Search Results: Authors starting with B from The Brick Row Book Shop

London: John Murray, 1819, 1819. First edition. Robinson, Wayward Women, page 275; Pine-Coffin, page 175. Some light foxing and stains; fine copy.. 8vo, contemporary acid-stained brown calf, gilt decorated and lettered spine. Frontispiece, three aquatint illustrations and one engraved plate, probably after illustrations by the author. The first of two travel narratives by English poet Marianne Baillie (1775-1831), written with a "ladylike attitude to touring" (Robinson), in which she extols the beautiful, but is easily uncomfortable with surroundings to which she is unaccustomed. In her reserved preface, Baillie apologizes for leaning toward romance in her prose and an inclination to imitate the travel writing of Ann Radcliffe. The artist of the aquatint illustrations is not identified, but Baillie did the illustrations in a similar style for her second travelogue about Portugal, and it is likely she did these as well. Contemporary bookplate on the front paste-down.

London: Printed by Richard Bishop, 1651, 1651. The last 17th century edition. ESTC R12723; Wing B547; NCBEL I, 1083. Paper a little browned; some light foxing; early ink doodling on the title-page; edges slightly rubbed; very good copy.. Small 8vo, modern dark green morocco by MacDonald, gilt rules and lettering, a.e.g. A popular mid-Tudor work on moral philosophy by the poet, satirist and printer William Baldwin (circa 1518-1563?), "a literary innovator whose works influenced writers as historically distant and as thematically diverse as Thomas Nashe, Edmund Spenser, and Alexander Pope" - ODNB. A Treatise was first published in 1547 and many editions in the 16th century. "In his Treatise, Baldwin [adapted] the precepts of the philosophers to the practical needs of would-be governors and gentlemen without robbing them of the mystique - the impression they gave of skimming the surface of unplumbed esoteric depths - that made them attractive." See R. W. Maslen, "William Baldwin and the Politics of… Read More

London: Printed for T. Evans, 1775, 1775. Second edition; the first was published in 1752 under the title Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain . .. ESTC T94269; NCBEL II, 1806. Edges a little rubbed; some light foxing; very good copy.. 8vo, contemporary smooth calf rebacked to style, red leather spine label, gilt rules and lettering. A slightly revised edition of George Ballard's collection of 50 brief biographies of remarkable English women, from poets to heads of state, including Juliana Berners, Anne Finch, Mary Astell, Constania Grierson, Katherine Philips and Katherine Killigrew, followed by an index of every person mentioned in the text. Ballard (1705-1755) had antiquarian interests from an early age. The list of 400 subscribers (not called for here) to the first edition included 143 women. See the ODNB. Contemporary armorial bookplate of John Cator on the front paste-down.

New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1906, 1906. First edition. Smith, American Fiction 1900-1925, B-389. Cloth a little soiled; very good copy.. 8vo, original pictorial blue-gray cloth, gilt lettering. Frontis and four plates. The first novel by one of the most popular American novelist from the turn of the century, Inscribed on the front free endpaper to collector John Stuart Groves: "To Mr. John Stuart Groves / A first edition of a / first novel warrants / any author's autograph. / Rex Beach." Groves' small leather book-platel opposite the inscription, which has offsett onto the inscription.

Alexandria: Printed by Cottom and Stewart, Booksellers, 1802, 1802. First American edition. American Bibliography 1860; cf. Garside & Schöwerling 1801:15 for the English edition. Binding rubbed and worn; label chipped; moderately foxed and stained; conrer of one leaf torn, with loss to about seven lines of text, but not the sense; a good copy.. 3 vols in 1, as issued, 12mo, contemporary sheep, red morocco label, gilt rules and lettering. Separate title-pages for volumes 2 & 3, but the pagination is continous. The first American edition of the only novel by Thomas Bellamy, the picaresque tale of a young boy, Alfred, who is abandoned by his mother and lives through numerous "calamitous vicissitudes," but in the end is saved by a generous family. The Beggar Boy was left unfinished at Bellamy's death, and his friend the novelist Elizabeth Sarah Villa-Real Gooch completed the work, as noted by her in the preface.

London: Printed by J. Leake, for Peter Buck, 1697, 1697. First edition, separate issue. ESTC R14052; Wing B1928; cf. Bibliotheca Fictiva 39. Edges a little rubbed; upper hinge repaired; very good copy.. 8vo, early polished calf, gilt rules. The seminal treatise by Richard Bentley (1662-1742) on the authenticity of ancient texts, most notably the alleged letters of the 500 BC tyrant Phalaris, which Bentley convincingly demonstrated on linguistic and historical grounds to be forgeries. It was a controversial treatise and roundly attacked, but Bentley successfully defended his arguments. "Richard Bentley was and remains the greatest of English classical scholars. His reputation was made by his Dissertation on Phalaris, the final crushing blow in the Battle of the Books" - see under Printing and the Mind of Man, 178. The Dissertation was issued in two forms in 1697, as an appendix to William Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, Second Edition (1697) and separately, as here. The… Read More

London: Printed for Humfrey Lownes, 1595, 1595. The first edition as edited by Gervase Markham; revised from the first edition of 1486. STC 3314; ESTC S103621; NCBEL I, 689 (Berners) & 2011 (Markham). Rust holes affecting a few letters in two words on O1; repair to the margin of Dd2; small holes affecting a few words also on Dd2; final leaf of text, Dd3, torn away, removing the blank portion and the letters "thority" in the word authority, the last word of the text; the blank portion has been replaced; lacking the final blank; some light damp-staining; very good copy, with generous margins.. Small 4to, three parts in one, modern reddish-brown morocco, blind rules and lettering. 116 woodcuts of arms. Two preliminary blanks present, the second with the signature mark "A"; medial blanks, L3 & L4, present; lacking the final blank, D4. A famous 15th-century courtesy book and instructional manual on hunting, hawking and coats of arms, traditionally attributed to Dame Juliana Berners (fl. 1460), a nun at… Read More

London: Printed by J. Plymsell; for T. N. Longman, 1797, 1797. First edition. ESTC N12984. Some minor dust-soiling and spots in the text; edges rubbed; very good copy.. 2 vols, 8vo, contemporary quarter tree-calf, marbled paper boards, red morocco spine labels, gilt rules and lettering. Without the half-titles. Rachel Charlotte Biggs was acquainted with France when she traveled by herself there in 1792 to aid an aristocratic lady friend, during which time she witnessed the Revolution during its grim climax. Out of concern for their safety, Biggs and her companion moved from Paris north to Amiens and other nearby towns. At one point Biggs was under arrest on suspicion of being a spy. Her impressive memoir of this experience, in letters to her brother, is distinctly loyalist and dedicated with "extreme diffidence" to Edmund Burke. Biggs reports sympathetically on the effects of the Revolution on the lives of shopkeepers, clergy, women in convents, aristocrats (with whom she travels), farmers, et al.;… Read More

Edinburgh: Printed by James Donaldson, for Alexander Donaldson, and sold at his Shops [sic], and by all the Booksellers in Scotland, 1774, 1774. First edition with "Shops" in the imprint, second issue with the catchword "Lord" on page iv; "comparatively" on page 34; etc.. Pottle 50 and see pages 98-101; Rothschild 450; ESTC T88998; NCBEL II, 1212. Title-page skillfully repaired at the gutter; very good copy, enclosed in a chemise and quarter morocco slipcase.. 4to, modern blue paper wrappers, 37 pages. An important literary copyright dispute between booksellers in England and Scotland, known as Hinton v. Donaldson, in which James Boswell and John MacLaurin represented the Edinburgh publisher Alexander Donaldson and his cohorts against claims by London publishers that he was violating their copyrights. Donaldson specialized in publishing inexpensive reprints of English books which he maintained were not protected by the Copyright Act of 1710. The London publishers argued that their copyright existed… Read More

London: John Murray, 1821, 1821. See NCBEL II, 643. Edges a little rubbed; preliminary binder's blank detached; very good copy.. 8vo, later olive half calf, marbled paper boards and matching endpapers, gilt lettering, a.e.g. A collection of the writings of William Lisle Bowles (1752-1860) in which he defends himself against attacks he had received from Byron, Thomas Campbell, Octavius Gilchrist (a "Certain Critic and Grocer") and others over his treatment of Alexander Pope in the ten-volume edition of Pope's works that Bowles edited. The pamphlet war that ensued became known as the "Pope Controversy" and here Bowles presents the lion's share of it with notes. See Cecil Woolf, "Some Uncollected Authors," The Book Collector, Autumn, 1958, for an interesting account of Bowles, and the DNB.

Chicago: Joseph G. Branch Publishing Co., (1912), 1912. First edition. First signature loosening; boards a little spotted and worn; very good copy.. 8vo, original green cloth spine, gray pictorial paper boards. Frontis portrait and ten illustrations. An uncommon memoir by Mary Polk Branch, about her life in Middle Tennessee (specifically Columbia and its environs) in the years leading up to the Civil War and immediately afterward. Her immediate family and inlaws were well connected, wealthy Southerners and had numerous properties (i.e., plantations) throughout the South. Among their family members were President James K. Polk, and Confederate Generals Lucius E. Polk, Leonidas Polk (the "Fighting Bishop") and Lawrence Branch. The memoir is followed by a genealogy of her family, with brief biographies. Presentation copy: Inscribed twice on the front free endpaper "To Captain P. W. Thompson with Compliments of Joseph Branch, Chicago, June 15/12" and below that "To [?] R. Branch Compliments of Capt. P.… Read More

[Hellgate, East River, New York, circa 1835.], 1835. Binding a little rubbed; in fine condition, enclosed in a recently-made quarter morocco clamshell box.. 4to, contemporary American red morocco, upper and lower boards with a center rectangular gilt border with floral corners, edges with a 1.5 cm floral-gilt border, spine elaborately gilt decorated in five compartments, marbled paper endpapers, a.e.g. Ticket of Arnold & Grubb, Bookseller and Binders, 289 1/2 Main St., Poughkeepsie, on the paste-down. A remarkable holograph manuscript by New York writer and man of letters Charles Astor Bristed (1820-1874), written when he was a teenager and under the supervision and care of his famous grandfather, John Jacob Astor - many years prior to his first published book. Bristed's manuscript is in two parts, bound téte-bêche style (sometimes referred to as a "dos à dos" binding) with 86 unpaginated leaves (172 pages) legibly written in ink on the rectos and versos, numerous corrections in the text,… Read More

London: Printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1760, 1760. First edition. ESTC T1560; NCBEL II, 826; Eddy, John Brown, 61. Blank inner margin of the last leaf torn, without loss of text; very good copy.. 8vo, disbound, 48 pages. Without the half-title. A dialogue by "Estimate" Brown (1715-1766) in which he responds to political positions taken by Lord Lyttelton in his famous Dialogues of the Dead (1760), which had appeared earlier the same year. The anonymous dialogue is written under the guise of being a sequel to Lyttelton's Pericles and Cosmo.

London: Printed for William Crooke, 1676, 1676. First edition. ESTC R2537; Wing B-5253. Hinges and chipped edges of the free endpapers neatly repaired; very good copy in contemporary state.. Small 8vo, contemporary blind-ruled sheep, brown leather label, gilt lettering. With the first and final blanks and three pages of publisher's terminal advertisements. An interesting guide to the landmarks and civic structure of London by a lawyer and author on legal matters, John Brydall (circa 1635-1705). He writes about the origins and organization of cities; the etymology of the name London; the history of its landmarks; the layers of civic bureaucracy; and the essential laws and regulations governing the town.

Kent: Printed at the Private Press of Lee Priory, By John Warwick, 1818, 1818. First edition. Lowndes vol. 8, page 221, #41; Woodworth, The Literary Career of Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, 70. Some faint foxing; corner of one leaf torn, only effecting the blank margin; very good copy.. 4to, modern blue paste-paper boards, paper label on the upper board, untrimmed. Vignette title-page and six vignettes in the text. A collection of six funeral memorials in verse, with annotations on the publication history, brief biographies of the authors and subjects, etc., and as with most things by the antiquary Sir Egerton Brydges (1762-1837), they are entertaining.