Wood-engraved frontis. [3]-106, [1] pp. Small 8vo (150 x 94 mm.), orig. printed wrappers (a little worn), title on spine, leaves uncut. Paris: Giroux & Vialat, 1848.

First edition, in its original printed wrappers, of a scarce account of the 1848 Revolution, published several months after the uprising’s turbulent events. This staunchly Republican work commemorates the sacrifices of generals and troops who died during the worker revolt in Paris. There are accounts of the deaths of Generals Bréa, Négrier, Duvivier, Damesme, Bourgon, Regnault, and François. The final 30 pages concern the life and tragic death of Denys Auguste Affre, archbishop... More

12 p.l., 374, [24] pp., one leaf of errata. 4to, cont. English dark blue morocco (unimportant scuffing to extremities), covers panelled in gilt & blind, spine finely gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine, a.e.g. Amsterdam: J. Claus & others, 1676.

First edition, rare, and a splendid copy bound in contemporary English dark blue morocco, most probably for presentation, of the classic exposition of the Quaker philosophy. The Society of Friends, as Quakers are more formally known, has historically had an outsized influence through the mere force of passive resistance. Their form of Christianity is “widely divergent from the prevalent... More

Trans. by Xuanzang 玄奘 in 650 CE. 70 pages, six columns per page, 30 columns per sheet, 17 characters per column. 14 sheets (average sheet length: 570 mm.), five pages per sheet. Accordion format (305 x 7980 mm., print surface from top border to bottom border: 245–250 mm.). Single woodcut borders at top & bottom of text. Orig. sutra binding of semi-stiff paper wrappers. Woodblocks carved by Ge Fang & Ma Qing (& others) in Sixi (present day Huzhou), printed between 1110s/40s–1276.

This fascicle, in its original sutra binding, was printed in the 12th or 13th century in northern Zhejiang... More

Scroll (document: 302 x 423 mm.; scroll: 1120 x 540 mm.), fine silk-brocade boards, wooden core roller. Dewa Province: early Edo, copied after 1674.

“The principal decisions against Christianity were made in the years around 1614-1615…They had their origins in a number of political, economic, and administrative considerations. Uppermost among these was the bakufu’s need to know that samurai, and especially daimyo, believers would have no higher loyalty than the one they bore their Tokugawa overlord…An edict of 1614 again order[ed] all Christian missionaries out of the country. This marked the start of a general persecution. Now too began measures... More

32 fine full-page woodcuts. 42 folding leaves. Large 8vo, orig. blue wrappers (wrappers rather rubbed, minor soiling), modern manuscript label on upper cover, new stitching. [Japan]: from the Japanese colophon on the penultimate leaf: “Nakano Zesui had the woodblocks carved & published this book mid-July 1655.”

First edition to be published in Japan, printed in Chinese with Japanese reading marks. Yongming Yanshou (J.: Eimei (or Yomei) Enju, 904-75), was a Chan master who had a profound impact on the development of Buddhism in East Asia. Yanshou was a widely influential proponent of a scripture-based Chan, in opposition to the rhetorical... More

Woodblock-printed. Two half-page woodcut illus. of the Buddha & Skanda/Weituo. [3], 80 folding leaves. 8vo, old paper wrappers, old stitching. Taiwan fucheng 台灣府城: Dehua tang 德化堂, 1856.

An unusual edition of the Diamond Sutra, reprinted in 1856 from the now lost 1688 first edition. Taiwanese woodblock-printed books that predate the administrative expansion of the 1870s and the Japanese invasion in 1895 are very rare: we find only a handful of such titles in WorldCat. This title, in particular, has only one copy listed, held at the National Central Library in Taiwan (OCLC accession no. 1478321371).

According to the colophon in... More

23 pages of Jindai moji. 16 folding leaves, one leaf of ads. 8vo, orig. patterned semi-stiff wrappers, title-slip, new stitching. Itano: from the colophon (in trans.): “Woodblocks owned by Omiya Hachiman shrine, July 1779.”

First edition and rare; no copy in WorldCat. As a matter of national and cultural pride, a theory developed during the Kamakura period that in the prehistoric mythical “age of the gods,” writing systems had been developed. These character arrays or character systems — Jindai moji or Kamiyo moji 神代文字 (“characters of the Age of the Gods”) — purportedly existed before kanji characters were introduced from... More

Five full-page woodcuts. 51; 58 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. [Japan]: [1737?]

An illustrated record of the truly gruesome sacrifices made by the Pure Land monk Taijō (1685-1731). He began studying Buddhism in 1715 and in 1719 decided to become a monk, leaving his wife and child as well as his elderly mother. Following the example of the master who initiated him to Buddhism, Taijō in 1720 severed his penis and took the tonsure. Among his other exploits, we note the writing of the name of... More

Scroll on paper (260 x 2440 mm.), carefully backed, new silk front endpapers, wooden core roller. [Nikko?]: with date “20 April 1863” at beginning.

During the Edo period, the Nikko Gohan Shiki ceremony was held frequently at the Rinnoji temple in Nikko. The ceremony was part of Nikko’s ancient mountain Buddhism. Paying visitors entered the Sanbutsu-do Hall to witness the ritual of compulsory rice eating. A procession of monks, led by a yamabushi (mountain priest) blowing a trumpet shell, entered the hall. The monks dispensed large bowls to six participants, each containing 5.4 liters of cooked rice, representing 75 bowlfuls... More

14 parts in 13 vols. Large 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers (rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (rubbed), new stitching. [Japan: 1648-52].

An early and rare edition of this highly influential commentary on the Tsurezuregusa [Notes from Leisure Hours] of Yoshida Kenko 吉田兼好 (ca. 1282-1350). Yoshida’s greatest masterpiece, it is a nonfictional prose work — zuihitsu — containing miscellaneous reflections and observations that continues to be read and loved today. “It can be said that Kenko discovered a couple of centuries before Montaigne that prose was the natural medium for conveying the motions of an inquiring, particularly a self-inquiring... More

1 p.l., x, 169 pp.; 2 p.l., 184 pp. Two vols. in one. Small 8vo, cont. mottled calf (foot of spine a little chipped, lower edge of upper cover a little defective), spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. “Londres” (but probably Amsterdam): 1768.

First edition of one Holbach’s most important assaults on religion, in which he attacked Christianity and other religions as the source of all human evils. Holbach (1723-89), French philosopher, kept a salon in Paris for Helvetius, d’Alembert, Diderot, Condillac, Turgot, Buffon, Grimm, Hume, Garrick, Wilkes, Sterne, Rousseau and other free-thinkers. He was a major contributor... More

Ten columns per page, 20 characters per column. 52 folding leaves. Large 8vo (280 x 203 mm.), later wrappers, new stitching. [Japan]: colophon dated “1564.”

The earliest surviving edition 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 Yunjing, along with its predecessor, the Qieyun, were the standard pronunciation guides of the Early Middle Chinese and Middle Chinese periods.

This is a very rare book, with... More