Forum Rare Books

18th-century colonial history of Mauritius, with an eye-witness account of the battle of Madras

GRANT, Charles, vicomte de VAUX and John Pope HENNESSY. Letters from Mauritius in the eighteenth century by Grant, Baron de Vaux including an account of Labourdonnais' capture of Madras.
Mauritius, printed for private circulation, 1886. 8vo. With a large, folding engraved map (43x59 cm). Contemporary half gold- and blind-tooled red calf, decorated (pseudo-marbled) paper sides. With the author and title lettered in gold on the spine. [2], X, 192, VI pp. Full description

€ 3,950

India & Sri Lanka Military History (19th Century)

3 militaria: on understanding the "human heart" of soldiers and on battles in the West Indies

GRASSE-TILLY, Francois Joseph Paul de. Memorie van den Graave de Grasse, betreffende de actien in de West-Indiën voorgevallen.
[Amsterdam?, 1782]. With 8 large folding engraved nautical nautical charts.
With:
(2) [KINSBERGEN, Jan Hendrik van]. Korte schets over de noodzaaklykheid van de kennisse van het menschlyk hart voor een chef.
Amsterdam, Gerard Hulst van Keulen, 1791.
(3) [KINSBERGEN, Jan Hendrik van]. Korte verklaringe van verscheidene actiën tusschen de Engelsche en Fransche vlooten, geduurende den laatsten oorlog. In de West-Indiën voorgevallen.
Amsterdam, Gerard Hulst van Keulen, 1791. With 21 folding engraved plates including nautical charts showing the French and English fleets near Grenada, Basseterre, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Santo Domingo on Hispaniola. 3 works in 1 volume. Royal 4to (29 x 23.5 cm). Contemporary gold-tooled mottled calf. 55, [1 blank]; 27; [8], 25, [1], 5 pp. Full description

€ 5,950

France Latin America Naval History South America UK - United Kingdom West Indies

Italian grammar dedicated to the French Queen Maria de’ Medici

GUEDAN, François. Institution de la langue Florentine et Toscane. Pour apprendre promptement, & facilement, la langue Italienne. Tant pour la lecture, prononciation & escriture d'icelle: que pour l'intelligence, composition, & traduction des livres Italiens en François, & des François en Italien.
Paris, Jean Gesselin, 1602. Small 8vo. Modern blind-tooled vellum, each board with a central ornament, gold fillets on spine, red morocco spine-label, red edges. 189, [3] pp. Full description

€ 2,250

Italy Literature School & Textbooks

Rare issue of a detailed account Dieppe's defeat of the Flemish in an important 1555 sea battle

[GUILLAS, Denis]. Histoire de la bataille navalle faite par les Dieppois & Flamans: qui est l'une des plus furieuses & soudaines expeditions de mer, qui ayt esté entreprise de nostre temps sur les ennemis du Roy.
Paris, Estienne Denise, [1557?]. Small 8vo (15 x 10 cm). With 2 woodcut decorated initials and one cast fleuron (Vervliet, Vine leaf ornaments 173). Set in roman type with incidental italic. Finely executed late 19th-century(?) French red morocco by René Aussour, gold-tooled turn-ins, title, place of publication and date 1555 in gold in 2nd and 3rd of 6 spine compartments, gilt edges. [51], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Belgium Early Printing - 16th century France Naval History

Bound for King Louis XV

HAMILTON, Hugh. De sectionibus conicis. Tractatus geometricus. In quo, ex natura ipsius coni, sectionum affectioens [!] facillime deducuntur. Methodo nova.
London, William Johnston, 1758. 4to. With numerous illustrations on 17 folding engraved plates. Contemporary French gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, with the arms of the French King Louis XV in the centre of each board and his crowned monogram in each compartment (except that with the title) of the spine. [4], VIII, 211, [1] pp. Full description

€ 13,000

Armorial Bindings Bindings France Optics & Perspective

An impassioned defense of Jay's Treaty translated into Portuguese

HARPER, Robert Goodloe. Reflexoens sobre a questaõ entre os Estados Unidos e a França.
Philadelphia, London, 1798. Small 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, gold-tooled spine with a red morocco title label lettered in gold, red sprinkled edges. 322 pp. Full description

€ 5,000

France Law & Politics Military History (18th Century) Naval History North America UK - United Kingdom USA - United States of America

Charming lithographed topographic and architectural views of northern France

HÉDOUIN, Pierre. Souvenirs historiques et pittoresques du nord de la France, ou Collection des plus belles vues et des plus beaux monumens, de cette partie de la France.
Paris, Dondey-Dupré, père et fils, 1830. Super Royal 4to (34.5 x 27 cm). With a letterpress half-title, title-page, 4-page letterpress introductory letter from Hédouin (dated 14 August) and 25 somewhat irregularly numbered, finely lithographed plates (mostly in landscape orientation with image size ca. 14.5 x 20 cm but the largest in portrait orientation 23.5 x 18 cm), printed on thin so-called "China" paper and mounted on blank leaves, each with a view of a site in northern France, by Pierre Langlumé after various artists, each followed by a letterpress account of the site. Modern half calf over contemporary boards with shell on shell marbled sides. [56] pp. Full description

€ 1,950

Castles, Gardens & Mansions City Plans, Topography & Views France

Deluxe copy with a beautiful hand-coloured Arabic miniature on parchment

HEINE, Maurice. L'Islam sous la cendre.
Paris, [Jules Meynial] (colophon: Frazier-Soye), (19 February) 1918. Square 4to (25 x 26 cm). With three different versions of the frontispiece: a lithographed plate, a hand-coloured miniature painting on vellum, highlighted with gold, and an engraved plate; and with the half-title printed in blue and several words in the text printed in green and blue. Original green cloth. 26 ll. Full description

€ 8,500

France Islamic Art, Culture & Science Literature North Africa & Egypt

Luxurious collection of 390 coats-of-arms of important Flemish, Dutch and French noble families,
mostly hand-drawn and hand-coloured and some painted with gold and executed on vellum

[HERALDRY - FLANDERS - NETHERLANDS - FRANCE]. [Album containing coats-of-arms of Flemish, Dutch and French noble families].
[France, Flanders and the Netherlands, 17th and 18th century]. Folio. With 390 coats-of-arms (plus another 49 blank shields) of which 13 on vellum, all but 25 contemporary hand-coloured of which 17 painted with gold and 1 with silver and all but 3 drawn by hand. Mostly all coat of arms are captioned in brown ink in contemporary 17th- or 18th-century cursive hands, in which also the sometimes added manuscript text (on the same or another leaf) is written. Coats of arms on paper and vellum in various sizes, mounted on later folio-sized paper leaves. 18th-century half red roan (sheepskin), brown sprinkled paper sides over boards, manuscript title label on the front board. All loose leaves and quires mounted/stored on [29] ll, the quires loosely stored in a paper slip mounted on a leaf. Full description

€ 13,500

Belgium France Genealogy, Heraldry & Flags Manuscripts & Documents Netherlands

"Father of History" in elegant & famous first Greek edition by Aldus Manutius, from the Arenberg library

HERODOTUS. [Historiarum] libri novem. Quibus musarum indita sunt nomina.
(Colophon: Venice), Aldus Manutius, (colophon: September 1502). Folio (29.5 x 20 cm). With Aldus's anchor and dolphin device on title-page and the verso of the last leaf. Late 19th-century blind-tooled, polished tan calf, the central panel with the arms of the Dukes of Arenberg. [140] ll. Full description

€ 69,500

Aldine Press Balkan & Greece Bindings Book History, Printing & Typography Classical Antiquity Early Printing - 16th century Greek & Non-Western Types Iran / Persia North Africa & Egypt West Asia

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