Search Results: Titles starting with J from Henry Sotheran Ltd.

1900. Nevers, France: Printer: Chassaing et Fils. [c.1900-1905]. Oblong 8vo., original decorative wrappers stapled as issued. Wrappers splitting and a little grubby, a little general soiling, otherwise a very good copy. A trade catalogue for the provider of gaming tables and apparatus, J.A.J.. The 8 page illustrated pamphlet lists their wares including roulette tables, billiard tables, backgammon tables, card presses, sabots, bagatelle tables etc Other games include mascotte, petite boules, petits chevaux, nicholas, castouillet and the rabbit hunt. The catalogue was designed to be customised to particular games through the insertion of a set of rules for a chosen game, in this example Roulette. The inserted "Roulette. Rules of the Game" is a 4 page insert printed on pink paper. The designation of the particular game for the catalogue is marked by an applied paper label "Roulette" pasted onto the upper wrapper. A fascinating insight into the games and pastimes of the… Read More

1975. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Large 8vo., original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt; upper edge red, outer untrimmed; dust jacket designed by Janet Haverson; pp. [x], 5-725, [v]; the binding a little discoloured and rubbed to edges; slightly shaky; else a very good copy; the jacket with some vertical creases to panels, two small closed tears (one to each panel, not exceeding 1.5cm in length); spine lightly sunned, but very good, regardless. First edition, as stated. With publisher's note card tipped in to ffep, warmly inscribed by the author: "Otto- / You are still ahead pound:wise but I may catch up yet, W.G." Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1976, JR tells the story of a schoolboy who secretly amasses a fortune in penny stocks. Gaddis claimed that the concept came from an idea of satirising the American dream, or turning it "inside out". It is told almost solely through dialogue, and with no chapter separations within its 725 pages. The setting… Read More

Singapore, Gallery Editions, 1991. Oblong folio. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt illustrated dust-wrappers; pp. 72, portrait and 24 colour facsimiles; apart from minimal marking to wrappers, as new. Facsimile with good modern introductory text in English of the most magnificent colour-plate book of the 19th century on Java. The original is virtually unobtainable, and this reprint has become very rare as well.

1922. Victor Talking Machine Co. 1922. 210mm diameter circular jigsaw, mounted in a cloth covered folder. With remains of paper packing envelope mounted opposite. This promotional jigsaw features the thoroughbreds of the Victor Records stable: Caruso, Melba, McCormack, Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Kreisler, Heifetz, Tetrazzine and Tito Schiba amongst others. HMV/ victor had first released recordings for Rachmaninov in 1919 (Victor), Gigli in 1918/19, Heifetz in 1917, Tito Schipa in 1913 and John McCormack in 1910. The packing envelope (which is rather tattered) exhorts, "Try for a speed record. You and your family will have lots of fun with the contents of this envelope. You may be able to solve the problem and learn its secret, but how quickly can you do it? Faster than any one else?"

1833. Effingham Wilson, 1833. 8vo. Original green cloth-backed grey paper-covered boards, new paper label to spine; pp. [iv] + 96, frontispiece, with numerous woodcut illustrations to text; occasional foxing throughout but a very nice copy. First edition. Scarce in original binding. A very charming and entertaining guide to fishing, mainly based on the Thames and other southern rivers.

1836. J. March, Effingham Wilson and B. Steill. [1836]. 8vo. Original green cloth-backed grey paper-covered boards, new paper label to spine; pp. x + 11-106, frontispiece, with numerous woodcut illustrations to text; occasional foxing throughout but a very nice copy. Third edition. Scarce in original binding. A very charming and entertaining guide to fishing, mainly based on the Thames and other southern rivers.

Lisbon, Galhardo e Irmãos, 1843. 12mo. Grey interim wrappers; pp. 71, 2 [blank], apart from occasional light spotting a crisp copy of a beautifully printed item. Rare first edition of this travelogue describing a journey from Portuguese Goa to Lisbon, dedicated to the politician José Joaquim Gomes de Castro, who worked for the foreign ministry. The author had been governor of Portuguese India, until a native revolt forced him to leave Goa in April, 1842. As the central government proved incapable to provide troops from other Portuguese colonies, such as Timor, he sought support from the British in Mumbai, but without success. This little books served as justification of the abandonment of Goa, as well as it is a narrative of the interesting sites on the way to Portugal. Two copies listed in COPAC, in the BL and at Cambridge.

1823. London, Ogle, Duncan and Co., J Nisbit, 1823. Small 8vo. Quarter red calf over marbled boards; raised bands to spine, lettered and decorated in gilt; marbled edges; red endpapers; pp. [ii], 227; light wear to hinges; ink inscription to paste-down; a few light spots internally; a very good copy. First edition. William Glen, a Scottish missionary and biblical translator, details his tour through Central Asia in the early nineteenth century. 'He offered his services to the Edinburgh Missionary Society as an overseas candidate, thus fulfilling a youthful ambition. After training, Glen, accompanied by his wife, went as a missionary to Astrakhan in southern Russia, where he remained for five years. He achieved little in the way of conversion but was more successful in his efforts to master the Persian, Arabic, and Turkish languages' (ODNB).

1870. London, Robert John Bush, 1870. 8vo. Original terracotta cloth by W. Bone & Son, London, with their ticket, boards with borders in blind, spine lettered in gilt, brown endpapers; pp. xvi, 272, wood-engraved frontispiece, 39 wood-engraved plates, and wood-engraved illustrations after Lear, one wood-engraved map of the island; light wear to hinges, spine a little darkened, otherwise a very clean and fresh copy. First edition. When Lear visited Corsica in 1867 and 1868, whilst wintering at Cannes, he noted a strange melancholic atmosphere, which he attributed to the unusual effects of light experienced there, and his Journal (Lear's last travel book), both depicts and describes this. In preparing the plates and illustrations for the work, Lear opted to use the medium of wood-engraving (rather than lithography) for the reproduction of his water-colours, since the laborious process of preparing the lithographic plates used in his previous Journals had become a tiresome and disagreeable chore… Read More

1828. London, John Murray, 1828 and 1829. Six volumes, 12mo in 8s (151 x 97mm; volume VI a little bit smaller, as issued). Original publisher's cloth with printed paper labels to spines; 13 steel-engraved plates and engraved folding map; cloth a little marked and discoloured in places, corners slightly bumped, one label chipped with loss of author's name; only occasional spotting and offsetting, a very good set, partly unopened, in the rarely seen original binding. First collected edition of Parry's three voyages in search of a North-West Passage, rarely found with the sixth volume, not intended initially but published a year later and uniformly. In 1819 the young lieutenant W.E. Parry (1790-1855) was appointed to lead an expedition composed of the bomb-vessel HMS Hecla and brig HMS Griper to search for the North-West Passage: 'His instructions, which were necessarily conditional and vague, were to go up the west side of Baffin Bay, through Lancaster Sound (which [Captain John] Ross had reported… Read More

London, John Murray, 1875. Two volumes, 8vo. Original green pictorial cloth; pp. xiv, [2], 308, [4, publisher's catalogue]; vii, [2], 302, [2, publisher's catalogue, folding map in two colours with author's route in red, wood-engraved plates, one corner a little bumped, occasional light spotting; a very good set with old ownership inscriptions to title-pages.. First English edition of this travelogue of an arduous journey starting in Odessa, through the Caucasus into Persia, crossing from the Caspian Sea into modern Iraq, south of Baghdad, then turning West through Syria to Lebanon. Pages 67 to 281 in volume II are devoted to the journey from Persia to the Mediterranean. Thielmann was secretary to the German embassy in Saint Petersburg. He intended this travelogue to serve as a handbook for travellers of these vast regions and distances.

1819. London, John Murray, 1819. 4to. Mid-20th century library buckram made for Bimingham Library (plates with small stamps, bookplate, deaccessioned), pp. vi, [2], 272; 6 aquatint plates after drawings by the author; occasional light spotting or browning, the final two leaves with a few minor marginal flaws. First edition. Macmichael (1784-1839) was a physician and travelling fellow from Radcliffe College, Oxford; his journey started in Moscow in December of 1817 and includes a visit to the Kremlin and the Military Hospitals. The next destinations were the city of Kiev and the Ukraine region. The narrative at this point is particularly noteworthy for its commentary on the Jewish population of some of these towns, the party stopping for refreshemnts at a Jewish household in Olwiopol. Having crossed Moldavia, Macmichael reached the capital of Wallachia, Bucharest and from there, travelled on to Adrianople. The author makes interesting references to his friend, Mr. Dodwell, who had travelled to Greece… Read More

1845. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, [1845]. 8vo. Full brown calf, elaborately tooled in blind to sides, spie with raised bands, gilt cenre tools and red morocco gilt lettering piece, all edges red; pp. [2], xii, 375, one folding map of Circassia, Georgia, and Armenia, wood-engravings in the text; very good , internally very clean indeed. Provenance: flylead isncribed by Robert Alexander Kinglake to "George William Vidal, from his affectionate friend… on his leaving Eton, Easter 1861". Vidal became a civil servant in India where he made important contributions to natural history. He collected bird and snake specimens, and had subspecies of quail and kingfisher named after him. He was also a badminton champion who introduced the sport to India. First edition in English (a US edition appeared the following year) of an account of the first ascent of Mount Ararat, made in 1829-30 shortly after the Caucasus came into Russian possession after the Russo-Turkish War of 1829-30. Parrot also… Read More

Lavenham, Suffolk, Galaxy Books [for the author], [1975]. 4to. Original boards with illustrated dust-wrappers; pp. 271, highly illustrated after drawings and photographs in the text; apart from mild spotting to cloth and a few corners of the textblock with a little bump, a very good copy. Privately printed first edition, presentation copy, signed, dated and inscribed by the author on front fly-leaf. Peter Scott, 'an old friend' of the author, writes in the preface. 'Iris Darnton knows the jungles and the "Buried Cities", the birds and the beasts, perhaps better than any other living person … Her descriptions of the scenery, the palm fringed beaches and the gentle picturesque people, are so vivid that one lives with them both on their many Jungle Journeys … she is an outstanding photographer and a talented artist'' (p. 9). Iris Darnton was member of the RGS and the British Ornithologists' Union.

London, T. Bensley, 1796-97. Two volumes, Royal 8vo. Contemporary diced calf, spine ornamented and lettered in gilt, marbled edges and endpapers; pp. [4], xxxix, 274; [4], 319, title-pages engraved, with 20 portraits, stipple-engraved by William Ridley, wood-engraved vignettes by of after Bewick; light wear to extremities, offsetting from illustrations, otherwise very good. A finely produced edition of the famous anonymous Junius letters, a satirical attack on the British political establishment. 'The authorship of the Junius letters has been the subject of innumerable publications of various merit. The case for Philip Francis, first proposed by John Taylor in 1816, has established itself as by far the most probable, though categorical proof is still not forthcoming' (ODNB). Sir Philip Francis (1740–1818) was a Dublin-born politician, political writer, and chief clerk at the war office, when a series of anonymous political satires started to appear in 1768 in the Public Advertiser, signed 'C'. The… Read More

1992. Hatfield: The Association for Science Education (1992-3). 4to. Original ring binding; pp. 68 with text diagrams; with clear plastic portfolio containing 62 photographic slides, apparently unpublished elsewhere, showing the interior of Mir, the cosmonauts and shots of the Earth from space; fine. First and only edition. This account of the 1991 mission to the Mir space station by Helen Sharman, the UK's first person in space, was intended as an educational resource for schools, universities and any other group with access to a slide projector. The numbered slides follow a course accompanied by explanations, questions and points of discussion in the text volume. Sharman describes the Juno Mission, cosmonaut training and the Soyuz and Mir spacecraft in great detail. This is a vanishingly rare item. We have been able to find no auction or library records of this publication, and the photographs, which range from the awe-inspiring to the personal, have not been seen elsewhere.

2010. Bloomsbury. 2010. 8vo. Original cloth and wrapper; pp. 300, illustrations throughout; fine. First edition signed by Patti Smith to title page. Smith's beautiful account of her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

1850. London; Royal Juvenile Library, and Repository, 37 New Bond Street, London Circa 1850. Landscape small folio; publisher's pebble-grained purplish cloth boldly lettered gilt to upper cover; ff. 24; with wood-engraved title-page and a total of 19 attractive full-size engraved images (almost all featuring a great many separate images, with engraved titles or captions), all with original attractive and neat original handcolouring and all retaining the original linen backing, with integral blank and unused linen sheets; the scrapbook sound and pleasing, externally faded with wear, sometime neatly rebacked retaining 5/6 of the original spine which is carefully reincorporated, aided by some professional Japanese-tissue strengthening, wear to corners exposing same-coloured board, abrasions to edges with pulled threads, inner hinges cracked but holding, foxing to original endpapers, which are retained in the recasing process, internally generally very good, clean and sound with the expected age-toning… Read More