Edited by Alexander Wilhelm Köhler & [from Vol. 5] Christian (or Carl) August Siegfried Hoffmann. Numerous plates & tables (many folding). Six vols. in 12. 8vo, cont. pinkish-purple boards (spines faded, occasional dampstaining & foxing), printed paper labels on spines. Freiberg: Craz, 1788-94.

[with]:

NEUES BERGMÄNNISCHES JOURNAL. Edited by Alexander Wilhelm Köhler & Christian (or Carl) August Siegfried Hoffmann. Numerous plates & tables (many folding). Three vols. (of 4). 8vo, cont. blue boards, printed paper labels on spines. Freiberg: Craz, 1795-99.

A nearly complete run — lacking only the fourth and final volume of the second series (which was published... More

Many illus., mostly in black but some in red, pink, gray, green, yellow, blue, etc. Ca. 1821 folding leaves of text. 1083 chapters in 50 parts in 54 vols. (parts 14 & 15 in one vol., parts 24, 34, 42, & 47 in two vols. each, plus one vol. of table of contents). 8vo (266 x 188 mm.), orig. blue wrappers, orig. manuscript labels on each upper wrapper, new stitching. [Probably Kyoto: written in 1690 & this is a mid-Edo copy].

A rare and extremely important text, finely illustrated and complete in 50 parts; it remained unpublished until 1936. WorldCat... More

[Japan]: ca. 1898-1912.

Copper mining at Ashio in Tochigi Prefecture began about 1600 and production continued until 1973; in the late 19th century, it produced 39 percent of Japan’s copper output. At the end of that century, it was decided to build a railway connecting the mine to major rail lines to facilitate transportation of the outbound copper ore and inbound supplies (horses had carried or pulled everything before). The engineering problems were considerable: the line runs along the Watarase River through a deep valley subject to frequent flooding. The railway was finished in 1911-12.

The collection contains a series... More

Title within woodcut border & woodcut on verso of final leaf. 54, [2] pp. Small 4to, modern binding reusing an early MS. leaf over boards (verso of final leaf a little soiled). [Basel: J. Froben, 1518].

First separate edition of these two famous texts, “In Praise of Marriage” and “In Praise of Medicine.” The first work created a cause célèbre; written many years earlier in honor of the marriage of his friend Lord Mountjoy, when finally published it was seen by the Louvain and Paris theologians as an implicit condemnation of clerical celibacy.

The second work is Erasmus’s expression of... More

Likely southern France: late 13th-early 14th century.

A remarkable manuscript survival: two important medical texts of the Middle Ages, preserved in an attractive late medieval binding, from the magnificent library of Admont Abbey (see Hobson’s Great Libraries), a Benedictine monastery in northern Styria, Austria, founded in 1074. The library, the largest monastic collection in the world, had important holdings of science and medicine.

Important medieval medical manuscripts are scarce on the market today. Chaucer highly praised Gilbertus Anglicus (see below), and Gilbertus, in the beginning of his commentary, reveals the knowledge of Arabic medicine in western Europe and possibly... More

Ten folding engraved plates. 31 pp. Large 4to, cont. half-calf & marbled boards, spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. London: Printed by W. Richardson & S. Clark; and sold by J. Nourse & Mess. Mount & Page, 1767.

[bound with]:

MASKELYNE, Nevil. An Account of the Going of Mr. John Harrison’s Watch, at the Royal Observatory, from May 6th, 1766 to March 4th, 1767. Together with the Original Observations and Calculations of the Same…Published by Order of the Commissioners of Longitude. 28, lvi pp. Large 4to. London: W. Richardson & S. Clark, 1767.

[bound with]:

LE ROY, J[ulien] D[avid]. A.... More

Several diagrams in the text. 1 p.l., 33 (i.e. 29) pp. Large 4to, orig. blue wrappers, uncut. London: W. Bulmer, 1814.

First separate edition, with new pagination. This offprint belonged to Carl Friedrich Gauss, with the “Gauss-Bibliothek” stamp on the title. This copy was no doubt sent by Herschel to Europe’s leading mathematician.

The present work is an important contribution to mathematical notation by Herschel, who was, with Charles Babbage and George Peacock, a founder of the famous Analytical Society, a group of Cambridge mathematical reformers. They wanted to leave behind the fluxional, Newtonian notation so prevalent in 18th-century Britain... More

Ten columns per page, 20 characters per column. The first leaf in Japanese, the remainder in Chinese. 1 p.l., 52 folding leaves. 8vo (275 x 173 mm.), orig. wrappers (wrappers quite rubbed & and somewhat worn), old stitching. From the colophon: “Kyoto: Tahara Ninzaemon, 1641.”

A very rare early edition — not in WorldCat or NIJL — of one of the “two priceless records of the earlier stages of the Chinese language.”–Edwin G. Pulleyblank, “Qieyun and Yunjing: The Essential Foundation for Chinese Historical Linguistics“ in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 2 (April-June 1998), p. 213. The... More

Many finely drawn illustrations in brush, ink, & colors. Scroll (285 x 9310 mm.), 23 joined sheets (some inoffensive worming, carefully repaired). Japan: copied before 1857.

A finely illustrated scroll, created in the witty and refined realistic style of Yamato-e and Ukiyo-e brush work, depicting the route taken — a distance of about 4 km. — by pleasure-seekers from Ryogoku Bridge to Shin Yoshiwara, the center of prostitution in the city of Edo. By the 18th century, it was the home to some 1750 women. This was an extremely busy section with a strong commercial tradition in what is today’s... More

Vol. I: Illustrated “title-page,” one double-page woodcut with foldouts to form a four-panel diptych, with the addition of a “trick super flap” depicting three female genitalia (young woman, mistress, & wife), six double-page woodcuts, & two single-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & three double-page black & white woodcuts. Vol. II: Illustrated “title-page,” five double-page woodcuts, & two single-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & four double-page black & white woodcuts. Vol. III: Illustrated “title-page,” four double-page woodcuts, & two full-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & three black & white double-page woodcuts. All leaves have color-printed borders. .5, 1 folding leaf of preface (color-printed), 13... More

Title within ornate woodcut architectural border. Woodcut printer’s device on title. 26 unnumbered leaves. Small folio, cont. pigskin-backed wooden boards, spine & boards stamped in blind, orig. brass catches on upper cover, one (of two) orig. clasps. Paris: N. de La Barre for E. Le Fevre, 6 October 1515.

[bound with]:

—. Arithmetica Speculativa…duodecim libris demonstrata. Title within ornate woodcut architectural border which is printed in red & black. Woodcut printer’s device on title. Several woodcuts in the text. 100 unnumbered leaves. Small folio (some foxing). Paris: N. de La Barre for E. Le Fevre, 18 December 1515.

First edition of... More

2 p.l., 164, 5 pp. 12mo, cont. polished calf by Derome, triple gilt fillet round sides with floral devices in each corner, flat spine gilt in a fish-scale pattern, black morocco lettering piece on spine, a.e.g. Paris: de l’Imprimerie de Didot l’Ainé, 1783.

Limited to 25 copies only, finely printed by Didot on Annonay paper and handsomely bound in contemporary polished calf by Derome; this is one of the rarest and oddest of all private library catalogues. It is also notable as the first bibliography or catalogue with a limitation statement and, very probably, the first catalogue to mention binders’... More