Engraved vignette on each title (three different vignettes), 37 folding engraved plates, & numerous printed folding tables. 13 vols. 8vo, cont. half-calf & paste-paper boards (light foxing & dampstaining here & there), final six spines decorated in gilt with red & green leather lettering pieces on spines. Dresden: Walther, 1785-99.

A complete run of the oldest German periodical concerned with mining, mineralogy, geology, and metallurgy; it was one of the leading journals of its kind and the chief mouthpiece for the teachings of A.G. Werner. The articles contain descriptions of the latest developments in mining machinery, local geologies and mineralogies, accounts of geological expeditions, reviews of recently... More

One large folding printed table, 11 engraved plates (of which 10 are folding & 4 are hand-colored), & numerous hand-tinted diagrams in the text. 8, ix-xii, x, [11]-422, xvi, [18] pp. Thickish 8vo, cont. russia (quite well rebacked), sides decorated in gilt. Alston, Cumberland: Printed, for the Author, at the Geological Press, and Sold by John Pattinson, 1821.

“Second edition, greatly enlarged” (1st ed.: 1809). This is a handsome large-paper copy; the numerous text diagrams have been hand-tinted (in regular paper copies they are left plain). Forster (1772-1835), was a mining surveyor who had extensive experience in the lead mines of the region.

“Forster’s book...is notable for a very long column, some 5 1/2 feet long altogether, which is shown in portions...It is a typical column of ‘vertical section’, in the Geological Survey’s meaning of the term, showing by lines and dots the various kinds of rock, and drawn to scale. On one side are written the ‘local names’ (which include such curiosities as ‘girdles’, ‘post’, ‘thill’, ‘hazle’, ‘plate’, ‘tuft’) and on the other the ‘nature of each stratum’ (more ordinary adjectives, such as ‘argillaceous’, ‘siliceous’, ‘bituminous’).”–Challinor, History of British Geology, p. 93. More

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. More

Numerous geometrical woodcuts in the text. 2.5 p.l., 78-119 (but complete); 120-43; 144-72, [3] leaves of ads, .5 leaf of colophon; 33; 30; 33 folding leaves. Six vols. 8vo, orig. yellow wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels (labels rather rubbed), new stitching. Kyoto, Edo, & Osaka: Izumoji Bunjiro et al., Preface of Vols. I-III: 1833; Vols. IV-VI: 1841.

First editions and a rare complete set of the Sanpo tenzan tebikigusa (1833-41), “a treatise on tenzan algebra. Some of the fan problems in this work are of considerable interest.”–Smith & Mikami, A History of Japanese Mathematics, pp. 245-46. The first three volumes were published in 1833, and the remaining three... More

Trans. originally overseen by Ortai (or E’ertai). Parallel texts of Manchu & Chinese. 68; 61; 67; 116; 69; 66 folding leaves. Six vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (some browning), new stitching. Jingdu [Beijing]: Ju zhen tang, 1888.

A reprint of the famous Manchu-Chinese edition commissioned and sponsored by the Emperor Qianlong, of The Four Books of Confucianism, which, together with The Five Classics, make up the basic canon of Confucianism. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, The Four Books were made the core of the official curriculum for the civil service examinations.

An intellectual and ardent Confucian, Emperor Qianlong ordered standardized, fully annotated translations of The Four Books... More

42 folding leaves. 8vo (234 x 170 mm.), orig. wrappers (upper wrapper a little dampstained), orig. stitching. [Japan: from third to last page]: “19 April 1860.”

An engrossing manuscript account of the Japanese ship Koshiomaru and its crew, which, due to a violent storm, drifted far off course and ran aground on Catanduanes, a Philippine island. The crew was rescued and aided by an indigenous tribe. To our knowledge, this fascinating episode is unknown to Western scholarship. Due to Japan’s former strict isolationism, the experiences of the survivors of this incident as well as other examples of Japanese shipwrecked abroad are particularly poignant.

With its crew of 14 sailors, and captained by a “Tokusaburo” from Harima Ako fiefdom in Hyogo, Koshiomaru normally transported salt from central Japan to the capital, Edo. After depositing its latest shipment at Edo, it was re-routed to collect surplus rice to bring back to Hyogo. During its return trip, a storm destroyed the vessel’s rudder, causing the Koshiomaru to drift, at the mercy of the wind and currents, all the way to the Philippines. Native islanders nursed the crew back to health, and the Japanese stayed for ten months, until 1858, when a British ship, the transliteration of which we are unable to decipher, rescued all 15 crew members and returned them to Japan. More

No illus. 189, [1] p. Large 4to, orig. printed dust-jacket, softcover. Eindhoven: van Abbemuseum; Barcelona: MACBA; Geneva: MAMCO, 2008.

The Ian Wilson (1940-2020) catalogue raisonné, now scarce. A sharply designed catalogue of Wilson’s discussions and artists’ books, which opens with an essay by Anne Rorimer. It was published in conjunction with this exhibition held at the van Abbemuseum, Barcelona’s MACBA, and Geneva’s MAMCO (2008-9).

As new. More

iv, 54 pp. Small 8vo (155 x 100 mm.), modern blue wrapper, stitched. Munich: 1869.

An unrecorded and early edition of the catalogue inventorying painted porcelains displayed at Munich’s Neue Pinakothek; on WorldCat, the earliest listed work under this title is from 1870. Designed by Friedrich von Gärtner and August von Voit and completed in 1853, the Neue Pinakothek was intended to house Ludwig I’s collection. Allied bombing destroyed the original building in 1944, only in 1981 was the museum rebuilt.

This is an interesting catalogue of porcelain bearing reproductions of celebrated pictures. At the porcelain manufactory at Nymphenburg, artists such as Anton Auer, Christian... More

Black & white illus. throughout. [30] pp. (incl. inside of wrappers). 4to (274 x 214 mm.), orig. printed wrappers, staple-bound. New York: 1976.

Scarce and essential early documentation of Fluxus materials and artists’ books. This is the first catalogue issued by Backworks, a New York-based collaboration between Barbara Moore and Jon Hendricks, specializing in documents and artifacts of avant-garde and experimental art. Located at 488 Greenwich Street, the store was active into the early 1980s. In 1981, Hendricks left the partnership to become curator of the Fluxus collection formed by Gilbert and Lila Silverman (now at the Museum of Modern Art, New York), much of... More

400-500 leaves. Two sheets & eleven notebooks in various formats from small 8vo to large 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [Nagano Prefecture: 1880-95].

The excellent rice and pure mountain waters of Nagano Prefecture have always contributed to the making of fine sake. Today, Nagano boasts the second-most sake breweries of any prefecture in the country.

The wealthy and powerful Ikegami family has had a long history in Nagano and was goyotatsu shonin (official purveyor) to the local Takato Fiefdom. In the 16th century, the Ikegami family entered into the businesses of manufacturing porcelain, soy sauce, vinegar, and sake, and its enterprises... More

Three lithographed folding tables in Vol. I; four folding engraved plates & one folding printed table in Vol. II. 1 p.l., xvii, [1], 204 pp.; 1 p.l., xxiii, [1], 264 pp. Two vols. in one. 8vo, cont. paste-paper boards (a bit worn), green & red leather lettering pieces on spine. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1820-21.

First edition of the author’s first major work, preceded only by his medical dissertation on belladonna, which appeared in 1819. The Neueste Phytochemische Entdeckungen… contains — on pages 144-59 of Vol. I — the earliest identification of caffeine (Kaffebase). The coffee beans used in Runge’s laboratory experiments were given to him by... More

20-23 columns per sheet, 17 characters per column (column height 203-04 mm.), printed on 21 joined sheets (263 mm. high, sheet lengths ranging from 374 to 443 mm., total printed length 9105 mm., with endpaper at beginning 9290 mm.), carefully backed in recent times, attached at end to a wooden roller. [Nara: 1222-27].

A rare early printed sutra, part of the Karoku-ban edition printed in 1222-27. It has been printed on high-quality thick paper (gampi, or mulberry fibers), and printed in bold, thick strokes, using black sumi ink, typical of Kamakura and Muromachi kasuga-ban printings (kasuga-ban is a general term for publications of the Nara monasteries).

The Mahaprajnaparamitasutra is a massive compilation of scriptural literature said to have been preached by the Buddha in four different places to 16 discrete assemblies. It includes seminal works such as the Prajnaparamita in One Hundred Thousand Lines and the Diamond Sutra. “This recension of the scripture is only extant in a Chinese translation made in six hundred rolls by Xuanzang and his translation team between the years 660 and 663. Xuanzang’s recension is by far the largest of all the prajnaparamita scriptures in the Chinese Buddhist canon…The Mahaprajnaparamitasutra also often holds pride of place as the first sutra found in many traditional East Asian Buddhist scriptural canons.”–Buswell & Lopez, eds., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, p. 505. More