The Imperial Family Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments -
1848 - Blackie and Son, Glasgow
A fine, massive and exquisitely bound family bible containing the Old and New Testament.
Magnificently illustrated with two additional engraved title pages, thirty-six engraved plates, and an engraved illustrated Family Register. Complete, the listed plate ‘The Raising of Lazarus’ [John XI] replaced with ‘Christ taken down from the cross’ [John XX].
With title pages for both the Old and the New Testament, text in double column format.
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Price HK$ 30,000
1848 - Blackie and Son, Glasgow
A fine, massive and exquisitely bound family bible containing the Old and New Testament.Magnificently illustrated with two additional engraved title pages, thirty-six engraved plates, and an engraved illustrated Family Register. Complete, the listed plate ‘The Raising of Lazarus’ [John XI] replaced with ‘Christ taken down from the cross’ [John XX].
With title pages for both the Old and the New Testament, text in double column format.
More details
Price HK$ 30,000
The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is, with all the kinds causes, symptomes, prognostickes, & severall cures of it. In three Partitions, with their severall Sections, members, & subsections, Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, opened and cut up. With a Satyricall Preface, Conducing to the following Discourse -
Robert Burton [Democritus Junior]
1676 - Printed For Peter Parker, London - The Eighth Edition, Corrected and Augmented by the Author
‘Spanning over 500,000 words, Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ serves as the world's first comprehensive psychological and psychiatric encyclopaedia. Though framed around the historical concept of "melancholia" (which then encompassed clinical depression, delusions, and mania), it stands as a monumental study of human unreason and mental affliction.’ [Royal College of Surgeons]
‘Citing nearly 500 medical authors, and also a literary tour de force’. [Garrison & Morton]
The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621 and Burton continued to make revisions, corrections, and augmentations to each edition published during his lifetime, this, the last 17th century edition to be published, is taken from the 1651 printing, which was the first posthumous edition and included authorial corrections delivered by Burton to the editor H.C. (likely Henry Cripps) before Burton's death in 1640.
Importantly it include the magnificent engraved title page by Christoffel Le Bron, with illustrations representing the effects of Melancholy from Superstition, Solitude, Love and Hypochondriasis.
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Price HK$ 35,000
1676 - Printed For Peter Parker, London - The Eighth Edition, Corrected and Augmented by the Author
‘Spanning over 500,000 words, Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ serves as the world's first comprehensive psychological and psychiatric encyclopaedia. Though framed around the historical concept of "melancholia" (which then encompassed clinical depression, delusions, and mania), it stands as a monumental study of human unreason and mental affliction.’ [Royal College of Surgeons]‘Citing nearly 500 medical authors, and also a literary tour de force’. [Garrison & Morton]
The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621 and Burton continued to make revisions, corrections, and augmentations to each edition published during his lifetime, this, the last 17th century edition to be published, is taken from the 1651 printing, which was the first posthumous edition and included authorial corrections delivered by Burton to the editor H.C. (likely Henry Cripps) before Burton's death in 1640.
Importantly it include the magnificent engraved title page by Christoffel Le Bron, with illustrations representing the effects of Melancholy from Superstition, Solitude, Love and Hypochondriasis.
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Price HK$ 35,000
A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn -
William Cobbett
1828 - By William Cobbett, London - First Edition
In 1820 on returning from the United States, were he had fled fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, William Cobbett established a plant nursery at Kensington, where he trialed a dwarf strain of maize he found growing in a French cottage garden which grew well in England’s shorter summer. To help sell this variety, Cobbett published Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn.
Charmingly written, including anecdotes of his travels through America, and the farming techniques and people he encounters there. The title and contents pages are printed on paper made from the husks and stalks of ‘Indian Corn’ (Maize).
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Price HK$ 2,500
1828 - By William Cobbett, London - First Edition
In 1820 on returning from the United States, were he had fled fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, William Cobbett established a plant nursery at Kensington, where he trialed a dwarf strain of maize he found growing in a French cottage garden which grew well in England’s shorter summer. To help sell this variety, Cobbett published Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn.Charmingly written, including anecdotes of his travels through America, and the farming techniques and people he encounters there. The title and contents pages are printed on paper made from the husks and stalks of ‘Indian Corn’ (Maize).
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Price HK$ 2,500
The Morals of Confucius -
Confucius
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.
Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Mating Marriage and the Status of Women -
James Corin
1910 - The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., London and Felling-on-Tyne - First Edition
‘The Object of the present treatise is to consider the development of the relations of the male and the female of the species.’ And onward Corin bravely goes. This rare treatise is still referenced today, and must of been of importance at the time, this copy was owned by the ‘Liberator League’ of Bradford.
Corin summarises his theories in the final chapter as follows:- ‘In the first period the human female rules. She dictates to the male in sexual affairs — this is free mating...
In the second period the male captures foreign females for his use, because his own are too chaste; these foreign females become his slave wives. He courts and mates with females of his own tribe at yearly festivals like Australian corroborees.
In the third period the institution of marriage has become the dominant form . . . so much so that mating unions become regularised as marriages or are condemned as illicit. Of females, wives are more honoured than free mates — in fact the latter become infamous except in a few cases of royal princesses...
In the fourth period the female recognises and revolts against her inferior position; restrictions on dissolution of marriage are relaxed, and by easy divorce, conditions nearly approaching those of free-mating are again evolved...
In the fifth period, social disruption occurs, conquest by a lower type takes place. The male seizes the opportunity to reinstate the fetters of matrimony and to rivet the links more tightly on the female. so that something of the third period is entered into again.’
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Price HK$ 1,900
1910 - The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., London and Felling-on-Tyne - First Edition
‘The Object of the present treatise is to consider the development of the relations of the male and the female of the species.’ And onward Corin bravely goes. This rare treatise is still referenced today, and must of been of importance at the time, this copy was owned by the ‘Liberator League’ of Bradford.Corin summarises his theories in the final chapter as follows:- ‘In the first period the human female rules. She dictates to the male in sexual affairs — this is free mating...
In the second period the male captures foreign females for his use, because his own are too chaste; these foreign females become his slave wives. He courts and mates with females of his own tribe at yearly festivals like Australian corroborees.
In the third period the institution of marriage has become the dominant form . . . so much so that mating unions become regularised as marriages or are condemned as illicit. Of females, wives are more honoured than free mates — in fact the latter become infamous except in a few cases of royal princesses...
In the fourth period the female recognises and revolts against her inferior position; restrictions on dissolution of marriage are relaxed, and by easy divorce, conditions nearly approaching those of free-mating are again evolved...
In the fifth period, social disruption occurs, conquest by a lower type takes place. The male seizes the opportunity to reinstate the fetters of matrimony and to rivet the links more tightly on the female. so that something of the third period is entered into again.’
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Price HK$ 1,900
On the Origin of Species -
Charles Darwin
1866 - John Murray, London - Fourth Edition, with additions and corrections (eighth thousand)
‘It is now fully recognized that the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species brought about a revolution in man’s attitude toward life and his own place in the universe. This work is rightly regarded as one of the most important books ever published, and a knowledge of it should be part of the intellectual equipment of every educated person. The book remains surprisingly modern in its assertions and is also remarkably accessible to the layman, much more so than recent treatises necessarily encumbered with technical language and professional jargon’. - Harvard University Press.
Printed in the same format and cloth as the first edition, one of only 1,500 issued, with further additions and corrections, it also includes the author's expanded historical sketch written to satisfy complaints that he had not sufficiently considered his predecessors in the general theory of evolution, and a table detailing ‘additions and corrections to the fourth edition’.
A superior and thus scarce example in the original decorated green cloth, folding diagram opposite page 130.
In Origin of Species Darwin ‘not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been taken.’ – Printing and the Mind of Man.
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Price HK$ 30,000
1866 - John Murray, London - Fourth Edition, with additions and corrections (eighth thousand)
‘It is now fully recognized that the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species brought about a revolution in man’s attitude toward life and his own place in the universe. This work is rightly regarded as one of the most important books ever published, and a knowledge of it should be part of the intellectual equipment of every educated person. The book remains surprisingly modern in its assertions and is also remarkably accessible to the layman, much more so than recent treatises necessarily encumbered with technical language and professional jargon’. - Harvard University Press.Printed in the same format and cloth as the first edition, one of only 1,500 issued, with further additions and corrections, it also includes the author's expanded historical sketch written to satisfy complaints that he had not sufficiently considered his predecessors in the general theory of evolution, and a table detailing ‘additions and corrections to the fourth edition’.
A superior and thus scarce example in the original decorated green cloth, folding diagram opposite page 130.
In Origin of Species Darwin ‘not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been taken.’ – Printing and the Mind of Man.
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Price HK$ 30,000
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater -
Thomas De Quincey
1822 - J. Moyes for Taylor and Hessey, London - First Edition
First edition of ‘the most famous account of drug addiction in English literature’ (Norman), the earliest example of ‘addiction literature’ in the English language, and one of the most controversial memoirs ever written, De Quincey illuminates the world of opioid usage in medical, recreational, and criminal capacities. Written when the author was only thirty six, he examines his own experiences of the drug alongside its wider history, from opium dens buried in the heart of London to references of ‘poppy tears’ found within Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare.
In the publisher’s original boards, page edges untrimmed, with half-title and the two pages of advertisements, and housed in an exquisite custom lather and velvet clamshell case.
‘Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.’
De Quincey experienced an amazingly tragic life filled with death, loneliness, and the full panoply of suffering, but unlike many others, it ultimately led him to great empathy.
‘For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor limitary creature calling himself a man of the world, and filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices of birth and education, but should look upon himself as a catholic creature, and as standing in equal relation to high and low, to educated and uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent.’
His iconic text would go on to influence the likes of Poe, Dickens, and the Beat Generation.
‘…he transformed our perception of drugs. De Quincey invented recreational drug-taking, not because he was the first to swallow opiates for non-medical reasons(he was hardly that), but because he was the first to commemorate his drug experience in a compelling narrative that was consciously aimed at — and consumed by — a broad commercial audience. Further, in knitting together intellectualism, unconventionality, drugs, and the city, De Quincey mapped in the counter-cultural figure of the bohemian. He was also the first flaneur, high and anonymous, graceful and detached, strolling through crowded urban sprawls trying to decipher the spectacles, faces, and memories that reside there. Most strikingly, as the self-proclaimed “Pope” of “the true church on the subject of opium,” he initiated the tradition of the literature of intoxication with his portrait of the addict as a young man. De Quincey is the first modern artist, at once prophet and exile, riven by a drug that both inspired and eviscerated him.’(Robert Morrison)
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Price HK$ 50,000
1822 - J. Moyes for Taylor and Hessey, London - First Edition
First edition of ‘the most famous account of drug addiction in English literature’ (Norman), the earliest example of ‘addiction literature’ in the English language, and one of the most controversial memoirs ever written, De Quincey illuminates the world of opioid usage in medical, recreational, and criminal capacities. Written when the author was only thirty six, he examines his own experiences of the drug alongside its wider history, from opium dens buried in the heart of London to references of ‘poppy tears’ found within Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare.In the publisher’s original boards, page edges untrimmed, with half-title and the two pages of advertisements, and housed in an exquisite custom lather and velvet clamshell case.
‘Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.’
De Quincey experienced an amazingly tragic life filled with death, loneliness, and the full panoply of suffering, but unlike many others, it ultimately led him to great empathy.
‘For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor limitary creature calling himself a man of the world, and filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices of birth and education, but should look upon himself as a catholic creature, and as standing in equal relation to high and low, to educated and uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent.’
His iconic text would go on to influence the likes of Poe, Dickens, and the Beat Generation.
‘…he transformed our perception of drugs. De Quincey invented recreational drug-taking, not because he was the first to swallow opiates for non-medical reasons(he was hardly that), but because he was the first to commemorate his drug experience in a compelling narrative that was consciously aimed at — and consumed by — a broad commercial audience. Further, in knitting together intellectualism, unconventionality, drugs, and the city, De Quincey mapped in the counter-cultural figure of the bohemian. He was also the first flaneur, high and anonymous, graceful and detached, strolling through crowded urban sprawls trying to decipher the spectacles, faces, and memories that reside there. Most strikingly, as the self-proclaimed “Pope” of “the true church on the subject of opium,” he initiated the tradition of the literature of intoxication with his portrait of the addict as a young man. De Quincey is the first modern artist, at once prophet and exile, riven by a drug that both inspired and eviscerated him.’(Robert Morrison)
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Price HK$ 50,000
The Free Masons Pocket-Companion… to which Is added, A Large Collection of Songs, many of which were never before published. -
John Entick (compiler)
1765 - Auld, Morocco’s Close - First Edition
This small, rare and detailed work by the Rev. John Entick (1713-73), was published in 1765 and is dedicated to James Stewart, Grand Master Mason of Scotland.
Included to the rear is a ‘List of all the Regular Lodges in Scotland’.
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Price HK$ 7,000
1765 - Auld, Morocco’s Close - First Edition
This small, rare and detailed work by the Rev. John Entick (1713-73), was published in 1765 and is dedicated to James Stewart, Grand Master Mason of Scotland.Included to the rear is a ‘List of all the Regular Lodges in Scotland’.
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Price HK$ 7,000