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Mehmet Fetgerey Şoenu, 1890-1931. [Kafkasya ve Servet Menbaları / Caucasus and Sources of Wealth]   Istanbul: A. Garoyan Matbaası  1924.   8°, blank, 136 pp., original wrappers with lettering (uncut example, little age-toned, foxed  and stained, tiny tears and chips in margins).

A pamphlet in Ottoman language on the question about the future of Circassians in the newly founded Turkish Republic, written by a prominent Circassian author Mehmet Fetgerey Şoenu. Small 8°, blank, 47 pp., [1 p.], blank, on thick paper, original thick card wrappers with lettering, bound with original string (wrappers water-stained in margins and with light foxing, rear wrapper and…

Extremely rare and important, being the official Rio de Janeiro printing of the Anglo-Portuguese Convention of January 21, 1815, singed at the Congress of Vienna, whereby Britain (which in 1807 resolved to unilaterally ban the Transatlantic slave trade) agreed to compensate Portugal with £300,000 (then an enormous sum) for the having (illegally) apprehended and condemned Portuguese and Brazilian slaving vessels…

Possibly the earliest manuscript, mentioning Saartje or Sarah Baartman, known as the “Hottentot Venus” who was as a victim of contemporary scientific racism exhibited in England and Paris from 1810 to 1815 as a freak, believed to be related closer to apes than to humans. The letter was written in Cape Town in late 1809 by Alexander Dunlop, a military…

A scarce Japanese Meiji era atlas, based on Johnston’s The National Atlas of Historical, Commercial and Political Geography   4°, [1 pp.] text in red with gold decorative margins, 7 double-page colour lithographed maps, 23 pp. with imprint on the inner side of the rear pasted endpaper, original card wrappers with lettering, black cloth spine (sporadic minor foxing, world map…

An unusual multilingual work by de Cantos with a text collage, made of various languages Square 8°, 190 pp. also printed upside down(first 65 pp. not numbered), [2 pp.], one full page illustration in grey, black and red (same design as on the cover), illustrated covers with flaps (light foxing throughout the book, slightly age-toned in margins, wrappers with foxing…

A short dictionary of foreign words, as well as expressions used in Brazil and in Portuguese colonies, and correct Portuguese words with an attractive cover. Small 8°, 8 pp. on pink paper with covers printed in black and red, unbound as originally published (Very Good).

Book on the geography of Portugal, richly illustrated with de Cantos’s unusually designed maps and drawings.   Small 8°, 138 pp. with colour illustrations, 2 mounted illustrations on brown paper, pink wrappers with flaps and hand-coloured illustration on the cover (three owner’s signatures on the first page and one on the top of the cover, small paper label on the…

A pedagogical avant-garde book with data visualization, in techniques of typographic illustrations in letterpress, made by a Portuguese educator Paulo de Cantos.  

[Istanbul, 1880s or 1890s]   Large 12°. 4 pp. (without wrappers, possibly as originally published, in a good condition).   A religious pamphlet in Bulgarian language.

Nikolai Ivanovich KOTOVSCHIKOV (KOTOVSHCHIKOV, 1846-1905) [Title on Rear Wrapper:] Ординарный профессоръ Императорскаго Казанскаго Университета. Н. И. Котовщиковъ. Признаки распознаванія и лѣченія чумы. Переводъ съ русскаго. Изданіе Гайнуль Гибадъ Хасанова. Kazan: Типо-литографія Императорскаго Университета [Typo-Lithography of the Imperial University] 1911. [Ordinary professor at the Imperial Kazan University. N. I. Kotovshchikov. Signs of Recognition and Treatment of Plague. Translation from Russian. Published…

Raja Śivaprasāda or Shivaprasad (राजा शिवप्रसाद 'सितारेहिन्द,1823 – 1895) Lucknow: Newul Kishore 1889.   8°, [4 pp.] title & index, v, 91 pp., later wrappers (uneven edges with tiny tears, little stained, otherwise in a good condition) (#70612).

George Willis BOTSFORD (1862-1917). Lahore: Punjab Press, 1909.   Small 8°, title, 192 pp. lithographed text, original blue wrappers with lettering, original tan publisher’s wrappers, later spine (sporadic red lines in margins, corners slightly rubbed with small folds, title page with restored small tears and old sporadic annotations, publisher’s wrappers with annotations on the cover and partly repaired tears).  

Pierre Nicolas Langlet Du Fresnoy. Avignon: Chambeau 1782.   12°, viii, 116 pp., folding map of the world (old Catholic school stamp on the title page, small cracks in the hinges of endpapers, otherwise in a good condition with minor staining, binding little scuffed and rubbed).

A very rare and important landmark of the study of the Malagasy language and early printing in Madagascar, being a comprehensive grammar of Malagasy made by the Reverend William Edward Cousins, who was one of the leading figures in the 1860s revival of Western and missionary and activity in Madagascar and one of the most prolific authors and connoisseurs of…

[Gunapatha also Guna Patha]   8°, title, 41 pp., originally bound with a string (old manuscript annotations in pencil on the cover, little age-toned and stained, sporadic pages with strong age-toning, small tears andtiny loss of paper in margins, mostly in first and last pages) (#70500).

[The Sahara Railway between Gabes and Sudan and Its Evident Correlation with the Commercial Interests of Italy]   An unusual pamphlet, written by an Italian engineer Leone Paladini and printed in Cagliari, Sardinia, advocating a Trans-Saharan railway, connecting Gabès in Tunisia with towns in today’s north Nigeria.   Small 8°, 64 pp. original green wrappers with lettering, later spine (minor…

[Growing Roses and Extracting Oil] A rare Ottoman illustrated manual on rose cultivation and making of rose oil by an author from Karlovo, now Bulgaria, one of the centers of rose oil production Small 8°, 48 pp. with black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers, bound in a later marbled paper wrappers (paper slightly age-toned and fragile with small chips…

A very rare and sophisticated work of data visualization celebrating the long and eventful reign of King George III, which saw Britain become the foremost global superpower, at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution; composed of series of centric circles that chronologically contextualize a vast amount of information, prepared by the London engraver Nathaniel Rogers Hewitt for the popular publisher…

A charming advertisement in a shape of a pear, composed of Islamic calligraphy, for the subscription of two Ottoman newspapers in Ruse, Bulgaria.   Colour lithography, 47,5 x 36 cm (18.7 x 14.2 inches), (little age-toned and stained, minor loss of white margins, overall in a good condition)

Very rare – a stellar example of Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet’s map of Palestine, a large separately issued work predicated upon field surveys made by Ottoman and German military engineers during World War I, all brought to print on a single map for the first time; issued in Istanbul in 1921 by the Army Press, it was the very last…

A beautifully executed mid-19th century watercolor view of the foothills of Himalayas with snowed mountain range in the background.   Water-colour drawing, 34 x 49 cm (13.4 x 19.3 inches) on J Whatman wove paper, mounted on later paper (little sun-toned and with light staining and foxing, one tiny hole in the center of one of the stains, but overall…

Marifetname or Book of Gnosis - a majestic encyclopedic work in Ottoman language, printed by the Bulaq press in Cairo.   Large 4°: 23 pp., 564 pp. letterpress with lithographed illustrations, original brown goat with a flap and blind tooling, title in thick blue colour on the lower edge (Sporadic markings of text in apricot water colour, annotations in pencil…

  Very rare and historically significant - a gorgeous unsophisticated example of the first Nama (Khoekhoe) language primer and one of the earliest language primers published in Sub-Saharan Africa, the subtitle of which translates as ‘Shouting Together and Reading Book’; Nama, a non-Bantu language with its signature ‘click consonants’ is spoken by the Nama, Damara and Haiǁom peoples who are…

A very rare and intriguing ethnographic map showcasing ‘Schwäbische Türkei’ (Swabian Turkey), the region of southwestern Hungary that since the late 17th century had been home to a large enclave of German Settlers (‘Donauschwaben’), who were imported to the region by the Austrian Habsburgs to revive the agrarian economy in the wake of the eviction of the Ottomans; the ‘Donauschwaben…

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).

  [al-`Urāḍa fī l-ḥikāya al-salğūqīya / The Gift from the History of the Seljuks / Das Greschenk aus der Saldschukengeschichte]   A rare first printed publication of an important 14th century historical work on the Seljuk Dynasty, written in Farsi, was a groundbreaking work of a German famous orientalist Karl Süssheim, which gained him a professorship at the University of Munich.…

A rare first Ottoman Book on Darwinism, printed in Bitola.   8°. 200 pp. with three interleaved images, [4 pp.], contemporary brown embossed covers, red label with gilt lettering in Ottoman on the spine, endpapers with art nouveau pattern (little age-toned and stained, binding slightly rubbed on corners, but otherwise in a good conditon).

Very Rare – a remarkably astute treatise on cholera accompanied by an amazing 462 case studies of named patients written at the height of the Cholera Epidemic of 1833-4 in Portugal by the respected physician Emigdio Manoel da Victorio da Costa, who selflessly tended to infected persons on the front lines; the work remained in manuscript for many years, until…

A great monument of thematic cartography, being an atlas of world maps that depict geomagnetic declination and inclination throughout the globe as it varied at different historical times, created by the eminent Norwegian physicist and astronomer Christopher Hansteen, its 15 maps, printed on 7 plates, are largely predicated upon the author’s own meticulous data collection methods and analytical skills which…

A highly, detailed, large format separately issued official plan of Paramaribo, showcasing the capital of Surinam on the eve of the Roaring ’20s, when it was a fast growing mart of commodities and one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, depicting all significant aspects of infrastructure, land use and key institutions (including churches, mosques, Hindu temples and…

Very rare – the first maritime anemological atlas of the South Atlantic off the coasts of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, covering an area extending from the Río de la Plata up the mouth of the Amazon, charting the monthly wind patterns at all points throughout this critical sector, by the French Admiral Viscount Octave de Chabannes, featuring 50 full-page plates…

An exceedingly rare, large-format (almost 2 m!) time chart in Swedish language, printed by the first lithographer in Sweden, Karl Müller.   8 sheets, lithography with original colour, each circa 57 x 44 cm (22.4 x 17.3 inches), ca 106 x 170 cm (41.7 x 66.9 inches) if assembled. Uncut edges with tiny tears, some contemporary annotations in ink in…

An extremely rare and highly decorative Art Nouveau era map of Peru that showcases the country’s maximalist (some might say ‘outrageous’) boundary claims with respect to its disputed frontiers with Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia; designed by J. Boix Ferrer, the proprietor of the ‘Joya Literaria’ bookstore, with branches in Lima and Arequipa, it is predicated upon the best sources, detailing…

The probably first separately published forensic map showcases the location of a well-publicized early 19th century femicide, followed by a famous court case, which brought changes to English legal history. The author was Rowland Hill (1795-1879), an English social reformer and inventor. He is mostly famous as the inventor of the first adhesive pre-paid postal stamp, the Penny Black, in…

A drawing with calligraphic details by a French artist A. B. Duhamel, mostly known for his fashion engravings from the late 18th century. Gouache on paper with gold and silver highlights, 32 x 25 cm (12.6 x 9.8 inches), (traces of mounting verso, minor age-toning to the silver highlights).

A larger charming and seemingly unrecorded separately published map of the world in Ottoman language.   Colour lithograph, 49 x 63 cm (19.3 x 24.8 inches) (light water-staining and staining on the left-hand side, otherwise in a good condition).  

  Etching with roulette, printed in sanguine, marked 2 in the upper right corner, platemark: 20,5 x 29 (8.2 x 11.4 inches), sheet: 28,5 x 37,5 cm (11.2 x 14.6 inches), (slightly stained and with light water-staining in margins).  

A Slovenian pamphlet, published immediately after World War II, with short stories, poetry and artwork, is dedicated to women of the anti-Fascist movement and praises their effort, which was according to the introduction equal to men’s work.   Large 8°, 32 pp., 8 full-page black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers, stapled (minor foxing to the wrappers, but overall in…

Yeni Afrika. Afrika kitʼasinin ahval-i coğrafya ve tarihiyesi hakkında maʼlûmat-ı cedide ile seyyah-i meşhur İstanliʼnin son Afrika seyahatnamesini ve üç kitʼa boyalı haritayı havidir New Africa. Geographical and Historical Situation of African Continent, New Information by a Famous Traveler Stanley and a Map Coloured in three Colours.   A rare late 19th century Ottoman book on contemporary Africa   8°,…

1130 recipes from the rich Triestino cuisine by a former war reporter Maria Stelvio, made in the time of rationing and published during World War II in Fascist Italy.   8°, 461 pp. with black and white illustrations in text, [3 pp.], original wrappers with lettering (wrappers with tiny tears and loss of paper, mostly around the spine, little stained,…

A rare four-page pamphlet with two somehow different solutions on fighting the pandemic of rinderpest (Lues animalium) in South Germany, in 1732.   8°, 4 pp. with a wood-cut on the last page (Very Good, uncut edges with light soiling).  

The Estado Novo regime’s conservative and patronizing view towards women in Mozambique. 4°, 16 pp. blue carbon copy of a typescript on yellow paper, printed recto only, yellow front and rear wrapper, lettering on the cover, stapled (rear sheet loose, light staining and foxing) (# 70489).

A beautiful Ottoman lithographed Qur’an with hand-coloured details, imitating the appearance of traditional manuscripts.   12°, [608 pp.], margins of opening double pages with fine colouring in polychrome and gold, gold decoration in surah headings, polychrome marginal medallions, sporadic marginal annotations in red ink, original brown goat binding with a flap and gold tooling, accompanied with an original goat leather…

An unique and extraordinary artifact of the successful Dutch endeavours to gain colonial dominion over West Sumatra during the 1830s, in the wake of the Padri War (concluded 1837) and the 1832 intervention against the Aceh Sultanate, being an impressively detailed original manuscript itinerary map of West Sumatra, including it rugged Minangkabau Highlands, depicting a dense archipelago of villages and…

A rare, early Bengali novel, printed in Calcutta. 12°, [2 pp.] title page, 228 pp., original brown cloth binding, yellow endpapers (old annotation in inner side of the front board, a period binding, almost certainly Indian in origin with small scratches and worm holes around the spine with worm-holes only affecting the hinges of front endpapers, internally clean and crisp…

[The Basis for the Anatolian Turkish Antiquities and Carvings in Stone. Ankara]   An extensive illustrated work on Turkish history or art in Anatolia   2 volumes, large 4°. Vol. 1: 54 pp., blank, 41 plates printed recto in black and white and colour, original wrappers with lettering (wrappers and first pages with light foxing, later spine, last plate with…

8°, XXV, 449 pp., dedication by the author to Ernesta Stern, dated October 5, 1892, on the blank page opposite of the title page, contemporary green Morocco binding with gold initials EES on the cover and embossed title in gold on the spine, raised bands, gilt linear turn-ins, contemporary marbled endpapers (the word ninth edition on the cover crossed out…

[Dead and Living Languages in Secondary Education]   A handsome example of a pamphlet on the subject, if dead languages should still be thought at secondary schools, written by Jewish educator Benjamin Levy. From the library of Ernesta Stern with a dedication by the author.   8°, 48 pp. with dedication by the author to Ernesta Stein on the first…

  [On the Introduction of the Armenians to Algeria]   An unusual French pamphlet describing a governmental plan, to relocate a larger amount of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire to Algeria, in order to boost economy and trade of this relatively new part of France. A handsome example, from a library of Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, the French Colonial Minister, who…

A handsome example of an early lithographed edition of a divan, written by an Ottoman female author Leyla Hanım   8°, 110 pp. lithographed text, [2 pp.] blan, two title pages with coloured and additionally illustrated headers, gilt lines to opposite pages, contemporary embossed black boards, later spine (title page with a title in Latin alphabet in ballpoint pen and…

A rare first edition of poems and short essays on the Orient was published in French language in Istanbul by a Persian diplomat and writer Mirza Reza Khan Arfa' Al-Dawlah (1846 - 1937) and contains a hand-written dedication to an intellectual and bibliophile Ernesta Stern, a famous Jewish literary hostess and an author.   8°, [2 pp.], portrait of the…

A collection of patriotic stories by popular Brazilian writers Olavo Bilac (1865 – 1918) and Coelho Netto (1864 -  1934).   Small 8°, 283 pp. with colour illustrations in text, illustrated boards, original red cloth spine (slightly bumped on the edges, light foxing, internally with minor age-toning).

Regulations for the navigation of the Suez Martime Canal   Large 4°. 13 pp., [3 pp.] with partly colour illustrations, bound with original sting (sporadic old annotations, soft folds, tiny holes and tears in white margins, folds with tears, minor age-toning and staining, mostly to the last page, but overall in a good condition).

A delightfully designed ephemeral Turkish book catalogue with the titles of the books reflecting the impact of the uprising Fascism.   12°. 62 pp., [2 pp.], original illustrated wrappers (minor foxing, tiny scratches around the spine, otherwise in a good condition).

  A rare, stellar and very large format bilingual (Chinese, French) map of China, made by Stanislas Chevalier, the polymath Jesuit-scientist who was famously the father of meteorology in China, beautifully colour lithographed at the Imprimerie Hong-pao-tchai, a printing house located at Zi-Ka-Wei, the missionary education-science centre in the Xuhui District of Shanghai, with Chinese-style blue silk endpapers, the map is…

The first printed translation of the Bible into Ottoman language and the basics for all the later Turkish translations of the text. Printed in Paris with 17th century Arabic types, previously used in Napoleon’s Cairo press and one of the most elegant types made in the West.   Two volumes in one. 4°. [4 pp.], 7 pp., 984 pp. [2…

  A diary, composed of autobiographical songs and poems, filled with black humor and irony, was written by a young woman, imprisoned in Japanese camps Malang and Lampersari in Java, during World War II. 8°, notebook with striped paper, 32 pp. manuscript in Dutch in blue ink with illustrations in colour pencils, rest of the pages blank, original blue marbled…

  [Healthy Remedy against the Plague. Shape of the Cross]   A talismanic pamphlet with a cross of St. Zacharia and a prayer as a remedy against the first cholera pandemics in Portugal.   16°.8 pp. old tan wrappers with hand-hritten title on the cover (old stamp on the cover, lithographed ex-libris of Rafael Maria Rudio on the inner side…

  A very rare and attractive Mexican manual for instructing light infantry in the field, published shortly after Mexican Independence, with 2 charmingly crudely engraved plates depicting suggested reconnaissance formations, published in Mexico City for the Ministerio de Guerra y Marina. 12° (14.5 x 10 cm): [2], 251 pp., plus, 2 folding engraved plates (with Fig. 1 measuring 15 x…

  A pamphlet, explaining a round panorama of the Battle of Waterloo, which was exhibited in a wooden pavilion in Amsterdam.   8°, 1 pp., folding map (40 x 29 cm / 15.7 x 11.4 inches), [8 pp.] text, interleaved sheet with manuscript in brown ink recto, original card boards with illustrations on yellow paper, modern bookplate “Ex Libris van…

Very rare - the finest early general gold mining map of ‘The Guianas’ (British Guiana, Dutch Surinam and French Guiana), depicting numerous gold mining concession in the colonies’ incredibly rugged, jungle-covered interiors, resources which prospectors and government officials hoped would yield a ‘bonanza’ that would reverse the economic decline caused by the abolition of slavery; created from the best and…

A map of France from the first Ottoman lithographed atlas.   Colour Lithography, 32 x 43 cm (12.6 x 17 inches), (soft fold slightly age-toned, minor wear to the margins, but overall in a good condition).

A map of Oceania from the first Ottoman lithographed atlas.   Colour Lithography, 32 x 43 cm (12.6 x 17 inches), (soft fold slightly age-toned, minor wear to the margins, but overall in a good condition).

  A rare chromolithographed plan of Istanbul with charming wrappers, printed in Zürich and published by a German book shop in Istanbul.   Chromolithographed map, originally dissected in 15 segments and mounted on paper, 63 x 73 cm (24.8 x 28.7 inches), folded in original illustrated cromolithographed wrappers 8° (Slightly age-toned, minor chips to the edges of segments, sporadic annotations…

  A rare Greek manual on quick and precise map-making on the field with limited equipment.   8°,77 pp. with black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers, stapled(printed on thin paper with traces of printed text on reverse side, small tears in margins, wrappers slightly stained, with tiny loss of paper in margins, but overall in a good condition).  

  Large 8°, 48 pp., [8 pp.], printed in black grey and red on thick paper, with mounted portrait of Franz Kafka under grey flap and 4 original linocuts in grey and black, original printed wrappers over blank paper boards, 215 numbered example of 296 (unbound as originally published, minor foxing, binding little rubbed with light staining and age-toning).  

An early Polish book, supporting the women’s rights   8°. [4 pp.], 472 pp., contemporary three quarter grey linen binding with marbled boards, hand-written title on the spine, marbled edges (book plate of a Franciscan Library in Krakow with deaccessioned stamps on the inner side of the front board, stamps of the same library on the title page and inside…

  8°. [2 pp.], 278 pp. letterpress, contemporary dark brown Morocco binding with a flap and gold and blind tooling (old book-seller’s stamp on the first unnumbered blank page, old annotations on blank pages and inner sides of the boards, binding slightly rubbed with loss of material on the corners, sporadic margins with light water-staining and folds, but otherwise clean).…

A fascinating original manuscript letter shedding unique and valuable insights into the related wine and indigo trades in mid-19th century India, written by the leading Calcutta wine and indigo merchant James Lyall & Co., and addressed to the great ‘maison du vin’ of Clossman & Co. of Bordeaux, which details the risks involved in the generally lucrative importation of French…

A fascinating letter regarding the Siege of Savannah (1779), an exciting and consequential event of the American Revolutionary War, during which the Georgian capital’s British garrison withstood an assault by a much larger combined Franco-American force; here, writing in 1785, Brigadier General Augustine Prévost, who served as the British commander at Savannah, provides Reverend Thomas Shaw, a major ‘fixer’ in…

[Ajirņamamiñjari also Ajirna Manjari / Indigestion with Explanation and Commentary]   A rare book in Sanskrit, printed in Varanasi, India, and describing remedies for indigestion, based on the Ayurvedic medicine   Large 8°, title page, 25 pp., contemporary dark red cloth binding with gilt lettering on the cover, contemporary patterned endpapers (little age-toned, tiny tears in margins, binding and endpapers…

  Extremely rare – 1 of only 3 known examples – an ‘Edital’ (Notice) broadside issued by the exiled Portuguese royal court in Brazil that encourages the cultivation of plants that have pharmacological and industrial uses, part of Brazil’s revolutionary economic liberalization programme overseen by the ‘Real Junta do Commercio’, published in Rio de Janeiro by the Impressão Regia, Brazil’s…

  Extremely rare in commerce – the first edition of a work that featured the most powerful defense of slavery of the late Enlightenment era, and one of the most influential and controversial books in Brazilian and Portuguese history, written by José de Azeredo Coutinho, the Brazilian plantation owner-turned celebrated intellectual and cleric who was the (unintentional) forefather of Brazilian…

  Exceedingly rare and highly important – a complete, contemporarily bound annual run of 53 issues of the maiden and only full year of operation of the ‘The Regenerator of Aryavarta’, the short-lived but highly influential weekly journal published in Lahore, edited by a triumvirate of young luminaries led by the precocious 18-year-old Lala Lajpat Rai, who later gained fame…

  [Primary Atlas of the World. For use in Egyptian Schools. First Edition]   First Egyptian modern school atlas of the world, published in the year of the country’s independence, in 1922.   Square 4°. Title page, 35 pp. with full page colour lithographed maps, bound in original blue card covers with title printed on front cover (title page little…

  A manuscript travelogue of Europe with stunning illustrations, made by a female author   Oblong 8°. [5 pp.] blank, [16 pp.] manuscript in black ink with illustrations in gouache, pencil and pencil, accompanied with yellow highlights and toning, illustrated titles and initials, yellow endpapers, [15 pp.] blank, dark green washed silk binding with gold tooling and lettering, gilt edges…

[Afganistan Hükümdarlarının Memleketimizi Ziyaretleri Hatıraları / Memories of Afghan Rulers' Visit to Our Homeland]   Oblong 8°, 48 pp. with black and white images, 2 pages of text and a map, original illustrated wrappers (later spine, tiny tracks in margins, wrappers little rubbed and dusty, but overall in a good condition).  

Extremely rare – 1 of only 2 known surviving examples – an ephemeral ‘Relación’ pamphlet likely containing the earliest published firsthand account of a dramatic naval battle between Tuscan vessels commanded by the Spanish Admiral Don Pedro de Leyva and a pair of Algerian-Ottoman vessels, which occurred in the Greek Aegean on July 1, 1622, upon which after ferocious combat…

  Au Boulet Bleu. Coueille Dégraisseur de Paris, a l’honneur de prévenir la haute Noblesse et l’estimable Public de Constantinople qu’il a ouvert un magasin a Dégraissage en face du Palais de Galata-Sérail. Il enlève toutes sortes de taches de n’importe quelle étoffe que ce soit, sans altérer les couleurs; il rêmet les effets a neuf et leur donne leur…

  4 sheets, not joined, colour lithographs. Each sheet circa 95 x 111 cm (37.4 x 43.7 inches), if assembled: circa 180 x 203 cm (70.8 x 80 inches). Small tears and holes in folds and margins, tiny creases on surfaces, old repairs, partly with postal slips from 1984 in English language, and traces of tape, later annotations in the…

  [Rules and Establishments of the Cavalry [i. e. Order] of Sanctiago-del-Espada. With the History of its Origin and Fundamentals].   A superb example of a rare late 16th century regulations for the Spanish Order of Santiago, printed in red and black, with a unique binding and a prominent provenance.   Small 4°. Armorial wood-cut title page, wood-cut image of…

  A stunning, well-rounded private archive of a French engineer, businessman and bibliophile Léon Sellié, giving a detailed insight on the life of an upper-class expat in the Late Ottoman period. The archive includes over 200 documents with 27 diaries, expanding over almost 29 years and describing over 9000 days in Istanbul, photographs, an unpublished manuscript on antique monuments of…

A foundational document of the establishment of the Estado Novo’s transformative colonial regime in Angola, being the secret typescript report on the state of the Portuguese colony written (and signed in mss.) by the military strongman and political heavyweight António Lopes Mateus, who had just been appointed as the Governor-General of Angola, submitted to the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar; in…

An early lithographed Quran of the Qajar period with striking hand-made illumination, giving the book appearance of a traditional manuscript.   [Persia:] 1267 [1850/51, 1851, commentaries, dated on the last page], 1268 [1851/52, 1852, hand-written date in red ink on the bottom of the last page, next to illuminator’s name], 1278 and 1285 [1862 and 1869, hand written dates of…

8°, 16 pp. with black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers, stapled (tiny tears in margins of wrappers, otherwise in a good condition) (#70348).

A collection of poems by an Iraqi author Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati, who spent most of his life in exile due to his communist views and apposing the government   Small 8°. 96 pp. with black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers (wrappers slightly stained and scuffed on the edges, inside with light staining to the first and last pages, but…