BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 10 “They Have Much Literary And Biographical Importance” 07DONNE, John. Letters to Severall Persons of Honour. London, 1651. Small quarto, contemporary full dark brown calf gilt rebacked, custom box. $13,500 First edition, first issue, with engraved frontispiece portrait of Donne by Pieter Lombart, and woodcut initials, in contemporary calf boards. “The great majority of those of Donne’s letters that have survived have been preserved through the energy of his son… In 1651, the younger Donne issued a volume containing 129 Letters to Severall Persons of Honour; these letters were not ‘edited’ by him according to the standards of the present day, as, although printed with reasonable care, their arrangement is irregular and they are for the most part without dates. Nevertheless, they have much literary and biographical importance” (Keynes, 133). Among the recipients are Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the Countess of Bedford, and, most numerously, Sir Henry Goodere. Bound without front and rear blanks. Keynes 55. Engraved bookplate. Pages with a bit of marginal wormholing near the end not affecting text, otherwise fine, inner hinges neatly reinforced; contemporary calf boards very handsome. An excellent copy. “The Splendor And Magnificence Of Elizabeth’s Reign” 08(ELIZABETH I) NICHOLS, John. The Progresses, and Public Processions, of Queen Elizabeth. London, 1788, 1788, 1805. Three volumes. Quarto, 19th-century full brown calf sympathetically rebacked. $9500 First edition of Nichols’ splendid history of the reign of Elizabeth I, a magnificent three-volume chronicle of England’s greatest queen, featuring 53 full-page engraved illustrations (three folding), three folding genealogical charts, numerous in-text engravings and facsimile signatures, a large folding map of London circa 1558, and a large folding map of Oxford. In these three large volumes, “the splendor and magnificence of Elizabeth’s reign is nowhere more strongly painted… nor could a more acceptable present be given to the world” (Percy’s Reliques III:64). “No library… should be without these volumes, [which] afford a living picture of the manners of England, its pursuits and its amusements” (Allibone, 1425). The third volume, published separately some 17 years after the first two volumes, is often not present: “many copies of Volume III were destroyed by fire in 1808” (Lowndes). Lowndes, 1685. Infrequent faint foxing, board edges expertly restored. An excellent copy of this tribute to Queen Elizabeth.
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