|
|
“DE LA BIBLIOTEQUE [SIC] DE MON FRERE L’EMPEREUR NAPOLEON”
(MARIE ANTOINETTE) (NAPOLEON BONAPARTE) GONDI, Jean François Paul de, Cardinal de Retz. Memoires du Cardinal de Retz. Geneve, 1777. Six volumes altogether. Rare 1777-79 editions of the four-volume Mémoires of Cardinal de Retz and the 1771 two-volume Mémoires de Guy Joli and Madame la Duchesse de Nemours, possessing an exceedingly rare provenance in association with two of the most legendary figures in French history—Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon Bonaparte. Five volumes (I, III-VI) are from the library of Marie-Antoinette, bound in contemporary calf gilt and displaying her distinctive gilt-tooled armorial coat of arms on the boards, along with her gilt-stamped crowned cipher “CT” on the spines. Volume II, bound in contemporary mottled calf gilt, contains a lengthy gift inscription on the front free endpaper by Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte—“de la biblioteque [sic] de mon frere l’ Empereur Napoleon” (from the library of my brother the Emperor Napoleon)—to Baron Claude Francois Méneval, Napoleon’s trusted private secretary and his “only really close friend and confidant.” $55,000.
|
|
|
|
“HE MADE THE FATHER OF ALL POETRY LIVE…”
HOMER. The Iliad of Homer. WITH: Odyssey of Homer. London, 1715-26. Eleven volumes bound as five. Rare first editions, folio issues, of Pope’s famous illustrated translations, esteemed by Samuel Johnson as “certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen,” with frontispiece bust portraits of Homer by Vertue and five plates (incluidng a double-page map of Phyrgia and the often absent “Shield of Achilles”), handsomely bound. $32,000.
|
|
|
|
“THE MAN IN BLACK FLED ACROSS THE DESERT,
AND THE GUNSLINGER FOLLOWED”
KING, Stephen. Dark Tower, Books I - VII (complete set). West Kingston, Rhode Island and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, 1982-2008. Together, eleven volumes. Signed limited first editions, issued simultaneously with the first trade editions, of all seven titles in Stephen King’s masterful Dark Tower series, as well as the signed limited deluxe first edition of the companion volume The Little Sisters of Eluria, each book with full-page color illustrations and each signed by King and the illustrator. $28,000.
|
|
|
|
COMPLETE SET OF FIRST EDITIONS OF O’BRIAN’S AUBREY/MATURIN SERIES
O'BRIAN, Patrick. The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Series. London, 1970-99. Twenty volumes. Complete set of first editions of the 20 novels in Patrick O’Brian’s popular Aubrey/Maturin saga. $26,000.
|
|
|
|
“FOUNDATION STONES OF SCIENTIFIC ARCHAEOLOGY”
MONTFAUCON, Bernard de. L'Antiquite Expliquee, et Representee en Figures. Paris, 1722, 1724. Five volumes in ten, and five volume supplement. Fifteen volumes in all. Second edition, revised and corrected from the 1719 first, with the five-volume 1724 supplement. Magnificent set of Montfaucon’s landmark work on classical archaeology, with nearly 1400 engraved plates (including approximately 250 double-page and folding plates). A splendid copy in beautiful full contemporary calf-gilt. $25,000.
|
|
|
|
“INSTINCT WITH THE VERY SOIL OF ENGLAND”
HARDY, Thomas. Works. London, 1919-20. Thirty-seven volumes. Handsome “Mellstock Edition” of Hardy’s prose and poetry, one of only 500 sets signed by the author in Volume I, very handsomely bound by Rivière & Son. $22,000.
|
|
|
|
“THE WORKS OF PLATO MAY BE PROPERLY CONSIDERED THE SCRIPTURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
PLATO. Works. London, 1804. Five volumes. First edition of the first complete English translation of Plato’s works, prepared by the leading Platonist of his day, still considered unequaled. From the library and with the bookplates of Francis Currer, “England’s earliest female bibliophile” and close friend of Charlotte Brontë, who reportedly adopted the pseudonym of Currer Bell in honor of her. Handsomely bound. $22,000.
|
|
|
|
FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF OSCAR WILDE’S WORKS, WITH TYPED LETTER SIGNED FROM HIS LITERARY EXECUTOR ROBERT ROSS TIPPED IN AND WITH A PHOTOGRAPH OF WILDE
WILDE, Oscar. Works. London, 1908. Fourteen volumes. First collected edition of Wilde’s works, one of 80 sets printed on Japanese vellum, bound in publisher’s limp vellum gilt-decorated after designs by Ricketts. With typed letter signed by Wilde’s literary executor Robert Ross and a hand-addressed envelope containing an early print of the famous photograph of Wilde taken two hours after his death tipped in to De Profundis. $18,500.
|
|
|
|
“I THINK MY CORRECTIONS SHOULD NOT BE OVERRULED BY THE PROOF READER WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST EXPLANATION”
CHURCHILL, Winston. Annotated proofs. WITH: Typed letter signed. London, 1934. Signed two-page typed letter addressed to publisher George G. Harrap’s chief copy editor C.C. Wood regarding Churchill’s reactions to proposed corrections to the manuscript of Marlborough, signed by Winston Churchill, together with four pages of proofs heavily annotated by Churchill in red. $17,500.
|
|
|
|
BEAUTIFULLY BOUND “SUN-DIAL” EDITION OF CONRAD’S WORKS
CONRAD, Joseph. The Works (Sun Dial Edition). Garden City, 1920-26. Twenty-two volumes. Signed limited “Sun-Dial Edition” of Conrad’s works, number 439 of 735 sets, signed in the first volume by Conrad, splendidly bound in elaborately full morocco-gilt with morocco doublures and silk endpapers. An exceptional uncut copy. $16,500.
|
|