STUDY FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF THE SANC GRAEL by Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - [ca.1882]

London: Etchells & Macdonald, 1926.. Quarto. Cream linen spine and orange cloth over boards, stamped in gilt. Faint dust soiling to spine, trace of normal offsetting to endsheet gutters, otherwise a fine copy in lightly worn slipcase. First edition. Introduction and captions to the illustrations by Bernard Windeler. Illustrated with twenty-three original copper engravings by Wadsworth, printed from the plates, both full-page and vignette, and some delicately handcolored. One of four hundred and fifty copies. Wadsworth was, of course, one of the original signators to the Vorticist manifesto and regrettably that tradition shows through only occasionally and briefly in these draftsman-like renderings. Of particular interest to this cataloguer is the probability that the author of the captions is the same B.C. Windeler whose ELIMUS, with illustrations by Dorothy Shakespear, was published in Pound's INQUEST series three years earlier.

London: Lazarides Photography, 2019. Book. As New. Soft cover. 1st Edition. Illustrated stiff wrappers. Color photographs throughout. Sold out first edition, limited to 5000 numbered copies. This is copy no. 2603. Highly collectible and very sought after. 256 pp. 26 x 21 cm. .

Newcastle: Solomon Hodgson for Beilby and Bewick, 1797 [but 1798]-1804. First edition of Water Birds on Royal 8vo; Second printing of Land Birds on Imperial 8vo. Fine. 2 volumes, 25 cm (vol. 1); 24 cm (vol. 2). 335, 400 pages, with hundreds of illustrations and vignettes in text. Volume 1: History and Description of Land Birds; points of issue: dated 1797 (but 1798), advertising fourth edition of Quadrupeds on last page, priced 1 guinea in boards. Volume 2: History and Description of Water Birds; vignette present at bottom of page 176. Bound in half calf over marbled boards, worn. Contents bright and fresh. References: Hugo, "The Bewick Collector," #99ff; Wood, p. 236; Roscoe 15a and 17b. Bewick refined and popularized the technique of wood-engraving, that is, using metal-engaving tools to cut hard boxwood across the grain, permitting more detail and durability that traditional methods of wood cuts could achieve. The durability of the wood-engraved blocks meant they could be integrated with… Read More

Seymour, Robert (1798 – 1826). Sketches by Seymour. London: Published by G. S. Tregear, 96 Cheapside, [1835-36]. Five volumes: each volume consists of an illustrated lithographed title page and 36 numbered plates, printed on colored papers; 185 humourous, numbered lithographed plates in total. Now bound in one volume, recent brown morocco spine with gilt lettering and five raised bands, on modern marbled boards, gilt page edges all around. 22.5 cm. First edition. Some of the plates have been trimmed slightly. Plate 1 of Vol 4, mis-numbered in the plate as No. 4. Generally very good, occasional browning on a few plates.

Howard, Sir Robert. (1626-1698) Five New Plays, Viz. The [Surprisal, Committee,] Comedies. And The [Indian-Queen, Vestal-Virgin, Duke of Lerma] Tragedies. As they were Acted by His Majesty's Servants at the Theatre-Royal. Written by the Honourable Sir Robert Howard. The Second Edition Corrected. London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be Sold by Jacob Tonson, Daniel Browne, Thomas Bennet, and Richard Wellington, 1700.
Sir Robert Howard:
Large Quatro, 11.25 x 7 in. Second edition. A-Z4, Aa-Kk4. The frontispiece bears a fine engraved portrait of Sir Robert Howard. This is a good copy, somewhat browned internally throughout with the occasional worm in the first 80 pages and sometimes affecting single letters but not objectionable. William Morehead's bookplate is pasted inside the front board. The very nice paneled and speckled contemporary binding has been rebacked. The gilt-tool of the Signet Society is present on the center panel of both boards. Additionally, the library coat of arms for… Read More

Very good copy of the second edition of John Kay's idiosyncratic portraits of celebrities and eccentrics in Georgian Edinburgh.With 358 (of 360) engraved copperplates bound in four volumes. (Plates 84, Right Hon. Charles Hope, and 108, Robert Craig Esq., in Volume 2 apparently never bound in.)With many amusing caricatures of late eighteenth century Edinburgh society, including economist Adam Smith, aeronaut Vincent Lunardi, riding master Angelo Tremamundo, philosopher Thomas Paine, author William Smellie, engraver Andrew Bell, actress Sarah Siddons, golfer Alexander McKellar, apothecary Mortar Willie, anatomist John Barclay, idiots and aristocrats, giants and little people, volunteer soldiers, lawyers, judges, chimney sweeps, sedan-chairmen, and scenes of cockfighting, cudgelling, election violence, transvestitism and ballooning. The appendix has portraits of Toussaint Louverture, John Kay himself, William Wallace, John Knox, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Mary Queen of Scots, George III,… Read More

Lovely copy of a rare book on Indian flora by talented amateur female artist Lena LowisWith 30 elegant botanicals by Lena Lowis, lithographed by David Blair, and printed by M. & N. Hanhart. Among the exotic flowers portrayed are poinsettia, flame lily, bougainvillea, hibiscus, clustervine, coralbush, Rangoon creeper, Nepal trumpet flower, white orchid tree, elephant creeper, oleander, Darwin pea, bottlebrush and Eastern prickly pear.No publication date, but preface dated 1878.Lena Lowis (1845-1919) was a talented writer and botanical illustrator. She was born Selina Caroline Shakespear in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, the daughter of British Indian Army officer, Col. Sir Richmond Shakespear. She married Lt. Col. Ninian Lowis of the Bengal Staffs Corps and moved to England in 1868.David Blair (1820-1899?), was a botanical artist and lithographer who also worked on Transactions of the Linnean Society (1875), Berthold Carl Seemann and James Britten's Journal of Botany, British and Foreign (1872-8),… Read More

Very good volume of 17 numbers of this rare 18th century art magazine.

With calligraphic title page and 50 (of 51) copperplates after artists such as Paul Sandby, C. Monnet, Charles le Brun, Philippe de Champaigne, Giovanni Casanova, Charles Eisen, etc., engraved by Joshua Collyer, William Walker, Charles Grignion, Michael Angelo Rooker, T. Cook, J. Hall, W. Sharp and others.

"In each number of which will be given a Portrait of some Celebrated Personage, some interesting Historical Subject and some curious Perspective View executed by the most capital artists of Great Britain and calculated to enrich the Cabinets of the Curious or to ornament the Apartments of Persons of Real Taste."

Each number had three plates, a portrait, a historical or mythological scene and a bucolic landscape. Missing one plate (of Perseus), never bound in.

The portraits include writers, philosophers, scientists, statesmen, clergy and aristocrats such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Alexander Pope, Racine, Moliere, Corneille, Sir… Read More

Very good copy of Volume LXXIII (73) of the whole series (Volume 3 of the Third Series) of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1847.
Complete with all 70 (13 folding) hand-coloured botanical plates (No. 4275-4344).
All plates drawn and lithographed by the prolific botanical artist Walter Hood Fitch.
Includes many exotic flowers and plants including the giant Victoria water lily, Java rhododendron, peyote cactus, mottlecah eucolyptus, hibiscus, pitcairnia, jalap, pitcher plant, etc. With several species of orchids including Cattleya, Vanda, Anguloa, Bulbophyllum, Phalaenopsis and Dendrophylax.
The dynamic illustrations of flowers and leaves take up the whole plate, and are crammed with details of the seeds and fruits.
Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was one of the great botanists, professor at Glasgow University and later director of Kew Gardens in 1841. He edited Curtis's Botanical Magazine from 1826 onwards, and brought in talented young fabric printer Walter Hood Fitch in 1834.
Walter Hood Fitch… Read More

Very good incomplete copy of Volume L (50) or Eighth of the New Series of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1823.
With 64 (of 84) hand-coloured botanical plates, six folding (No. 2356-2440). Missing 20 plates: 2364-2369, 2410, 2412-2418, 2427-2432.
Copperplate engravings by John Curtis, a few by Sydenham Edwards, mostly engraved by Weddell.
Includes many exotic flowers and plants such as the Claramond tulip, iris, pineapple, hibiscus, Indian fig, protea, amaryllis, aloe, azalea, banksia, crinum, etc.
John Sims (1749-1831) was an English physician and botanist. Born in Canterbury and educated at the Quaker school in Burford, Oxfordshire, he went on to study medicine at Edinburgh University. He became the first editor of the Botanical Magazine after the death of William Curtis in 1799, and edited the magazine from 1801 to 1826.
John Curtis (1791-1862) was an English entomologist and illustrator. At 16, when an apprentice lawyer, he started collecting and drawing insects, and later learned to etch and engrave… Read More