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.

 
  1. [FUNERAL SERMONS.]

    Annotated sammelband of eleven eulogies, a discourse, and an address, with additional manuscript material bound in.

    [Paris, 1682–1692.]

    A sammelband of funeral sermons for distinguished women and men of the late seventeenth century, published in Paris between 1682 and 1692, thoroughly annotated by a cleric for use in his preaching and interspersed with early seventeenth-century manuscript material mostly relating to the bishopric...

    £1200

  2. GAMON, Christophe de.

    La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.

    [Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.

    Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.

    £950

  3. GELLIUS, Aulus.

    Auli Gellii luculentissimi scriptoris Noctes Atticae.

    Lyon, Sebastian Gryphius, 1555.

    Gryphius edition of Aulus Gellius’ famous Attic Nights, issued the year before Gryphius’ death.

    £650

  4. GELLIUS, Aulus; [Johann Friedrich GRONOVIUS, editor].

    Noctes atticae: editio nova et prioribus omnibus docti hominis cura...

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1651.

    Jansson’s piracy of Gronovius’s celebrated version, published the same year as the first edition. A commonplace book compiled by Aulus Gellius in the second century, the Attic Nights received several editions, of which the most highly regarded is that of Johann Friedrich Gronovius (Gronow,...

    £450

  5. [GEORGE V.]

    The Form and Order of the Service that is to be performed and of the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation...

    London, Novello & Company, 1911.

    A handsome copy of the Coronation service, with choral settings of the music sung, including (among others) Parry’s ‘I was glad’, Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’, and ‘God save the King!’, arranged by Sir Frederick Bridge (1844–1924), organist at Westminster Abbey.

    £450

  6. GERHARD, Johann.

    Meditationes sacrae. Editio postrema, prioribus emendatior.

    Oxford, John Lichfield for Henry Curteyne, 1633.

    First English-printed Latin edition of Gerhard’s ‘devotional masterpiece’ (ODCC), Oxford-printed and in a contemporary Oxford binding with binder’s waste from an early edition of Melanchthon’s textbook on rhetoric.

    £950

  7. GIACOMO da Milano.

    Stimulus divini amoris Sancti Bonaventurae.

    Venice, Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio, April 1535.

    Rare edition of the Stimulus divini amoris, a popular medieval devotional treatise long attributed to St Bonaventure but in fact composed by the thirteenth-century Franciscan Giacomo da Milano.

    £550

  8. 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

  9. GIOVANNI GUALBERTO, Saint.

    Sanctus Ioannes Gualbertus Florentinus institutor ordinis Vallisumbrosae.

    [S.l., s.n.,] 1774.

    A wonderful engraving, extremely rare, depicting scenes from the life of Saint Giovanni Gualberto (c. 985–1073, anglicised as John Gualbert), founder of the Vallombrosan Order.

    £1250

  10. GOBINET, Charles. 

    Instruction sur la vérité du Saint Sacrement, contenant en abregé les principaux motifs de la créance Catholique...

    Paris, François le Cointe, 1677. 

    Scarce first edition thus, containing an explanation of the Eucharist and a defence of transubstantiation by the French writer and teacher Charles Gobinet (1613–1690), a lovely copy bearing a stamp found on bindings executed for Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin (1661–1711), eldest son of Louis...

    £650

  11. GOODWIN, Thomas.

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

    Oxford, Leonard Lichfield for Henry Cripps, 1638.

    Early editions of these two popular schoolbooks on antiquities, often found bound together – a compendium of Roman antiquities and a study of the customs and religious rites of the ancient Jews, originally published in 1614 and 1625 respectively – by the headmaster and scholar Thomas Goodwin (1587–1642)....

    £1600

  12. [GORIZIA.]

    Directorium liturgicum sanctae metropolitanae ecclesiae Goritiensis jussu et auctoritate celsissimi et reverendissimi...

    Gorizia, [Antonio] Paternolli, [1845].

    Two very rare annual publications relating to the archdiocese of Gorizia, located in northeastern Italy at the foot of the Julian Alps bordering Slovenia, issued by Franz Xaver Luschin, Archbishop of Gorizia and Gradisca from 1835 to 1854, in its attractive original binding with viticultural motifs.

    £175

  13. [GOSPELS.] Charles HURÉ, translator.

    Le nouveau testament de notre-seigneur Jesus-Christ, nouvellement traduit en françois...

    Paris, L. Roulland, 1712.

    An attractive early Jansenist binding, with a sober shagreen exterior concealing gilt decoration within, on a copy of the Gospels extracted from Charles Huré’s French New Testament.

    £950

  14. [GRADUAL.]

    Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.

    Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.

    A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi...

    £20000

  15. GRAILE, John.

    Three Sermons preached at the Cathedral in Norwich. And a fourth at a parochial Church in Norfolk. Humbly recommending,...

    London, Printed for W. Kettilby … 1685.

    First and only edition, rare. The third of these four sermons was delivered on the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, 30 January 1684, drawing on the Proverb: ‘For the transgression of a land, many are the princes there’, in which the plurality of leaders is shown to be the ‘constant...

    £850

  16. GUILLON, Pierre.

    Danti voci suae vocem virtutis. Quaestio theologica … Has theses … ac praeside, S.M.N.D.D. Ludovico Bellayer,...

    Poitiers, Jean-Felix Faulcon, [1770].

    An apparently unrecorded broadside giving the text of theological theses defended by Pierre Guillon of Poitiers for entry into minor orders.

    £275

  17. HAEFTEN, Benedictus van.

    Regia via crucis.

    Antwerp, Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1635.

    First edition of an important counter-reformation devotional emblem book, with a title-page designed by Peter Paul Rubens. Haeften (1588-1648) was provost of the Benedictine abbey of Affligem, Belgium, and played an important role in the reform of the Benedictine order. The Regia via crucis was his most...

    £1100

  18. HAMILTON, ‘Eliza’ [Elizabeth].

    Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah; written previous to, and during the Period of...

    London, J. Crowder for G. & J. Robinson, 1801.

    Second edition of Hamilton’s first separately published work, a pseudo-Oriental satire on British society, in a very well-preserved gilt paper binding imitating calf.

    £575

  19. HEBER, Reginald, and Nicolas BARKER (editor).

    A Letter from India.

    The Roxburghe Club, 2020.

    'I do not expect that with fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre,’ wrote Sir Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for Indian Affairs, in 1819 to Reginald Heber at Hodnet in Shropshire, but in vain. Despite a growing reputation...

    £100

  20. HERMOGENES.

    Τεχνη ρητορικη τελειοτατη. Hermogenis ars oratoria absolutissima, et libri omnes. Cum nova versione...

    Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1614.

    A parallel text edition of Hermogenes in a simple but fine contemporary binding.

    £750