Philadelphia : M. Carey and Son, Chest-nut Street. 1821. 8vo, [-]4, B-Z, Aa-Zz, 3A4, 26 engraved plates (numbered 1 to XX1V, XXV11 & XXV1), heavily foxed throughout as usual, cont. sheep, neatly rebacked, old label, corner repaired. A sound copy.
The fourth edition (first published 1795) of the first book on power grain milling and a landmark of early American technology. Writing in 1935 Bathe says of it “There is to this day, at least one mill owner known to the writer, who has a copy of Oliver Evans’ Mill-wright in his office to which he says quite frankly he refers often, considering it is still in many repects the most practical work for millers ever published”. As a practical handbook it is hardly surprising that copies, where they have survived, are usually in poor condition.
Reference: Bathe, G. & D. : Oliver Evans. A Chronicle of Early American Engineering. 1935 p.47

London : Printed by Tho. Cotes. 1640. Sole Edition
Folio, eng. title, title-page (1 leaf), To the Reader (1 leaf), Dedication (1 leaf, verso blank), laudatory epistles and poems (5 lls), Contents (1 leaf verso blank), Text, pps 1-1755 (with errors), Errata (1 leaf verso blank), complete. Engraved title and the occasional woodcut in the first half of the book coloured by an early hand, tear in last leaf of The Table repaired without loss, a little minor staining but generally a good clean copy with ample margins, 19th century half black morocco, marbled boards, a very sound copy.
Provenance. Signature of “Eliz Smyth of Hartfild(?) 1686” at head of eng. title and signature of “George Smyth” on verso. Faint, small stamp of “Charles Lakin” of Leicester
on foremargin of eng. title. Bookplate of The Horticultural Society of New York on front pastedown.

The author, a London pharmacist, received the title of Royal Apothecary from James I. Later Charles I appointed him as his chief botanist (“Botanicus Regius Primarius”). He had a private garden in Long Acre (Theatrum p.609) in which he grew many rarities. Work on his herbal, which was delayed for a number of years by the success of Johnson’s edition of Gerarde, was greatly helped by the unpublished notes of the French botanist, Matthias L’Obel, who had lived in North London for the last years of his life. The result was an enormous folio work containing descriptions of nearly 4,000 plants (almost 1,000 more than the 1636 Gerarde) including some twenty-eight species not previously recorded in Britain. The most important of these were the strawberry tree from Ireland and the lady’s slipper orchid found in Lancashire.

Reference: STC 19302 Henrey 286 Hunt Bot. Cat. 235 Nissen 1490

1960. Original watercolour drawing (330 x 270 mm) of Rip Van Winkle, on his return from his twenty years asleep in the Catskills, surrounded by curious villagers outside the General Washington Inn (formerly the King George III Inn!), signed bottom left “Arthur Rackham ‘05” Framed and glazed in the original Leicester Galleries frame with their ticket on the back. (see below)
“But the first work that greatly advanced his fame in the years immediately following his marriage was his edition of Rip Van Winkle...This lovely book decisively established Rackham as the leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian period...” [Hudson p.57] An innovation which produced enormous advance publicity for the publishers was the exhibition of the original drawings at The Leicester Galleries; the deluxe edition of the book was fully subscribed before the exhibition closed.
This is much more than just a very fine Rackham watercolour; it is an iconic moment in one of the great stories of world literature. Rip van Winkle is known throughout the English-speaking world and beyond as the man who slept for twenty years. One day, to escape his nagging wife he wanders off into his native Catskill mountains in New York State and falls asleep. He awakes to discover shocking changes. His musket is rotting and rusty, his beard is a foot long, and his dog is nowhere to be found. Van Winkle returns to his village where he recognizes no one. He discovers that his wife has died and that his close friends have fallen in a war or moved away. He gets into trouble when he proclaims himself a loyal subject of King George III, not aware that the American Revolution has taken place. King George's portrait in the inn has been replaced with one of George Washington. And here he is, a bewildered Rip, sleep still in his eyes, outside what is now the General Washington Inn surrounded by villagers he doesn’t recognise.
Reference: Hudson, Derek : Arthur Rackham His Life and Work. N.Y. 1960

[London] ; P. Tempest excudit n.d. Oblong 4to (257 x 197mm), engaved title-page and 12 engraved plates after Barlow, engraved by W. Hollar (6), R. Gaywood (2), P. Tempest (3), and 1 unsigned., the tenth plate, of a stag and hind, with a 2-inch mended tear and a small corner missing and laid down on old paper, encased in grey sugar-paper wrappers.
The only record of this title that we have found is ESTC R478450, located in a single copy only (Natural History Museum, Rothschild Collection at Tring). However, that copy has 25 leaves with measurements of 18 x 15 cm as against the present copy measuring 25.7 x 19.7 cm. As Edward Hodnett explains “ Barlow’s prints exist in a confusing mixture of separate proofs and desecrated pages as well as in bound assortments and scattered collections”. It would appear that the present volume is one of these; confusing it certainly is, and also very rare.

London : Printed for William Leake and are to be sould at his shop at ye crowne in fleet strett betwen the two Temple gatts, 1650. Small 4to, A-Z, Aa4, [8], 1-80, 79-181, [1]pps, historiated title-page engraved by Geo. Gifford with 8 couplets of explanation on the facing page, publisher’s catalogue on lower half of page 181 and verso, fore-margin of B3 cut close without loss, cont. mottled calf, recently rebacked, small piece of leather missing from front board, unusual 19c. decorated endpapers, a good sound copy.
This romance was translated from the Occitan original into French by Pierre de la Cépède but the first printed edition was that of William Caxton’s translation from French into English, Westminster 1485. There were various other editions and translations into Dutch, Italian and French in the 15th and 16th century; in English it was not printed again till the 17th century; [1628] for George Percivall, [1632?] for Richard Hawkins, and the present one 1650 for William Leake. It would appear that at least these last two issues are from the same sheets as the duplication of pp79-80 appears in both.
Rare. Of any issue only one copy (lacking a leaf) at auction since 1947
ESTC R19255 Wing M295c & V356

Bordeaux : Chez Jaques L’Aveugle. 1710 [ but not before 1742]. [4th edition]
12mo, eng. portrait of Jacques Masse, 3 leaves, 508 pps, title-page vignette of a nude woman, old mottled calf, marbled endpapers, recently rebacked and corners renewed, spine fully gilt, red edges, a few ms. marginalia in pencil in the early pages, early signature of “Edward Scudamore M.D., St. George’s Place, C....ty”on verso of front end-paper and of “G.S. Morley” on front fly-leaf, a good sound copy.
According to Rosenberg this is the fourth (his ‘edition D’) of four editions all dated 1710, the earliest of which was probably issued in The Hague c. 1714-1717. It has all the issue points that he mentions; the nude woman vignette, the imprint spelt “Bordeaux”, *1 missigned *2, A6 missigned H6, and P3 unsigned, and from the watermark he dates it ‘not before 1742’.
Tyssot de Patot, a firebrand Huguenot free-thinker, sets his imaginary voyag (or as P.D. Gove argues, rather an ‘extraordinary’ voyage; making the distinction between narratives which the authors admit to being fantasy and those which are passed off as genuine voyages), as had Vairesse before him, in Australia drawing for his description of the country on the accounts of real travellers such as Dellon and Lahontan. Here his hero discovers a well-organised Utopia and makes the very prescient observation of the importance of mining and irrigation in that country.
Reference: Cioranescu 18me 62587 Gove : Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction. p.217
[Rosenberg: Tyssot de Patot & His Work... pps 86-90]

Hamburg : Gebrüder Enoch Verlag, 1926. First Edition, 2nd issue (6-10 Tausend)
Large 4to, 216, xx pp, 242 photo-illustrations and diagrams in text and 126 photographic sequences, a total of some 1100 images on 42 sheets in a pocket at the rear, publisher’s original decorated blue cloth printed in black, fine copy.
Arnold Fanck was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as The Holy Mountain (1926), The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), Storm over Mont Blanc (1930), Der weisse Rausch (1931), and S.O.S. Eisberg (1933). Fanck was also instrumental in launching the careers of several filmmakers including Leni Riefenstahl and cinematographer Sepp Allgeier.
Johann "Hannes" Schneider was an Austrian Ski instructor from the Arlberg. He developed the Arlberg technique and appeared in Dr. Arnold Fanck's ski film. Der weiße Rausch, filmed in the Arlberg in the winter of 1930/1931, which helped make skiing popular.
He moved to New Hampshire in 1939 and during the Second World War helped train the 10th Mountain Division of the U. S. Army in which his son Herbert served. Hannes became a member of the US Ski Hall of Fame in 1958.