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Continental

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Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
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  1. [MORRISON, John Robert.]

    List of Buddhist texts purchased in 1839.

    [China, 1839.]

    A handwritten list of some 130 Buddhist texts in Chinese likely bought by John Robert Morrison (1814–1843), Sinologist, interpreter, and colonial official who played a major part in the British acquisition of Hong Kong.

    £3500

  2. MOUSSON, Pierre.

    Tragoediae seu diversarum gentium et imperiorum magni principes. Dati in theatrum collegii regii Henrici magni ...

    La Flèche, George Griveau, 1621.

    First edition, provincially-printed, of four Neo-Latin tragedies by the French Jesuit professor and playwright Pierre Mousson (c. 1560–1637) inspired by four great figures from the classical world.

    £725

  3. MÜNSTER, Sebastian.

    [Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...

    [Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.

    First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...

    £7000

  4. MUSGRAVE, Samuel.

    Two Dissertations. I. On the Graecian Mythology. II. An Examination of Sir Isaac Newton’s Objections to...

    London, printed by J. Nichols, 1782.

    First edition of this work by the classical scholar Samuel Musgrave (1732–1780), published posthumously for the benefit of the author’s widow, with a generous list of subscribers thanks to the efforts of the editor, Thomas Tyrwhitt.

    £450

  5. MYERS, Robin, Michael HARRIS, and Giles MANDELBROTE (eds).

    Lives in Book History: Changing Contours of Research over...

    Leicester, Garendon Press, 2022.

    ‘This volume has grown out of one event in a long series of annual conferences on book-trade history – held to mark the fortieth conference in 2018. For this we had asked nine well-known book historians to give a retrospective review of their field, be it manuscripts, incunabula, book binding, and...

    £35

  6. [NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].

    Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.

    Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.

    First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.

    £750

  7. NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

    Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

    Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

    Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

    £3750

  8. NELSON, John.

    An Extract of John Nelson’s Journal, being an Account of God’s Dealing with his Soul from his Youth to the forty-second...

    Bristol, E. Farley & Co., 1767.

    Rare first edition, printed in Bristol, of the autobiography of the preacher and pioneer of Methodism in Yorkshire John Nelson (1707–1774).

    £600

  9. NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.

    Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.

    Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.

    First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

    £850

  10. NIXON, Howard M. 

    Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...

    London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956. 

    First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.

    £875

  11. [ORDE, John Powlett.]

    A collection of 111 original compositions in Latin (and occasionally Greek) verse and prose.

    Eton, 1818–1820.

    A delightful insight into classical education at Eton, where until the mid-nineteenth century Greek and Latin were the only official classroom subjects, and Latin composition was considered a key accomplishment.

    £1750

  12. ORIBASIUS. 

    Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533. 

    First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre. 

    £1750

  13. [ORPHIC POEMS.]

    Ορφεως αργοναυτικα υμνοι και περι λιθων. Orphei Argonautica hymni et de lapidibus...

    Utrecht, Willem van de Water, 1689.

    First Eschenbach edition, presenting the ‘Argonautica Orphica’, an anonymous fourth-century Greek epic probably based on the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, which had been rediscovered in the fifteenth century by Constantine Lascaris, alongside the Orphic Hymns and the Lithica,...

    £325

  14. OVID.

    P. Ovidii Nasonis operum …

    Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1629.

    First Elzevir edition, newly edited by Daniel Heinsius based on the Plantin edition of 1578.

    £500

  15. OVID.

    Quae hoc volumine continentur … Metamorphoseωn libri quindecim.

    [(Colophon:) Venice], Aldus [Manutius], [October 1502].

    A systematically annotated copy of the Metamorphoses volume of the first Aldine edition of Ovid’s works. This copy has the redundant line ‘Lib. I’ at the beginning of the text, a distinctive mark of the first printing. Aldus published two further volumes of the Opera in December...

    £2750

  16. OVID; [Philipp GUNDEL, editor].

    Fastorum libri sex diligentissime recogniti. Addito calendario Romano venerandae vetustatis,...

    [(Colophon:) Vienna, Hieronymus Vietor and Johann Singriener for Leonhard Alantsee, 3 October 1513.]

    First and only editions, very rare, of two post-incunable Ovid recensions by Philipp Gundel, curiously bound in a strikingly archaic likely eighteenth-century binding.

    £3500

  17. [OXFORD UNIVERSITY.]

    Pietas Universitatis Oxoniensis in obitum serenissimi Regis Georgii II. et gratulatio in augustissimi Regis...

    Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1761.

    First edition, one of fifty copies on large paper, an exceptional survival in the most luxurious (and fragile) of presentation bindings: full purple velvet with gold-fringed purple silk ties, typically reserved for a handful or fewer of royal copies.

    £10000

  18. PACE, Giulio.

    Artis Lullianae emendatae libri IV. Quibus docetur methodus, per quam magna terminorum generalium, attributorum,...

    Naples, Secondino Roncagliolo, 1631.

     Rare third edition (first 1618) of this concise summary of Ramon Lull’s (c. 1232–1316) highly influential Ars Magna by the famous Protestant Italian Aristotelian scholar and jurist Giulio Pace (1550–1635), whose edition of the Organon was for a long time the standard edition of Aristotle’s...

    £750

  19. PACIFICUS, Sacerdos.

    Two letters signed regarding religious paintings.

    [?Hong Kong, 1846.]

    Two interesting letters referring to paintings of St Anthony, St John the Baptist, and Mary, and their display in a chapel so that the congregation might admire them.

    £1100

  20. PAPINI, Roberto.

    Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.

    Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.

    First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, preceded by the idea of a utopian town, ‘Universa’, where the futuristic ideal for a new society can be achieved and craftsmanship...

    £300