antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
236.BACON, George
Washington, [editor].
120
New Large Scale Atlas of The British
Isles. From Ordnance Survey. with
Plans of Towns, Copious Letterpress
Descriptions, Alphabetical Indexes
and Tables of Population.
London, George W. Bacon, [1889?] [21317] £600
Small folio. Bound in full brown morocco, gilt titles decoration
to spine, raised bands, gilt decorative border to boards, gilt
titles to front board, marbled endpapers, gilt inner dentelles,
all edges gilt. With 100 maps of the British Isles, counties
and town maps. Front inner hinge slightly cracked, title page
consequently coming loose, 4pp. preface detached from stub,
a little foxing, some general wear to boards, a very good copy.
Information from the 1888 census.
237.[BECKFORD, William]
Recollections of an Excursion to the
Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha.
By the Author of “Vathek.”
London, Richard Bentley, 1835 [32147] £285
8vo. Contemporary calf, black roan label, gilt rules, red
sprinkled edges, by Lewis. Without the half-title, but with the
portrait frontispiece. Bookplate of Frances Mary Richardson
Currer. Spine rubbed, front joint cracked but holding, front
cover faded, light offsetting on title, foxing at beginning and
end, still a good copy.
FIRST EDITION of Beckford’s account of his visit in June
1794 to the monastery churches of Alcobaça and Batalha,
north of Lisbon in the province of Estremadura. “These two
sites differed considerably. Alcobaça had been built by the
Cistercians in the twelfth century in a style intermediate
between Roman and Gothic. Batalha, built by the
Dominicans in the late fourteenth century, was more
massive and theatrical, reached, as Beckford’s journey
took him, across the plain of Aljubarrota, the field of a
bloody battle in the fourteenth century” (ODNB). Beckford
was to incorporate major elements of both buildings into
his fantastical rebuilt Fonthill.
238.BÉRARD, Victor.
Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée
[Together with;] Les Navigations
d’Ulysse. [Together with;] Dans la
Sillage d’Ulysse. Album Odyséen.
Photographies de Fred. Boissonnas.
Paris, Armand Colin, 1927–33 [39968] £975
7 volumes, 8vo, the last-named 4to. Original wraps.
Numerous maps throughout, many of them folding, the
“atlas” with numerous duotone plates, folding track-chart at
the rear. Internally clean and sound, the wraps a little rubbed
and soiled, some creasing at the spines, some splits and chips,
but a very good set.
Revised edition of Bérard’s Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée of
1902–3, which propounds the “Phoenician theory” on
the origins of Greek culture and reconstructs the route
of Odysseus around the Mediterranean. Bérard literally
navigated the route, identifying the locations of myth
as he went. When Stuart Gilbert told him that he was
reading the Odyssey in Greek the better to understand his
novel, Joyce responding by asking if he had read Bérard.
In the Album Bérard comments on a series of images to
illustrate his thesis taken in the spring of 1912 by the
Swiss-born photographer Fred Boissonnas. Boissonnas
had fallen in love with Greece on his first visit in 1903 and
became the first to take pictures from the top of Mount
Olympus. So persuasive were his images of Greece and its
people that they were selected to represent the nation’s
cultural identity at the Paris Exhibition of 1919.
This set from the library of Norman Douglas with his purple
ink monogram hand-stamp inside the upper wraps and a
number of pencilled page references and comments to the
text volumes. the Album with page references in his hand
to the upper wrap and critical notes at the corresponding
locations. At images 47–48 “Les Colonnes du Ciel”, there is
an envelope tipped in containing a note from the sculptor
Francis Sargant forwarding a small watercolour sketch
(present here) by the Canadian artist James Kerr-Lawson of
the Pillars of Hercules. Also enclosed is a small newspaper
clipping of a letter from Kerr-Lawson advising on the ideal
circumstances in which to view the Pillars, “The sight thus
presented… is sublime – nothing less than the two vast
columns of Hercules sustaining the firmament.”
Douglas found Bérard’s thesis less than persuasive: “There
is not a trace of antiquity to be seen even by daylight, and
in this dubious gloaming the mind, concentrated upon
itself, is more than ever prone to distrust the reality of the
historic record. It is all extremely improbable; Monsieur
Berard and his colleagues are taking us in, as usual”
(Douglas, Summer Islands).
239.BOSWELL, James.
An Account of Corsica, The Journal
of a Tour to that Island; and
Memoirs of Pascal Paoli.
Glasgow, by Robert and Andrew Foulis for Edward and Charles Dilly,
London, 1768 [19317] £600
8vo. Later full tan calf, with red label, gilt decoration and
raised bands on spine. With a folding map. Bookplate to front
pastedown, old ownership inscription to half-title. Extremities
rubbed, small tear to map.
FIRST EDITION of Boswell’s first successful publication,
which at a stroke gave him a European reputation. It
was Rousseau who urged Boswell to visit the relatively
unknown Corsica, then struggling for its independence
from the “old” Europe of Genoa. Impressed by the qualities
of its leader, General Paoli, Boswell campaigned in
the British newspapers, lobbied Pitt to intervene, and
personally sent thirty cannon to help. He also edited a
volume of British Essays in Favour of the Brave Corsicans
(1769). The valuable part of his Account of Corsica is the
journal of his tour, drawing from his diaries to present the
Rousseauist theme of Corsican primitive simplicity and
the classical heroism of Paoli. (One ironic consequence of
the ultimate failure of Paoli was that one of the first babies
born under the new French jurisdiction was Napoleon
Bonaparte, son of Paoli’s adjutant.)
240.BOSWELL, James.
The Journal of a tour to the
Hebrides, With Samuel Johnson,
LL.D. … Containing Some Poetical
Pieces by Dr. Johnson, relative to the
Tour, and never before published; A
Series of his Conversation, Literary
Anecdotes, and Opinions of Men
and Books: with an authentick
account of The Distresses and
Escape of the Grandson of King
James II. in the Year 1746.
London, by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1785 [35433] £650
8vo. Contemporary tree calf, smooth spine gilt in
compartments, red morocco label, sides with single gilt
fillets. With the half-title and terminal errata leaf. This copy
as Rothschild 456, with I5r in the first state, Q7r and U6r in the
second. Spine a little dried and worn at ends, band visible at
foot, still a handsome copy.
FIRST EDITION of Boswell’s version of their three-month
trek through the highlands and islands of Scotland in
late 1773. Boswell’s account “has the chatty informality
of a ‘rough’ guide: its focus is on Johnson, as it describes
his charged encounters with the native population,
whether humble cottagers or important personages like
Lord Monboddo and Boswell’s formidable father Lord
Auchinleck” (Pat Rogers in ODNB). Johnson published his
own account, very different in tone, in A Journey to the
Western Islands of Scotland, 1775. The final leaf advertises
Boswell’s Life of Johnson as “Preparing for the Press, in one
vol. Quarto”.
Rothschild 456.
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 6: Europe, including Constantinople
241.BOURGOING, J. F.
Travels in Spain: Containing a New,
Accurate, & Comprehensive View
of the State of that Country, down
to the Year 1806. Translated from
the French, and embellished with
Engravings.
London, Richard Phillips, 1809 [39800] £300
8vo (207 × 122mm). Modern half calf on marbled boards, red
morocco label to the spine. Engraved folding map frontispiece
and 10 other plates, 8 line-engraved and folding, 2 of them
a lithographs, one folding. Sporadic browning, particularly to
the plates, one page with printing flaw with consequent slight
loss of text, but overall a very good copy.
Extracted from Phillips’s Collection of Modern and
Contemporary Voyages and Travels. Highly popular account
of the country by the ex-ambassador. Chapter XXII and
6 of the folding plates are dedicated to bull-fighting:
“Amongst the entertainments that belong almost
exclusively to Spanish nation, must be placed a spectacle
for which it has still an unbounded attachment though it
be repugnant to the ideas of the rest of Europe; I mean
the bull-fights.”
242.BURTON, Richard F.
Etruscan Bologna: A Study.
London, Smith Elder & Co., 1876 [25667] £500
8vo. Original blue cloth, device to upper board gilt, key motif
to boards in black and blind, titles to spine gilt. Illustrated
throughout, one folding plate. Errata slip present. Some minor
spotting to text, spine a little rubbed and lightly tanned. An
excellent copy however particularly tight and clean.
FIRST EDITION. One of the less scarce titles in the canon
but nice in this condition.
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