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  • The Favorite Village A Poem. by HURDIS, James, the Reverend (1763-1801).
    HURDIS, James, the Reverend (1763-1801).
    The Favorite Village A Poem. 1800.

    First Edition. 4to (260 x 200 mm), pp. [vi], 210, in contemporary full calf, flat spine elaborately gilt in compartments, black morocco label lettered in gilt, some slight splitting to joints but generally a handsome copy, with the contemporary armorial bookplate of Henry Studdy and the later decorative booklabel of John Rayner.

    A lovely copy of this privately printed poem by a Sussex clergyman, who was a professor of poetry at Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen… (more)

    A lovely copy of this privately printed poem by a Sussex clergyman, who was a professor of poetry at Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College. Hurdis set up his own printing press at his house in Bishopstone, near Seaford in Sussex, in 1796, from where he printed selections from his own lectures and poems. The Favorite Village is thought to be his best work and is a panegyric to Bishopstone, the village where he was born and where he eventually became the vicar. It is a nostalgic eulogy to the village, set within the framework of nature and the seasons and much influenced by the poetry of Cowper and Thomson.

    ESTC t35451; Jackson p. 242.

    View basket More details Price: £900.00
  • tree-planting medallist
    Hints to Planters; by ASTLEY, Francis Dukinfield (1781-1825).
    ASTLEY, Francis Dukinfield (1781-1825).
    Hints to Planters; Collected from various authors of esteemed authority, and from actual observation. Manchester, R. & W. Dean, 1807.

    First Edition. 8v.o (185 x 110mm), pp. [vi], [7]-63, [1], with errata slip, in the original publisher’s red quarter morocco over marbled boards, covers and spine worn, extremities bumped, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, faded, with the contemporary ownership inscription of Tho. Moore.

    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,… (more)

    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).

    OCLC lists BL, Cardiff, Manchester, Delaware, Cornell, Harvard, UC Berkeley and Chicago Botanic Garden.

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  • translated in prison by Helen Maria Williams; printed by her lover
    Paul and Virginia. by SAINT-PIERRE, Jacques Henri Bernardin de (1737-1814).WILLIAMS, Helen Maria (1762-1827).DUTAILLY (fl. 1810-1812), illustrator.
    SAINT-PIERRE, Jacques Henri Bernardin de (1737-1814).
    WILLIAMS, Helen Maria (1762-1827).
    DUTAILLY (fl. 1810-1812), illustrator.
    Paul and Virginia. Translated from the French of Bernardin Saint-Pierre; by Helen Maria Williams, author of Letters on the French Revolution, Julia a Novel, Poems, &c. Paris, John Hurford Stone, 1795.

    First Edition of this Translation. 8vo (220 x 130), pp. [ii], viii, [2], 9-274, with six stipple engraved plates, by Lingée, Lefebvre and Clément, two after designs by Dutailly, tissue guards to all but one of the plates, some scattered foxing, the text printed on mixed stock, much of which is slightly blue-tinted and watermarked ‘P Lentaigne’, occasional light spotting, small marginal hole on D1, one gathering sprung, in contemporary calf, worn at extremities, head and foot of spine chipped, roll tool border to covers within double fillet gilt, corner fleurons and circles gilt, flat spine gilt in compartments, blue morocco label lettered in gilt, both covers badly scratched, with bright marbled endpapers and gilt edges.

    An elegant copy, despite a few light scratches on the covers, of the scarce first edition of Helen Maria Williams’ translation of Saint-Pierre’s best-selling Paul… (more)

    An elegant copy, despite a few light scratches on the covers, of the scarce first edition of Helen Maria Williams’ translation of Saint-Pierre’s best-selling Paul et Virginie. This English translation was also to prove enormously popular, with many printings in England, but this first appearance, thought to have been printed in Paris at the English press of Williams’ lover, John Hurford Stone, is scarce. Additionally, this copy includes the suite of six engraved plates, found only in a few copies.
    In 1792, two years after her first visit to Paris, Helen Maria Williams returned to live there permanently. Her salon on the rue Helvétius became a meeting place not only for her Girondist circle but also for a large number of British, American and Irish radicals, writers and public figures, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, Joel Barlow and Charles James Fox. It was at this time that she became involved with John Hurford Stone (1763-1818), a radical English coal dealer who was working as a printer in Paris. Their involvement caused huge scandal in England, as Stone was married. He divorced his wife in 1794 and it may be that he was married to Williams in the same year. On October 11th, 1793, during tea with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Williams had learnt that all British citizens in France were to be arrested, following the French defeat at Toulon. The next day she and her family were taken to the Luxembourg prison where they stayed until 26th October, when they were moved to the English Conceptionist Convent, otherwise known as the Couvent des Anglaises. It was here that Williams began this translation. She was released in April of the following year on the condition that she left Paris: she and Stone went together to Switzerland until they were able to return to Paris in 1795, when Stone printed the completed work.
    Of the copies listed in ESTC, only three copies, Virginia, Morgan and Penn have the plates, although the BN copy also has the plates. Of the Morgan copy, John Bidwell writes in their catalogue: ‘Given the French origins of the paper, type, plates, and binding, and the quality of the typesetting, this edition was printed in Paris, almost certainly at the English press of the expatriate radical John Hurford Stone, who was living with Helen Maria Williams at the time. Cf. Madeleine B. Stern, “The English Press in Paris and its successors,” PBSA 74 (1980): 307-89’. Adding another level to the interchange of nationalities in this edition, although French, the type was of English origin, being cast from Baskerville’s punches by the Dépôt des caractères de Baskerville in Paris, established by Beaumarchais in 1791 and closed c.1795–6. Beaumarchais, a great admirer of Baskerville, purchased the bulk of the Birmingham printer’s punches from his widow after his death (John Dreyfus, ‘The Baskerville punches 1750–1950’, The Library, 5th series 5 (1951), 26–48).
    ‘The following translation of Paul and Virginia was written at Paris, amidst the horrors of Robespierre’s tyranny. During that gloomy epocha, it was difficult to find occupations which might cheat the days of calamity of their weary length... In this situation I gave myself the task of employing a few hours every day in translating the charming little novel... and I found the most soothing relief in wandering from my own gloomy reflections to those enchanting scenes of the Mauritius, which he has so admirably described... the public will perhaps receive with indulgence a work written under such peculiar circumstances; not composed in the calm of literary leisure, or in pursuit of literary fame; but amidst the turbulence of the most cruel sensations, and in order to escape from overwhelming misery’ (Preface, signed Helen Maria Williams, Paris, June, 1795).

    ESTC t131741, listing BL, Bodleian, Wisbech; Cornell, Harvard, Morgan, Penn, Princeton, Smith College, Toronto, UCLA, Chicago, Illinois, Virginia and Yale.

    Cohen-de Ricci 932 (calling for only 5 plates); no details given in Garside, Raven & Schöwerling, see note on HMW’s translation in 1788:71.

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  • Arthurian legend retold with a vigorous and wild imagination
    Tales of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. by LEGRAND D’AUSSY, Pierre Jean Baptiste (1737-1800).
    LEGRAND D’AUSSY, Pierre Jean Baptiste (1737-1800).
    Tales of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. From the French of Mr. Le Grand. Vol. I [-II]. London, Egerton, Hookham, Kearsley, Robinson, Bew and Sewel, 1786.

    First Edition in English. Two volumes. 12mo, (167 x 90 mm), pp. [iv] xxxii, 239; [ii], [5]-8 advertisments, 240, small stains intermittently, Vol. II’s last leaf has small hole and missing a letter on each side, possibly wanting the half-titles, contemporary half calf, lettering pieces red and green with remaining compartments gilt, final 2 Tales with manuscript notes by a contemporary reader (The Physician of Brai identified in the latter as the source of Fielding’s The Mock Doctor), slightly cropped inscription.

    The scarce first English edition of Fabliaux ou contes du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle, Paris 1779, compiled and edited by Legrand d’Aussy, conservator of… (more)

    The scarce first English edition of Fabliaux ou contes du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle, Paris 1779, compiled and edited by Legrand d’Aussy, conservator of French manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale. The work consists of 37 ‘original stories, serious and comic’ taken from French legends and, as such, presenting a very different impression on the English reader, who would have been introduced for the first time to many of the tales (although some, notably the Arthurian tales, would have been well enough known). The work is prefaced by a longish essay by the anonymous translator on the origin and nature of legend and fables. The tales are accompanied by explanations of what is known about each story and where it has been reworked: ‘with an account of the imitations and uses that have since been made of them, by Bocasse [Boccacio], Molière, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Racine, Corneille, Voltaire, Rousseau, and other modern authors’ (advertisement).
    Samuel Badcock wrote in the Monthly Review: ‘These Tales shock probability. We cannot realise many of the incidents, yet they discover a vigorous and wild imagination. They awaken curiosity; and as they are generally short, they are seldom tedious: and we easily suffer ourselves to be carried away by the pleasing illusion into the land of inchantment [sic]’ (MR 76 p. 61).

    ESTC t160021, at BL, NLW, Columbia and Rice; OCLC adds Yale, Claremont and Ohio.

    MMF 1786:31.

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  • rare Scottish history printed in Dumfries
    The heroic deeds of the Scots. by CARRUTHERS, John (active 1796).
    CARRUTHERS, John (active 1796).
    The heroic deeds of the Scots. A Poem, in four volumes. From Fergus I. down to the present Time. To which are added, Poems on Several Occasions, at the End of each Volume. By John Carruthers. Volume I [all published]. Dumfries, Robert Jackson, 1796.

    First Edition. 12mo, (166 x 100 mm), pp. vii, [i], [9]-84, text fairly browned with some dampstaining, partially uncut, in contemporary sheep backed marbled boards, front joint cracked and delicate, head and tail of spine chipped, boards dusty and worn, extremities rubbed.

    A scarce poetical description of the earliest history of Scotland, accompanied by notes. This slim (and very scarce) volume is all that came of an… (more)

    A scarce poetical description of the earliest history of Scotland, accompanied by notes. This slim (and very scarce) volume is all that came of an ambitious plan for a four volume work of poetry and scholarship spanning several centuries. Dedicated to George James Hay, Earl of Errol and with a prefatory ‘Address to the Inhabitants of Annandale’, the work opens with a note on the origin of the Scots and a three page introduction in verse. The origins of the nation are further explored in ‘Chapter First’, which ends with the death of the mythical Fergus I. The poem continues with the invasion of the Danes, the death of Kennethus, the battles of Almon and Loncarty and the reign of Malcolm, which take the reader to the beginning of Book IV, accompanied by footnotes throughout. At this point, verse is abandoned and the narrative is ‘continued in Prose, from Fergus I. to Robert Bruce, being the end of the first Volume’ (pp. 55-70). The remaining pages contain verses by and addressed to John Carruthers, on various subjects.
    Given the slightness of the volume, the disclaimer in the opening address is rather endearing: ‘I am only sorry that, on account of the book swelling larger than could possibly be afforded at the price, I have been necessitated to leave out the verse, and insert the notes only, from the reign of Macbeth. I shall however make some amends in the next volume, which will be much more concise, having only to treat of nine Kings reigns, down to James the Sixth’. In a final note at the end of the text, Carruthers addds ‘From the want of authentic records in the early ages of Scottish history, I have been as brief as the subject would admit. When we come to more enlightened times, the events that passed will be more fully treated. The fourth and last volume of this Book, which gives an account of this present war from its commencement, will be above 200 pages, including the Subscribers names, who are now upwards of two thousand’.

    ESTC t198507, listing BL, Hornel Art Gallery Library (Kirkcudbright), NLS and Cornell only.

    View basket More details Price: £1,200.00