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  1. ARISTOPHANES.

    The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …

    Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].

    First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we...

    £500

  2. ARISTOPHANES, and Henry Francis CARY, translator.

    The Birds … with Notes.

    London, Printed for Taylor and Hessey … 1824.

    First edition of the first metrical translation of Aristophanes’ The Birds into English by Henry Francis Cary (1722–1844) – perhaps best known for his blank verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

    £350

  3. ARISTOTLE.

    Αριστοτελους περι ποιητικης: Aristotelis de poetica liber ex versione Theodori Goulstoni. Lectionis...

    Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1780.

    Large-paper issue of the first Winstanley edition, handsomely bound. The first work published by the Oxford historian and classicist Thomas Winstanley (1749–1823), subsequently Camden Professor of History and Laudian Professor of Arabic, this edition of Aristotle’s De poetica was based...

    £675

  4. CLAUDIANUS, Claudius.

    Claudii Claudiani Alexandrini, poetae illustriss. quotquot nostra hac tempestate extant opsucula, ad series...

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1530.

    First Colines edition of the major works of Claudianus Claudius, known in the English-speaking world as Claudian, a Greek-speaking Latin poet best known for the unfinished epic De Raptu Proserpinae. It is printed in the same attractive italic type Colines used for his octavo editions of...

    £850

  5. EUNAPIUS.

    Ευναπιου του Σαρδιανου βιοι φιλοσοφων και σοφιστων … De vitis philosophorum...

    ‘Cologne’ [but Geneva?], Samuel Crispin, 1616.

    Very uncommon edition of the twenty-four biographies of Eunapius of Sardis (b. 347?), valuable as a source for the neo-Platonic, and anti-Christian, philosophy of the fourth century; among his subjects were Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Epiphanius. The Latin translation is by Hadrianus Junius.

    £450

  6. FULBECKE, William.

    An Historicall Collection of the continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians during...

    London, Printed for William Ponsonby. 1601.

    First edition. Fulbecke’s Historicall Collection ‘was a narrative history of the last years of the Roman republic and it is significant as one of the very few attempts by a Renaissance Englishman to write such a work … An interesting attempt to weave together such often-contradictory...

    £5250

  7. GIBBON, Edward.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

    London, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1776–88.

    First editions of all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style’ (PMM). The first volume here is of the second variant (of two), with the errata corrected as far as p. 183 and X4 and a4 so signed. The first edition of volume I (1000 copies, published...

    £14000

  8. GOODWIN, Thomas.

    Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities wherein many Roman and English...

    London, R.W. for Peter Parker, 1661.

    A wholly unsophisticated Restoration sammelband of three popular seventeenth-century schoolbooks.

    £850

  9. HERODOTUS.

    Historiae Libri IX: et de vita Homeri libellus. Illi, ex interpretatione Laurentio Vallae adscripta; hic ex interpretatione...

    Frankfurt, Heirs of Andreas Wechel (Claude de Marne and Johann Aubry), 1594.

    Freidrich Sylberg’s edition of Herodotus in the Latin translation by Lorenzo Valla, based on the text published by Estienne in 1566, along with extracts from the Greek physician Ctesias’s Persika, a history of Persia, and Indika, the first book to be devoted entirely to India, Estienne’s...

    £1500

  10. HORACE.

    Q. Horatius Flaccus ex recensione Dan. Heinsii.

    Edinburgh, George Mosman, 1704.

    A rare, modestly printed Scottish Horace, apparently the only printing in the British Isles of Heinsius’ edition, first published by Louis Elzevir in 1612.

    £450

  11. HORACE; James TATE, editor

    Horatius restitutus: or the books of Horace arranged in chronological order according...

    Cambridge, J. Smith for J. & J.J. Deighton, 1832. 

    First edition of this attempt to arrange the books of Horace in chronological order by the classical scholar and master of Richmond School, James Tate (1771–1843), this copy presented by him to Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), classicist, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, Regius Professor of Greek,...

    £150

  12. HORACE.

    Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.

    Paris, Didot, 1855.

    The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.

    £750

  13. JUVENAL, Decimus Junius, and Aulus Persius FLACCUS.

    Satyrae.

    London, J. Brindley, 1744.

    First Brindley edition, edited by the Irish classical scholar Usher Gahagan (d. 1749). John Brindley began to publish his series of well-printed duodecimo classics in 1744, for which Gahagan edited eleven works before his arrest and conviction for high treason, having become embroiled with a...

    £650

  14. COSTER, François. 

    Piarum et Christ. institutionum libri tres, in usum sodalitatis B. Mariae Virginis primum conscripti, nunc...

    Douai, Jean Bogard, 1582. 

    Very rare Douai edition of this devotional work by the Belgian Jesuit François Coster (1532–1619), first published at Cologne in 1578, illustrated with woodcuts of the Crucifixion and Our Lady of Sorrows. 

    £675

  15. [MANNING,] Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster.

    The good Soldier’s Death. Preached at the solemn requiem of Alexander, Bishop...

    Liverpool, [Boys’ Refuge Printing Works for] The “Catholic Times” Office, [1872?].

    First edition, very rare, of this sermon on 2 Timothy 2:3 (‘Labour as a good soldier of Jesus Christ’), printed at the Boys’ Refuge in Liverpool.

    £175

  16. FOUQUET DE BELLE-ISLE, Marie-Magdeleine.

    Mémoire pour Dame Marie-Magdeleine Fouquet de Belle-Isle, veuve du Marquis de la Vieuville;...

    [Paris], Jacques Guérin, 1747.

    A seemingly unrecorded legal brief prepared on behalf of Marie-Magdeleine Fouquet de Belle-Isle (1686–1749), granddaughter of the famous Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV.

    £275

  17. CASAL, Ugo Alfonso.

    A small archive of letters, photographs, and typescript material on his collection of Japanese lacquers.

    [Japan and California, 1930–1955.]

    A fascinating archive relating to the extensive Japanese lacquer collection of the Swiss–Japanese banker Ugo Alfonso Casal, including photographs, a 5370-item inventory of his collection, and several lectures on the history and production techniques of Japanese lacquerware.

    £975

  18. [FRENCH REVOLUTION.]

    Liste générale des contre-révolutionnaires mis à mort à Commune-affranchie, d’après les jugements...

    ‘A Commune-affranchie’ [Lyon], chez le citoyen Destefanis, l’an IIe [1794].

    An uncommon and quite remarkable list of ‘counterrevolutionaries’ executed in Lyon during a blood-soaked six-month repression between October 1793 and April 1794.

    £550

  19. FICHTE, Johann Gottlieb.

    Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien des Wissenschaftslehre.

    Jena and Leipzig, Christian Ernest Gabler, 1796[–7].

    First edition of Fichte’s ‘Foundation of Natural Right’, ‘thought by many to be his most important work of political philosophy’, in which he ‘applies his ideas to fundamental issues in political and legal philosophy, covering such topics as civic freedom, rights, private property, contracts,...

    £450

  20. STEELE, Richard.

    The Romish Ecclesiastical History of late Years.

    London, J. Roberts, 1714.

    First and only edition of Steele’s anti-Popish account of the canonisation of Pius V. Prominent in the Whigs’ print campaign of the later years of Anne’s reign, Steele had earlier in 1714 published his incendiary ‘seasonable remarks on the danger of a Popish successor’ in The Crisis. The pamphlet...

    £175