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A Armenian language edition of the first thematic atlas of Armenia; one of the most impressive and engaging works of Soviet scientific cartography, featuring 97 full-page, full-colour plates of sophisticated maps plus diagrams covering virtually all aspects of the geography, geology, economy, transport and demographics of the Armenian SSR; predicated upon years of careful research and draughtsmanship by the Armenian…

The most consequential map of Namibia made during the German colonial era, a gigantic 8-sheet work that is the first broadly accurate general map of what was the protectorate of Deutsch-Südwestafrika of a scale sufficient for operational use, compiled in great haste but with considerable skill, at the ‘Kolonial-kartographischen Institut’ in Berlin by the master cartographers Paul Sprigade and Max…

Extremely rare – a large format, separately issued map that is one of the earliest printed masterplans of Brazil’s ‘Novo Distrito Federal’, containing the city of Brasília, which would become Brazil’s capital in 1960; Brasília was an ‘ideal planned city’, designed in the shape of an airplane following the ‘Plano Piloto’, with its main public buildings being Modernist architectural masterpieces;…

A charming rare pamphlet with religious text in Armenian language, printed by the Mekhitarist Press in Trieste.   12°, 98 pp. with vignettes and illustrated initials, later marbled paper wrappers (mispagination without pp. numbers 43-44, but complete and corresponding to the example from the National Library of Armenia, tear in the lower inner corner of the title page repaired with…

A rare first edition of an Armenian novel by Mesrop Taghiadian, printed in Calcutta.   12°, [4 pp.] blank, [6 pp.], 177 pp., [5 pp.] blank, original green wrappers, later spine (two tiny wormholes in margins in the first part of the book, light brown ink lines on the title pageotherwise in a good condition).  

A milestone of children’s education in the Ottoman Empire – the first printed Ottoman primer and the first primer with modern educational methods for teachers.   Large 8°, 68 pp. lithographed text with blank page after the front wrapper probably counting as p. 1, original illustrated pink wrappers, yellow sheet with printed instructions and black cut outs bound after the…

A pair of books with 27 handsome colour woodcuts, showcasing various patterns of chintz, wood block printed or painted glazed calico textile panels, made by a Japanese artist Ryuko Goto and published in Kyoto in 1903. 2 volumes (complete), large 4°, reverse collation, original illustrated wrappers, originally bound with brown strings. Vol. 1: Guard, title, 14 colour woodcuts on double…

1 of only 2 known surviving examples - the original issue of the French merchant Charles Jeannest’s exciting and historically valuable account of his four years (1869-73) spent in the coastal Congo (today’s Banana, DRC and Zaire Province, Angola), where he served as a factor at several trading posts, featuring authentic and highly detailed eyewitness accounts and perceptive analysis of…

A charming unique collection of original drafts, collages, photographs and negatives for book covers and book advertisement, made in the late 1950s by a Turkish illustrator and designer Ayhan Başoğlu, today known for his comics and drawings of heroic figures.

  A set of 30 issues of an unusual Tatar magazine published in Constanța, Romania, for the Crimean Tatar minority, which moved to the territory of today’s Romania during the Russian famine of 1921 and fleeing the Soviet government's collectivization in 1928–29.  

A rare detailed wall-map of the Caucasus, printed in Tiflis and drafted by Military Topographic Department of the Caucasus Military District under the leadership of the prolific surveyor Hieronymus Stebnitsky  

  A rare pamphlet in Ottoman language on the Dönme, a group of Sabbatean crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire, centered in Thessaloniki. 8°, 32 pp., original wrappers with lettering, later spine (light staining and small tears in margins, but otherwise in a good condition).