Search Results: Authors starting with K from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books

Vienna: Imperial and Royal Court and State Printer, 1808. SUPERB CONTEMPORARY VIENNESE PAINTED AND GILT ETRUSCAN BINDING of light tan calf decorated with freehand designs, morocco onlays, multicolor stenciling and delicate tooling (the initials PG on the spine and rear panel remain unresolved). The spine compartments are also painted and tooled; gilt-lettered black and beige morocco labels, gilt crowned pg in the top compartment; board edges gilt.  The elaborately decorated dark green silk pastedowns have wide gilt rose morocco borders, gilt green silk flyleaves and a set of red and black marbled flyleaves. The book block edges are gilt over a hand drawn design. First Complete and First Illustrated Edition, presentation copy. "The archduke was without doubt the most trusted and skilled general in the [Hapsburg] army" and one of the best strategists in the anti-Napoleonic camp (Eysturlid). As Field-Marshal, he (1771-1847) thoroughly reorganized the Austrian army between 1800 and 1805 along the lines… Read More

Augsburg: Johann Froschauer, 1498. Gilt-ruled dark blue morocco (Zaehnsdorf), spine gilt and gilt-lettered.             "ONE OF THE EARLIEST BOOKS CONTAINING MUSIC PRINTED FROM WOODBLOCKS.... Keinspeck rejected the Guidonian hand as a teaching method...he favoured the use of the scala which combined the use of pitch names ('claves') and solmization syllables ('voces')" (Niemöller; emphasis mine).            This brief introduction to monophonic choral singing "is important in the transformation of music theory.... Keinspeck's work demonstrates the practical aspects of teaching chant for its own sake in the age of polyphony just prior to the reforms of sacred music brought about by Luther" (Damschroder & Williams).             THE WEALTH OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ENSURED THE POPULARITY OF THIS PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONAL BOOKLET, WHICH AIMED SOLELY TO IMPROVE THE AESTHETIC PERFORMANCE OF CHURCH CHOIRS, free from any specific tradition's constraints. Simple clear rules, definitions, examples… Read More

Paris: N. Giguet and L.-G. and J.-F. Michaud for H. Henrichs, 1803. Sheep-backed speckled boards, flat spine, gilt-lettered title. First Edition of this semi-autobiographical epistolary novel by one of the leading architects of the Holy or Grand Alliance, which held sway in Europe from 1815 to 1853. Born in Riga to a wealthy family with access to the court of Catherine of Russia, the author married a local noble and diplomat much her senior. She sought relief from their distant relations in imagining her husband as the lover described in the letters published here, a sentimental romance. Her subsequent profound religious conversion opened the door to apocalyptic faith and intimacy with Tsar Alexander I, whom she prompted to initiate the Grand Alliance. She was known for her wild expenditures and charismatic proselytizing and is the subject of more than a dozen books. In good condition. ¶Ungherini, Manuel de bibliographie...des femmes célèbres II(2): 110; Giraud, Nouvelle bibliographie du roman… Read More