Highlights

[JEWELLED BINDING - FRENCH PRAYER BOOK]. L'abbé de la HOGUE. La journée du chrétien, sanctifiée par la prière et la méditation.
Lyon and Paris, Librairie Catolique de Perisse frères, 1844. 16mo. Binding: ca. 11 x 7 x 2.5 cm. With a small printer's device on the title page. 17th-century elaborately jewelled and decorated gilt silver binding with a gilt silver imperial double-headed eagle and two hands holding a heart centre piece, below Jesus on the cross (with an added skull and bones at the foot of the cross) and ornamental gilt silver corner pieces connected to the gilt silver board edge fittings on both boards. The whole is set with numerous jewels (amethysts, garnets, turquoise, and (simulated) sapphires). With two jewelled clasps closing on pegs in the fore edge of the front board, gilt edges, red velvet paste-downs and blue silk flyleaves backed with paper. VIII, 524, [5], [3 blank] pp. Full description

KIRCHER, Athanasius. Ars magna sciendi, in XII libros digesta, qua nova & universali methodo ... [vol. 2 half-title:] Artis magnae seu combinatoriae sciendi, ... [titles on the frontispieces:] Ars magna sciendi sive combinatoria [vol. 1] Artis magnae combinatoriae [vol. 2].
Amsterdam, Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge and the widow of Elizaeus Weyerstraten, 1669. 2 volumes bound as 1. Royal folio (46 x 30 x 5.5 cm). With 2 richly engraved allegorical frontispieces, an engraved plate with a full-page portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, an engraved plate showing all knowledge of the universe organised as a tree, 2 engraved volvelles (with 4 rotating dials), 20 further engravings on integral leaves and a couple dozen woodcut figures in the text. Contemporary richly gold-tooled red goatskin morocco decorated a petit fers, gold-tooled turn-ins, board edges and raised bands, giving a total of more than 1500 impressions of about 14 stamps and 3 rolls, edges gilt over red and blue squiggles. Janssonius van Waesberge, who published Kircher's books in Amsterdam from 1664/65 to 1682, arranged to have copies of several luxuriously bound for Kircher to present to leading figures and this is almost certainly one of them, presented to Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Superior General of the Jesuit Society. [18], 482, [10] pp. (including 2 integral frontispieces), plus 4 inserted tables & 2 plates. Full description

LE ROYER, Jacques. Oeuvres ... [with a note above the title: "Dico opera mea Regi."].
Including: Traité des influences divisé en deux parties. Premiere ... Des influences des cieux, & des astres ... Deuxie'me ... Des influences, & vertus occultes des estres terrestres.
Paris, R.J.B. de la Caille (printed [by Nicolas Motays] in Avranches), 1678. 2 parts in 1 volume. 8vo. With engraved device on the title page, a full-page engraved astrological sundial, 14 woodcuts in the text, depicting apparatus set up for laboratory experiments, astrological diagrams, etc., woodcut headpieces, tailpieces and decorated initials, and decorations built up from cast fleurons. Contemporary tanned sheepskin over boards, designed by the author, the front board of double thickness with a hole bored in its fore-edge to hold a metal rod or gnomon (lacking) that could be inserted in any of several holes on the front and back boards to make the book into a sundial (one hole in the back board also allowed it to be inserted for use with the sundial pasted over the back paste-down when the book is open), gilt edges. The front board, back board and spine have been embossed with three different engraved plates sundials, emblems and extensive lettering. In a modern red morocco box. 14, 111, [1 blank]; [6], 109-364 pp. Full description

L'ISLE (DELISLE), Joseph Nicolas de. Mémoire sur trois cartes nouvellement publiées en juillet 1764, destinées a servir de suite a la carte de l'ancienne Palestine ou Terre-Sainte, publie l'année dernière; Sçavoir: 1. Une carte particuliere de la Syrie, ou seulement de la partie septentrionale à la Palestine. 2. Une carte plus générale de la Syrie, qui comprend en même tems la Palestine avec les pays voisins, pour servir à l'histoire des croisades, etc. 3. Une carte encore plus générale & plus étendüe pour la recherche de la situation du paradis terrestre.
Paris, Imprimerie Veuve Delatour, 1764. 4to. With a woodcut vignette on the title page, a large woodcut headpiece, and a decorated woodcut initial. Contemporary gold-tooled mottled quarter brown calf. 15, [1] pp. Full description

LUQMAN al-Hakim (notes by Thomas ERPENIUS). Fabulae et selecta quaedam Arabum adagia. Cum interpretatione latina & notis Thomae Erpenii.
Leiden, Joannes Maire (colophon: "excudebat" Willem Christiaens van der Boxe, "typis" Johannes Janssonius), 1636. 4to. With Maire's woodcut device on the title-page and Van der Boxe's woodcut device above the colophon. Early 19th-century boards covered with blue brocade paper. 60, [2] pp. Full description

[MADOU, Jean-Baptiste (lithographer)]. [Vie de Napoleon rédigeé par une société de gens de lettres sur les nouveaux documens dictés et corrigés à Ste. Hélène par Napoleon même].
[Brussels, Lithographie royale de Jobard, 1827]. Oblong 4to (ca. 25.5 x 33 cm). With a hand-coloured lithographed double-page title, and 132 coloured full-page lithographed plates. Contemporary gold-tooled half red morocco, decorated ("pseudo marbled") paper sides, with the title lettered in gold on the spine, and a red morocco title label on the front, marbled endpapers. The work is housed in a later red and yellow marbled paper slipcase. [134] ll. Full description

MANGER, Samuel Hendrik. Oratio inauguralis, de incremento philologiae sacrae ab idonea Arabiae atque Palaestinae exploratione sperando.
Franeker, Willem Coulon, 1762. Folio. With the woodcut coat of arms of Friesland on the title page. Mid-19th-century marbled wrappers. [4], 67, [1 blank] pp. Full description

MANN, Traugott. Der Islam einst und jetzt. Monographien zur Weltgeschichte 32.
Bielefeld and Leipzig, Verlag von Velhagen & Klasing, 1914. Folio. With a folding map of the Islamic caliphates before 945 and the Ottoman Empire, 4 full-page colour plates, and numerous black and white photographs in the text. Original gold-stamped half blue and half white cloth. [5], 159, [3] pp. Full description

[MAPS - MIDDLE EAST - CIA]. Franklin's CIA maps of the Middle East Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates the Persian Gulf and Iraq.
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, USA, Franklin Maps, [after 1986 (and probably before 1991)]. Ca. 87.5 x 114 cm. Three maps printed in colour on one large sheet of paper: one large overview map of the Middle East (also showing parts of the Soviet Union, North Africa, and Turkey) on one side, and the "title page" with two smaller maps - one of Iraq and one of the countries around the Persian Gulf - on the other side. Folded. Full description

MARKHAM, Gervase. Cavalarice, or the English horseman: ... Newly imprinted, corrected & augmented, with many worthy secrects not before knowne.
(Title page second part: London, Edward Allde for Adward White, 1616-)1617. 8 parts in 1 volume. 8vo. With the title of each part printed within the same decorative woodcut border, numerous woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary calf, rebacked, preserving original spine label. [16], 88; [4], 264 (=244); [4], 84; [4], 57, [1 blank]; [4], 58; [4], 67, [1 blank]; [4], 86; [4], 37, [1 blank] pp. Full description