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

Nuremberg: Endter, 1664. A little spotting but a very nice copy.. Folio, title-page in black and red, additional engraved title, 59 full-page portrait engravings in the text; in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink. First edition of this handsome work on the Hungarian monarchy with a wonderful series of fifty-nine full-length heraldic portraits of kings and nobles of Hungary, sometimes with detailed views in the background of battles, landscapes, or cities. The text contains laudatory poetry for past kings and leaders, in both German and Latin. Ferencz III, Count de Nádasdy, was a prominent nobleman and patriotic Hungarian statesman who opposed the despotic policy of the Emperor Leopold. Unjustly condemned for conspiring against Leopold, he was beheaded in 1671. In this book, which is dedicated to the Hungarian nobility, he had promoted the idea of an independent Hungarian monarchy. The unsigned engravings, here in notably fine and dark impressions, are of great quality. Further editions of… Read More

Glasgow: privately printed, n.d. but, 1876. A fine copy. Octavo, photographic frontispiece, eight lithograph plates and four folding lithograph maps and another map in the text; fine bright green original cloth, gilt. A presentation copy from the editor, James R. Napier, to A.G. MacDonald (dated 7 August 1876). Francis Napier joined the South Australian Government expedition under Captain Cadell. They were searching for suitable sites for settlement on the north coast of the state (now the Northern Territory). The expedition departed from Newcastle, New South Wales calling at Brisbane and travelling on to Cape York Peninsula. From Cape York it crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Liverpool River, surveying that river and exploring the coast for about one hundred miles east and west of it. The expedition then returned to Burke Town on the Albert River, at the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and passing through Cadell Strait, and along the west coast of the Gulf, remaining some time at Maria… Read More

London: Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, 1694. Octavo, with one (of two) folding maps (missing the "Chart of the Western and Southern Oceans"), a folding table and 19 engraved plates, seven of them folding; modern antique-style speckled calf. First edition: 'The editor of this work is believed to be Sir Tancred Robinson. In his lengthy Introduction, he speaks of explorations towards the South Terra Incognita, suggests that the Dutch had made great discoveries there which they had never divulged, and also speaks of Ferdinand Magellan, Pedro Fernándes de Quirós, Sir Francis Drake, and others who had sailed the South Seas' (Hill). The editor laments 'that the English nation have not sent with their Navigators, some skilful Painters, Naturalists, and Merchanists, under publick Stipends and Encouragement as the Dutch and French have done...'. Of Tasman's voyage he exclaims: '... 'tis the Discovery of a new World, not yet known to the English. 'Tis probable by Abel Jansen Tasman's Navigation, that New… Read More

Sydney: W. Baker. Hibernian Press, King Street, Sydney, 1845. A little frayed at edges, otherwise very good.. A bifolium sheet of music, 345 x 270 mm; unbound. A rare and fragile piece of early pianoforte music by the vibrant and mercurial musician Isaac Nathan, who had arrived in Australia just four years before this publication. One-time friend and collaborator of Lord Byron, and tutor of Princess Charlotte, Nathan was born in Canterbury, England in 1792. His father, a singer in the local synagogue, had instructed his son in the lore of traditional Jewish music and throughout his life Nathan forged links between Jewish music and mainstream European culture. In this respect he is best remembered for his collaboration with Lord Byron on the Hebrew Melodies of 1815. Nathan composed the scores for Byron's verse including the enduring She Walks in Beauty. Following Byron's self-imposed exile and early death, Nathan continued to work as a singing instructor and composer. He struggled with gambling debts… Read More

Tours: Auguste Vauquer, Imprimeur du Département d'Indre & Loire, 1791. Fine copy.. Quarto, 4 pp., woodblock ornament and drop title; fine and uncut, preserved in modern marbled wrappers. The National Assembly decree calling for the publication of all accounts and charts of the La Pérouse expedition. In this second of two La Pérouse decrees of 1791 the government commits to the publication of the maps and narrative for the official account of the voyage. The publication would be six years in the making, first appearing in 1797 as Voyage de la Pérouse autour du Monde, and would come to be regarded as one of the greatest narratives of maritime exploration ever published. This decree too is printed at the start of the official voyage account. The text of the decree makes special reference to La Pérouse's Australian landing and copious correspondence relayed to France throughout the voyage ('envoyées par M. la Peyrouse, de la partie de son voyage jusqu'à Botanibay...'); famously, La Pérouse's… Read More

Whitehall, 1786. Original folds, a little split and rubbed, very good condition overall.. Two laid paper sheets measuring 315 x 205 mm., the first comprising the manuscript letter, the second being the original cover sheet with docket title. Early manuscript document pre-dating the departure of the First Fleet concerning two principal figures in the foundation of the penal colony at New South Wales. The letter concerns a directive of Lord Sydney and is signed by Evan Nepean in his role as Under-Secretary of State. Nepean (1752-1822) was appointed secretary to Lord Shuldham, Port-Admiral at Plymouth in 1782, and later that year became Under-Secretary of State in the Home Department. In this capacity he was concerned in the arrangements for the dispatch of the First Fleet and the administration of the newly established settlement at Sydney Cove during its formative years. Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, is remembered as the principal instigator of the British colonisation of Australia, a keen proponent… Read More

Melbourne: John Ferres, 1864. Rebacked.. Quarto, coloured frontispiece, plates and charts; a fine copy in contemporary calf. An extensive monograph: whilst primarily an overview of the meteorological conditions of the colony of Victoria, the work contains a chapter on meteors, their incidence 'from 1859 to the end of April 1861' along with an extensive statistical analysis of this phenomena. There is also a chapter on the Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, illustrated by a striking, coloured lithographic frontispiece. Born in Bavaria in 1849, Neumayer was an important figure in colonial science who was convinced that Australia provided important opportunities for scientific research, who made a study of terrestrial magnetism, conducted a survey of Victoria and worked for many years at the Flagstaff Observatory. He was also the one time colleague of the artist Eugene von Guérard. This is the Hobill Cole copy. .

Sydney: Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1885. Slight rubbing to binding, in handsome & original condition; interior lightly foxed in places; map with repaired tear; images all bright and crisp.. Large square folio, with a folding map, three coloured lithograph plates, 33 original silver albumen photographs (283 x 212 mm) mounted on card with printed captions and borders, and two superb panoramas, one of them double-page (240 x 553 mm) and the other on four sheets (242 x 1053 mm); original dark blue grained morocco binding, bevelled edges, spine banded and sides with multiple borders in gilt, front cover lettered in gilt, all edges gilded. This rare and sumptuous album, published in very small numbers and illustrated with actual photographs, has been called the first example of Australian photo-journalism: 'the most magnificent example of an Australian work in this genre, the high point in relation to which all other examples can be considered' (Holden). It is most impressive as an ethnographic… Read More

Sydney: Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1881. Single foolscap sheet, fine. Reproduces a dispatch from the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 26 February 1862, regarding restriction of Chinese immigration and problems arising thereof. .

Newcastle, N.S.W.: 31 July, 1845. Old folds and some browning, small loss from the seal being removed otherwise very good.. Three-page letter, folded to letter-size 255 x 205 mm., stamped at both Sydney and Newcastle. An interesting intra-colonial letter from the Newcastle businessman William Dudding to the prominent Sydney trader Robert Towns. William Dudding was a civil servant working in the Hunter. In 1850 he was clerk at the Maitland Gaol, in 1854 he became the Clerk of Petty Sessions in Singleton, and was appointed as a Magistrate in Singleton in 1875. Not long after this letter was written, in November 1846, Dudding requested a public meeting to petition against the reintroduction of transportation. In the letter Dudding notes that he is owed £50 which is due a few days later on 4 August, and asks that £10 from the Savings Bank Sydney be paid to the credit of a Miss Caroline Sarah Freeman of Newcastle (the nature of the transaction is not clear), but Freeman remained in the Hunter, marrying… Read More

A joint publication with the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Discusses and illustrates some of the exquisite watercolours from the Lesueur Collection at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre, and explores the story behind the Baudin expedition which produced these remarkable images. A4 folio, (310 x 250 mm.), 148 pages with numerous colour illustrations; hardcover with dustjacket. The 46 watercolours and drawings forming the core of Terre Napoléon are but a small part of the vast visual record of one of the most extraordinary scientific enterprises of our early colonial period - the Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1804. A voyage born of revolutionary times, these images by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit are what remains of Napoleon's ambition to establish a new scientific empire in the Antipodes.Terre Napoléon follows on from the publication Baudin in Australian Waters (now out of print) in providing a new look at the French encounter with Nouvelle Hollande. Essays by… Read More

Edinburgh & London: Blackwood and Cadell, 1822. Duodecimo, [xi], 215pp. lacking the half-title. With a portrait frontispiece. Old half calf, marbled boards, skilfully rebacked. First edition of almost the sole original narrative of an Australian Second Fleet voyage, this account of voyages and adventures in the Pacific was written by a common seaman whose naval career lasted from 1776 to 1801. Nicol first came to the Pacific as a steward with Captain Portlock in 1785-1788; during that voyage he made a stay in Hawaii, and his short but interesting observations include a description of the making of knives out of hoop iron for the King of Hawaii. His account of the voyage of the Lady Juliana to New South Wales, arriving in June 1790 carrying 245 female convicts, is one of the most important parts of the book since it provides virtually the only extensive description of a Second Fleet voyage (for which reason it has recently been republished by Tim Flannery). Nicol describes nine women on the voyage,… Read More

Basle: Heinrich Petrus, 1557. Marginal dampstains to first 25 leaves (preface and index), an excellent copy in contemporary binding, small portions of the pigskin worn in two places revealing oak boards beneath.. Folio, woodcut printer's device to title and verso of final leaf, woodcut historiated initials; contemporary white pigskin over wooden boards, blind-tooled to a panelled design, roll-tooled borders including one with images of the psalmist and evangelists, another with humanist medallion portraits (including those of Erasmus, Luther and Melanchthon), spine with four raised bands, later paper label at head giving title in places. First edition: a handsome copy in contemporary monastic pigskin binding of this mid-sixteenth century compendium of geographical knowledge by the Venetian writer Dominicus Marius Niger, edited by Wolfgang Wissenburg. In the tradition of the great classical geographer Strabo, Niger provides a description of the principal regions of the earth, together with accounts… Read More

London: Alex Hogg., n.d., 1784. Some wear.. Engraving, 380 x 235 mm. Naïve oval portrait prepared as frontispiece for Anderson's New, Authentic and Complete Collection (1784-86). The scroll below gives birth and death information and names of the ships on each voyage. .

Cadiz: Manuel Espinosa de los Monteros, 1769. In fine condition.. Small quarto, with a folding map; a fine copy, clean and crisp in contemporary marbled calf, red leather label. The scarce and desirable second edition, effectively the first procurable (the 1621 edition has always been recognised as almost impossibly rare): the Nodal brothers made a landmark voyage of Pacific discovery to the Straits of Magellan, clearing the way for future Spanish approaches. The voyage came about as the Spanish reflex reaction to the discovery of the Le Maire Strait (called San Vicente by the Spanish) by Le Maire and Schouten during their 1616 voyage in search of the Southern Continent. The Dutch success alarmed the Spanish - but they were also interested in a safer means of passage into the South Sea; they therefore sent out two caravels under the command of the Nodal brothers, to report on the Le Maire and Schouten discoveries. This is effectively the first procurable edition of this important book as the 1621… Read More

New York: Harper & Bros, 1874. Spine ends a bit rubbed, a very good copy.. Octavo, frontispiece map, illustrations; original cloth. First American edition, in book form, of this popular travel account, including a a dramatic engraved illustration of native Hawaiian surfing action. The book was originally serialized for Harper's New Monthly Magazine and gives a good impression of how Hawaii was understood in the continental United States during the 1870's. It includes good descriptions of sugar plantation methods, native life and agriculture, ranching, and the like. .

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875. A very good, fresh copy.. Large octavo, frontispiece and 16 plates, illustrated; publisher's cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. First edition of this influential and extensive study of the communitarian ideal in the United States. Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901) emigrated to the United States as a child, and went on to have a varied career as sailor, journalist and writer. His grandson Charles Bernard Nordhoff is the famous historian of the Bounty. In The Communistic Societies of the United States, Nordhoff recounts his travels to many of the socialistic societies which became popular in the nineteenth century, most famously the Shakers of Mount Lebanon, the Rappite township at 'Harmony' and the Oneida Community. As Nordhoff points out in his Introduction, he hoped that a study of these communities might provide 'useful hints toward the solution of the labor question'. Throughout, the work displays a thoroughness and lack of hysteria which supports his… Read More

Nantes: Olivier Merson, 1861. A few spots, plate 13 slightly browned, but overall in markedly clean and fine condition.. Folio (390 x 260 mm), 17 leaves in all, untrimmed and unbound as issued, with lithographed title-page and single sheet of description, and 15 lithographed plates, seven of which are coloured and eight in black on a tinted background, on paper watermarked either "Rives" or "D & C Blauw"; in a modern full morocco fitted case. Exceptionally uncommon and most beautiful work on tattooing, ethnography, and decorative carving in the Marquesas; 'd'un grand intérêt ethnographique' (O'Reilly), this is a remarkable collection of images of actual objects and original personal observation made during the early period of French influence in Nuku Hiva. The quality of the illustrated plates is outstanding, and the delicate lithography is a marvellous medium for conveying the immediacy of the original sketches; this very rare work is an important record of French Polynesia in the South Pacific,… Read More