Search Results: Authors starting with M from Hordern House Rare Books

London: T. Becket and T. Cadell, 1776. Slight water-staining, especially to final pages, neat library stamps to title and plates.. Octavo, two folding tables and four folding plates, modern brown morocco. An important work, including Macbride's essay "On the Scurvy". The author's "Malt" was one of the main antiscorbutics used on Cook's voyages, although it has since been proved to have little effect. Macbride is best remembered for this work on scurvy, which extends the theoretical work of John Pringle. Macbride argued that the disease was related to the loss of fixed air (carbon dioxide). As a cheap and accessible source of fixed air, he recommended the use of infusions of malt - "worts" - taken from the liquid remaining when malt is suspended in water. The solution was tested with some apparent success by his brother Admiral John Macbride on HMS Jason and, despite less tangible results on the voyages of Wallis and Carteret, Macbride's Malt was one of the main treatments taken with Cook on the… Read More

Paris: Dabo and Masson, 1823. A handsome set, in fine original condition.. 15 volumes, duodecimo, with numerous folding maps & plates; contemporary half calf. A delightful French miniature collection of voyages. There are three volumes each to the sections on Africa, Asia, America, Europe and the South Seas. This last part has good Australian and South Pacific material from a variety of sources, including Oxley and Freycinet, both of whose narratives had only just been published. The collection is well illustrated with early engraved maps and plates. MacCarthy (1785-1835), although an Irishman, served in the French army in 1800, became a battalion commander, by 1830 was in charge of the statistics section at the War Depot. He was a member of the Geographical Society and it was in this role that he published the present collection as well as several other geographical works. . Provenance: Baron de Nervo (with armorial bookplates); private collection (Sydney).

London: T. & W. Boone, 1852. Two volumes, octavo, with engraved folding map and 13 lithographed plates after T. Huxley and others as well as many text illustrations; a fine copy in an early binding of half polished calf, spines gilt in compartments, double labels. First edition: "a very important voyage of exploration and scientific research" (Ferguson). This was the last, and today is the most difficult to find, of the great exploration journals published by Boone during the heroic age of Australian exploration. John MacGillivray served as the chief naturalist on the Rattlesnake, part of the important series of hydrographical voyages undertaken by the Admiralty in the late 1840s to chart the Great Barrier Reef and north coast, and the southern coast of New Guinea. The Rattlesnake continued the work that began with Lort Stokes on the Beagle and was continued by Blackwood on the Fly and Bramble. The ship's complement was distinguished by the presence of the naturalist, T.H. Huxley, and the marine… Read More

London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1801. Usual light toning and some light foxing and offsetting on the maps.. Quarto, h/t, t/p, [1]-viii, i-cxxxii, 1-412, (2, errata)pp. With an engraved frontispiece portrait, three large, folding, engraved maps (America in original outline colour); a brilliant copy in the original blue boards, paper backstrip and label (restored), in a modern red quarter morocco slipcase. First edition. Leaving Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabaska in 1789, Mackenzie set out for the Arctic Sea on the river now bearing his name, and returned the same year. In 1792, he again set out, this time for the Pacific. In both cases, unlike so many of the earlier and subsequent explorers, he was successful, despite the constant and seemingly insurmountable obstacles he encountered. This work was considered remarkable for its accuracy by the many explorers of the nineteenth century who followed Mackenzie's tracks. The recipient of this copy, David Reid, was Mackenzie's uncle, married to the author's… Read More

London: for the Linnean Society, 1845. Generous margins, slight browning, very good.. Engraving, 310 x 370 mm; mounted. Fine engraved portrait of Alexander Macleay, after the oil painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence commissioned by the Linnean Society and displayed in their prestigious portrait gallery of eminent naturalists at Burlington House, London. Macleay was Secretary of the Society from 1798 until his departure to Australia in 1825. Macleay was Colonial Secretary for New South Wales from 1825 to 1837, and became the first speaker of the Legislative Council in 1843. He is best remembered today as a man of science, particularly through the Museum which bears his name at the University of Sydney where his vast natural history collection is housed. By 1825 Macleay 'had accumulated what was probably the finest collection of insects then in existence' (Oxford Dictionary of Biography). During his lifetime he was actively involved in the development of the Sydney Botanical Gardens and the Australian… Read More

Sydney, 1893. A fine copy.. Quarto, photograph as frontispiece (offset onto title, as always) and 42 photographic or lithographic plates; uncut and partly unopened in the original green wrappers. An influential and well illustrated collection of zoological articles, published by the Linnean Society as a memorial to William Macleay, its first and most famous President who had died in 1891. The frontispiece is a fine original woodburytype photograph of "the resident 'Sir Joseph Banks''(ADB). This work also contains several full page lithographic plates showing aboriginal weapons. .

Sydney, 1840. Wax seals, surviving from original documents; in good condition, mounted. An attractive pair of original impressions of Macquarie's smaller seal: the first or "territorial" seal of New South Wales; accompanied by an 1840 example of Gipps's seal. Often bruised and cracked on documents, (Governor Phillip was known to complain about the shortage of sealing wax) these have survived in this form in good condition, bar a little chipping to edges. The first Colonial seal was described in a Royal Warrant as follows: "Convicts landed at Botany Bay; their fetters taken off and received by Industry, sitting on a bale of goods with her attributes, the distaff [a spindle for spinning wool or flax], bee-hive, pick axe, and spade, pointing to an oxen ploughing, the rising habitations, and a church on a hill at a distance, with a fort for their defence. Motto: Sic fortis etruria crevit [So, I think, this is how brave Etruria grew]; with this inscription round the circumference, Sigillum Nov. Camb.… Read More

Florence: Philippo di Giunta, 1515. A bit stained, but a good copy.. Octavo, ff. [xii], 280, italic letter, woodcut printer's device on last leaf, with six woodcuts; contemporary vellum. The first popular pocket edition of Macrobius's influential text, printed by the Giunta family in Florence; such smaller format publications were a feature of publishing in the early sixteenth century and must have looked as startlingly modern then as Allen Lane's first Penguins looked in the 1930s or ´40s. This printing includes a slightly developed form of the famous Macrobian world map with its massive southern continent. One of the very earliest world maps, this half-page woodcut depicts a world split into two - Europe and the balancing Antipodes - and surrounded by ocean at the edges. This remarkable image, which survived by manuscript transmission from the fifth century into the age of printing, had a strong and lingering effect on post-Renaissance and pre-discovery geography. Carlos Sanz (El primer mapa del… Read More

London: T. Dring & C. Harper, 1694. Faint marginal stain; spine slightly aged, front joint splitting but firm.. Octavo, with an additional engraved allegorical title, letterpress title printed in red & black, complete with the often missing imprimatur leaf at start; with a map and other figures in the text;; early eighteenth-century calf with contemporary armorial bookplate. The first edition of Macrobius to be printed in England, a fully-indexed "modern" critical version with notes by Pontanus, Meursius and Gronovius, and illustrated with numerous figures including the famous world map (p. 106) showing a massive antipodal southern continent. By the time of this edition, some two centuries after its first appearance in print, the map has become somewhat simplified. Its large southern continent now carries the legend "Perusta inhabitabilis / Temperata". .

Lyon: Sebastian Gryphius, 1556. Binding a little rubbed but very good, internally clean, a fine copy.. Octavo, with diagrams and woodcut map, woodcut initials, printer's device on title; marginal notes; contemporary dated binding (1560) of blind-embossed pigskin over wooden boards, two engraved metal clasps. This is a most attractive copy of this mid-sixteenth-century edition of Macrobius' great text with one of the earliest of all world maps, which would have a huge influence on renaissance thought. The book is in its original pigskin binding dated 1560, just four years after publication; an early ownership inscription on the title-page is dated 1565. The influential geographical text by the fifth-century Roman writer Macrobius is his commentary on Cicero's In somnium Scipionis (The dream of Scipio); it describes a vision experienced by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, which he is supposed to have had immediately prior to the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. The commentary by Macrobius… Read More

Cologne: Eucharius Cervicornus, 1521. A very attractive copy; a few leaves with a single small wormhole.. Folio, title within an ornate woodcut border; fine woodcut map of the world and several woodcut diagrams, woodcut initials; nineteenth-century continental binding of half calf, flat spine gilt in compartments. An important early edition of Macrobius, the first to be edited by Arnoldus Vesaliensis (the classicist Arnold Haldrein of Wesel). This is a handsome edition, folio in size with an illustrated title-page and with many fine woodcuts and initials throughout, including a large and further developed, version of the famous Macrobian world map. One of the very earliest world maps, this half-page woodcut depicts a world split into two - Europe and the balancing Antipodes - and surrounded by ocean at the edges. This remarkable image, which survived by manuscript transmission from the fifth century into the age of printing, had a strong and lingering effect on post-Renaissance and pre-discovery… Read More

Brescia: Boninus de Boninis, 1483. Closed marginal tear to gutter of ai, closed marginal tear to lower margin aii, aiv-aviii with neat marginal annotations in an early hand in Greek and Latin.. Small folio (302 x 198mm), 191 leaves (initial blank leaf discarded), with seven diagrams and a world map within the text; capital spaces blank; a fine, large copy in handsome Regency russia leather, sides richly tooled in gilt and blind with anthemion and scroll motifs, spine lettered in gilt and stamped in blind and gilt in compartments, all edges gilt, with lavender endpapers, by S. Ridge, of Grantham, with his ticket; Syston Park bookplates (see below). A superb copy of this great and rare book, from the library at Syston Park, with the first appearance in print of the famous Macrobian world map, the most influential of all pre-Renaissance views of the world, including an antipodean, southern continent. Printed in Brescia, in the first decade of printing there, this strikingly handsome production is the… Read More

Lisbon: Typographia da Academia, 1863. some slight foxing;. Quarto, 24 pp., integral map, original printed pink front wrapper bound into modern brown boards. A controversial treatise claiming the primary discovery of the Australian continent as a Portuguese achievement. This theory derives from the author's belief in the secret Portuguese mapping of various parts of the Australian coast as revealed in the Dieppe maps. The author, Richard Major, enjoyed privileged access to rare manuscript and cartographic materials as an employee of the British Museum and secretary of the Hakluyt Society. He had a fluent command of Spanish which allowed him to study and interpret first-hand archaic and difficult material beyond the grasp of his contemporaries. The theory was, unsurprisingly, popular with the Portuguese. In 1861 Major was honoured by Pedro V of Portugal and made a knight of the Tower and the Sword. Although many of Major's beliefs are now not widely supported (and his interpretation of the Dieppe… Read More

Abbeville: Paillart et Retaux, 1873. Very good in old quarter roan (a bit scuffed), from the reference library of publisher Hachette with a few stamps.. Octavo, 114pp., plus additional single leaf promoting the Société, old quarter roan. Presentation copy, inscribed and signed by the author: a thorough examination of Richard Henry Major's Life of Henry the Navigator by a member of the Société de Géographie. Major is remembered as a pioneering revisionist voyage historian who challenged conventional notions on the first discovery of Australia. Major championed the Portuguese claim throughout his career, and enjoyed privileged access to rare manuscript and cartographic materials as an employee of the British Museum and secretary of the Hakluyt Society. Major's linguistic skill allowed him to study and interpret first-hand archaic and difficult material beyond the grasp of his contemporaries. And in 1861 Major was honoured by Pedro V of Portugal and made a knight of the Tower and the Sword.… Read More

Lisbon: Typographia da Academia, 1863. Original printed wrappers, a few chips.. Quarto, 24 pp., with a map integral to the text, original printed wrappers; an uncut copy. A controversial treatise claiming the primary discovery of the Australian continent as a Portuguese achievement. This theory derives from the author's belief in the secret Portuguese mapping of various parts of the Australian coast as revealed in the Dieppe maps. The author, Richard Major, enjoyed privileged access to rare manuscript and cartographic materials as an employee of the British Museum and secretary of the Hakluyt Society. He had a fluent command of Spanish which allowed him to study and interpret first-hand archaic and difficult material beyond the grasp of his contemporaries. The theory was, unsurprisingly, popular with the Portuguese. In 1861 Major was honoured by Pedro V of Portugal and made a knight of the Tower and the Sword. Although many of Major's beliefs are now not widely held (and his interpretation of the… Read More

Lisbon: Melchiades & Co, 1863. Large octavo pamphlet, 24 pp. with an additional map sheet, an excellent partially uncut copy. A controversial treatise claiming the primary discovery of the Australian continent as a Portuguese achievement. This theory derives from the author's belief in the secret Portuguese mapping of various parts of the Australian coast as revealed in the Dieppe maps. The author, Richard Major, enjoyed privileged access to rare manuscript and cartographic materials as an employee of the British Museum and secretary of the Hakluyt Society. He had a fluent command of Spanish which allowed him to study and interpret first-hand archaic and difficult material beyond the grasp of his contemporaries. The theory was, unsurprisingly, popular with the Portuguese. In 1861 Major was honoured by Pedro V of Portugal and made a knight of the Tower and the Sword. Although many of Major's beliefs are now not widely held (and his interpretation of the Dieppe maps has been vigorously challenged), his… Read More

London: De l'Imprimerie de W., et C. Spilsbury, 1800. Five volumes, octavo; a very attractive set in contemporary full tree calf, spines gilt with double coloured labels. Printed in London for a continental audience, Mercure Britannique presents a range of political essays, reports and despatches reporting on affairs unfolding in Europe during a period of unprecedented change. The closing years of the eighteenth century saw the consolidation of Napoleon's political power and militarisation of the French Republic. The author, Jacques Mallet du Pan, was vigorously opposed to the revolution in France and wrote from the relative safety of Switzerland, using a London publisher to print his material for continental distribution (indeed, the imprint boasts these volumes were available in Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig and Venice). Mallet du Pan championed the cause of émigrés and courted the conservative anti-revolutionary governments of continental Europe. As both a Royalist and champion of the… Read More

London: John Booth Duke Street Portland Place, 1810. Repairs to paper and general ageing, but complete with captions intact.. Pair of uncoloured aquatints joined as a panorama as intended, 340 x 980 mm; in original bird's-eye maple frame. A rare panoramic view of Sydney Harbour. John Eyre arrived in New South Wales in 1801, transported for seven years for housebreaking. The first of his drawings which can be dated was done in 1804 soon after he received his conditional pardon. His best known work is this majestic panorama; the Sydney he portrays (fancifully) is a neat and orderly town where the Aboriginal inhabitants live with dignity and "peace, order and good government reign..." (The Antipodes Observed, 64). The focus is very much on the Harbour where the maritime activity was the dominating element in Sydney at the time. Eyre produced four images: two views from the West side of the Cove and two from the East; they were at least partly intended to illustrate David Dickinson Mann's "Present… Read More

Dunedin: New Zealand Institute, 1896. In good original condition apart from creases to the portraits of Wiremu Te Manawa and Tawhiao; the collation is complex with variants found in recorded copies, in this copy (in the original binding) the content pages for parts 2,3,4 and 5 were not originally included.. Large quarto, profusely illustrated throughout (including seven special plates printed in black and red), a very attractive copy in original half morocco binding. A special publication of the New Zealand Institute to record and photograph all outstanding examples of surviving Māori art and design as a record for posterity. The range of material encompassed is impressive: carved prows of war canoes and seafaring craft, architecture and habitations, weapons, implements of agriculture and handicraft, fish hooks and lines, musical instruments, mokomokai and so forth. Of special interest is the section of seven plates printed in black and red depicting rafter patterns. The material is presented out… Read More

Wellington: The Polynesian Society, 1946. Octavo, 98 plates with descriptive text, bound in recent blue cloth retaining original printed wrappers, fine copy. Second edition. 'Mr. W.O. Oldman of London was for many years a dealer in curios and artefacts fabricated by primitive peoples, and ended by becoming a connoisseur of such matters, with an extremely fine private collection selected from all that passed through his hands. It probably surpasses almost any other collection in quality, if not extent, and the Council of the Polynesian Society, recognizing this, set out to record a large group from the two series...' (Preface). .