TYPOGRAPHICAL

Twenty-two bookseller's catalogues

Author: 
James Coleman, Genealogical & Topographical Bookseller, of High Holborn and Tottenham
Publication details: 
22, High Street, Bloomsbury, London, W.C.: 1867, 1873 (2), 1874; 9, Tottenham Terrace, White Hart Lane, Tottenham, N.: 1881, 1882 (4), 1883 (4), 1884 (2), 1885 (2), 1886 (4), 1887. S. and J. Brawn, printers.
£300.00

All items octavo, stitched and unbound. Page range between 16 and 32. Each catalogue carrying an illustration on the front cover. The condition of the collection is variable. All items on aged paper: some dogeared or with closed tears, and a handful with damp and other staining. Several catalogues annotated in a contemporary hand, and one with an entry cut out. Coleman's speciality was 'Heraldry, Genealogy, Topography', and the first three catalogues are headed 'Pedigrees!

Elizabeth: or, The Exiles of Siberia. Translated from the French of Madame Cottin.

Author: 
Madame Cottin [Whittingham Press, Chiswick]
Publication details: 
Chiswick: From the Press of C. Whittingham, College House. Sold by R. Jennings, Poultry; T. Tegg, Cheapside; A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall Street; London: J. Sutherland, Edinburgh; and Richard Griffin and Co. Glasgow. 1822.
£180.00

12mo: 123 + [iv] pp. Engraved title (dated 'Octr. 1823') featuring engraving Heath from design by Corbould. Four pages of publisher's advertisements at rear. In contemporary green leather binding with decorative gilt spine and pattern to edges of boards, marbled endpapers and marbling to edges. Contemporary ownership inscription of 'Miss L. Smith'. A tight, sound copy, on lightly-aged paper, with light staining to engraved title, and wear to binding. COPAC only lists copies of this edition at Durham, St Andrews, Oxford and the British Library.

Autograph Letter Signed to the numismatist Ewald Junge, with papers relating to the artist and theatrical Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966).

Author: 
Sebastian Carter, printer and typographer (born 1941)
Publication details: 
Letter undated, on letterhead of Victoria House, 40 Oxford Road, Cambridge.
£60.00

LETTER: One page, quarto. Somewhat aged and creased. An attractive item in Carter's disciplined calligraphic hand. A damning assessment of Craig's son Edward Anthony Craig ('Edward Carrick', 1905-98). '[...] If you know him, you presumably also know what you are taking on! We had some dealings with Teddy over possibly printing old EGC's engravings of Robinson Crusoe, but Teddy sold them, [...] My impression is that the old rogue manufactured archives in order to sell them to someone - preferably twice.

The London Booksellers - Etymology of the Term Yankey. Being an Excerpt from The Yankee in London. First published in 1809.

Author: 
Royall Tyler [John Kristensen; Firefly Press; Kallistos Press]
Publication details: 
[Somerville, Massachusetts.] Kallistos Press. 1984. [Printed at Firefly Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by John Kristense.]
£150.00

Limited to 200 copies and signed by the printer John Kristense. 8vo: [13] + [1] pages. Stitched. In original blue printed wraps. Good, with minor wear at head. The colophon reads 'The London Booksellers - Etymology of the Term Yankey was hand set in English Monotype Baskerville and printed on Curtis Ragston paper in an edition of 200 copies at Firefly Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by [signed 'John Kristense'] who sends it as a 1983-84 holiday greeting to his friends. The Society of Printers in particular is thanked for honoring him in 1983 with membership.

Menu for a dinner of the Worshipful Company of Stationers at Brusnwick Hotel, Blackwall. With ornate doily cut border.

Author: 
The Worshipful Company of Stationers [Stationers' Company; paper doily]
Publication details: 
London: 18 July 1855.
£65.00

On one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 23.5 x 19 cm. A delicate and scarce piece of ephemera, in a remarkably good state of repair. Possibly a proof, as a thin blank strip along one of the vertical edges, intended to be detached and discarded, still adheres. The menu itself is crisply printed in the centre, covering a space roughly 17 x 13.5 cm.

Autograph Letter Signed ('C Crapelet'), in French, to 'Monsieur Deterville'

Author: 
Charles Crapelet (1762-1809), French printer, based in Paris
Publication details: 
27 October 1807. [Paris.]
£75.00

12mo: 1 p. Eight lines of text. On a piece of grey laid watermarked paper. Complete and clear. Lightly aged and creased. Unusually frank business communication. He is angry at having to tell Deterville that he cannot have 'd'exemplaire des Rudimens'. He will do his best to let him have them soon. However weak the excuse, it is nevertheless true that the 'ouvriers ne m'ont pas tenu parole'.

Prospectus for Keynes's 'William Pickering, Publisher. A Memoir & a Hand-list of his Editions.'

Author: 
Geoffrey Keynes; The Fleuron [William Pickering; The Chiswick Press]
Publication details: 
1924. 'London . MCMXXIV | At the office of THE FLEURON'. ['London: Chiswick Press.']
£18.00

Quarto (25.5 x 19 cm) bifolium. Attractively-printed on watermarked laid paper. Unbound. Foxed and lightly-creased. Two short 0.5 cm buff strips of cloth from mount neatly adhering to the margin of the reverse of the second leaf. 'PERENNIS ET FRAGRANS.' enclosed within engraved wreath on title. Eighteen-line prospectus for the work on reverse of first leaf, with the recto of the second carrying a full-page facsimile of the title of Pickering's 1844 edition of John Merbecke's 1550 'The Book of Common Prayer Noted', printed in red and black. Printer's slug on reverse of second leaf.

Handbill poem entitled 'After Fifty Years! | September 20, 1874.' With Hall's autograph signature ('S. C. Hall').

Author: 
Samuel Carter Hall [S. C. Hall] (1800-1889), journalist, editor and author
Publication details: 
Date not stated [1874?]. At foot: 'M. W. & CO., ENT. STA. HALL.'
£56.00

Attractively produced on a piece of thin card, dimensions 17 x 11 cm. The recto of the card has a shiny, light-blue coating, on which the text and design is printed in gold and bronze. The verso is blank and white. Very good, with minor damage to the blank reverse caused by removal from mount. The poem, of thirty-one lines, is enclosed within a grecian-style border. A tender poem addressed to his wife, and reviewing their years together, beginning 'YES!

An account of the life and writings of Richard Dawes, A.M. late master of the Royal Grammar School, and of the Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin, in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Author: 
[PROVINCIAL PRINTING, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE] Rev. John Hodgson
Publication details: 
Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by T. and J. Hodgson, Union Street. 1828.
£125.00

4to. Pages: [4] + 30. Uncut and in large part unopened, in original plain grey wraps. Stabbed as issued, but with thread worn away and signatures loose within wraps. Grubby and with some offsetting, but overall a very good survival of a scarce and fragile item. A handsome production which does great credit to its place of origin. Half-title, with vignette of castellated building. Title-page with circular medal of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (before whom the work was read). Engraving on page one by Isaac Nicholson ('I. NICHOLSON, DEL.

Engraved portrait of Gutenberg by Gaywood, mounted on piece of paper with painted decorations.

Author: 
Johannes Gutenberg, German printer; Peter Stent (fl.1643-67), London printseller; Richard Gaywood (fl.1644-68), English engraver
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£250.00

Good clean image of a seventeenth-century engraving, from an earlier idealised portrait of the putative 'father of printing'. It is of irregular shape, the background having been carefully cut away. Neatly mounted on piece of beige paper, illustrated with a brown pseudo-frame with decorative book devices in the four corners. Half-length portrait of a bearded Gutenberg in fur-lined hat and coat, with composing stick in left hand and stylus in right. Dimensions roughly eight and a quarter inches by seven wide. Engraved beneath is 'P Stent Excudit: R Gaywood fecit'.

Prospectus for an edition of Johnson's 'THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES', with sample illustration by Tegetmeier.

Author: 
Rampant Lions Press [Denis Tegetmeier; Samuel Johnson]
Publication details: 
To be published this summer 1984 by the | RAMPANT LIONS PRESS | 12 Chesterton Road, Cambridge, England'.
£23.00

Unbound. Large Octavo bifolium on grey wove paper. Good only, with creasing to corners (that would carefully iron out), and some marking to front cover. Title in large gold letters on front, details of edition on versos of both leaves, and specimen page on recto of second leaf. Illustration ('The author | A reproduction of Tegetmeier's frontispiece') on Arches paper (twelve and a half inches by nine wide) loosely inserted, together with printed 'Book order' leaf.

Syndicate content