Search Results: Authors starting with B from Bernard Quaritch Ltd

8vo, pp. [xxxvi], 216; woodcut headpieces and initials; some spotting and browning in places, but largely fresh; with 17th century engraved bookplate of Antonius Biderman on verso of title (leading to small hole on title, not affecting text); in later marbled boards with floral paper spine, handwritten label at head of spine; later endpapers; some rubbing and wear to extremities.
First edition, second issue (with the imprint R. Daniel, rather than R. Danielis) of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance of William Rawley's biographical sketch of the philosopher. Rawley, Bacon's literary executor, collects together eleven essays, some original and some appearing for the first time in Latin, including 'Historia densi et rari', 'Inquisitio de magnetate', 'Topica inquisitionis de luce et lumine', 'Confessio Fidei', and 'Inquisitio de versionibus, transmutationubus, multiplicationibus, et… Read More

2 parts in one vol., folio, pp. [16], 176, 179-298, 301-302, 301-386; [16], 350, 387-392, 357-475, [1 (blank)]; engraved portrait printed to [π]1v, large woodcut initials and ornaments throughout; sig. A inverted and sewn within sig. [π], likewise inverted (resulting in the collation [π]2, A4-6, A1-3, [π]1), numerous part-titles but paginated and collated in 2 continuous parts, pp. 299-300 mispaginated '301-302' and pp. 2351-356 '387-392', complete despite the error in pagination; A2 perhaps a cancel; a few sections foxed, very occasional insignificant paper-flaws or ink- and scorch-marks, never affecting legibility; contemporary vellum, yapp edges, title inked to spine in later hand, blue edges, later endpapers; split at head of upper joint, some wear to extremities and marks to boards; ink stamp of the Albani Library to first title; inscriptions and ink stamps of James Condamin (1917) to front free endpaper and titles.… Read More

First edition, rare on the market, of this illustrated account of the Kabyle people of northern Algeria by the English artist Edgar Barclay (1842-1913). 'From the city of Algiers, looking eastwards across the bay, is seen a snow-covered mass towering above lower ranges of mountains. It is to the country lying immediately beneath those snow-clad peaks, inhabited by a people of entirely different race and speech to the Arabs, and known as Kabyles, that the following pages relate. Though Algiers has many English visitors, this district remains little known' (Introduction). Barclay studied at Dresden with Carolsfeld, and then in Rome, where he became friendly with Giovanni Costa.Small 4to, pp. xviii, 119, [1]; with 8 photo engravings and 7 wood engravings, engraved headpieces and initials; some foxing to title and occasionally to plates and tissue guards; overall very good in original blue cloth by Burn & Co., gilt lettering to spine and upper cover, silver vignette to upper cover, black endpapers;… Read More

This book brings together eighty obituaries written by Nicolas Barker. The first were published in 1966 and the last in 2018. Print links them all: they were printers, publishers, librarians, booksellers or book collectors, their lives joined by a common dedication to the printed word and all that goes with it. At First, All Went Well… opens with C.H. Wilkinson and Sir Sydney Roberts and ends with Barney Rosenthal and Ian Doyle. Such people as Graham Pollard, Don McKenzie, Nicolete Gray, Mary Hyde, Bernard Breslauer, Justin Howes and Joe Tanner are then chronicled along the way. In 2013 Quaritch published Nicolas Barker at eighty: a list of his publications to mark his 80th birthday. As the book records, Nicolas Barker has written on an extensive range of topics including medieval manuscripts, calligraphy, forgery, the book trade, typography, bibliophily and bookbinding.ISBN 978-0-9955192-1-38vo, (230 x 145 mm), pp. 382; cloth-bound.

4to, pp. viii, '160' [i.e. 260]; title copper-engraved with decorative border and large armorial cartouche, copper-engraved initial E (showing St Peter's Basilica), woodcut ornaments and initials; some spotting and browning in places, and minimal marginal worming to final few leaves (not affecting text); a very good, clean copy, uncut in contemporary carta rustica; binding somewhat browned and worn, and slightly loose.
First edition of this utopia by the Tuscan Dominican Pier Vincenzo Barsanti.
Barsanti (fl. before 1784), professor of theology at the episcopal seminary of Cortona and then prior of the convent of Santa Caterina in Livorno, bases his book on work he had presented previously to the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona, the vast scope of which made it ripe for expansion. Over the course of three books, he speculates about matters ranging from the fate of unbaptised infants to human reason, the tendency of philosophers and poets to plagiarise sacred texts, the art of navigation, and the… Read More

12mo, pp. 107, [1] advertisements, with folding handcoloured frontispiece; some browning and foxing throughout, due to paper quality, but never heavy; closely cropped at head with very slight loss to page number of penultimate page; in contemporary navy morocco-backed boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt; some wear to extremities, and corners bumped and worn. First edition, very rare, of this satirical defence and exploration of cuckoldry in European and global culture, written by the Lille printer and bookseller Simon-François Blocquel (1780–1863) under one of his many pseudonyms.
Obviously not a translation from the English, the Manuel is designed to console the cuckold with the thought that his state is both agréable and utile; Blocquel attempts to prove this using several arguments. First, and far from least, the cuckold's errant wife will manifest her feelings of guilt in increased tenderness towards her husband; secondly, it could well result in financial gain, as the lover might be… Read More

[bound with:] BOUDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre-Joseph. Le Monde joué, ou memoires pour servir a l'histoire du genre humain. 'A Berlin' [Paris, Bernard Brunet], 1753. First editions of two scarce works by the philosopher, moralist and Parisian avocat Boudier de Villemert (1716-1801), best known as the author of L'Ami des Femmes. Of Rousseauian inspiration, L'Andrometrie provides a most interesting 'philosophical examination of mankind'. Boudier de Villemert's portrait is far from pretty: man is driven by self interest and worthless passion, is blind to his faults, arrogant, vain and lazy, is more prone to dreaming than reasoning, is forever seeking happiness in the wrong places (in riches, greatness or pleasure), and his enormous published output only proves his mediocrity and ignorance. 'Science, talent, riches, honours - grand words which signify little', the author writes, 'and by little I mean everything that by its nature makes man neither better nor happier' (pp. 57-58, trans). There is an… Read More

Scarce first edition thus of this collection of letters by the Irish writer Hugh Boyd (1746-1794), compiled by Andrew Burchet Bone, and with a life of Boyd by Lawrence Dundas Campbell.Originally published in the Hircarrah in 1793 and 1794, the letters here discuss, inter alia, philosophy (especially Rousseau), the French, poetry and painting, conversation, dress, the theatre, ancient Greece and Rome, music, marriage, human nature, Sir William Jones, and, naturally enough, the British in India. Apologising for the delay in publication and typographical inaccuracies, the editor refers to 'the yet infant state of the press in India'. The list of subscribers includes the Madras Circulating Library.Boyd had a colourful career: a popular figure in London fashionable society, he numbered 'Edmund Burke, Catharine Macaulay, David Garrick, John Wilkes, and Joshua Reynolds among his wide circle of acquaintances' (ODNB). He married into money but having exhausted his wife's fortune was forced to join the East… Read More

Second edition (first 1823) of this account of the Scandinavian travels undertaken by Brooke (1791-1858) in 1820, illustrated with attractive lithographs, several after drawings by the author.'A person ... will find in the North much to gratify his curiosity, and interest his feelings. If his eye be tired of the charming repetition of scenery in the southern parts of Sweden ... he will find ample variety amid the Norwegian mountains, where nothing is wanting to combine the romantic with the beautiful. If he pursue his course along the wild rocks of the western main ... he will view with mingled admiration and astonishment those giant features of creation, around the heads of which ... the whirlwind of the North howls in concert with the roaring billows below. Should he turn his steps to the boundless forests and wastes of Lapland ... he will in every direction meet with scenery worthy of his pencil, and subjects that cannot fail to arrest his contemplation' (pp. vi-vii).Upon graduating from… Read More