Search Results: Authors starting with V from Asher Rare Books

[44], 273, [1] pp.This significant geographical work is the first edition, and it contains extensive commentary on America and the Holy Land by Joachim Vadianus or von Watt (1484-1551). This copy is one of the few that includes the world map, which depicts America for one of the first times. The map is a general representation on an oval projection, and it is a simplified reduction of the Munster map that was printed in Basel two years earlier. The wood engraving is precise and clear, as noted by Shirley. The map shows South America as a separate continent, while the land to the north is labeled as Cuba. The first edition of Vadianus' influential work is a comprehensive description of the world. He covers all continents, seas, islands, regions, mountains, and towns of the world, with separate chapters dedicated to Europe, Africa, Asia, Palestine, and even Paradise (“Moreover, there is great demand to know, where Paradise is or has been”, p. 181), offering a geographical reading of biblical history.… Read More

XI, [5], 211, [1] pp.Attractive copy of a splendidly illustrated edition combining Otto Vaenius's Quinti Horatii Flacci Emblemata and Le Roy Sieur de Gomberville's La doctrine des Moeurs, tiree de la philosophie des Stoiques..... Pierre Daret had made the emblems in De Gomberville’s work based on Vaenius's, enlarging and slightly improving them after the latest fashion. The Brussels publisher had probably acquired Daret's plates, and used them again in the present edition, returning the authorship to Vaenius, while also retaining De Gomberville's instructive comments. In this perfect combination of Vaenius' educational emblems and Gomberville's moral doctrine based on stoic philosophers and explained for the instruction of youth, the quotations from Horace made into emblems became popular again.Slightly browned with some marginal thumbing. In very good condition.l Landwehr, Romanic emblem books, 479; Praz, pp. 402-403 & 523-524.

[2], 362 [=360]; 100 pp.First edition of the German translation of the utopian novel Histoire des Sevarambes (History of the Sevarambians) by the French writer Denis Vairasse (ca. 1635-1700). It describes an imaginary journey to Australia and gives the history of the people living there, in the style of Thomas Moore's Utopia. It tells the story from the perspective of one Captain Siden [Denis], whose ship discovers the great kingdom Sevarambia. Presented in the manner of the contemporary geographical and anthropological works, the book provides a direct criticism of imposed religions, in particular attacking 17th-century Catholicism (Vairasse himself was a Protestant). Remarkably, this edition also includes the first German translation of Thomas Smith's account of slavery in Africa, in the original English entitled The adventures of an English merchant, taken prisoner by the Turks of Algiers, and carried into the inland countries of Africa.Title-page and last two pages frayed along the margins and… Read More

350, [2 blank]; 302, [2 blank], 31, [1 blank] pp.First edition of the second German translation of the important utopian novel Histoire des Sevarambes (Paris, 1677) by the Huguenot author Denis Vairasse (or Veiras), set in Terra Australis. The framework for the story was provided by the ill-fated voyage of the VOC ship De Vergulde Draeck, wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1656. The narrator, Captain Siden, sails in De Vergulde Draeck to Terra Australis, where the ship runs aground. The castaways subsequently discover a utopian civilisation, marked by natural theology and a rationalist social system.The translator and publisher of the present German edition, Johann Gottwerth Müller (1743-1828), was an author in his own right and an ardent supporter of the European Enlightenment. The present copy is bound with Müller's Literarische Anmerkungen, in which he discusses the political, social and religious implications of Vairasse's utopia.Bindings show some signs of wear, very slight foxing… Read More

VI, [2], 240, [2] pp.First edition of the French translation of volume 3 (Der Türkenkrieg, 1824) of Die Lehre vom Krieg (1820-1824) by the Prussian general Georg Wilhelm Freiherr von Valentini (1775-1834). The plates, engraved by Berthe, include one showing the Russian occupation of Rutchuk and another showing Chumla and vicinity, both occupied in 1810. Valentini had participated in the war against the French from 1792 to 1794 and had served in Turkey. This part of his book describes the military capacities of the Ottoman Empire and suggests ways to defeat it. With occasional minor foxing, but otherwise in fine condition. The binding has a couple minor scuff marks and slight damage at the foot of the spine, but is otherwise also fine.l Atabey 1265; cf. Blackmer 1709 note (1828 French ed.).

[30], 924, [39], [1 blank]; [4], 230, [14], [4], 400, [16], [8], 208, [22], [8], 90, [6], 28, [4], 57, [2], [1 blank], 18, [4], 30, [2 blank] pp.Third edition of the collected works of the Belgian canonist Zeger Bernard Van Espen (1646-1728). He was a lucid and clarifying expositor of the discipline of the ancient Church, which led to a certain fame at the end of the 17th century. Because of his involvement with Jansenist and Gallican doctrine Van Espen fled to Maastricht and his Jus ecclesiasticum universum was put on the Index in 1704. After his death all his works would be deemed heretical. Volume one lacking half-title, some occasional spots and slightly rubbed along the extremities, otherwise in very good condition.l Dekkers, Bibl. Belg. juridica, p. 52, no. 16.

[6], [2 blank] pp.Second copy located of the first and only edition of a proclamation issued by Maurits of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and the State Council of the United Dutch Provinces on 29 November 1585, forbidding maritime travel to and commerce with Spain, Portugal and other lands under the Spanish crown. Maurits issued it at a crucial turning point in the Dutch war of independence from Spain. Antwerp, the cultural and economic capital of the Low Countries had fallen to the Spanish siege in August 1585 and many on both sides expected that would be the end of the Dutch revolt. But the Dutch controlled the waterways and were able to cut off Spain's trade and therefore the sources of finance for the war, finally taking the upper hand in the revolt.An early owner has drawn a band across the blank shield in the title-page. With remnants from a later binding. Very slightly browned and with some minor marginal tears, cuts, etc., but still in good condition. Extremely rare proclamation.l STCN (1 copy);… Read More

A fine impression of one of Rembrandt's most famous prints, "Abraham's sacrifice", illustrating Genesis 22: 10-12, where Abraham, after god ordered him to sacrifice his only son Isaac, raises his knife to do so but is stayed by an angel who reveals that it was only a test of his obedience to god. In the Bible, the angel merely speaks to Abraham, but Rembrandt made the scene much more intimate, with the angel reaching around Abraham from behind almost in an embrace, holding his left arm (with the knife), just above the elbow and his right arm (holding Isaac's head) near the wrist. The Dutch States Bible of 1637 does place the angel behind Abraham, but still only speaking to him. Rembrandt made the etching in 1655 and no variant states are known. It differs greatly from his 1635 painting of the same subject, where the figures are not so closely united and neither Abraham nor the angel expresses such tenderness. The present example of the etching retains the finest lines very clearly (for example, in the… Read More

22 pp.Extremely rare list of available labels for use in small and big pharmacies. The text of the labels is based on the second edition of the Pharmacopoea Neerlandica (1871). The labels are for sale with the firm J. Smulders & Comp. in The Hague, and are available in various sizes and designs (with or without a golden border, etc., including prizes).4 pages with annotations in the margins of Latin labels translated into Dutch. Binding slightly worn and some stains on the back cover, back and front hinge weak, otherwise in good condition.l Not in STCN, not in Worldcat.

[2], 386; VIII, 406 pp.First edition of the German translation by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst of George Vancouver's famous account of his exploration of the northwest coast of America and east coast of Asia. "This voyage became one of the most important made in the interests of geographical knowledge" (Hill). George Vancouver (1757-1798), who had participated in the second and third voyages of James Cook, was commissioned by the English monarch to continue the exploration of the northwest coast of America. He was made commander of a grand-scale expedition to reclaim Britain's rights resulting from the Nootka Convention, at Nootka Sound, to thoroughly examine the coast south of the 60th parallel in order to find a possible passage to the Atlantic. Vancouver put an end to the delusion that the subarctic seas in the direction of Greenland could be reached from Nootka Sound or any of the inlets in its vicinity and his description of the Port of San Francisco and the coasts of California in Spanish… Read More

[10], 466, [6] ll.The first English edition of Ludovico di Varthema’s famous account of his travels to Arabia, Persia and India: a highly important and adventurous narrative, first published in Italian as Itinerario … nello Egypto, nella Suria nella Arabia deserta & felice … in 1510, here published in English with other accounts of travels in exotic lands. All of the early Italian editions of Varthema's Itinerario, separately published, are extremely rare. Varthema, a gentleman adventurer and soldier from Bologna, left Venice at the end of 1502 for the Middle East. Impressed and fascinated, he describes not only rites and rituals, but also social, geographical, and day-to-day details. "I determined, personally, and with my own eyes", he declares in the prefatory dedication, "to ascertain the situation of places, the qualities of peoples ... of Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Felix, Persia, India, and Ethiopia, remembering well that the testimony of one eye-witness is worth more than ten… Read More

[8], 17, [1 blank] pp. textVery rare first and only edition of an attractive suite of lithographs, limited to 150 copies, of the gardens at Beloeil, "the principal example in Belgium of the classical French style". "It was not until the mid-18th century, at Beloeil, that the French classical garden finally gained a firm hold in the Belgian provinces ... the present gardens are the result of rearrangement made for the most part in the mid-18th century under Prince Claude-Lamoral II de Ligne, assisted principally by the French architect Jean-Baptiste Bergé..." (Oxford companion to gardens).The suite is preceded by letterpress text, including a dedicatory poem to the Princess de Ligne whose husband, Prince Eugène had commissioned the most recent additions to the gardens, which included an orangery and rustic temple. This poem is followed by three parts describing the estate, describing the history of the grounds and castle and presenting a brief history of the family respectively.Some minor stains on… Read More

[2], XXIV, 288 pp."Fourth" edition, as part of a series of notable autobiographies, of the first full-length autobiography written in Australia. In his memoirs, James Hardy Vaux (1782-after 1841) describes the first 32 years of his life, during which he was twice transported to Australia for petty theft. A professional thief by the age of 18 he was sentenced to transportation for seven years for stealing a handkerchief and worked as a clerk at the Hawkesbury, in Sydney and in Parramatta from 1801 to 1807, after he which he returned to London. Two years later he was sentenced to transportation for life for stealing from a jeweller's shop. Vaux had already written a slag dictionary for use of the magistrates and was encouraged to write his memoirs, by which he hoped to gain the patronage of the commandant of the settlement of Newcastle. The manuscript came into the hands of Barron Field, who arranged to have it published in London in 1819. A second edition appeared in 1827, which was reprinted in 1829… Read More

[4] 79 ll.Rare first edition of the Italian translation by Giovanni Giunio Parisio of this classic account of the three earliest Dutch exploration voyages (1594, 1595, 1596) in search of a Northeast Passage to China, by Willem Barentsz. Two of the voyages were in company with Jan Huygen van Linschoten. The third voyage, with the well-known wintering on Nova Zembla, is by far the most famous and ranks among the greatest in the annals of Polar exploration.With a few brown spots, some slight marginal stains, and a few annotations also on some of the plates. Good copy.l Cat. NHSM, p. 299; Chavanne 1757; JCB I, p. 377.

CXXVIII, [6] ll.Rare fourth edition, in the original Latin (the first dated edition published in France), of an important and influential pedagogical work by Maffeo Vegio (1406/07-1458), who is regarded by many as the finest Latin poet of the fifteenth-century, here edited by Nicolas Dupuy (under the pseudonym Bonaspes) and (as in the second and third editions) incorrectly attributed to Francesco Filelfo. It is Vegio's most important and well-known treatise, discussing the education of children and their moral foundation, composed in six books, each with numerous numbered chapters. The first three books cover the duties of parents and teachers in education; the last three cover the duties of children to God, other people and themselves, as well as the several virtues, good manners, the use of time, etc. "The most Christian in spirit of all humanistic educational treatises" (Catholic encyclopedia), it approves the study of pagan literature only in conjunction with sacred learning, the study of the… Read More

[8], 87, [1 blank] pp.Very beautiful and luxuriously illustrated work on Indonesia, published by Frans Buffa en Zonen, at that time the most famous lithographic workshop in Amsterdam. All 50 plates were carefully lithographed by Paulus Lauters (1806-1876), who also had worked for Goubau's lithographic printing office in Brussels. In 1836, when the Royal School for Engraving was founded by Antoine Dewasme at Brussels, Lauters was appointed professor of drawing. The present work was published in 12 instalments, each with 4 of 5 plates, together with the accompanying text. The book contains 22 views and plates of Java, including a beautiful plate of Lebak, just before Multatuli was appointed Assistant-Resident there!, one view of the islands east of Java (Ampanan), 2 views of Timor, 10 views and plates of the Moluccas, 7 views of Celebes, 3 of Borneo, 2 of the Bintang-islands, and 3 views of Padang on Sumatra. The work is dedicated to His Royal Highness Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands (pp. 3-4).Only… Read More

42, [4] pp.First edition of a medical treatise dealing with problems of the human oesophagus (gullet) by the Swiss doctor Jean-André Venel (1740-1791). He describes the use of some new instruments, designed by Venel himself, for removing (via the mouth) any odd pieces of food or other things stuck in a person's gullet. These new instruments are clearly shown on the engraved plate. With a faint owner's inscription of "Mr Boidin(?)" at the head of title-page. Title-page slightly thumbed, otherwise in very good condition.l Blake, p. 470; David 275; Hirsch V, p. 725; not in Garrison & Morton.

(4), 229, (1) pp.Rare first edition of a practical manual on perspective by Armand Denis Vergnaud (1791-1885), published in the famous series 'Manuel Roret'.Good copy; slightly foxed; plates slighty waterstained.l Cf: Vagnetti FIb49 (ed. 1835) cf: Cat. Kunsthist. Bibl. Rijksmuseum I, p. 234 (ed. 1841).

[3], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], 106 pp.Beautifully illustrated and finely printed second edition of a manual on garden planning and design by the French garden architect Narcisse Vergnaud (1794-1848), first published (also by Roret) in 1835. The finely lithographed plates show plans and views of the gardens of Blenheim, Buckingham, Windsor, Longleat, Chatsworth, Stowe, Chiswick and Lord Pembroke’s estate at Wilton in England; the Pitti Palace at Florence; and Morfontaine, Malmaison, St. Leu, Beauregard at Villeneuve, Marly-le-Roy and Bougival in France; as well as some model designs of public parks.At least the present copy is printed on very large (Royal) wove paper (with no watermark), giving generous margins for both the text leaves and the plates, the latter on somewhat heavier paper. The third leaf (with the dedication) has been cut down and mounted on a large modern leaf. With a few mostly marginal tears repaired and occasional faint foxing, still in very good condition.l Springer p. 81; Berlin… Read More

[16] pp.A pamphlet propagandizing against peace with Spain, actually written in the early stages of the Eighty Years' War, but reprinted during the peace negotiations that were to lead to the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609. It argues that Spain hides her true intentions in order to mislead the pious Dutch into accepting treacherous terms for peace. It was issued with all three editions of the Nederlandtsche Bye-Korf before it was banned with most of the Bye-Korf pamphlets on 27 August 1608.Verheyden (1568-1595), a nobleman and humanist who died fighting as an officer in the Dutch army, first published this pamphlet in 1587. The present edition is the only one dated 1608 and may therefore be the only one printed for issue with the Bye-Korf, but editions dated 1587 were also sometimes issued with the Bye-Korf (though one edition bearing that date was printed after 1600 by Richard Schilders in Middelburg). The oval arabesque on the title-page derives from the same woodcut as that in another Bye-Korf… Read More