Chronicles, memoirs, accounts and contemporary testimonies of great world historical events

New edition. Imprint for this new edition completed on December 1st, 1655.
Very worn contemporary full brown sheep binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with grotesques (leafy designs, dots and fleur-de-lys). Brown sheep title label. Headcaps torn with large lacks to first and last compartments. Joints cracked at head and foot with leather lacks. Corners cut and worn bare. Overall very rubbed. First text leaf with browning, some following leaves affected. Foxing to index. Lacks lower right corner of page 1043.
19th-century armorial bookplate of Bellaigne de Bughas.

First French edition, translated by Joncourt.

Later binding ca. 1790 in full blonde sheep with raised grain. Smooth spine decorated with 5 fleurons. Black sheep title label. Some rubbing. 2 corners slightly bumped. Good copy.
Manuscript gift inscription: "J'appartiens à Collins d'Anglus au collège à Mazarin à Paris, 1770."
Work presented to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh and published as a response to Hume's essay on population. Based on computational hypotheses about births and deaths, the author establishes approximate population figures from the biblical primitive couple through Antiquity. Drawing from known sources and historians, Wallace seeks to...

Second edition, published shortly after the first on the same date. A folding frontispiece depicting a mausoleum, piled dead soldiers and generals.
Contemporary full red morocco binding with long grain. Richly decorated spine with five raised bands, a central fleuron, 2 other small fleurons and several fillets. Red morocco title-label. Covers decorated with 3 frames with corner fleurons. Fillet on leading edges and board-edges. All edges gilt. One wormhole on the upper joint at foot. Foxing. A very handsome copy.

History of the French campaigns from 1792 to 1815.

First edition, superbly illustrated with 50 engraved and hand-coloured plates, all numbered and signed by William Ellis. Bilingual text, first in English, followed by the French translation on facing pages. Printed on deluxe wove paper.
English binding. Spine entirely rebacked in chocolate shagreen, decorated with five blind-stamped romantic floral tools. Brown calf boards adorned with a large central lozenge composed of leafy friezes. Blind-stamped border frieze with corner tools, and a second leafy border. Upper board split along the joint and nearly detached, lower joint open at the foot over 5 cm, with a continuing crack of 10 cm though the leather remains closed. Corners heavily...

New illustrated edition with a portrait as frontispiece, 3 title vignettes, and 41 folding plates. According to Brunet, the first octavo edition following the original quarto published in 1769 of these Commentaries. Title pages printed in red and black.
Contemporary full mottled calf binding. Spine with raised bands, gilt-tooled. Beige morocco title-piece, black basane volume label. Head of volume 2 restored. Surface abrasions on the boards, polished with wax. Traces of rubbing. A handsome copy, the paper of remarkable freshness.
Ex libris with 18th-century armorial bookplate of Biel D. de Lislemont.

New edition, the same year as the first edition which appeared in London and Paris.

Contemporary full marbled brown calf binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label. Upper joint cracked at head and foot. Headcap worn. Rubbing. Handsome copy.

First edition, second issue. The first of 1784 contains only 212pp. against 403 for this one, which has been expanded with the translation of Price's work: "Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution". Turgot's letter and Price's book benefit from a half-title.

Later, modern binding. Pastiche blonde cardboard Bradel binding. Smooth spine with pink sheep title and volume labels. Spine lightly darkened. Rubbing. Uncut copy, bound directly from the original wrappers. The first 2 leaves browned. Scattered browning. Last leaf with lack to lower right corner.

The rare first edition, illustrated with a handsome frontispiece by Van der Laan and engraved by Bernart. Title pages printed in red and black. Attribution to Bruys is sometimes contested by bibliographers. Two letters defending the work against criticism can be found in volumes I and III.

Contemporary mottled sheep binding. Richly decorated raised spine. Red morocco title labels, brown morocco volume labels. Head of volume I partly lacking, volumes III and IV torn away, same at tail of volume IV. Worming to boards, quite present on the boards of volume IV. Joints of volume IV cracked. Despite the defects, spines in good appearance.
The work became a constantly...

First edition displaying all the distinctive features of its publication: it presents no capital letters except at the beginning of paragraphs and it is the very first work to have been printed with Voltaire's spelling. Our copy is complete with its errata leaf, which is often missing.
Later bindings (19th century) in full red morocco, Jansenist spines with five raised bands, dates and places gilt at foot, boards struck at center with large gilt typographical fleurons, double gilt fillets on leading edges and headcaps, pastedowns lined with blue morocco presenting a wide gilt decorative border, monogrammed bookplates mounted on the pastedowns of each volume, following endpapers of...

First edition of this ambitious illustrated history of France, published by François-Anne David in five volumes between 1787 and 1796. The illustration comprises five engraved titles and 140 full-page plates, here printed in sanguine on stout paper, each volume with a different ornamental border devised to correspond to the historical period it covers. The plates were engraved by David, chiefly after designs by Nicolas Lejeune. This copy belongs to the deluxe issue on wove paper with the plates printed in "bistre sanguin anglais", a format specifically advertised by David in 1794 alongside the ordinary issue printed in black.

First edition, rare. This is the second book devoted by the author to this subject. Manuscript bibliographical note on the endpaper, in black ink, by F. Annibal Destouches, 1834.
Half glazed camel calf binding. Spine with false raised bands decorated with fleurons. Long-grain morocco boards with gilt roll border.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding, speckled. Decorated spine with raised bands. Gilt title. Small lack at head. Tailcap partly worn. Upper joint cracked at head and foot over 7 cm. Corners bumped.

First edition of all the texts comprising the collection. Each of the funeral orations features a title vignette with the arms of the deceased and a second as a title headpiece with a medallion portrait as well as a tailpiece. The dates of the orations range between 1695 and 1714. The two letters from Cardinal de Noailles that conclude the collection date respectively from 1712 and 1714.

Contemporary full brown speckled and glazed sheep binding. Spine with raised bands richly decorated. Havana morocco title label. Roulette on the leading edges. Rubbing to headcaps and joints. Scuffing and brown stains on the upper part of the front board. 2 dampstains on the Duke of...

Second edition, a reprint of the first folio edition published in 1756 by the same publisher. A rare edition, illustrated with 40 plates including 4 folding and 16 double-page (arms, costumes, plans, manoeuvres...). Large vignette with coat of arms on the title-page, and 41 ornaments (headpieces, tailpieces). Title-page printed in red and black. At the end, Supplement aux Reveries, with its own title-page; this short addition, spanning only a few pages, contains the corrections made to the original. A two-volume quarto edition appeared in Paris in 1757.
Bound in later full marbled brown calf; a skilful early 20th-century pastiche signed Saingy at foot. Spine with raised bands richly...

First edition.
Full marbled brown calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated. Red morocco title label. Head cap worn away. Rubbing. One corner slightly bumped.
Apocryphal testament of Cardinal Alberoni (1664-1752). Joseph-Marie Durey de Morsan gathered various documents relating to the cardinal in Madrid, he showed them to Maubert de Gouvest who bought the collection from him to recast it into a single narrative. It contains historical and political chapters on Spain under Charles VI, on the affairs of France and Spain, chapters dealing with diverse subjects such as agriculture, the navy, and the balance of power in Europe.

Second Elzevir edition of Milton's first text, which was originally published in 1651 in Amsterdam. First edition of Milton's Second and Third Defences.
Full polished tobacco calf bindings, ca. 1820. Spines with raised bands, decorated with four floral tools, fillets and rolls. Chocolate morocco title and volume labels. Cold-stamped border on the boards with small corner fleurons. Inner roll-tooled border. All edges gilt. A handsome copy.


NB: This volume is available at the bookshop on request within 48 hours.

First edition, rare, of the only two volumes published of this ambitious Histoire générale des guerres, printed in Paris by the Imprimerie royale in 1756 and 1758. Conceived as a work in three great periods extending from the earliest times to 1748, the project was never continued beyond these two volumes devoted to Armenia and the peoples of Asia Minor. The first volume is illustrated with an allegorical frontispiece and a large folding genealogical table.

First edition of these two works.

Full marbled calf binding. Smooth spine decorated. Red morocco title label. One lack at head, same at foot. Upper joint open at head and foot. 3 corners slightly bumped. Lacking the lower margin of pages 97 to 128.

First edition.
Full vellum binding with flaps, reused circa 1920. Smooth spine. Title calligraphed in red and black. Manuscript writing on covers, probably late 18th century. Bound on uncut wrappers, as issued. Worming to title page.
Autobiographical memoirs of a louse, which passing from head to head, embellishing its confessions with philosophical reflections, finds itself on the queen's head, then on that of Benjamin Franklin. It is essentially a political satire of affairs between France and the United States, featuring fictional dialogues, notably between the Minister of the Navy and Benjamin Franklin. It reveals a grand project consisting of seizing England to share it...

First edition of this important work by Pierre Louvet devoted to the history of Provence, published in Aix in 1676 in two volumes. It forms the first part of the three major works that Louvet was to devote to the province, followed by L’Histoire des troubles de Provence in 1679 and the Additions et illustrations sur les deux tomes de l’Histoire des troubles de Provence in 1680, the latter two both published in Aix by Charles David.

The present copy is illustrated with an armorial frontispiece and 27 engraved portraits. The iconographic make-up varies considerably between...

Complete first edition in six volumes, illustrated with decorative headpieces. 

Contemporary bindings in full marbled brown calf, spines with six raised bands decorated with red morocco title and volume labels, fleurons and double gilt frame fillets, triple fillets stamped in blind framing the boards, double gilt fillets on the leading edges, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, all edges marbled. Title pages in red and black. Headcaps worn, title labels of volumes 1, 3, 4 and 6 and volume labels of volumes 4, 5 and 6 missing, some lacks to the compartments, leather split at the joint of the first volume, joints of other volumes often slightly cracked at head or foot, boards and...

First edition, rare. Printer's device on title page. Edition prepared by René Du Bellay, author of the epistle. Decorated initials.
Seventeenth-century binding in full glazed blonde sheep. Decorated spine with raised bands. Tan morocco title label. Head torn away. Upper joint split; lower joint partly split. A library label at head. Traces of dampstaining on the last leaves of text and index, but paper overall fresh. Corners very bumped, with borders partly worn.
Undoubtedly the most important chronicle of François I's reign by important actors and witnesses of that time; the Du Bellay brothers were indeed in the king's service as soldiers. These memoirs cover the period from...