Classics

The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan – Nister Edition, Illustrated by Walter Paget – c1900

The Pilgrim’s Progress; From This World to That Which is To Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream.

This edition was published by Ernest Nister, London circa 1900. Large octavo, 348 pages, striking coloured images to front board and spine, gilt titles … rich colours. Illustrated by the great Walter Paget with 12 full page black and white and five full page coloured plates.

“As I walked through the Wilderness of this World, I lighted on a certain Place, where was a Den, and laid me down in that Place to sleep: And as I slept, I dreamed a Dream”

Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress Beautifully Presented

$90.00

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Daphnis et Chloe By Longus with aquarelles by G. P. Jornard – Surely the world’s prettiest book

Published on the Champs-Elysees, Paris in the 1920’s by Editions Nilsson.

This superb book contains six mounted watercolours (aquarelles) that match the quality of the watercolour adorning this beautiful onion skin paper front cover.

Small quarto, 154 pages. This book often found as effectively a soft cover – this copy hard bound, pretty basic half red cloth over brown papered boards, top edge gilt. Whilst we say basic it’s done a good job in protecting the aquarelles … the odd bit of spotting in the text. Overall, a very worthwhile copy.

A Greek pastoral novel written by Longus during the second century AD. Based on the island of Lesbos a young couple having been brought up adopted by a goat herder and a shepherd respectively having been abandoned at birth eventually find love. It was a difficult road but it ends well.

The artist was Germaine Paule Jounard, she was a highly respected artist of the period and completed many illustrations particularly for the frencg fashion industry at the time.

What better romantic gift than this

French 1920’s with beauty and style

$190.00

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World Famous Books in Outline [Simply the Best] – Odhams – First Edition 1948

Some readers are worried they will not get through all the books they have to read … this understandably can be quite stressful.

Regarding the great novels, a course in speed reading may help, but this produces its own form of anxiety … am I really giving the book justice etc? Publisher Odhams, London came up with this precis of the best novels in 1948 … there are other books of this type but none as good as Odhams.

Published in 1948, octavo, 512 pages, with illustrations of some quality and uniform style which helps you along. Very good condition albeit with a solid chip in the dust jacket at spine ends.

All up 35 books covered, so you can do the maths. Classics include … Pride and Prejudice; Lorna Doone; Jane Eyre; Don Quixote; the Brothers Karamazov; Madame Bovary; Tess; Notre Dame; Vanity Fair; War and Peace; Faust etc … And, some non-fiction … On the Origin of Species for example

Get ahead of the game … A good way in and a tease for the full work

$30.00

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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyan – Peter Pauper Press

A lovely little production by the superb Mount Vernon, Peter Pauper Press printed delightfully on rag paper.

The Edward Fitzgerald translation illustrated by Jeff Hill. No date but likely 1970′s

Unpaginated but 62 pages with 9 full page illustrations, the verses printed crisply within decorative borders. Decorated paper covered boards the design of which carries over to the dust jacket. Very good condition albeit a little ageing to the jacket.

The Rubaiyat should require no introduction .. every library should have several versions of which this a special one.

The Rubaiyat by the special Peter Pauper Press.

$40.00

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Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

A very nice set of this almost legendary work, complete and unusually in their original bindings. Fictional letters claiming to have been written by an Ottoman spy named “Mahmut the Arabian” embedded in the French Court of Louis XIV.

Published in London by Wilde, Ballard and others in 1748. Eight volumes (Over 600 letters in all), duodecimo, engraved frontispiece to Vol I, full contemporary calf, spines gilt, some joints a bit cracked but holding. A twelfth edition of a great publishing success of the 18thC which would go on for a further fifty years.

Contemporary bookplate of Robert Midgley dated 1748 so the first owner. And the modern book label of Edward John Kenny the Latinist of Peterhouse College, Cambridge University, visiting at Harvard etc.

A journal of gossip and anecdotes on politics and events and shenanigans going on in France at the time.

Written in Italian by Giovanni Paola Marana (1642-1693) a Genoese refugee in the Court of the said Louis XIV. He completed the first volume of 102 letters, and had it translated to French and published in Paris in 1684-1686. Other volumes were published as they were completed over time. English translations by William Bradshaw became available in 1687. Later volumes issued first in English in London leading some to believe they were not by Marana. However, the consistency in style and use of words really points to Marana as being the author of the full set, not doubt with the help of translators and editors of the day.

Well liked by Daniel Defoe who wrote an aptly named “Continuation of Turkish Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy in Paris” … a sort of 18thC sequel.

Incidentally, the last owner Professor Kenny used to gauge his candidates by seeing how nice they were to his cat Fufu … it became known as the Fufu test … that’s Latin for you.

The Turkish Spy – A Classic By Marana

$790.00

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The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

The complete unabridged Modern Library edition. Published in 1951 (by reference to the number of book on the list back of dust jacket). Thick octavo, 630 pages. With a forward by Morris Ernst dated 1930 regarding the difficult time the book had had in America because of draconian obscenity laws. Well here it is unadulterated.

Translated by John Payne, which must have been a lengthy task and one well done. It has stood the test of centuries and was a source of inspiration for Chaucer, Shakespeare and Keats.

Good condition albeit with two previous owners names on the end papers and later date stamp on half title. Light chips to dust jacket and a hint of fading, now protected in Brodart.

A lusty bawdy delight by Boccaccio translated by Payne

$30.00

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The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan – Nister Edition, Illustrated by Walter Paget – c1900

Daphnis et Chloe By Longus with aquarelles by G. P. Jornard – Surely the world’s prettiest book

World Famous Books in Outline [Simply the Best] – Odhams – First Edition 1948

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyan – Peter Pauper Press

Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

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