antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
Important source
of American
history
99. BANCROFT, Hubert
Howe.
The Works …
San Francisco, The History Company, Publishers, 1886 [29304]
£8750
39 vols., 8vo. Rebound in full tan morocco, red and brown
morocco lettering pieces, other compartments with gilt
motifs, covers with gilt roll borders, marbled endpapers, gilt
edges. Maps, many folding, plus engravings & plates. Some
faint age-toning, an excellent set.
FIRST EDITION, the complete set of what is still
considered by historians to be the most important single
source of early Western American history. “Colossal cooperative
undertaking; nothing approaching it has ever
been attempted in this country” (Howes). Although
the first title-page is dated 1886, the set was published
1883–90. Vols. 11 and 33 were published by A. L. Bancroft
& Company. Sets were originally offered in a variety of
bindings, but the expense of binding so many volumes
was such that purchasers usually opted for the cloth or
cheaper leather bindings, which are now mostly met with
in poor condition.
Cowan: p. 33; Graff: 155; Howes I: B-91; Howes II: B-87; Zamorano Eighty: 3.
100.BROWNE, Patrick.
The Civil and Natural History of
Jamaica. In three parts. Containing,
I. An accurate description of that
island … II. A history of the natural
productions … III. An account of
the nature of climates in general
… The whole illustrated with fifty
copper-plates …
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 3: The Americas, Greenland and the Arctic
London: printed for the author; and sold by T. Osborne, and J. Shipton,
1756 [39454] £7500
Folio (357 × 239 mm). Contemporary calf (perhaps
Spanish), morocco label gilt lettered in English, spine gilt in
compartments, marbled pastedowns, mottled edges. With
folding map of Jamaica, folding chart of the harbours of Port
Royal & Kingston, and 49 copperplates (38 of flora, 11 of fauna)
by G. D. Ehret. Inkstamp of Juan J. de Mugartegui, abocado,
Marquina, to front free endpaper. Spine a little darkened and
dried, some waterstaining to covers and damp penetration
through joints with consequent staining to gutter at beginning
and towards end, a few strong scattered wormholes through
back cover into text and occasionally elsewhere, these flaws
apparently a consequence of the book having been in South
America, still a good firm copy.
FIRST EDITION, one of only 250 copies according to Sabin.
Patrick Browne (c.1720–1790) was an Irish physician and
botanist who went to the West Indies in 1737 and again
about 1746, settling in Jamaica. Returning to London,
he published this account, illustrated with engravings
of plants and animals based on drawings that Browne
commissioned from Georg Ehret. The work has an
important place in botanical history, as Browne was the
first English-speaking author to use Linnaeus’s system of
classifying plants in print. He coined Latin names for over a
hundred genera, some of which are still accepted. The first
is the only edition to have the original engraved plates
after Ehret, as the copper plates were destroyed in a fire in
1765; the second edition of 1789 has copies re-engraved
in reverse.
Sabin 8670; Plesch pp.159–60; Great Flower Books p. 52 (“valuable for the
study of West Indian botany”); Nissen 255.
With
Ehret
plates