Search Results: Titles starting with K from Asher Rare Books

1451, [1 blank] pp.Second edition of the entire Bible in the Hawaiian language, but the first edition (in octavo) to be published in a single volume. The translation, a joint effort of American missionaries and Hawaiian advisers, was a monumental work of language and scholarship. "Neither of the two very different groups of people who produced the Baibala - the missionary scholars working with ancient texts and the Hawaiian chiefs and advisors, guardians of a millennium of traditional Kanaka learning - could have produced even a pedestrian Bible translation on their own. Together, through over a decade of incessant and mostly fruitful labor and cooperation, they created a work for the ages, among the best Bible translations of their century, and an enduring literary monument today" (Lyon).The first gospels in the Hawaiian language were printed in 1827-1828, ultimately leading to a complete translation of the New Testament in 1835, which was revised in 1837. The first translation of the Old Testament… Read More

[16], 176, [2], 552, [8]; [4], 564, [8]; [8], 562, [6]; 570, [6]; 570; [9]; [8], 176, [2], 191-380, [2], 563, [6]; [8], 183, [1], 1-192, 1-192, [8]; [16], 176, 1-191, [1], [20], 1-151, [1]; [12], 690 pp.Complete set of a rare and interesting 9-volume scientific periodical devoted to the latest developments in all sciences, including their practical applications in the various crafts and professions. It appeared in bimonthly parts that were combined in 8 volumes and an index, totalling 21 parts. The Dutch physician Willem van Ranouw (1670-1723) initiated the project to make a selection of the most interesting and important recent foreign scientific texts available for Dutch craftsmen, who would benefit from the practical application of new scientific discoveries. Ranouw translated these texts himself and sometimes added some of his own writing.Several folding engraved plates illustrate all kinds of machines, crafts and natural history specimens. One folding plate depicts a workshop where gold wire is… Read More

VI, 88, [2] pp.First edition of grammars and vocabularies for three languages spoken by Australian Aborigines, compiled by William Ridley, professor at Sydney University and Minister of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales. Ridley (1819-1878), an English missionary, came to Sydney in 1850. He wished to learn these languages in order to teach the Aborigines and carry out missionary work among them. Since the Aborigines had no written language, the present book forms a primary source for the languages as they existed more than 150 years ago, when they had had less contact with the Western world. He writes that he found these Aboriginal languages to posses a remarkable regularity and exactness, and that they "indicate an accuracy of thought, and a force of expression, surpassing all that is commonly supposed to be attainable by a savage race". In 1866 that was a remarkably progressive notion. He also adds some notes on Aboriginal names and customs. The book is nicely produced, with lovely wood… Read More

A beautiful and very detailed map of a part of the kingdom Galicia & Lodomenia - in existence between 1772 and 1918 - as a crownland of the Habsburg Emperor Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, mostly in what is now southeast Poland: it covers the area between Wroclow (West), Lublin (East), Lodž (North) and Krakau (South). The most northern towns indicated are Sulesow, Drzewitza, Warka, and Kozienice; the most southern Seypusch Zywiec, Oswiecim, and Rymanov. Almost no region in Europe has suffered such a violent history, including repeated conquests, pogroms and, during WW II, the most virulent persecution of the Jewish population.In a way this map covering the provinces of Krakau and Sandomierz within the borders before and during the partition, is a modification of the handwritten maps (now lost) of Father Franciszek Czajkowski, “having neither the necessary training nor the abilities to make good maps. The only further significance of his maps of Little Poland was that they were released to… Read More

Wrapper-title plus [85] double-page spreads.A set of excellent Japanese drawings on Japanese paper, nearly all in colour, the dated ones mostly from 1901 to 1903, though one apparently 1898. Most show flowers, but some also or instead show fruits, vegetables, berries, roots, tree branches, grasses, etc., all in a consistent style and format and botanically accurate. One includes a butterfly, four show birds or feathers in great detail (with or without flowers) and one shows three kubi furi tora (bobbing-head tigers) that would have been carved out of wood or made of papier maché and then painted. Most double-page spreads are clearly planned as a single composition, sometimes with one large drawing across both pages and sometimes with three drawings with the centre one across the fold, but some have two drawings, one on the right page and one on the left page. Some also have additional detail drawings. Although the title calls the collection morning glory sketches, other flowers are just as frequent… Read More

[64], 200, [10]; 201 [=203], [4] pp.First edition of the Dutch translation of Léon de Modene’s Historia degli riti hebraici (1637). The translation was made by the minor Utrecht poet Abraham Godart (fl. 1666-1683) after the French translation which had appeared in 1682 in The Hague (Céremonies et Coustumes … parmi les Juifs, The Hague, Adriaan Moetjens, 1682) and which was made by Richard Simon (1638-1712), a French priest, member of the Oratorians, who was an influential biblical critic, orientalist and controversialist - Simon was early at odds with the Port-Royalists and Antoine Arnauld himself - using many pseudonyms such as here the pseudonym ‘Simon Ville’.The French translator Richard Simon added his own comments in a separate book, Comparaison des ceremonies des Juifs which was also printed in 1682 in The Hague by the same publisher of Modene’s work, Adriaan Moetjens. The Dutch translator Abraham Godart also translated Simon’s additional text and the Amsterdam printer Timotheus ten… Read More

80 pp.First (and only Dutch) edition (deluxe issue with the title-page and 12 other pages printed in red and black) of De Groot’s “thumb Bible”, one of the curious miniature books printed in the Netherlands in the mid-18th century, in a tiny roman type (37 mm/20 lines or 5.5 point), as a curiosity and collector’s item or to be used as a Bible in a dollhouse. The text is an abstract or summary of the contents of the Bible in five books and an appendix containing a prayer (incipit: The illustrations and ornamental headpieces, all in miniature, and in the present deluxe issue also the printing in red and black, make the book a show piece for the skill of 18th-century Dutch printing, enhanced here by the contemporary gold-tooled miniature binding. Abkouda records De Groot offering this edition in five kinds of bindings (and unbound) at prices ranging from 4 to 30 stuivers, so he probably commissioned bindings from several binders. The present copy is probably what he calls a “Frans bandje” (9… Read More

Allegorical etching and engraving by Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708), especially rare in its present first state, depicting King Charles II of Spain(1661-1700) in Imperial Roman armour, perhaps based on the statue of the Emperor Trajan. It was meant to suggest that his American colonies made him a great emperor. In very good condition.l Atlas van Stolk 3106 note; Landwehr, De Hooghe etcher, p. 235; cf. Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) IX, p. 126, De Hooghe 250 (1704 state); Muller, Historieplaten, 3329 (1704 state).

[1] leaf.A rudimentary one-page primer for the language of the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, printed in "a few copies" for the missionary Hiram Bingham junior (stationed on Apaiang Island), whose wife had prepared it, and produced by the printing office of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) at their mission on Ponape Island. It was intended as an aid to teach the natives the alphabet and take the first steps toward teaching them to read. The language, very close to that of the Caroline Islands where it was printed, is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, which includes Maori. The Gilbert Islands were often called "Kingsmill" in the 19th-century, hence the title "Kingsmill primer" in the manuscript note on the copy in the ABCFM collection at Harvard College Library, which continues: "printed at Ponape, Sept. 1858". With the upper right corner torn off, not approaching the printed letters or rules, a couple small marginal tears, 1 small hole in a blank… Read More

xiv, 322, [2], 16 pp.Presentation copy of the rare first edition of William Robertson Smith’s influential work of on kinship and marriage in early Arabia. It examines the evidence for a pre-Islamic matriarchal kinship and corresponding laws of marriage and tribal organization that was superceded in Arabia at the time of Mohammed. Robertson Smith, Lord Almoner’s Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge, concluded that male kinship had been preceded by female kinship and “drew a line of evolutionary progress in family forms from a totemist matriarchy to exogamy” (Joseph). His work proved very influential, because it was one of the first anthropological analyses of kinship in the Middle East that tried to reconcile conflicting theories on this topic. With the bookplate of David James Benjamin on the front pastedown and a presentation inscription in ink on the second free endpaper: "with the author's kind regards". In very good condition, only some foxing on the free endpapers and on the… Read More

[4], 395, [1] pp.First and only edition of a neoclassical epic poem in rhymed Dutch verse about Claudius Civilis (also known as Julius Civilis), leader of the 69/70 AD Batavian rebellion against the authority of classical Rome. What little is known of the real events comes from Tacitus's Historiae, but in the Dutch Republic the story was revived as a heroic story of the ancient Dutch bravely standing up against the unfair authority of the powerful Roman Empire. The story remained in vogue throughout the 18th-century and the Dutch poet Frans van Steenwijk (1705-1788) gave it its most extensive treatment in the present work. The present copy is of special interest for its beautiful engraved frontispiece by Reinier Vinkeles (1741-1816). It appears in this copy both uncoloured, so that one can see every detail of the engraving, and luxuriously hand-coloured and highlighted with gold.With bookplate. In very good condition and with very generous margins. With the top of the spine slightly damaged, the front… Read More

[12], 464; [8], 380; [6], “362” [=378]; [8], 407; [8], 435, [3]; [8], 418 pp.First edition of the collected miscellaneous writings of Georg Forster (1754-1794), parts previously published elsewhere, parts published here for the first time. Forster's fame was instantly established when he published an impressive account of James Cook's second voyage around the world in 1778-1780 and the first volume of the present set opens with a long essay entitled "Cook, der Entdecker" (Cook, the discoverer).Forster began the work, but after his death in 1794 L.F. Huber continued it. They deal with a variety of subjects, including Cook, New Holland, Tahiti, the breadfruit tree (with two folding illustrations), fur trade along the northwest coast of America, a description of North America, natural history (among other things Forster's oration in Vilnius and the preface to his dissertation), pygmies, Madagascar, Mindanao, etc. On the folding map of North America in volume 2, Forster suggested a possible route for a… Read More

32 pp.Untrimmed and partly unopened copy of an early Maori edition printed in New Zealand, containing the beginning of the Book of Daniel (1-7: Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's dream) and the whole of the Book of Jonah (1-4: Jonah and the whale), translated into Maori and printed and published by the missionary press in the town of Paihia on the northernmost island of New Zealand. A nearly identical edition, also published in 1840 does not include Daniel 7 (hence "e witu" [= seven] in the present title and "e ono" [= six] in the other). The mission had been established there in 1826 and the press produced its first work, selected epistles from the New Testament, in 1835.Minor waterstain in the lower right corner of the first two quires and a small hole in the lower margin of several leaves. A good copy, wholly untrimmed.l hocken, Bibliography ... New Zealand 34 note (p. 507); Williams, Bibliography of printed Maori 44.

[12, incl. frontispiece], 127, [1 blank] pp.First edition of a beautifully illustrated commemoration of the triumphal entry of William III into the Hague, it was "the costliest and most elaborate public display ever held on Dutch soil" (Nierop) and the first time of a triumphal entry since the rebellion against Spain. The two directors of the festivities were Govert Bidloo (1649-1713), personal physician to William, and Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708), one of the greatest artists to come out of the late Dutch Golden Age. The project served as De Hooghe's rehabilitation after he fell from grace the year before, when he got caught in a feud between William III and the city of Amsterdam. The Orangist leadership now thought that De Hooghe had suffered unjustly for their cause. He not only participated in the planning and design, but also made the splendid plates for the present commemorative volume. A slightly altered French edition followed a year later.From 1672 onwards, William governed as Stadtholder… Read More

21, [1 blank] pp.Rare first and only Dutch edition of a sermon on the dangers of succumbing to the temptations of whores and adulteresses, first delivered in Oxford in 1740 and published by Thomas Robins in London in that year under the title, Royal folly: or, the danger of being tempted by harlots. A sermon preached at Oxford before a Friendly Society at their annual meeting. Although the only kings named in the text are the biblical Kings David and Solomon, who both succumbed to the temptations of women, and the sermon is built around Solomon's Proverbs VII:19-21, it is certainly not coincidence that it was delivered and published in England in 1740, the year King George II granted a life peerage to his mistress Amalie von Wallmoden of Hanover, creating her Countess of Yarmouth. Any English reader would certainly understand that this was the "Royal folly" of the title, even though King George is never named in the text. The sermon also minces no words in putting ninety percent of the blame on women… Read More

90 ll.Splendidly bound drawing book containing 18 unsigned, detailed, watercolour and gouache drawings of birds. The colourful birds appear to be drawn after the plates in Edward Donovan's The natural history of British birds, first published in instalments between 1794 and 1819. If so, the present drawings must have been added to the drawing book at least 10 years after it was bound.The blank drawing-book was bound, according to the gold lettering on the back board, in 1784, and the tools identify it as the work of the most important and arguably the best bindery in the 18th-century Netherlands, dubbed the First Stadholder Bindery by Storm van Leeuwen. Since the names of the binders remain unknown, the name now used alludes to the fact that it produced many bindings by order of the Stadholder Willem V and presumably his father Willem IV. Its great importance rests on the number of its surviving bindings, the diversity of the work it produced, the quality of the tooling, the exceptionally large number… Read More

[24], 76; 91; 226, [10] pp.First edition of the complete collection of religious and moralizing poems by Anna Bijns (1493-1575), a nun and schoolmistress in Antwerp. Since she was a faithful orthodox Catholic, many of her poems harshly criticize Martin Luther and Protestantism in general, naming herself an "avenging angel of the insulted faith". In the margins of most poems references to specific Bible passages can be found. Her poems are so-called "refreinen", "a complex poem of a least four 15 to 19 line stanzas with an epigrammatic refrain, natural rhythm, a complicated rhyme scheme, enjambment and caesura. Bijns's refreinen are filled with extraordinarily vivid and acerbic images drawn from daily observation and well illustrate her motto 'more sour than sweet' (meer suers dan soets)" (Aercke). She is often called one of the greatest "rederijkers", an association of Dutch poets from which Bijns, being a woman, was actually excluded.The title of the first part reads Konstighe refereynen, which was… Read More

[18] ll.Rare first and only edition of a "short discourse", discussing in five points the financial profits the Netherlands made from the West India Company and the further benefits that will come from a merger of that company with the East India Company. These points all relate to America, and the commerce of the Dutch in the West Indies.The red from the sprinkled edges of the bookblock left some traces on the extremities of the title-page; a very good copy.l Asher 194; Knuttel 5122; Landwehr & V.d. Krogt, VOC 64; Sabin 38245; STCN (4 copies); WorldCat (8 copies, incl. 3 the same); not in Borba de Moraes.

[1] sheet.Manuscript fortification plan, showing the Den Helder fortifications and the Willemsoord shipyard, built in the 19th century as commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, drawn by the Danish-Norwegian military engineer and quartermaster Rasmus Krag (1763-1838). The map shows the so-called Den Helder fortifications, also known as the "Stelling Den Helder", an impressive line of forts, defensive works and connecting dikes. This line had already been used during the Eighty Years' War against sea attacks. In 1811 Napoleon gave the order to expand it, wanting to make Den Helder the war harbour of The Netherlands because of its strategic location.The plan is numbered in the upper left corner "Pl. XXXIV" in red ink and "Nr. 16" in the right upper corner in black ink, the latter struck through, and signed by "Krag" in the lower right corner below the plan. Some marginal soiling, stain in the lower left corner and some small spots on the plan, small tear in the upper left corner, but overall in good… Read More

[6] ll.The 1673 edition of an Orangist pamphlet, originally published in 1672 by a member of the Reformed Calvinist Church in the Province of Zeeland, defending the appointment of Willem Hendrik, Prince of Orange as stadholder Willem III of Zeeland (and Holland) in July 1672 (he was to be crowned King William III of England in 1689). The author rails against what he calls the “Loevestein faction”: a Dutch States party in the second half of the 17th century, especially in the County of Holland, the dominant province of the Dutch Republic.The pamphlet regards Johan and Cornelis de Witt, who were lynched and their bodies mutilated by an Orangist mob on 20 August 1672, as representatives of this “Loevenstein faction” and sees their murder by the mob, incited by and probably with the complicity of the stadtholder, as the downfall of this faction.In good condition.l Knuttel, 10690 (cf. 10264, the 1672 issue); STCN 863178286; Tiele 6169.