52
THE FIRST EDITION OF A RARE, PIRATED BIOGRAPHY, OF WHICH ONLY TWO COPIES ARE RECORDED IN BRITISH INSTITUTIONAL LIBRARIES
189.NAPOLEON I, Emperor of the French — The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Selected from the Most Authentic Sources. London: ‘Printed for the Booksellers’ by Hartley and Walker, 1838.
£195
8vo (126 x 76mm). Original olive-green cloth, boards blocked in blind with elaborate border, spine blocked in gilt with title within cartouche surmounted by Napoleonic eagle, cream endpapers, uncut; pp. viii, 439, [1 (imprint)]; extremities a little rubbed and bumped, small mark on lower board, offsetting on endpapers, a few light marks, some quires clumsily opened causing marginal tearing, but not affecting text, lacking the engraved portrait frontispiece and engraved additional title, otherwise a very good copy in the original cloth of a rare biography; provenance: [?]J & Thos Pollock, Leeds, 29 August 1839 (ownership inscription on front free endpaper, with date ‘1867’ below).
First edition of this text. Although its
origins are not acknowledged (and it is thus presumably a piracy), The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte is essentially an abridgement of the two- volume Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte compiled by William Hamilton Reid from various sources and published in London in 1827, with most of the text reprinted verbatim in the later publication. A second edition of The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (described as second edition, ‘with additions’) was issued in London in 1839, and was presumably the same text that was reprinted in Halifax in 1840, which is enlarged with a long introductory ‘Essay on the Character of Napoleon’ by William Ellery Channing (pp. xi-lxxii) and a few pages of analysis summarising Napoleon’s achievements at the end. Further editions appeared in Halifax in 1850 and 1864, published by W. Milner and Milner and Sowerby, respectively. Both the first and second editions are rare works, and nicely characterise the impact on publishers of the enormous and abiding public interest in Napoleon, and their response to that interest. The appeal of Napoleon stretched throughout society, and thus the carefully-edited and well-produced Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte published by George Virtue in 1827 in association with other bookseller-publishers, which would have been an expensive acquisition, prompted the piracy of Reid’s text and the publication of this cheaply-produced and presumably inexpensive piracy some ten years later (probably in Halifax, where the first edition was printed and the reprint of the second published, and the later issues appeared).
Like the other cheaply-produced piracies or abridgements of Napoleonic accounts published in the nineteenth century (many in the provinces), early editions of this work are now rare, and COPAC only records two copies of the 1838 edition of The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte in the UK (National Library of Scotland and National Trust); one copy of the 1839 second edition (Oxford); and one of the 1840 edition (York Minster). The later issues listed in COPAC (some of uncertain date or minimal description) number four, and there seems to have been a later (possibly reduced) edition published by W. Nicholson & Sons in circa 1890-1900, known in two copies only.
190. NICHOLSON, William (author and illustrator). Clever Bill. London; Faber and Faber. 1958.
£88
Landscape large 8vo. Original bright yellow pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers, preserved in repeat pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [28], including endpapers; illustrated throughout in full colour; an exceptionally fine copy preserved in unread condition in similarly fresh, unclipped, dustwrapper (10s 6d).
Early edition. This volume was first published by Heinemann in 1926.
191. NUTTALL, G. Clarke. Beautiful Flowering Shrubs. Cassell & Company, Ltd. [n.d., 1922].
£98
8vo. Original cloth and wrapper; pp. 280, 40 colour plates by H. Essenhigh Corke; previous owner’s isncription to ffep, some chipping to edges of dustwrapper, very good.
First edition. A guide to the characteristics and cultivation of shrubs with unusually vivid plates made using the autochrome process, an early method of colour photography.
192. O’BRIAN, Patrick. Treason’s Harbour. Collins. 1983. £298
8vo. Original cloth in price-clipped dust-jacket. Spine of wrapper very slightly sunned, a little light foxing to flaps of wrappers, usual toning to pages, otherwise a very good copy..
First edition.
193. O’BRIAN, Patrick. The Nutmeg of Consolation. Collins. 1991.
£350
8vo. Original cloth; a fine copy. First edition.
194. OMAR KHAYYAM. Rubaiyat. Sampson Low, Marston & Company, [n.d.].
£450
8vo, recently bound in half red morocco, spine lettered directly and decorated in gilt in compartments, top egdes gilt; illustrated by Frank Brangwyn; a very nice copy.
Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.
195.OMAR KHAYYAM. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Pomona Queensland. D.J. Harwood & Associates. 2011.
£850
8vo., hand bound original dark blue morocco, lettered in gilt on upper cover with gilt block of seated man on upper cover, the text printed in colours after calligraphy by Dave Wood with decorations by Dave Wood. A fine copy in original slipcase.
First edition, limited edition of 20 numbered copies signed by the designer, calligrapher and artist Dave Wood. A fine and handsomely produced calligraphic edition of the Rubaiyat.
From the publisher’s website: “This book is absolutely unique in the marketplace, given its 21st century design and interpretation of Arabic/Western themes created by Dave. Each page is jewel-like, a work of art in its own right and an absolute visual feast for the eyes.
Dave Wood is recognised world wide for his works which are breathtaking in their execution and in the visual pleasure they exude. He combines his 45 years of experience as a graphic designer, typographer and world class calligrapher to expand calligraphy into a new and exciting dimension.
Dave has been a pioneer in the promotion of calligraphy, originally
190
191
192
193
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74