99 GIFTS “We Are Apt To Be Very Pert Censuring Others, Where We Will Not Endure Advice Our Selves” 150PENN, William. Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections & Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Life. London, 1693. 12mo, early papermache boards with an image of an angel on-laid over gold cloth, rebacked. $5800 Second edition, published the same year as the first, of one of Penn’s best-known works, in striking papermache binding. “The topics covered in this collection range from education, children, family and right marriage, to sins such as pride, luxury, avarice, and jealousy... Tolles referred to Some Fruits as the product of Penn’s ‘matured philosophy of life in the form of maxims or aphorisms—droplets of clear wisdom, as it were, distilled from a lifetime of sober thought and dedicated action.’ He rejected the judgment that they are inferior to La Rochfoucauld’s Maximes or Pascal’s Pensées or Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son. Instead, he suggested that they should be compared with the writings of Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson” (Bronner & Fraser 96). Early owner signatures. Title on title page faintly underlined in red. Interior fairly clean, license leaf remargined, errata leaf with some edge-wear. Beautiful and distinct paper-mache boards with some edge-wear. Rare. 1788 British Merlin, In Magnificent Cottage-Roof Stick Pin Binding 151(BINDING) (ALMANAC) RIDERS, Cardanus. Rider’s British Merlin: for the Year of Our Lord God 1788. BOUND WITH: The Court and City Register; or, Gentleman’s Complete Annual Calendar, for the Year 1788. London, 1787. 12mo, contemporary full red morocco, ornately gilt-tooled spine, large medallion catch plates and staggered looped metal clasps, held closed by a fiveinch inserted metal pin. $3200 1788 British Almanac, beautifully bound in elaborately gilt-decorated morocco in the cottage-roof style, held closed in a highly unusual manner with clasps and a metal stick pin. Riders’ British Merlin contains geographical descriptions, weights and measures, an historical timetable and list of kings, a chart of human anatomy, a monthly almanac, and an extensive “description of the High-Ways in England and Wales.” The Court and City Register includes long lists of worthies at court and in the houses of Parliament, in the army and navy, at universities, in public offices, at hospitals, and so on. While it was customary to bind such annual publications in decorative morocco, the type of closure seen here, where a long pin is inserted through the loops of four metal clasps, is extremely rare. Some portions trimmed a little close. A beautiful, distinctive binding in very nearly fine condition.
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