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The scarce first appearance in French of selected letters by the Princess Palatine, known variously as ‘Madame’, ‘Duchesse d’Orléans’, ‘Liselotte von der Pfalz’ and through her many royal descendants known as ‘the grandmother of Europe’. The second wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV’s younger brother, she holds a firm place in literary history through her extensive correspondence which paints an unadorned and unfiltered portrait of the French court, its politics and sexual intrigues. In all, she is thought to have written some 60,000 letters, putting her considerably ahead of Madame de Sevigné for sheer volume. Written originally in German and translated here by Joseph de Maimeux (1753-1820), it remains one of the best-known German language texts of the Baroque. Often compared to Saint Simon, another prolific witness of the court of the sun king, Saint-Beuve wrote of her correspondence as ‘précieux et incomporable témoin de moeurs’, speaking of the importance and originality of her voice: ‘il manquerait à cette Cour une figure et une parole des plus originales, si ell n’y était pas’.
The present copy, which is uncut in the original blue wrappers with manuscript spine label, has a loosely inserted manuscript booklet of six pages, ‘Extraits de Lettres Originales, en Allemand, de Madame Charlotte-Elisabeth d’Orléans, veuve de Philippe d’Orléans, écrites au Duc Antoine-Ulric de Brunswick-Wolffenbutel, et à la Princesse de Galles, Caroline, née Princesse d’Anspach. Les originales sont dans les archives de x.x.-x.x.x. Brunsvic’, which contains a fair copy of extracts from other letters not included.

Saint Simon’s celebrated Mémoires, ‘one of the most original monuments of French literature’, were principally written between 1740 and 1746 long after he went into retirement. The sparkling wit and complete freedom from restraint of the memoirs - Saint Simon allows his personal hatreds free reign and writes violently against the ‘leprosy’ of equality - make them an enjoyable read as well as being an important, if not altogether impartial, source of information.

The first two volumes contain a number of extracts from Saint-Simon’s Mémoires, which were not to be published for another couple of years. A fourth volume dealing with the reigns of Henri IV and Louis XIII was added later.

‘Tout dans cette Galerie n’est pas tiré de Saint-Simon; il est vraisemblable que Soulavie a été l’éditeur de ce recueil’ (Tchemerzine, V, p. 657).

A scarce Italian edition of this well-known guide to geography for young people, translated from the French and first published as Méthode pour étudier la géographie, Paris 1716. The address to the reader explains the educational structure of the work, which is designed so that even those children with weaker memories should be able to learn the contents of a chapter in half an hour. Organised by country and area - with the largest number of pages devoted to the principalities and republics of Italy - the work is presented in a series of questions and answers about the key characteristics of each place. In this manner the student is presented with information on the major cities, the rivers, mountains, islands, population, religion, monarchy and system of government of each state in turn. Instructions are also given to the student as to the best means of learning and the value of revisiting sections previously covered. A simple system of learning for six days and revising on the seventh is recommended: ‘queste sei lezioni debbono fare una settimana, e il settimo giorno egli è espediente il far ripetere le sei lezioni precedenti’.
A popular school book in Italy - here described on the title page as the ‘ninth’ edition - this appears to be the only Florentine edition. Despite the odd stain, this is an attractive copy in original condition, uncut in its ‘carta rustica’ binding.

An important Renaissance treatise on cosmetics, hygiene and feminine beauty, first published in 1562. Written by the celebrated physician and natural philosopher Giovanni Marinelli, whose daughter, Lucrezia Marinella, wrote the radical La Nobilita et l’eccellenza delle donne, codifetti et mancamenti de gli uomini, (’The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men’, not exactly pulling her punches), published in 1600. Himself an advocate of women’s education, Marinello’s work, which is dedicated to all ‘chaste and young women’, is remarkable for its celebration of female beauty and for encouraging women directly - the choice of publishing in the vernacular was no accident - to take an active part in their own health and beauty.
Marinelli includes remedies for a number of physical ailments and advice for good personal hygiene and tips on dieting both for losing and gaining weight. A large part of the work is devoted to beauty, with recipes for perfumes, advice on body symmetry, treatments for the eyes, lips and neck, with recipes for preparing bath salts and lotions. An astonishing 26 recipes for hair dye is testament to the popularity among Italian women of the time for dying their hair blond.
‘[Marinelli’s] views on women were bold; indeed, they were feminist... As Letizia Panizza has pointed out, this handbook of advice of women’s health and beauty presents a striking departure from the contemporary tendency to stigmatize women’s concern with their physical appearance as vanity. Making an explicit point of his feminism, however, Marinelli also prefaced his text with a brief defence of women, which rehearsed the prominent features of the ‘querelle des femmes’ and underscored his status as a humanist contributing to this pervasive literary debate’ (Ross, Sarah, The Birth of Feminism, 2009, p. 198).

A delightful uncut copy in the original pink and white lithographed covers, with the beautiful folding hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece. This scarce work on spa baths in Thetford was written by Frederick Accum, a London chemist and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. It was produced to advertise the new commercial spa venture established in the same year to exploit a chalybeate spring in the city, known since 1746. The dedication praised the Mayor’s and inhabitants’ efforts ‘in bringing the mineral spring of Thetford, for its healing virtues inestimable, yet suffered long to remain neglected and unknown, into celebrity and use’ through the construction of a new pump-room and baths. After providing accounts of the topography and history of Thetford, Accum discussed the chemical and medical properties of the mineral water as well as the most effective ways to take spa baths (e.g., hot or cold, according to the conditions to be treated), supported by testimonials of men and women who had benefited from the Thetford treatments.
‘One of the rarest works by Accum on Thetford Spa in Norfolk with details of the analysis if the waters at pp. 55-76. The only title cited by Waring on Thetford Spa. Not listed in any of the chemical bibliographies except Smith’ (Neville I, p. 7).

A scarce translation of this German sentimental novel set in wartime, attributed to the German writer Adam Beuvius. Originally published as Henriette oder der Husarenraub, in Briefen bey Gelegenheit des gegenwärtigen Krieges, Berlin and Leipzig, 1779. It has also been attributed to Christopher Martin Wieland (1733-1813). An English translation of the first volume appeared in Dublin in 1786, with the attribution to Wieland on the title page: Henrietta of Gerstenfeld. Translated from the German of Mr. Wieland, Dublin, H. Chamberlain for the Translator, 1786. The Wieland attribution was dropped when the second volume, which was printed by William Lane at the Minerva Press, followed in 1788: Henrietta of Gerstenfeld; a German Story.
Andrew Becket evidently expected something more from a German novel: ‘on the score of morality it is truly excellent. -But it is greatly wanting in those delicate and pathetic touches, which so particularly distinguish the writings of a Gesner, and a Klopstock...’ (Monthly Review, quoted in GRS, I, 377).

First book edition of a popular humorous work originally published in eighty-two weekly numbers from February 1st 1681 to August 22nd 1682. A bestselling Restoration periodical, it contains a series of jests, riddles and satirical dialogues on politics, government, Whigs, Popery, foreign affairs, the penny post and a multitude of ephemeral topics of the day. Persistently attributed to Thomas Flatman, though there are poems included that are not entirely consistent with his style; there may well have been some collaboration involved.

A delightful guide to the care of English trees written by a young landowner who only a few years previously, at the age of 21, had won a medal for planting 40,000 trees on his recently inherited estate in Cheshire. The work is presented in 24 chapters on different varieties of deciduous and evergreen trees, followed by an appendix on raising trees from seed. Dedicated to ‘the president and gentlemen’ of the Manchester Agricultural Society and with a short preface in which Astley states that his work includes the opinions of authors ‘esteemed for their knowledge of the various species of trees’ and offers this work in the hope that ‘these gleanings and humble hints may be of some trifling service’.
Francis Astley seems to have been an interesting character: as well as being an enlightened landlord, he was an amateur artist and a poet, author a number of poems including Varnishando: a serio-comic poem, 1809 and The Graphomania: an epistle to John Harden, London 1809. He appears, however, to have been dogged by ill-fortune throughout his adult life, losing his first born child in a tragic accident. He was declared bankrupt in 1817 and the books from his library at Dunkinfield Lodge were sold at auction in Liverpool later that year. Scandal surrounded his death and there were accusations of murder as recounted in this biographical sketch:
‘John Astley died in 1787 leaving as his heir his young son, Francis Dukinfield Astley (1781-1825). In 1793 his widow married again, but the family continued to live at Dukinfield Lodge, and Francis seems to have taken up his responsibilities as landowner before coming of age, since as early as 1802, when he was 21, he was awarded a medal for planting 40,000 trees. Francis was a young man of great promise: he was rich, relatively good looking, artistic (he was a published poet and amateur artist), and had a deep concern for the welfare of his tenantry and estate. In 1812 he married and the following year he bought the Fell Foot estate in the Lake District, where he could enjoy fabulous views over Windermere. But tragedy was never far away. His first born son died when just a few weeks old from a fall from a window, and in his efforts to develop his estate and protect his tenants from the worst effects of the depression in trade occasioned by war with France he over-reached himself financially, and in 1817 he was declared bankrupt. However, the discovery of coal on his estate restored his fortunes without the loss of his property, and after many barren years his wife presented him with a son and heir in 1825. But just a few months later he died in his sleep while visiting his brother-in-law, Thomas Gisborne, in Derbyshire. There were accusations of murder, made in a scandalously public way at Astley's funeral, but an independent inquiry which Gisborne instigated to clear his name found no evidence of foul play and declared the death to be 'by visitation of God'. Some doubt must remain, however, as there seems to have been no autopsy, and because just a year later Gisborne married Astley's widow, his deceased wife's sister’ (Nicholas Kinglsey, ‘Landed Families’ blog).

One of several versions of the general pardon issued by James II at the start of his reign concerning crimes against the state prior to his accession. The pardon was issued with certain notable exceptions, particularly regarding Catholics. Mentioned by name as specifically excluded from the pardon are several of those implicated in the Popish Plot, including Titus Oates, Francis Charleton, John Wildman and Robert Peyton. Specific crimes of a notorious nature are also excluded and set fines already agreed in court are not to be lifted. Furthermore, anyone fleeing justice is given until 1st January 1689 to hand themselves over to the Chief Justice or a Justice of the Peace.

A poignant letter written by King James the night before he set sail from Rochester. He sets out his reasons for flight, complaining of the treatment he had received in London at the order of the Prince of Orange, who had arrested Lord Feversham, taken possession of the posts at Whitehall and sent three Lords to him at one in the morning commanding him to leave his palace the next morning.
‘After all this, How could I hope to be safe, so long as I was in the Power of one, who had not only done this to me, and Invaded all my Kingdoms without any just occasion given him for it, but that did by his first Declaration lay the greatest Aspersion upon me that Malice could invent, in that Clause of it which concerns my Son... I was born Free, and desire to continue so; and tho I have ventured my Life very frankly, on several Occasions, for the Good and Honour of my Country and am as free to do it again... yet I think it not convenient to expose my self to be Secured, as not to be at Liberty to Effect it; and for that reason do with-draw’.

A delightful copy of Sept-Chênes’ translation of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, from the Starhemberg Library, in fresh condition in a typically Starhemberg binding. The translator, Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, was tutor to the young Louis XVI and the first volume was partly translated by the young king as an exercise in learning English. Sept-Chênes made corrections to the work of his Royal charge and completed the translation, which was first published in three volumes in 1776. Various other translators tackled the remaining volumes of Gibbon’s work and it was finally published by Moutard in its entirety in 18 volumes, 1788-1795.
‘Louis XVI, étudiant l’anglais sous la direction de Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, lecteur de son cabinet, s’est exercé sur le premier volume, publié en 1776, et, arrivé aux 15ème et 16ème chapitres, il abandonna l’ouvrage que revit, continua et fit imprimer M. de Sept-Chênes’ (Brunet).

First edition of one of Riccoboni’s scarcer early novels. Written in the third person, as against the epistolary form that came to be her preferred genre (although some ten letters are given in the body of the text and those mostly in the first half), Histoire de M. le Marquis de Cressy is an analytical sentimental novel in which the egotistical and ambitious Cressy seeks, Valmont-like, to forward his career and his fortune through a series of well-placed seductions. Riccoboni’s interest, as always, lies in the collateral damage done to the female characters through their involvement with the hero and it is in the subtlety and astuteness of Riccoboni’s psychological analysis that the strength of the novel lies.
‘The best [of Riccoboni’s novels] is her Histoire de M. le marquis de Cressy (1758), in which the conflict of motive happens to be in the mind of a man. The middle-aged marquis has engaged the affections of a young girl, and for a moment hesitates between the charm of her youth and the worldly advantages of marriage with a beautiful widow who will second his ambitions. He writes one of those sophistical letters in which Madame Riccoboni excelled, explaining to the unfortunate girl that although his heart burns for her he must sacrifice his dreams of happiness. She feels that life for her is over, and takes the veil, bidding her perfidious lover adieu. She loves him yet, though she knows now that she has loved an illusion: it is not the lover that is most regretted, but the sentiment, the enchantment that has flown, the bliss of loving. That is the consolation of the sentimentalist’ (Ernest Albert Baker, The History of the English Novel, v.1 p. 137).
This was a very popular novel, with several other editions of the French text following in 1758 and subsequent years. An English translation was published in 1765 under the title The History of the Marquis of Cressy. Translated from the French (Block p. 197).

A handsome copy of this important early utopia set in Australia, said to be the most complex and accomplished of all fictional utopias. Denis de Vairasse was a French Huguenot living in London which explains why the first part of the work saw publication in an English translation by A. Roberts, The history of the Sevarites or Sevarambi: a nation inhabiting part of the third continent, commonly called, Terræ australes incognitæ, London, 1675, prior to its first appearance in French. This followed some two years later, when a rather spicier second part was added (for the French market) and it was published in four volumes by Barbin in Paris, 1677-1679. All early editions are scarce.
‘Denis Veiras, ou Vairasse, obscur soldat et avocat sans causes qui s’autoproclame, sous l’anagramme de Sévarias, législateur génial et fondateur d’utopie. L’Histoire des Sévarambes et la plus achevée des utopies romanesques. C’est le paradigme de “l’utopie narrative”, selon l’expression de Jean-Michel Racaut, dans un habile équilibre entre la statistique fictive et le voyage imaginaire. Des cinq parties de l’ouvrage, la première raconte une aventure maritime avec naufrage dans les terres australes et robinsonnade, la seconde l’habituel épisode du tourisme utopique et l’installation de Siden (anagramme de Denis) et de ses compagnons chez les Sévarambes pour une quinzaine d’années; les trois dernières sont consacrées à l’histoire et aux moeurs des Sévarambes’ (Utopie, la quête de la société idéale en Occident, p. 179).

A delightful copy of this scarce French translation of Philip Falle’s historical account of the Channel Islands, translated by Le Rouge, who also supplied the folding map of the islands and commends the map by Dumaresq as ‘sans contredit la meilleur jusqu’à présent’. Born on Jersey, Falle’s An Account of the Isle of Jersey, the Greatest of those Islands that are now the only Remainder of the English Dominions in France, London, John Newton, 1694, was the printed first account of the island. Falle also supplied the description of the Channel Islands for Bishop Gibson's 1722 translation of Camden's Britannia, and in 1734 he published an enlarged version of his history of Jersey.

A scarce pocket edition of this popular compendium of the lives of the Roman emperors, modelled on Suetonius and said to be the work of the six authors on the title-page. Numerous scholalarly editions have been published over the centuries but the original authorship remains an enigma. The present edition is an amalgamated text combining Isaac Casaubon’s original edition of 1603 with notes by Janus Gruterus and Claude de Saumaise.

A nice copy in a contemporary vellum binding of this Greek and Latin parallel text edition of Homer’s Odyssey. This edition is based, with revisions, on earlier editions by Henri Estienne, among others. It concludes with a section in which important lines from the poem are grouped together by subject matter.

A scarce and elegantly printed collection of sonnets on the subject of a debt of the sum of three giuli. Giovanni Battista Casti was the author of a number of opera libretti, some of which, such as his most famous, Cublai, gran Kan de’ tartari, 1788, were set by Salieri. Casti dedicates the work to Cecilia Mahony Giustiniani (1740-1789), who was a Naples-born protegée of James III and who was painted by Pompeo Batoni in 1785.

Provenance: Edward H. Bunbury (1811-1885), fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, best known for his work on the study of geography among the ancients.

A delightful suite of plates showing designs for rustic furniture to be used either in the garden or inside modest country dwellings or cottages. Fourteen designs for chairs are included on the first seven plates, two long stools, four sofas (decorative but perhaps rather uncomfortable), three tables, one bason [sic] stand, six mirrors on three plates and three large chimney pieces. The title-page and final leaf, both unnumbered, are captioned ‘Frontispiece’ and represent decorative entrances and exits to a garden. Wright is mostly remembered for his very popular Grotesque Architecture, which was first published in 1767 and ran to numerous editions. A much larger work than the present, it included a number of rustic seats as well as architectural and garden plans.

A handsome copy of this very attractive first French translation of Gessner's Idylles, beautifully illustrated throughout. The frontispiece, depicting a shepherdess in a pastoral scene, is engraved by Claude-Henri Watelet (1718-1786) after Etienne de La Vallée-Poussin (1735-1802) and there are twelve further engravings in the course of the text, as head- and tail-pieces. Eleven of these are also engraved by Watelet after Lavallée-Poussin and Pierre and the twelfth is by Watelet’s long-term lover, Marguerite Lecomte (1717-1800). Each of the pieces is signed.
This is an early work by Huber, only preceded by another translation from Gessner, his La mort d'Abel, 1760. Huber, the first to introduce Gessner into France, was to go on to be a prolific writer and translator, always from the German, specialising mainly in poetry and in the history of art, particularly antiquities. He also published a work of instruction in the German language and in 1766 took up a post teaching French at the University of Leipzig. Turgot was among Huber’s students and it was he who supplied the preface to the present work as well as the translation of the first idyll. Huber’s translator’s preface is also of considerable interest for its discussion of contemporary German literature, arguing its superiority over Italian and English literature, analysing the works of several authors and citing numerous passages of particular value to the man of taste.

A good copy of this scarce Italian translation of the Marquis d’Argens’ lively and risqué novel, first published as Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Mainville, ou le Feint Chevalier, La Haye 1736. The eponymous heroine runs away from home in order to avoid being married against her will or sent to a convent. Accompanied by her lover, who refuses to let her go without him and promises solemnly to respect her honour, the two travel together as brother and sister. However, her beauty attracts too much attention and the so-called siblings keep getting into trouble, so our heroine decides to dress as a man in order that the two might travel in safety. ‘Après avoir bien rêvé, ils n’en trouvérent pas de meilleur, que celui de déguiser le sexe de Mademoiselle de Mainville. Elle en comprit elle-même toute la nécessité, & résolut de s’habiller en homme. Dans ce nouvel état, elle parut encore plus belle. Jamais cavalier ne fut d’une figure si aimable & si propre à troubler le repos des Dames’ (I, 32). For a while, they frequent gambling circles where they are very succesful, until an argument lands them in a duel, after which she is arrested and taken to jail. On their travels they meet engagingly louche characters, such as a famous debauched opium addict, numerous swindlers in different guises and a duchess who ‘simply adores opera’.
With a witty dedication to the shadow of Bayle in which d’Argens regrets that he is unable to dedicate a more serious work than a novel to him, rather than this ‘Pot-pourri d’Amourettes & de Philosophie’ [‘Olla potrida d’Amouretti, e di Filosofia’]. Were he less lazy, and less amorous, he would have finished his Doutes Metaphysiques [‘Dubbj Metafisici’], but in nine months he has barely managed to write three pages. He has therefore let his imagination dictate to his pen and, instead of the words ‘existence’ and ‘determinism’, he has focused on those of ‘Bachus’, ‘pleasure’ and ‘love’.