Rare books from Voewood Rare Books

London: Printed by T. Bensley for Wynne & Scholey and J. Wallis 1805, 1805. 10 Volumes. 8vo. Endpapers and edges marbled. Portrait on frontispiece of volume 1. Engraved vignettes to title pages of each volume and title pages of individual plays. A Fine set in a contemporary quarter deep red morocco over marbled boards. The tips more graceful than usual with gilt rules to the borders. Spines with gilt ruled compartments and titles. A impeccably-bound set of Shakespeare. Volume One also containing Rowe's "Life of Shakespeare" and the text of his will. Volumes Nine and Ten contain prefaces and annotations.

Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1843-1847, 1843. First collected edition. Seven volumes. 4to. 275x218mm. pp. Vol. I. [vi], xv [ibl], 420; Vol. 2. [iv], xvi, 440; Vol.3. [viii], xx, 381; Vol. 4. [iv], xl, 552, 1 folding plate; Vol. 5. [vi], vi, 540, 2pp errata. Vol. 6. [iv], vii [i bl], 479; Vol. 7. [vi], cxcv, 691. Volumes 1-5 contain the Traité de Mécanique Céleste, volume 6 is Exposition du Systeme du Monde, and volume 7 is Théorie analytique des Probabilités. Contemporary quarter calf, marbled paper covered boards. Spine lettered in gilt. Marbled endpapers. All edges marbled. Small tear to the paper on the front board of volume 7 with some rubbing and scuffing. Some bumping to corners but overall this is an excellent set. Internally fine. Often referred to as the French Newton, Laplace (1749-1827) worked in the fields of astronomy, physics and mathematics. His main (and certainly his longest work), Traité de Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) refocused the study of classical mechanics… Read More

London: Country Life. Arts et Metiers, Paris; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1938, 1938. First edition. 250 by 190mm. [iv], 64pp black and white photographs. Illustrated card cover. Small crease to bottom right corner, small split to joint at foot of spine and front cover, bumping to head of spine and corners, some marking to white lower cover but overall the condition is very good considering its age and fragility. Internally very good. The introduction by James Bone is in English and the captions are in English and French. This English edition is scarce. Brandt's second book, A Night in London, was published in London and Paris in 1938. It was based on Paris de Nuit (1936) by Brassaï, whom Brandt greatly admired. The book tells the story of a London night, moving between different social classes and making use as with The English at Home of Brandt's family and friends. This is a very good copy of a ground-breaking collection of superb photographs. 'I photographed pubs, common lodging… Read More

London: Printed for the Author; and sold by W.Owen et. al., 1764. Fourth Edition, Enlarged. Third edition of the Compleat Appraiser. Tall 12mo in 4s. (198x75mm). pp. xxv, [1], 170, [2], iv, 46, 46a-h, 47-74. Twentieth-century quarter brown morocco with small arts and crafts style decorative motifs on the joints, brown cloth covered boards. Slight rubbing to the joints and mild bumping to the corners. Overall in very good condition. Internally very good, some browning to edges of title page and final leaf. Gathering Gg has been repaired affecting the text but not legibility. Modern endpapers and blank preliminaries stamped "Birmingham Assay Office Library". ESTC locates three copies of this edition in UK institutions and four in the US. This book (first published in 1757 and running to three editions in its first three years) is dedicated to "Cabinet-Makers, Brokers, and Appraisers and also to other dealers in Plate-Glass". It tells us almost everything we could possibly want to know about the… Read More

London: Printed for the author by T. Egerton. 1795. First edition. 8vo in 4s. (208x130mm). pp. [2], xxv, 3-88. K4 blank. Loosely inserted is a letter of 1993 from the Bodleian Library confirming that K4 in their copy is blank and setting out the full collation, this copy conforming to that. Contemporary red full grain morocco in fine condition. Decorative gilt borders to the upper and lower covers. Spine lavishly decorated in gilt, Greek-key design turn-ins. All edges gilt. Very slight rubbing at the head and foot of the spine. Marble endpapers. A very handsome binding. Internally near fine with only minimal spotting in places. Front pastedown has the royal armorial bookplate of "E D C". This is Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, later King of Hanover, one of the sons of George III. He was created Duke of Cumberland in 1799 and this book would have been bound for him at about that time. ESTC records copies in the BL, Bodleian and The Codrington Library together with five copies in the US. Sir… Read More

Paris: Librairie Archeologique de Victor Didron. � 1857, 1857. First edition. 4to. 272x225mm. pp. 58 [2, advertisements]. Three leaves of engraved plates and a plan of the layout of the capitals of the Doge's Palace. Original brown paper wrappers, worn and chipped at extremities, tears to spine with some loss, staining to covers. Internally, there is foxing and spotting but overall it is in very good condition. Some pages unopened. �� This is the first published book by William Burges, one of the most inventive architects and designers of the nineteenth century. The son of a rich engineer, Burges trained with Edward Blore (the surveyor to Westminster Abbey) and Matthew Wyatt who was Special Commissioner to the 1851 Great Exhibition. Burges worked closely with Wyatt in assessing designs and entries for the Exhibition, particularly for Pugin's hugely influential Medieval Court. This was to determine the course of Burges's career: from the early 1850s he travelled widely throughout Europe… Read More

ORIGINAL SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH. Book: New Hampshire: Addison House 1977. First edition. 275x188mm. Unpaginated, illustrated throughout. Photographic card wrappers, protected by a transparent plastic cover. In excellent condition with only a little light shelfwear to the extremities Internally very good. Signed by Kroll on the frontispiece. A nice copy of an important sociological study. Offered with an original vintage print signed by Eric Kroll on the back and from his own collection. Part of the mount is cut out to show the signature. In very good condition. The photograph is reproduced in the book where the model is identified as 'Shelley [who] worked in a nude model studio in Baltimore, Maryland. The studio also offered "nude or semi-nude wrestling or boxing"'. Kroll photographs her in a relaxed, quasi-classical pose, in the manner of a Titian Venus or Ingres's Odalisque. The reference is deliberate and the meaning and implication clear. Kroll toured America photographing and interviewing young… Read More

London: The Studio 1893, 1893. A set of The Studio from the Volume 1, Number 1 issued in April 1893 to Volume 100 (ending in December 1930). All 1st eds, all 4to. Almost all, including the first six issues making up Volume One, are in the rare original paper wrappers. Seventeen volumes are in the green cloth. Of the complete set of one hundred volumes, five are missing (4, 76, 77, 83 and 85) and the set lacks a further eleven individual numbers in the monthly magazine format but this is a very good, near complete set in, for the most part, its original form. Many of the magazines have the text jointly in English and French. All are in very good condition but with some minor tears to some of those in paper wrapper. Further information and images are available on request. Founded by Charles Holme, a businessman who "was able to take the pulse of a culture and provide exactly what was wanted at a certain historical moment", The Studio appeared at a time when the public were starting to… Read More

1972, 1972. Photo silkscreen on graph paper (900x735mm). Inscribed in pencil in the bottom margin "For Francesco - [Signed] Robert Mapplethorpe '73". An early work from an important stage in the development of Mapplethorpe's career. When he graduated from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn in 1969, Mapplethorpe was making mixed-media collages using images torn from magazines. In 1971, he befriended John McKendry, curator of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. McKendry allowed Mapplethorpe access to the Museum's photography archives and later that year gave him his first Polaroid camera. Mapplethorpe initially used this camera to make material for use in his assemblages but he quickly began making self-portraits and exploring the possibilities photography offered as a medium in its own right, particularly after he met Sam Wagstaff in 1972. Wagstaff probably did more than anyone to ensure that photography began to be taken seriously as an art form in America. This triptych of… Read More

Manchester: Ferranti Computer Department various [c1959], 1959. There are twelve separate documents in this collection. There is a fifty-page brochure giving a description of the Ferranti Pegasus Computer with Magnetic Tape Equipment, calling it a "medium-sized general-purpose digital computer for wide application in industry, science, commerce and administration". It also has a splendid double page photograph of the room-sized machine. The booklet itself "describes the principal features of the computer as they concern the user". It aims to give a general picture of the computer but is not a "text-book for programmers". Page 9 of the booklet mentions that Ferranti provides training courses for those wishing to write programmes for the Pegasus. Ten of the other items in this substantial collection of material about the Pegasus relate to this Ferranti programming course for the Pegasus. All are published by Ferranti Ltd. Finally, there are seventy four pages of handwritten notes taken by a student on… Read More

London: Bradbury & Evans 1863-65, 1863. Eight pamphlets under three titles. Privately printed by M.P.W. Boulton between 1863 and 1865, the three titles concern a dispute about the origins and invention of photography and are a refutation by Boulton of claims made in 1863 by F.P. Smith. Further details of this are given below. Each title has more than one version. Boulton issued each pamphlet and then added further notes to it to build up his argument. This means that each title has a final complete form but these represent an expanded version of the first issued pamphlet. The final form of each title is here in this collection of eight different versions of the three works (items 2,6 and 8 below) but we can see from the other pamphlets how, and at what point, Boulton introduces new evidence and develops further strands in his detailed discussion. There is an overlap between the variants within each title but no two pamphlets are exactly the same. All of these pamphlets are rare institutionally and… Read More

London: Printed for William Innys 1731, 1731. First edition. 8vo. 200x120mm. pp. [4], xliii, [1], 94, [2pp adverts], one folding plate. Contemporary sprinkled calf, triple fillet border in gilt to upper and lower cover. Five raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt with crown, thistle and flower pattern. Second compartment with tan lettering piece, lettered in gilt. Some wear to boards, rubbing and rubbing to spine and joints. All edges red. Internally in fine condition. Diagrams throughout. Marbled endpapers. From the Library of the Earls of Macclesfield, the front pastedown has the bookplate from the South Library and embossed stamps with Macclesfield Coat of Arms to title and dedication. ESTC locates 11 copies in the UK and 10 in the US. John Gray (d1769) was a mathematician who taught at Marischal College (later Aberdeen University) where he was also Rector towards the end of his life. Accordingly, his Treatise on Gunnery is a highly technical affair, complex but also rather beautiful in the… Read More

London: Printed by M[iles].F[lesher]. for Iohn Marriot 1633, 1633. First edition. Small 4to. 190x140mm. pp. [12], 406. Attractively bound by Ramage in maroon full morocco. Triple filet border in gilt and blind with frame also in gilt and blind with gilt fleurons at the corners. Spine has five raised bands with double filet in gilt. Compartments with single filet border and fleuron, second and third compartment lettered in gilt. Doublures decorated in gilt filets and fleurons. Vellum endpapers. Spine slightly faded but overall a very smart binding. Slight soiling to F1 and small tear to head of Oo4, not affecting the text, otherwise near fine internally. Lacking final blank. The Printer to the Understanders (A1 and A2) and Infinitati Sacrum (A3 and A4) bound after title page and NnI is cancellandum, with running titles but omitting last 2 lines of text, which instead appear on the verso. Although attempts are made to ascribe "states" or "editions" to these variations, Keynes felt that such efforts… Read More

Rhemes: John Fogny 1582, 1582. The editio princeps of the translation of the New Testament made in accordance with Roman Catholic doctrine. Quarto. 227x165mm. pp. [28], 745, [27]. Handsome modern panelled speckled calf, decorated in blind, spine with raised bands, brown morocco label in second compartment, lettered and decorated in gilt. Title page has been remargined and the next two preliminary and the final three leaves repaired. Very small marginal worm track at the gutter between Yiii and Ddii, otherwise internally very good. Woodcut vignettes and historiated initials throughout. Some (illegible) contemporary manuscript annotations on the final two leaves. p378 has a hand-drawn Patriarchal Cross (Cross of Lorraine) in the margin next to the paragraph defining the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning good works. An excellent copy of a theologically important translation with combative doctrinal notes and commentaries marking a significant English contribution to the Counter-Reformation.… Read More

Ulyssipone [Lisbon]: Michaelem Manescal da costa 1764, 1764. Folio in 6s. 293x210mm. pp.[60], 658 [i.e.672], cxliv, [4]. Missæ Propriæ Sanctorum: pp. [10], 58. Missæ Sanctorum novæ: pp. 40. Missæ Speciales pro Patriarchatu Lisbonensi: pp. 8. Engraved plates of the Annunciation, Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Beautifully printed in red and black. Contemporary red morocco, gilt. Both covers with richly tooled borders framing a further central border with ornate cornerpieces inside which is a lozenge formed of drawer-handle tooling and leaf motifs and small circles. Spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt with fleurons. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt and gauffered. Brass clasps. Corners bumped and bottom edges worn and some small wormholes on upper cover, otherwise in very good condition given that this missal was clearly used daily at the altar. Internally, there is some marginal damage to leaves Aaiii, iv (closed tear), v and to Bb iv (no loss of text) which are part of… Read More