joints, headcaps trimmed, triple gilt fillet frame on boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, speckled edges, bookplate pasted to one pastedown.

The first edition of this small universal calendar appeared in 1711 in the form of a folio broadside. 

Each subsequent issue expanded the content: the 1731 edition was intended to serve as a supplement to the large Calendrier...

Rare first edition (cf. Pritzel 7288).

Only three copies recorded in the CCF (BnF, Amiens and Montpellier).

Bound in a modern bradel binding of full blue paper-covered boards, smooth spine without lettering, printed paper title label pasted at the centre of the upper cover, a small dampstain at the foot of the spine.

The author, an apothecary in Montpellier, later qualified as a doctor of medicine.

First edition, illustrated with two plates, including an engraved portrait frontispiece by S. Desmaretz and Couché after Scheibler, together with an engraved headpiece by De Launay (cf. Quérard, VII, 240; Polak, 7650).

Account of the career of Jean Bart, squadron leader in the French Navy and Knight of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, forming part of the collection devoted to the nineteen engagements of this celebrated seaman, engraved by M. Le Gouaz; followed by historical, biographical and topographical notes on the origins of Dunkirk and the political importance of its port (...). With engraved plates and vignettes. Dedicated to H.E. the Minister of the Navy and the...

First edition of this important first-hand account of the deportation and enforced stay in French Guiana of the counter-revolutionary journalist and songwriter Louis-Ange Pitou (1767–1846), placed under “preventive” arrest after the Directory’s coup d’état of 18 Fructidor, Year V [4 September 1797], sentenced to transportation, and released from exile only after 18 Brumaire (cf. Fierro, 1170. Sabin 63057. Leclerc 3445.)

The work is illustrated with two folding engraved frontispieces: La détention des déportés sur la frégate La Décade and Le désert de Konanama dans la Guyane.

Contemporary bindings in fawn calf, half-bound with small vellum corners, smooth...

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with a folding plate showing surgical instruments (cf. Garrison & Morton 2158.1; V. Rozier 3346).

A copy preserved in the original wrappers, in contemporary orange marbled paper without lettering.

Spine split; a light dampstain to the lower margins of the first few leaves.

Percy stresses the importance of immediate care for the wounded on the battlefield. "One of Napoleon's leading surgeons, Percy laid down his principles of the practice of military surgery in the same year he was appointed médecin consultant of the Army of the North. He divised his own instrument for bullet extraction, the tribulcon. He was...

First edition of the French translation (cf. Gay 3146).

Our copy is preserved in the original wrappers, with yellow and black marbled covers and a title label pasted at the head of the spine.

Occasional light foxing; a numbering in black ink facing the half-title.

First edition of the French translation of this account, originally published under the title: "An Account of the Island of Ceylon" in London in 1803 (cf. Boucher de La Richarderie, V, 135. Brunet, IV, 490 and Quérard, VII, 43 mention an edition published by Dentu, 1804).

Contemporary full mottled calf bindings, smooth spines decorated with gilt compartments and gilt tools, red morocco lettering pieces, green calf volume labels, gilt rolls at the head and tail partly worn, fragile joints, marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, bookplates pasted to the pastedowns, gilt fillets on the board edges, speckled edges.

Bindings rubbed, small losses at the foot of the joints...

First edition of this in-folio printed broadside signed "Phelypeaux", printed on one side only.

Visible fold marks to the broadside.

Different issue from the one dated An XI (1803), which itself is not firmly established as the true first edition (cf. Monglond VI 139–140; Quérard VI 326).

The work is illustrated with an etched frontispiece entitled « Frémissez ! voilà du joueur le sort inévitable !! » depicting a gambler blowing his brains out in a gaming room, amid general indifference.

Our copy is preserved in its original publisher’s wrappers, with a blank marbled paper provisional cover showing small losses at the corners.

A pleasing copy.

First edition of the French translation (cf. Chadenat, 494; Brunet I, 24.)

Contemporary half green sheep, smooth spines faded and decorated with double gilt fillets, marbled paper sides with minor rubbing, marbled endpapers, two small tears at the joints, contemporary bindings.

Light waterstain to the upper right corner of a number of leaves in the second volume.

An Indian traveller, Mirza Abu Taleb Khan was born in 1752 at Lucknow in Hindustan and died in Calcutta in 1806. 

After serving in the army of the Nawab of Oudh, he embarked for Europe on 16 February 1799 with his friend Captain David Richardson.

Following a three-month stay at the Cape, he landed at...

A very rare collection of three anonymous political pamphlets, issued without place or publisher in 1783 and 1784, all in first edition and bound together at the time in one octavo volume:

1. Considérations politiques, par M.***. N.p., 1783, title and 77 pp. Conlon 83:1465.
2. Ces réflexions devoient, avec beaucoup d'autres, faire suite aux Considérations politiques ; mais le tout n'étant pas encore rédigé, les circonstances du moment m'ont déterminé à faire paroître celles-ci sur-le-champ. N.p., n.d. [1783]...

Substantial collection of theses submitted to the Special School of Medicine of Strasbourg between 1803 and 1808, composed in Latin or French and arranged in reverse chronological order.

Contemporary binding in speckled fawn half sheep, smooth spine decorated with triple gilt fillets, black sheep lettering-piece partly rubbed, vellum tips, yellow edges, corners worn; period binding.

I. ORDINAIRE (Désiré): Dissertation sur l'influence de l'habitude sur les facultés physiques et morales de l'homme (2 ll. unnumbered, 33 pp.). The Fourierist Désiré Ordinaire (1773-1847) was professor of natural history, then academy inspector and rector of the Academies of Besançon...

First edition.

Our copy is offered unbound.

The dissertation concerned "Les Loix du choc des corps à ressort"; the R. P. Mazière was a priest of the Oratory, born in Pontoise.

A very rare first edition printed on blue paper (only four copies recorded in the CCFr: Aix-en-Provence (2), Angers and Avignon).

Not recorded in Monglond.

Contemporary flexible boards covered in blue marbled paper, speckled edges.

A few scuffs to the covers, spine restored.

With an additional pierced copper plate indicating units and fractions.

The author, a clerk in the Imperial Navy at Toulon, here sets out, in tabular form, a method enabling the rapid conversion of former units of measurement into the metric system, instituted in 1795 but still little used at the time.

The accompanying copper plate bears the engraved inscription: "Le...

Folio manuscript from the second half of the 18th century, comprising 2 unnumbered leaves and 258 foliated pages, containing extracts and summaries of royal orders and dispatches of the Conseil de Marine from September 1715 to March 1723. The volume therefore covers the entire period of activity of this institution, created at the beginning of the Regency as part of the polysynody and maintained until its disappearance in 1723.

Contemporary restored full tan calf. Smooth spine decorated with gilt compartments and gilt tools, partly faded, lettering-piece lacking, a gilt rampant lion stamped at the centre of...

Very rare first edition.

A single copy is held at the Municipal Archives of Lyon. Absent from the CCFr.

Not recorded in Goldsmith, Kress, Einaudi, or Higgs.

Modern Bradel-style binding in full beige boards, printed title label, signed by Hervé.

Lengthy discussion of the trade in tallow, animal fats used in the manufacture of candles.

The authors argue that butchers are not responsible for the high price of tallow, and that the ordinance of 16 April 1771, which prohibited its export, in fact hampers the trade in this commodity. In conclusion, the butchers request not to be placed at the mercy of the chandlers, whether in terms of price or outlets.

Corner...

Rare first edition.

Our copy is offered unbound, preserved in comb-marbled paper wrappers, red edges.

The sole and scarce edition of this treatise written by a surgeon-major of the Santerre and Touraine regiments.

First edition of Jacques Le Meilleur’s medical thesis.

Our copy is presented disbound.

Waterstaining at head throughout, not affecting the text.

Very rare first edition, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint from the Magasin encyclopédique (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 1710).

Our copy is presented disbound. 

The Mithridates (1806) of the Pomeranian philologist Johann Christoph Adelung (1732-1806), of which only the first volume appeared during his lifetime, was conceived as an ambitious survey of the languages of the world. 

Lanjuinais's review is hardly surprising from this liberal statesman: he took advantage of the considerable leisure afforded him by his opposition to the Imperial regime to learn English and German, cultivate relationships with many of the leading...

An offprint from the Description de l'Égypte; the paper was read during the expedition itself before the members of the Institut d'Égypte on 1 Frimaire, Year IX [22 November 1800].

See Meulenaere, p. 125.

Bradel binding in full red boards, smooth spine, red title label mounted lengthwise, the upper cover very lightly and marginally faded; modern binding.

A civil engineer with the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées, Michel-Ange Lancret (1774–1807) had been tasked with gathering the movable goods abandoned by the Mamluks during their flight, which in part supplied the material for this memoir.

First edition illustrated with 1 large folding map: "Carte de la côte occidentale d'Afrique depuis le Cap Barbas jusqu'au Cap Tagrin par Lapie, Ingénieur Géographe (et) gravée par P.F. Tardieu" (cf. Gay 2905.)

Our copy in original stitched wrappers with interim covers lined with marbled paper.

Light dampstaining to the right margin of the final leaves.

Important details on the slave trade in connection with the Gorée Island stopover at the end of the volume.

Pierre Labarthe (Dax 1760 - Paris 1824) was appointed head of the Bureau of Eastern Colonies and African Coasts in 1794, a position he held until 1808.

He had gathered numerous authentic documents...

First edition of this rare imprint from the Vivarais.

A single copy recorded in the CCFr (Grenoble).

Contemporary half brown cloth binding, smooth spine without lettering with a small scuff, boards of vat-made paper; a modest 19th-century binding. 

Charles La Font de Savine (1742–1814), Bishop of Viviers and later of Ardèche (1778–1793), was one of only four bishops in office in 1789 to swear the constitutional oath. The "citoyen Savine" was subsequently required to surrender his pectoral cross and all episcopal insignia, together with his letters of priesthood, on 1 December 1793, and to resign his public office as bishop of the diocese of Ardèche; arrested as a suspect...

First edition of this biblical poem later set to music by Mondonville (cf. Barbier II, 970; Cioranescu 63676).

Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1711–1772), violinist, conductor and composer, wrote several operas, oratorios and pastorals, as well as works for harpsichord and sacred music.

He directed the Concert spirituel between 1755 and 1762.

Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon (170–1775), a friend of Voltaire, a familiar figure in the salons and much in favour with Madame de Pompadour, was elected to the Académie française in 1762.

He left a body of dramatic works, novels and tales.

A date inscribed at the head of the title-page, which shows small spots...

First edition (cf. Wellcome, II, 340).

Our copy is preserved in its original sewn state, in provisional cream paper wrappers.

Signed presentation inscription from Charles-Irénée Jacquin to his colleague Dr Long, physician at Die.

Accompanied by a dated autograph letter signed by Charles-Irénée Jacquin, one page written on both sides, discussing his work and thanking his correspondent for the advice he had given him in the preparation of the present volume.

Second edition, largely original in its own right as it was substantially enlarged, to which was added a "Lettre sur l'instruction des aveugles", addressed to the author in 1816 by Mr Isaac Roquès of Montauban, himself blind, together with a selection of his poems.

Our copy is preserved in its plain grey temporary wrappers, the spine faded and showing small losses.

The first edition had been issued at the same Montauban address in Year VI of the Republican calendar.

First edition.

Contemporary full mottled fawn calf, smooth spine gilt with floral tools and gilt geometric tooling, tan calf lettering-piece, gilt rolls to the headcaps now largely faded, a small loss to the upper headcap, some rubbing to the joints, single blind fillet framing the covers, marbled endpapers, gilt fillets to the edges of the boards mostly worn away, yellow sprinkled edges, corners just a little softened; a period binding.

Sole edition of this history of travel since Antiquity, considered from the standpoint of its benefits to trade and commerce.

The work is nominally presented as a translation, though it is in fact by the Marseille man of letters...

First edition.

The CCF records only the minutes of the sessions of December 1787 and January 1788, published at Narbonne (Veuve Besset).

A very rare report of the first sitting of the provincial assembly of Roussillon, held in three sessions (20, 21 & 22 October 1787), preliminary to the sessions of the following December and January, but apparently overlooked by most historians.

First edition (see Cioranescu, XVIII, 13 365).

Contemporary full speckled fawn calf, spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated with gilt fleurons, faded gilt roll tooling to the headcaps, a scratch at the head of the spine, gilt fillets to the edges partially faded, corners rubbed, speckled edges; binding of the period.

The sole edition of the author’s only work, written by the prior of Saint-Didier-en-Bourbonnais [Saint-Didier-la-Forêt], about whom little else is known.

A very concise overview of the events of each ecumenical council, from Nicaea I onwards.

New edition, partly original, revised and corrected, illustrated with 4 engraved plates out of text and an engraved title-page in the first volume.

Contemporary full mottled calf, smooth spines gilt with a repeated floral tool (the decorative motifs partly faded), red morocco lettering-pieces, rubbing to the spines, gilt rolls to the head- and tailcaps, one headcap shaved, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillets to the board edges, three corners softened, red edges, a few small snags to the board edges, bookplates to the pastedowns, bindings of the period.

The title-page and plates were engraved by Benoît Louis Henriquez after drawings by Jollain. Cohen 440. See Atabey...

First edition of the illustrated French translation, with 2 plates outside the text, one of which folding.

Bindings in contemporary full mottled fawn calf, smooth spines richly gilt with panelled compartments, joints split and restored, some rubbing and small wormholes to the spines, marbled paper endleaves and pastedowns, gilt fillet to the board edges, marbled edges, two rather clumsy restorations to two corners; bindings of the period.

Pleasing internal condition.

This is an abridged translation (but, unusually, explicitly stated as such) of the major work Reise durch Sibirien, published in Göttingen in 1751–1752, comprising 4 quarto volumes and an abundant...

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with a folding plate entitled "Système dentaire des oiseaux" (see Crowley 916; David, p. 127; Poletti 90).

Occasional light foxing; a tear along the left margin of the plate not touching the engraved figures.

Contemporary half tawny calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt tools and fillets; a restored snag at the head of the spine, which also shows some rubbing; marbled paper boards, marbled edges.

An uncommon first edition (cf. Palau, 92 173. Barbier, IV, 1072. Quérard, II, 40. Cioranescu, XVIII, 28675-28678.)

Contemporary full marbled fawn calf, smooth spine decorated with double gilt panels and ornaments, hazelnut calf lettering-piece, spine caps defective, covers framed with a single blind fillet, marbled endpapers, corners rubbed, gilt fillets to the edges, red edges; a fragile contemporary binding: spine ends trimmed, joints and upper hinge entirely split.

The imprint is fictitious: the pamphlet was not printed at Saint-Malo.

This satire, directed against the government, religion and customs of the Spaniards, and marked by singular bad faith (Fleuriot never...

Very rare first edition, printed anonymously in London in June and July 1784. Octavo. Sabin 21044. The French Catalogue collectif de France records only two copies, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and in Rouen. The first edition collates v, 320, viii pp., with table and errata.

Nineteenth-century green half calf with corners, smooth spine slightly darkened and ruled in gilt, marbled paper boards framed with a gilt fillet and with a crowned gilt cipher within a central cartouche, lemon edges. Corners bumped, a few small abrasions to board edges. Bookplate to one pastedown. A few small spots...

First edition (Cf. Blackmer 485. Loukia Droulia 1123. Atabey 350: "Scarce". Quérard II, 557. Brunet IV, 110.)

Contemporary half tan calf, spine with four raised bands bordered with faded gilt decorative rolls and tooled with gilt rolls and blind-stamped ornaments, modern black morocco lettering-piece, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges.

Some rubbing to spine and boards, occasional foxing.

The work was printed in a small number of copies and was not commercially issued.The announced second part was never published.

It contains observations on Constantinople, Egypt and the Holy Land, Syria and Asia Minor. A chapter devoted to...

First edition.

"Voulons & Nous plaist, qu'à commencer au premier Mars prochain, aucuns de nos Sujets de quelque estat, condition & sexe qu'ils soient, à l'Exception de ceux qui en auront obtenu nostre permission par Ecrit, ne puissent porter des Diamans, Perles et Pierres precieuses, à peine de confiscation & de Dix mille livres d'amende : Faisons deffenses sous la mesme peine, à compter du premier Avril prochain d'en faire entrer dans le Royaume ; N'entendons néantmoins comprendre dans la presente prohibition les Bagues Episcopales & les Pierreries employées aux Ornemens des Eglises".

Rare first edition, illustrated with an engraved frontispiece, two copper-engraved plates, and twenty-five woodcut figures in the text (cf. Rosenthal, Bibliotheca Magica et Pneumatica, 8648, which records only an edition of 1788).

A few light spots of foxing; two dampstains affecting some leaves.

Contemporary half tan calf, the smooth spine faded and decorated with gilt rolls, fillets and floral tools, gilt initials at the foot; some rubbing and two small black stains to the spine; marbled boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges.