Trans. by Kumarajiva. Commentary by Ouyi Zhixu. Four splendid full-page woodcuts. 54 folding leaves. Large 8vo (318 x 198 mm.), orig. yellow-brown patterned wrappers, new stitching. Naewon’am, “The Inner Courtyard Nunnery,” Samgaksan: 1853.

A rare reprint of the 1753 edition of The Smaller Sukhavativyuha Sutra, one of the three most important Mahayana sutras of the Pure Land tradition, printed in 1853 (Xianfeng 3), at Naewon’am, “The Inner Courtyard Nunnery” at Samgaksan, a peak of Pukhansan mountain north of Seoul.

The printing of our edition was financed by donations from nuns and lay believers. The names of donors are printed... 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

Six vols. Small 4to (135 x 123 mm.), orig. boards, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers. [Japan]: mid-Edo.

A collection of six volumes, gathered by the Buddhist monk and shomyo master named Kenshin (d. 1683?), containing printed Japanese Buddhist ceremonial music notation for chanting, beautifully printed on mica paper. “The generic name for Japanese Buddhist chant is ‘shomyo,’ from a Chinese translation of Sanskrit sabdavidya, the science of words of sounds (i.e. grammar and phonology), which was one of the panca-vidya, the five subjects of traditional Brahmanic study…For a thousand years, shomyo has connoted above all Tendai and Shingon... More

Trans. by Xuanzang 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, China... 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

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 Kenko Yoshida (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, mind... 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

11 columns per page, 20 characters per column. Written in Chinese with manuscript Japanese reading marks. 52 folding leaves. Large 8vo (290 x 205 mm.), orig. wrappers (wrappers somewhat worn & rubbed), manuscript title-label on upper cover, new stitching. From the colophon: “Kyoto: Kotetsu shoin, 1608.”

A very rare movable type 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.... More

Several fine woodcuts in Vol. I. Ten columns, 20 characters per column. 86; 95; 76 folding leaves. Six parts in three vols. Large 8vo (280 x 200 mm.), orig. brown wrappers, orig. manuscript title labels on upper covers, new stitching. From the final leaf of Vol. III: “Koya san Ojoin…Kan’ei 12” [“printed at Mount Koya in Ojoin, 1635“].

First edition of this very rare (not in WorldCat) and handsome movable type book, printed on Mount Koya, south of Osaka, the center of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. This is a most unusual example of fukun shokuban, a technique that... More

23 mounted illus. (all but one in color). 86 pp., one leaf with colophon. 4to, green printed boards, title on spine. Cologne: Galerie Max Hetzler, 1991.

Scarce Martin Kippenberger (1953-97) exhibition catalogue, signed by the artist; produced in an edition of ca. 500-800 examples, according to Koch. Kippenberger has signed in the center of the title-page.

“[The catalogue] contains 23 pasted-in reproductions of a series of oil paintings on the theme of ‘Fred the frog on the artist’s cross.’ The first painting, reproduced in black and white, was created in 1988 in Seville, the others in 1989-90 in Venice, California... 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

66; 45 folding leaves. Two vols. Large 8vo, orig. pale blue wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. [Aizu Fiefdom]: Preface & Afterword dated 1803.

First edition and very rare; WorldCat lists only one copy, at Harvard. Matsudaira (1744-1805), fifth in the daimyo line of the Aizu domain (now in parts of the Fukushima and Niigata Prefectures), was imbued with Neo-Confucian idealism.

The Aizu domain “used this text as a primer [consisting of 53 injunctions] in ethics and etiquette at its official domain school the Nisshinkan…to prepare boys for future careers serving Aizu as samurai-administrators. Enrollment at... More