"A LOVER OF NATURE, OF KEEN INTELLIGENCE, POWER OF OBSERVATION AND POETIC GENIUS"
LA FONTAINE, Jean de. Tales And Novels. London, circa 1889. Two volumes.
Limited illustrated edition, one of an unknown limitation, of La Fontaine’s ribald retellings of comic Italian tales, featuring 123 hand-colored engravings (85 by Charles Eisen). Handsomely bound by Root & Son. $2000.
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"THE GREATEST MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH 18TH-CENTURY CRITICISM"
JOHNSON, Samuel. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. London, 1783. Four volumes.
1783 edition of Johnson's celebrated Lives of the Poets—"the only edition of importance after the first. It is the only edition which Johnson revised, and the last he lived to see"—with engraved frontispiece portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds, a splendid four-volumes in scarce contemporary polished calf. $1750.
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"WE CANNOT PAY THE TRIBUTE OF MERCY WITHOUT ENDANGERING THE TREASURY"
RANDOLPH, Rev. F[rancis], M.A. Letter… on the Proposed Abolition of the African Slave Trade. London, 1788.
First edition of Randolph’s important 1788 Letter against swift abolition of the slave trade, published the same year Prime Minister Pitt, “substituting for Wilberforce,” raised the subject in House of Commons, with Randolph instead proposing fresh regulations for slave owners and the slave trade, from the collection of the New York Historical Society. $1650.
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