First editions and antique editions of civilization studies, cultural anthropology, ethnography, comparative sociology and social sciences

A very rare first edition of this atlas only, comprising a folding map and 46 plates mounted on guards depicting a total of 135 figures.

Contemporary Bradel-style binding in black half-cloth over marbled boards, spine damaged at the foot, title label partially rubbed away along its length, boards with scuffs and losses to the marbled paper covering, bumped corners, minor wear to the edges.

An exceptionally rare standalone atlas from this landmark monograph on the Chibcha, or Muisca, civilization.

First edition.

Sabin 62880. Not in Leclerc.

Contemporary half red shagreen, spine rubbed and decorated with five raised bands, gilt initials at the foot, marbled paper-covered boards, combed paper endpapers and pastedowns.

First French edition, complete with its engraved plate at the end of the volume: "Air mauresque" (see Gay 1352).

Bookseller’s resale label from the antiquarian bookseller Challamel affixed to the foot of the title page.

Bound in contemporary half brown calf, smooth spine with gilt and blind tooling, black morocco title and date labels, some rubbing to the spine, marbled paper boards, handmade laid paper endleaves and pastedowns, speckled edges, corners slightly worn, upper corner missing on one, binding slightly later.

Some foxing, dampstaining affecting the lower margin of the first 70 leaves.

The work was first published in London in 1811 under the title...

Very rare first edition illustrated with a folding map bound at the beginning of the volume and 44 plates.

No copy recorded by the CCFr.

Publisher's original full indigo-blue cloth, smooth spine decorated in gilt with dotted tooling and floral ornaments, covers framed with a blind rule, corners lightly bumped.

An amateur repair with adhesive tape to the upper right corner of the first text leaf, a few spots of foxing, chiefly affecting the edges.

The author served as secretary to the very first Brazilian mission sent to China (1880).

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with a hand-coloured frontispiece depicting a Mahratta soldier and his wife (cf. Brunet, V, 883).

Contemporary Bradel binding in red paper-covered boards, title gilt to spine, some rubbing to spine, bookplate pasted to one pastedown, corners bumped.

Some foxing; the half-title was not bound into this copy.

A former colonel in a Mahratta infantry regiment, the author published his account in the form of letters addressed to an officer in the British Army.

The first English edition appeared in Bombay in 1798 under the title A Letter to an Officer on the Madras Establishment, before being translated...

First edition, illustrated with a large folding map (hors texte) at the end of the volume.

Half black morocco binding, spine with four raised bands decorated with gilt fillets and dotted tooling; light rubbing to the spine. Marbled paper boards, speckled edges, contemporary binding.

Scattered foxing.

Unique edition of this scarce monograph, among the earliest works in French on Albania, at the time still part of the European territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Hecquard (1814–1866) is better known for his travels in Africa, but he served as French consul in Albania from 1862 onward, which explains the writing of this work.

Signed presentation...

First edition illustrated with 24 colour figures mounted within the text.

No copy recorded in the CCFr.

Occasional light foxing.

Publisher’s original full lemon-yellow percaline, smooth spine, upper cover decorated in red, minor spotting to the boards.

Pleasing album devoted to the monuments of ancient China, then undergoing rapid transformation at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The text was set before the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and the Great War.

On the half-title, this copy is enriched with a long dated autograph inscription by the American singer and society figure Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller (1876–1952) to Henry de Galard de...

Rare first edition illustrated with 2 out-of-text plates, hand-coloured at the time, depicting Morlach costumes (cf. Conlon 78:960. Not recorded by Quérard.)

Our copy is preserved in its original stitched wrappers, under the period plain grey covers (spine lacking, covers with tears and detached, corners bumped, a few foxing spots, final endpaper stained at foot).

We have encountered another copy of this work illustrated with a single folding plate containing 3 figures.

Pages 78 to 85 contain a song in the Morlach language, with a French translation printed opposite.

First edition in book form, bringing together six contributions previously published in the Revue des Deux Mondes. The archaeologist Albert Dumont (1842-1884) here records his impressions from journeys undertaken during his stay at the French School at Athens.

Signed autograph inscription by Albert Dumont to the spiritualist philosopher Adolphe Franck (1810-1893) at the head of the half-title page.

The ink of the autograph inscription has faded, minor losses to the foot of the first leaves, occasional light foxing.

Second edition, issued in a limited printing of 75 copies.

Restored unlettered spine, wrappers somewhat soiled, a few light foxing spots.

This work, the first of the three-part series Le Mariage indigène dans les colonies et les protectorats de la France, stands apart from the usual writings of magistrate Claude-Arthur Daguin (1849-1944), whose publications had previously focused almost exclusively on Nogent-en-Bassigny and its surrounding region.

First edition illustrated with 5 plates hors texte (3 portraits and 2 views) and 1 facsimile (cf. Tailliart 184).

Contemporary bindings in fawn half calf, smooth spines gilt with fillets, red shagreen title labels, black shagreen volume labels, marbled paper sides, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, bindings of the period.

Waterstaining at the end of volumes I and III.

The section relating to Algeria appears in vol. III, chap. V, pp. 127 to 164.

The author stayed in Bône as a divisional officer from December 1837 to 9 February 1838.

These few pages abound in characteristic details concerning the indiscipline of the army, its poor discipline and appearance, the...

First French edition, illustrated with a lithographed frontispiece and 11 lithographed plates (bound between pp. 360–361), cf. Brunet, I, 787; Chadenat, 5323.

Full calf binding, smooth spine with gilt decorative motifs, gilt roll on the headbands, red morocco title label, gilt roll borders on the boards, handmade paper endpapers and pastedowns, gilt edges on the board edges, red page edges, contemporary binding.

Restorations to the spine, one restoration at the foot of the title page.

An epistolary account of a journey undertaken in 1802 among the Kalmyks, a nomadic people of the Astrakhan province (North Caucasus).

Very rare first edition of this major work, complete as issued (the text ends abruptly with the final table, without a table of chapters).

Illustrated with a lithographed portrait frontispiece (Cf. Palau 11 815. Sabin 1377.)

Contemporary half cherry calf over marbled paper boards, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets, garlands and fleurons; small loss at foot of spine, which is also rubbed; some abrasion to the marbled paper; speckled edges; corners and board edges rubbed.

Only two copies recorded in the CCF (BnF and Institut).

A member of Colombia's Comision corografica from 1850, the writer and publicist Manuel Ancizar Basterra (1812-1882) undertook an...

First edition of this new Histoire générale des voyages, arranged and brought up to date with contemporary discoveries by Baron Charles-Athanase Walckenaer (1771-1852). Published in Paris between 1826 and 1831 in twenty-one octavo volumes, it constitutes the only portion ever completed of a project originally intended to extend to some sixty volumes. The final four volumes were prepared by Jean-Baptiste-Benoît Eyriès. Brunet V, 1041; Quérard X, 472; Gay 299; Hoefer XLVI, 498.

Contemporary half red Russia morocco with corners, spines with five raised bands, boards framed with blind fillets, marbled...

Uncommon first edition (cf. O'Reilly & Reitman, 6271: "Travail consciencieux, bien documenté et toujours utile"; Numa Broc, Océanie, pp. 377-380).

Our copy retains the two folding maps bound at the end of the first volume.

The two maps are titled: Carte de l'île Taïti d'après Vilson et les travaux récens de la frégate l'Artémise; Carte de l'archipel Taïti d'après les travaux les plus récens [et] des archipels français dans l'Océanie par Mr Vincendon-Dumoulin, 1844.

Contemporary half bottle-green sheep, spine with five raised bands gilt with scrolling tools and floral ornaments, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, spines slightly...

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with 40 plates outside the text (35 finely hand-coloured), together with 90 wood-engraved vignettes in the text (cf. Sabin 65478. See Printing and the Mind of Man, no. 303, for the third English edition in five volumes.)

Some light spotting; small loss to the first leaf of volume II, affecting the text with the loss of a few words; library shelf labels covering the publisher’s name, printed bookplates and library shelf numbers to the title-pages.

Contemporary half calf, the smooth spines decorated with gilt and blind fillets, black morocco lettering- and volume-pieces; joints cracked and restored, some rubbing to the spines...

First edition of this scarce work entirely autograph manuscript (cf. Manque à Gay. Playfair, 2894. Tailliart, 781.)

Some light foxing, wrappers laminated.

The volume comprises letters written by Octavie Lagrange during a journey undertaken in 1864 and, for the most part, dated from Algiers: "Parmi les mosquées jadis si nombreuses les unes restent consacrées au culte musulman ; les autres ont disparu sous le marteau des démolisseurs ; celles-ci sont affectées à différents services publics ; celles-là converties en églises catholiques. […] Dans les bazars s'étalent de jolis magasins assez bien assortis ; les objets pleins d'originalité, y sentent d'une lieue le terroir, et...

Generally regarded as the most complete early edition of Chardin’s Travels, this imposing publication in ten volumes with a separate atlas was prepared in 1811 by Louis-Mathieu Langlès. The orientalist added a historical survey of Persia from the earliest times and an extensive critical apparatus, confronting Chardin’s text with the historical, geographical and philological scholarship of his own day. It remained the standard edition until Philip Stewart’s complete modernised and annotated text appeared in 2018.

The ten text volumes are bound in contemporary full tree calf, smooth spines richly decorated...

Edition richly illustrated with photographs by Leni Riefenstahl.
Publisher's full grey cloth binding, flat spine, a complete copy with its striking illustrated dust jacket.
A few minor spots of foxing, insignificant, and a slight discoloration mark on the rear board.
A pleasant copy.
Inscribed and signed by Leni Riefenstahl to Jean-Pierre Richard: "Jean Pierre Richard herzliche gewidmet. Leni Riefenstahl."

First edition, one of 55 numbered copies on pur fil paper, most limited deluxe issue.
Endleaves and half-title slightly and partially shaded.
Exceedingly rare and handsome copy of this seminal text of modern feminism.

Our copy is housed in a custom gray clamshell box, square spine titled in red, author's name and subtitles in black, first panel hollowed revealing a black and white photograph of Simone de Beauvoir as a young woman under a plexiglass, title in red, author's name, first volume number and subtitle in black, second panel hollowed revealing a color photograph of the author in her prime under plexiglass, titled in red, author's name, second volume number and...

First collected edition, one of 260 numbered copies on tinted wove paper, the only large-paper issue after 45 copies on white Dutch wove paper.
Introduction and critical study by Jean Bloch-Michel.
Spine and covers slightly and marginally sunned, with a faint offset mark from a bookseller's description label to the margin of one endpaper.

First edition printed in 200 copies, ours one of the 30 on Holland paper, deluxe copies.
Spine slightly browned with small lacks and tears at head and foot, slight lacks and tears to board margins, handsome interior condition despite clear foxing on the final endpaper.
Rare.