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The Lorette System of Pruning -
Louis Lorette, W. R. Dykes (translator)
1925 - Martin Hopkinson &, London - First Edition in English
A rare first edition of this classic work which revolutionised the pruning of fruit trees, profusely illustrated throughout with a total of 129 photographs and diagrams. First published in French in 1914, and then into this First Edition in English in 1925.
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Price HK$ 2,200
1925 - Martin Hopkinson &, London - First Edition in English
A rare first edition of this classic work which revolutionised the pruning of fruit trees, profusely illustrated throughout with a total of 129 photographs and diagrams. First published in French in 1914, and then into this First Edition in English in 1925.
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Price HK$ 2,200
Grasses and Pastures of South Africa -
D. Meredith (editor)
1955 - Central News Agency, Johannesburg - First Edition
A large and comprehensive work in two parts - ‘A Guide to the Identification of Grasses in South Africa’ by Lucy Chippindall, and ‘Pasture Management in South Africa’ by J. D. Scott, J. J. Theron, D. Meredith and others.
In a unique and elegant binding, initially ‘J.K. 97’, with what appear to be handmade paper end leaves incorporating wild grasses. Housed in matching bespoke marbled slipcase.
Illustrated throughout with full page colour plates and in-text black and white photographs, folding colour maps bound in at the rear.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1955 - Central News Agency, Johannesburg - First Edition
A large and comprehensive work in two parts - ‘A Guide to the Identification of Grasses in South Africa’ by Lucy Chippindall, and ‘Pasture Management in South Africa’ by J. D. Scott, J. J. Theron, D. Meredith and others.In a unique and elegant binding, initially ‘J.K. 97’, with what appear to be handmade paper end leaves incorporating wild grasses. Housed in matching bespoke marbled slipcase.
Illustrated throughout with full page colour plates and in-text black and white photographs, folding colour maps bound in at the rear.
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Price HK$ 6,000
A History of British Birds -
Rev. F. O. Morris
1870 - George Bell and Sons, London - Second Edition
An exceptional six volume set of this milestone in ornithological illustration containing 365 fine full page hand coloured plates, each one supported by a detailed description. The artwork is by A.F. and C. Lydon, plates engraved and printed by Benjamin Fawcett, arguably the most accomplished of nineteenth century woodblock colour printers.
The preferred second edition with the plates no longer featuring the background colour, in the original gilt pictorial bindings which are particularly bright.
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Price HK$ 12,000
1870 - George Bell and Sons, London - Second Edition
An exceptional six volume set of this milestone in ornithological illustration containing 365 fine full page hand coloured plates, each one supported by a detailed description. The artwork is by A.F. and C. Lydon, plates engraved and printed by Benjamin Fawcett, arguably the most accomplished of nineteenth century woodblock colour printers.The preferred second edition with the plates no longer featuring the background colour, in the original gilt pictorial bindings which are particularly bright.
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Price HK$ 12,000
A Treatise of Gauging: Or, the Modern Practical Gauger. Illustrated with necessary Examples -
Thomas Moss
1779 - Printed for G. Robinson, London - The Third Edition, Greatly Enlarged and Improved by the Author
Illustrated with large folding plate to the rear, and numerous in-text diagrams and tables. All editions of this work are scarce.
The complexities of measuring the amount of a liquid when in a cask led to many advancements in practical mathematics including the use of the slide-rule.
Obviously without accurate measurements an excise officer would have found life rather difficult having to rely on the distilleries creative measurements...
A "gauger" was an officer whose business it was to ascertain the contents of casks, mainly to assist in the prevention of illicit shipments of alcohol. In so doing it was necessary to apply and in some cases adapt mathematical formulae which were considered extremely advanced at the time.
Thomas Moss, an exciseman and gauger, was also a well known mathematician, publishing the ‘Mathematical Magazine’ together with George Witchell (1738-85), and being referenced for his clear and concise early descriptions of a number of geometrical properties.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1779 - Printed for G. Robinson, London - The Third Edition, Greatly Enlarged and Improved by the Author
Illustrated with large folding plate to the rear, and numerous in-text diagrams and tables. All editions of this work are scarce.The complexities of measuring the amount of a liquid when in a cask led to many advancements in practical mathematics including the use of the slide-rule.
Obviously without accurate measurements an excise officer would have found life rather difficult having to rely on the distilleries creative measurements...
A "gauger" was an officer whose business it was to ascertain the contents of casks, mainly to assist in the prevention of illicit shipments of alcohol. In so doing it was necessary to apply and in some cases adapt mathematical formulae which were considered extremely advanced at the time.
Thomas Moss, an exciseman and gauger, was also a well known mathematician, publishing the ‘Mathematical Magazine’ together with George Witchell (1738-85), and being referenced for his clear and concise early descriptions of a number of geometrical properties.
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Price HK$ 4,000
Healths Improvement: or, Rules Comprising and Discovering The Mature, Method, and Manner of Preparing all sorts of Food Used in this Nation. -
Thomas Muffett (Moffett), Christopher Bennet
1655 - Printed by Tho: Newcomb for Samuel Thornton, at the sign of the white Horse in Pauls Churchyard - First Edition
‘Written by that ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: Corrected and Enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and Fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.’
Scarce first edition of this posthumous work, which André Simon said was “probably compiled about 1595. Some chapter headings will give an idea of the scope of this work, which is composed throughout in a gossipy and very readable style. ‘What Diet is’. ‘How it is to be chosen’. ‘Of Meats’. ‘Of the flesh of tame beasts’. ‘Of the flesh of wild fowl’ . . .”
From the collection of noted bibliophile and perfectionist, Brent Gration-Maxfield, with his neat pencil annotation to the front.
See page 154, where Muffett describes the flying fish he was shown by his friend Sir Francis Drake.
The work includes the important observation, made for the first time, that eating liver is beneficial to certain eye diseases. It also contains the first list of British wildfowl, and recognition of their migratory habits.
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Price HK$ 40,000
1655 - Printed by Tho: Newcomb for Samuel Thornton, at the sign of the white Horse in Pauls Churchyard - First Edition
‘Written by that ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: Corrected and Enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and Fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.’Scarce first edition of this posthumous work, which André Simon said was “probably compiled about 1595. Some chapter headings will give an idea of the scope of this work, which is composed throughout in a gossipy and very readable style. ‘What Diet is’. ‘How it is to be chosen’. ‘Of Meats’. ‘Of the flesh of tame beasts’. ‘Of the flesh of wild fowl’ . . .”
From the collection of noted bibliophile and perfectionist, Brent Gration-Maxfield, with his neat pencil annotation to the front.
See page 154, where Muffett describes the flying fish he was shown by his friend Sir Francis Drake.
The work includes the important observation, made for the first time, that eating liver is beneficial to certain eye diseases. It also contains the first list of British wildfowl, and recognition of their migratory habits.
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Price HK$ 40,000
Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not -
Florence Nightingale
Circa 1860-64 - Harrison, London - Early Edition
‘Every woman, or at least almost every woman, in England has, at one time or another in her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or invalid, – in other words, every woman is a nurse.’
One of the earliest editions of Florence Nightingale’s seminal work on nursing – the first of its kind ever to be published – which sets out her principles of care for the sick and injured, with advice and practices under chapters entitled ‘Observations of the Sick’, ‘Personal Cleanliness’, ‘Bed and Bedding’, ‘Cleanliness of Rooms’, ‘Taking Food’, ‘Ventilation and Warming’, and ‘Health in Houses’.
‘The book was the first of its kind ever to be written. It appeared at a time when the simple rules of health were only beginning to be known, when its topics were of vital importance not only for the well-being and recovery of patients, when hospitals were riddled with infection, when nurses were still mainly regarded as ignorant, uneducated persons. The book has, inevitably, its place in the history of nursing, for it was written by the founder of modern nursing’ – Joan Quixley, head of the Nightingale School of Nursing, 1974.
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Price HK$ 11,500
Circa 1860-64 - Harrison, London - Early Edition
‘Every woman, or at least almost every woman, in England has, at one time or another in her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or invalid, – in other words, every woman is a nurse.’One of the earliest editions of Florence Nightingale’s seminal work on nursing – the first of its kind ever to be published – which sets out her principles of care for the sick and injured, with advice and practices under chapters entitled ‘Observations of the Sick’, ‘Personal Cleanliness’, ‘Bed and Bedding’, ‘Cleanliness of Rooms’, ‘Taking Food’, ‘Ventilation and Warming’, and ‘Health in Houses’.
‘The book was the first of its kind ever to be written. It appeared at a time when the simple rules of health were only beginning to be known, when its topics were of vital importance not only for the well-being and recovery of patients, when hospitals were riddled with infection, when nurses were still mainly regarded as ignorant, uneducated persons. The book has, inevitably, its place in the history of nursing, for it was written by the founder of modern nursing’ – Joan Quixley, head of the Nightingale School of Nursing, 1974.
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Price HK$ 11,500
The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art: Treatment, Repair, and Restoration -
Harold Plenderleith, A. E. A. Werner
1957 - Oxford University Press, London - Second Printing
Exquisitely bound copy of Plenderleith’s comprehensive, fascinating and groundbreaking work, ‘a seminal event for conservators that marked their emergence from the shadows of museum basements into the light of a new profession’ [Oddy]. Illustrated throughout.
Harold James Plenderleith MC FRSE FCS (19 September 1898 – 2 November 1997) was a 20th century Scottish art conservator and archaeologist. AFter two terms at University College in St Andrews he went to officer training school due to the First World War becoming a Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers in 1917. He served on the Western Front from August 1917, received a shrapnel wound in the arm on the Ypres Salient, and was awarded the Military Cross in 1918 for a successful night raid on a German pillbox.[5]
In 1919 Plenderleith returned to study Chemistry at University College (BSc 1921, PhD 1923). In 1924, he began to work at the British Museum with Dr Alexander Scott in the newly created Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. This department had been created by the museum to address objects in the collection that had begun to rapidly deteriorate as a result of being stored in the London underground railway tunnels during the First World War. Scott and Plenderleith began applying their knowledge of Chemistry to the deterioration of museum objects and began scientific conservation in the United Kingdom. As an archaeologist he was involved in the excavations of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt, Sir Leonard Woolley's site at Ur, and the Sutton Hoo ship burial.
In the Second World War Plenderleith worked with Sir John Forsdyke on the relocation of precious artefacts from the British Museum into mines and quarries in Wales to avoid bomb damage. On the night of 10-11 May 1941 when the British Museum was bombed, he crawled "like a snake" into a burning book storage area to investigate the damage.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1957 - Oxford University Press, London - Second Printing
Exquisitely bound copy of Plenderleith’s comprehensive, fascinating and groundbreaking work, ‘a seminal event for conservators that marked their emergence from the shadows of museum basements into the light of a new profession’ [Oddy]. Illustrated throughout.Harold James Plenderleith MC FRSE FCS (19 September 1898 – 2 November 1997) was a 20th century Scottish art conservator and archaeologist. AFter two terms at University College in St Andrews he went to officer training school due to the First World War becoming a Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers in 1917. He served on the Western Front from August 1917, received a shrapnel wound in the arm on the Ypres Salient, and was awarded the Military Cross in 1918 for a successful night raid on a German pillbox.[5]
In 1919 Plenderleith returned to study Chemistry at University College (BSc 1921, PhD 1923). In 1924, he began to work at the British Museum with Dr Alexander Scott in the newly created Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. This department had been created by the museum to address objects in the collection that had begun to rapidly deteriorate as a result of being stored in the London underground railway tunnels during the First World War. Scott and Plenderleith began applying their knowledge of Chemistry to the deterioration of museum objects and began scientific conservation in the United Kingdom. As an archaeologist he was involved in the excavations of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt, Sir Leonard Woolley's site at Ur, and the Sutton Hoo ship burial.
In the Second World War Plenderleith worked with Sir John Forsdyke on the relocation of precious artefacts from the British Museum into mines and quarries in Wales to avoid bomb damage. On the night of 10-11 May 1941 when the British Museum was bombed, he crawled "like a snake" into a burning book storage area to investigate the damage.
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Price HK$ 4,000
The Kingdom of the Pearl -
L Rosenthal, Edmund Dulac (illustrator)
1920 - Nisbet &, London - Limited Edition copy 12 of 100, signed by Dulac
A superb large quarto limited and signed edition of Dulac's illustrated book masterpiece. One of 100 copies, commissioned by famed Parisian jeweller, Léonard Rosenthal.
‘Each one of these plates is a work of art, and the matter of the book itself is an engrossing history of pearls, their culture, their treatment, their myths and legends, and the narratives of famous stones. The book combines romance and instruction.’ - The New York Times (4 December, 1921)
Dulac uses techniques borrowed from Persian manuscripts, such as overwashing the watercolours with silver and gold. Those approaches produced stunning results, contributing to the gem-like quality of the ten exquisite tipped-in plates with captioned tissue guards.
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Price HK$ 14,000
1920 - Nisbet &, London - Limited Edition copy 12 of 100, signed by Dulac
A superb large quarto limited and signed edition of Dulac's illustrated book masterpiece. One of 100 copies, commissioned by famed Parisian jeweller, Léonard Rosenthal.‘Each one of these plates is a work of art, and the matter of the book itself is an engrossing history of pearls, their culture, their treatment, their myths and legends, and the narratives of famous stones. The book combines romance and instruction.’ - The New York Times (4 December, 1921)
Dulac uses techniques borrowed from Persian manuscripts, such as overwashing the watercolours with silver and gold. Those approaches produced stunning results, contributing to the gem-like quality of the ten exquisite tipped-in plates with captioned tissue guards.
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Price HK$ 14,000