Search Results: Titles starting with N from Bernard Quaritch Ltd

Second edition of Gellius's opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia. Erasmus singled out Bombasi as 'the best of friends'. Bombasi (also Paulus Bombasius, or Paolo Bombace, 1476–1527) was born in Bologna of a noble family. He distinguished himself as a rhetor, philologist, and poet, and became prefect of the Vatican Library, holding regular correspondence with Erasmus. He was one of the victims of the violence which occurred in the 1527 sack of Rome. Our annotator is likely to have been part of the Bologna circle of humanists who gathered for readings of Aulus Gellius, occasionally including Erasmus who lived for some months in Bombasi's house in Bologna. The most explicit note occurs on f. 13v ('Paulus Bombasius Bononiensis hunc versiculum sic emendat … hoc modo: "saepe etiam fuit… Read More

8vo (255 x 158mm), 23 volumes and etched steel plate in box; uncut, volumes and box bound in original coloured full buckram by the Leighton-Straker Bookbinding Co., Ltd., gilt morocco lettering-pieces on spines, top edges gilt; a little light wear and occasional soiling, spines of a few volumes lightly sunned; a very good set.
Limited edition of 877, of which 66 sets were destroyed when a bomb hit the bindery in September 1940, so at most 811 complete sets survive (Dreyfus, Nonesuch Press, 108). The steel plate included with this set is number 605, "Solemn reference is made to Mr. Bunsby" from Dombey and Son
(Chapter 23, facing p.458), engraved by H. K. Browne ('Phiz'), with the typed letter of authenticity on Chapman & Hall headed paper, signed by Arthur Waugh.
Intended as a definitive edition of Dickens' works the Nonesuch Press edition was printed using the original steel… Read More

First edition, limited to 500 copies; an association copy of this eulogy to America's National poet, Joel Barlow, gifted by his widow to Count Rumford. American businessman, diplomat, and poet Joel Barlow (1754–1812) studied at Yale, where he developed interests in poetry, moral and political philosophy, and science, but his studies were interrupted by the revolutionary war, during which he became chaplain of the Third Massachussetts Brigade. Barlow continued to write poetry, and secretly became engaged to Ruth Baldwin, 'whose father wished her to select a more practical suitor' (ADNB; the secret engagement was also illegal in Connecticut). After the war, Barlow opened a printing and stationer's shop in Hartford, CT, considering himself 'destined – if he could only find the right topic – to be the epic poet of the United States' (loc. cit.). In 1787 he published The Vision of Columbus, his epic work on Columbus' discovery of the Americas, which enjoyed a great success. In 1788, as the… Read More

8vo, pp. [vi], xiii, [14]–462, [2] errata; engraved tailpieces; occasional marginal staining and light foxing, generally not affecting text, but otherwise clean and crisp; in contemporary tree calf, flat spine gilt with red label lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers; boards very lightly worn, but still an attractive copy. Only edition, very uncommon, of this guide to rhetoric by the Moscow-based French grammarian Pierre Hennequin (1772–1849), explicitly designed for both sexes and dedicated to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828). Hennequin is very explicit that his guide is written for both sexes: 'Je demanderois aux hommes pourquoi ils veulent s'arroger le droit exclusive d'avoir de la raison et de la cultiver, d'avoir de l'esprit et de l'orner, d'avoir un cĹ“ur et de la former, d'aquĂ©rir des connoissances et de les communiquer'. His aim, he continues, is to fight the prejudice that has historically condemned the 'more interesting half of human society' to ignorance and obscurity,… Read More

First English edition, a nice copy, albeit without two of the original plates to the first part, of this remarkable account of Norway's natural history by the Danish theologian and antiquary Pontoppidan (1698-1764), whose accounts of sea monsters influenced both Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Jules Verne's Twenty thousand leagues under the seas.First published as Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie at Copenhagen in 1752-53, the work is divided into two parts. The first covers Norway's 'air' (i.e. climate), 'soils and mountains', 'waters', 'vegetables', 'sea-vegetables', 'gems and curious stones', and 'metals and minerals', while the second describes its quadrupeds, serpents, insects, birds, fish, and sea monsters, ending with an 'account of the Norwegian nation'.Pontoppidan argues for the existence of sea serpents ('the great sea-snakes I once held only for chimera, but am now fully convinced that they are found in the North sea, as sure as any other fish' (II p. 38)), of mermen and… Read More