Search Results: Titles starting with W from Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts

London: Printed by J. Davis, for B. and J. White, 1796. Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. 191 x 127 mm. (7 1/2 x 5"). viii, [iv], 123 pp. ELEGANT CONTEMPORARY RED STRAIGHT-GRAIN MOROCCO, HANDSOMELY GILT, BY CHARLES HERING [SR] (his ticket with address at 10 St. Martin's on verso of front free endpaper), covers with frame of bead and flower roll within thick and thin gilt rules, daisy cornerpieces, scalloped central panel with delicate gilt rule frame inset with garlands at sides and corners, flat spine lavishly gilt in compartments with oval centerpiece surrounded by small circles and many gilt dots, decorative gilt roll to turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. ◆Vague hints of soiling to covers, endpapers with minor smudges and faint browning, occasional light spots of foxing, leaves a shade less than bright, otherwise an excellent copy internally, the text clean and fresh, and THE LOVELY BINDING IN VERY FINE CONDITION, with bright morocco and gilt, and with virtually no wear. This… Read More

Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1877. 195 x 125 mm. (7 5/8 x 4 7/8"). 542 pp. Publisher's green pictorial cloth, upper cover with gilt centerpiece depicting a mare nursing a foal, smooth spine with large gilt ornament composed of farming tools, gilt titling. With numerous illustrations in the text, a few of these full-page. Front flyleaf with ink stamp of J. F.[?] Sprague. ◆A breath of rubbing to extremities, leaves a little yellowed with age, but a fine, unworn copy with no signs of use. This is an excellent copy of an indispensable guide to buying and running a successful farm, written by the prominent agricultural and sanitary consultant, George Waring (1833-98). Although Waring established himself as authority on agriculture through the publication of this work and others, he is primarily remembered as an advocate for and designer of sanitation systems. According to DNB, "His practice and advocacy of sanitary engineering represented a major contribution to the eradication of his generation's… Read More

London: Methuen & Co., Ltd, 1924. FIRST EDITION. No. 67 OF 100 COPIES SIGNED by the author and illustrator. 225 x 177 mm. (8 7/8 x 7"). CHARMING ROYAL BLUE CRUSHED MOROCCO BY BAYNTUN-RIVIERE, covers with five gilt figures of children (one at center, one in each corner) based on illustrations in the book, upper cover with gilt lettering, raised bands, spine compartments with the figure of Winnie-the-Pooh, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. In an excellent (presumably original) cloth-covered fleece-lined slipcase (slightly faded) Illustrated throughout by E. H. Shepard. A Large Paper Copy. Binder's instructions for opening the book properly laid in at front. ◆AN OUTSTANDING COPY, very clean and bright internally, in an unworn binding. This is a copy of the deluxe first edition of Milne's first work to feature Pooh and Christopher Robin, the latter based on Milne's son, who bore the same name and to whom the book is dedicated. The volume contains 44 poems for and about… Read More

London: Essex House Press and B. T. Batsford, Ltd, 1917. FIRST EDITION. 292 x 222 mm. (11 1/2 x 8 3/4"). xii, 164, [4] pp. Publisher's printed blue paper boards backed with linen, smooth spine with black lettering, edges untrimmed. With 121 illustrations, many of them full-page photographic plates. With erratum slip inserted following title page. Front pastedown with ink signature of "H. Nightingale / 1936." Crawford, "C. R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist" (2005), pp. 169-70. ◆Spine a bit soiled and a little frayed at ends, corners bumped, isolated faint foxing, but an excellent copy, clean and fresh internally in a solid binding. Ashbee's proposal for incorporating arts and crafts into urban life follows the closing of his Guild of Handicraft, which had flourished in London but foundered after the move to the country. Taking inspiration from urban planning pioneer Patrick Geddes and drawing on ideas gleaned from his travels in America, Ashbee describes, in Crawford's words, "a… Read More

East Aurora, New York: The Roycrofters, 1907. FIRST EDITION. No. 47 OF 207 COPIES, all printed on Japanese vellum, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER. 180 x 115 mm. (7 x 4 1/2"). 161, [1] pp., [1] leaf.Designed by Dard Hunter. VERY PRETTY HONEY BROWN CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT, BY LOUIS HERMAN KINDER AT THE ROYCROFT BINDERY, covers with delicately tooled cornerpieces featuring curving gilt fillets, stippling, and five hyacinth blooms, raised bands, spine compartments with floral spray resembling those used in the book's decorative initials, gilt lettering, turn-ins with floral sprays at corners, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. In a fine tan morocco-backed modern box lined with purple velvet. With engraved portraits of Elbert Hubbard and his wife, Alice, and with a double-page opening with woodcut white hyacinth frame designed by Dard Hunter and signed with his initials, printed in green and white, similar Hunter designs for decorative initials, headpieces, and Hubbard's device on final leaf. Printed in red… Read More

New York: N. C. Nafis, 1833. 144 x 85 mm. (5 5/8 x 3 3/8"). 71 pp. PUBLISHER'S ORIGINAL GRAY-GREEN PRINTED BOARDS, upper cover with titling and an illustration of a gentleman identified as the author, lower cover with two amusing woodcuts, "The Lawyer and his Client" (a bewigged gentleman astride an ass) and "Hocus Poke-us" (two boys fighting). In a brown cloth chemise and a (slightly rubbed) matching calf-backed slipcase. With a folding frontispiece depicting a conjurer and his assistant onstage before an amazed crowd. Toole-Stott 724. ◆Small stains at top and bottom of spine, covers just slightly grubby, endpapers a bit browned, text with light, inoffensive foxing, but, for what it is, AN UNUSUALLY FINE COPY, the fragile binding entirely sound, and the text remarkably fresh and clean. Given the materials it was made from and the hard use it would have been expected to suffer, this is an exceptionally well-preserved copy of a popular handbook of conjuring tricks, an early American edition of a… Read More

London: Printed by Tho. Newcomb, for H. Herringman, 1669. FIRST EDITION. 216 x 160 mm. (8 1/2 x 6 1/4"). [8], 48, 57-78, [2] pp. (with pagination errors, but complete). Attractive 20th century blue half morocco over marbled boards, smooth spine, gilt titling. With small ink stamp of the Selbourne Library on verso of title and one other leaf. Macdonald 72a; ESTC R31381. See: Hume, "The Development of English Drama in the Seventeenth Century," p. 243. ◆Faint browning throughout (though mild relative to other copies of Restoration literature), small dampstains here and there, but no severe condition issues, and on the whole an excellent copy internally in a lustrous and virtually unworn binding. This is a rare copy of the first edition of Dryden's first play, a comedy, which was first staged in 1663. Hume notes that it "has often been seized on as an important prototype, especially for its low and sexual humour and its relatively realistic London love plot." Scholars have noted that the play is… Read More

London: Henry S. King & Co, 1876. FIRST EDITION. 202 x 140 mm. (8 x 5 5/8"). Two volumes.. Attractive half calf over marbled boards, raised bands, spines gilt in compartments with floral sprig centerpiece, two maroon morocco labels, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. With frontispiece portraits of Godwin (vol. I) and Mary Wollstonecraft (vol. II), two facsimiles of letters, and two wood-engraved vignettes. Front pastedowns with engraved pictorial bookplate of Louis V. Ledoux, signed "Charlotte A. Morton fecit 1901." NCBEL II, 1252. ◆Spines gently sunned and with a couple of small abrasions, faint shelf wear, occasional mild foxing, but still a fine set, clean and fresh internally, with few signs of use, inside or out. This is an appealing copy of the first full biography of writer and political philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836); though prominent in literary and political circles of his day, he is now better remembered as the husband of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, the father of… Read More

London: [Printed at the Burleigh Press, Bristol, for] Fanfrolico Press, 1927. FIRST EDITION. 203 x 133 mm. (8 x 5 1/4"). 4 p.l. (including a blank), 55, [1] pp. Original green paper boards and burgundy cloth spine with gilt lettering. With an etching by Lindsay at the front. ◆Light staining on front pastedown (vestiges of bookplate?), otherwise very fine. A substantial analysis divided into six parts, this, as the book indicates, "is not a critical essay on Blake's poetry, but an effort to define the condition of mind his work represents and to expose its psychological machinery from the inside by employing an idiom which is as close, poetically, as [Lindsay] can make it to the nature of the subject, and by accepting life as existing in terms of the values [Blake] creates.".

London: Chatto & Windus, 1884. FIRST EDITION. 170 x 111 mm. (6 5/8 x 4 1/4"). 4 p.l. (first blank), 183, [1] pp.With a preface and explanatory notes by Symonds. LOVELY DARK GREEN MOROCCO, ELEGANTLY GILT, INLAID, AND BEJEWELLED, BY ALFRED DE SAUTY (stamp-signed on front doublure), covers with double gilt fillet border, central panel with myriad swirling vines emanating from three recessed medallions, all with light green backgrounds inlaid with an interwoven strapwork wreath in dark green morocco and gilt, the larger medallion at center set with five cabochon garnets, the smaller medallions above and below it set with one, all three enclosed by pointillé gilt frames, raised bands, spine compartments with gilt tulips and leaves radiating from a central circlet, gilt titling, ESPECIALLY BEAUTIFUL DARK GREEN MOROCCO DOUBLURES with three gilt medallions framed by strapwork and densely tooled with leafy fronds on a mille-point background, these enclosed by an undulating frame similarly gilt-tooled and… Read More

Portland, Oregon: Printed at Textura Letterpress for the author, 2008. No. 16 OF 30 COPIES, SIGNED by the artist. 241 x 216 mm. (9 1/2 x 8 1/2"). [5] leaves of text. Unbound as issued in original glassine wrapper. Housed in a custom rust-colored linen clamshell box by Moe Snyder, paper label on upper cover. WITH 41 COLOR PLATES reproducing the artist's embroideries. With prospectus laid in. ◆In mint condition. Inspired by Native American tradition, this is a beautifully printed meditation on the art of storytelling, craftsmanship, and the passage of time. The bulk of the strictly limited work is composed of 41 unique images (one for every year of the artist's life), based on original embroideries stitched with cotton floss on reclaimed linen. As Greenwood notes in her introduction, "The following images are pulled from ruminations on my life. I have titled each image with the year of origin and a short phrase to note a major event, place, state of mind, or primary activity of the year." The… Read More

France (almost certainly Rouen), second half of 15th century. 160 x 115 mm. (6 3/8 x 4 5/8"). Single column, 16 lines in an elegant gothic book hand. Matted. Script in red, blue, and gold, "KL" and several one-line initials in gold on blue and pink ground with white tracery, both sides with a single panel border in outer margin featuring blossoms, leaves, and gold ivy and bezants, some with hairline vines, over a dotted ground, recto WITH A SMALL MINIATURE IN LOWER MARGIN DEPICTING THE LABOR OF THE MONTH OF OCTOBER (a male and female peasant sowing fields), bordered on both sides with a design matching the panel border described above. ◆A couple of trivial smudges, but A VERY FINE LEAF with glittering gold, and WITH THE MINIATURE IN PERFECT CONDITION. This attractive calendar leaf, undoubtedly from a Book of Hours commissioned by a person of substantial means, contains a small but delightful miniature depicting the labor of the month for October: Sowing. The image features two peasants--a man… Read More

1480-1537. Largest leaf measures 428 x 307 mm. (16 3/4 x 12 1/8"). 13 OF THE 15 LEAVES WITH WOODCUT OR METALCUT ILLUSTRATIONS, several being a half-page or larger, and one with contemporary coloring, most leaves also with woodcut or metalcut initials. ◆A couple leaves with some light dampstaining, a few others with light toning, thumbing, and/or the occasional stain, repair, or other minor issue, but, in general, excellent specimens in pleasing condition. These early printing packets present an excellent opportunity for libraries, teachers, and students as well as private collectors to develop or expand their teaching or personal collections, and at a modest cost. Each packet includes four incunabular leaves, six post-incunable leaves, and five 16th century leaves printed after 1520--all hand-picked to demonstrate a variety of genres, formats, and countries of origin. Most of the leaves here feature woodcut or metalcut illustrations, two of which can be attributed to the prominent engravers Urs… Read More

Probably Germany, third quarter of ninth century. 285 x 245 mm. (11 1/4 x 9 3/4"). Single column, 25 lines in a Caroline minuscule book hand. Tipped into a paper folder and presented in a tan cloth binding, with ink notation on spine and a small sticker on upper cover. Rubrics in red. Front pastedown of folder with the bookplate of the Schøyen collection. With several pages of typed and handwritten notes, including Bernard Rosenthal's cataloguing and a copy of a letter from Bernhard Bischoff to Rosenthal concerning the dating of the leaf. ◆Recovered from a binding and thus with some expected browning, staining, and wrinkling, a long vertical fold through the text touching a couple letters of each line, recto with the first few words of each line roughened and somewhat obscured, a couple of other words a bit hard to make out, but the vast majority of text very legible, with fore and tail margins very ample, and, in all, quite a good specimen representing a remarkable survival. Featuring a lovely… Read More

Germany, early 13th century. 273 x 193 mm. (10 3/4 x 7 1/2"). Single column, 31 lines, text in two sizes in a gothic hand. Rubrics in red, several one- and two-line initials in red, and two larger initials in red. A few lines with neumes, later notations in the margins (now quite faded). ◆Vellum a bit soiled and creased as expected, fading to four or five lines where the spine was placed, several notches along one edge, other imperfections due to its reuse as binding scrap, but still an excellent specimen that is almost entirely legible. Written in a neat and attractive hand, this sizable leaf from a Missal remains mostly quite legible, with all its rubrication intact, despite having been used as part of a binding. A few lines also show musical notation from the earliest generation of neumes. They are described as "in campo aperto," which means literally "in an open field," because they and they alone occupy the space (or "field") above the text. They are also described as adiastematic because… Read More

Germany, mid- to late 12th century. 290 x 217 mm. (11 3/8 x 8 1/2"). Single column, 21 lines in an attractive proto-gothic book hand. Rubrics in red, several one-line initials in red, five red initials measuring two to four lines long and with penwork embellishment, A LOVELY SEVEN-LINE WHITE-VINE INITIAL outlined in red and with a pale yellow wash along the edge, the lower half of the ground filled with green wash. Lower margins with notations in later Medieval hands. ◆A handful of original holes in the vellum no doubt from stretching the skin during processing (with the scribe writing around the flaws where necessary), a little soiling to lower outside corner, one or two negligible spots, otherwise IN FINE CONDITION, the ink unusually rich and the paint very bright. From a Sacramentary, a service book that contained the prayers said during Mass (subsumed by the Missal in the 13th century), this early leaf was once part of an attractive manuscript of very high quality. The very large and superb… Read More

England, second half of 12th century [but before 1180]. 313 x 198 mm. (12 1/4 x 7 3/4). Double column, 32 lines in a lovely late Caroline hand (verso with some lines erased and corrected in a smaller hand). Mounted in a fine tan cloth folder between sheets of textured acid-free paper. Front pastedown with book label of the Schøyen Collection, with their shelf mark MS 237 written in ink. ◆Recovered from a binding and thus with overall toning and soiling (recto somewhat browned from binder's glue, but almost entirely confined to three margins, and the verso virtually unaffected), other trivial imperfections, but in surprisingly good condition given its history, the very rich ink especially dark and well preserved.This is an exceptionally lovely example of an early English book hand, standing at the crossroads of the Caroline and proto-gothic calligraphic traditions. According to Thompson, "In the twelfth century the scribes seem to have vied with each other in producing the best types of book-writing… Read More

Delft, ca. 1470. Leaf: 172 x 115 mm. (6 3/4 x 4 1/2"). Frame: 242 x 190 mm. (9 1/2 x 7 1/2"). In an attractive wooden frame. A FINELY PAINTED MINIATURE OF THE NATIVITY within an arch-topped compartment, the parents of the Christ Child kneeling before him as he lies on the ground outside the stable, Joseph (uncharacteristically) supporting himself with a cane in his left hand and holding a long burning candle in his right, two diminutive angels in attendance, the head of an ass sticking out of the stable window in the background to the left, AND, IN THE RIGHT BACKGROUND, A CHARMING DEPICTION OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS, ALL OF THIS BENEATH A VERY DETAILED ARCHITECTURAL CANOPY suspended in the sky, AND THE WHOLE WITHIN A FULL BORDER of acanthus leaves and other foliage and flowers in reds, blues, greens, yellows, and brushed gold, along with very many small burnished gold ivy leaves and buds on hairline stems, a small stag in the bottom border and a large delicately shaded angel, who mirrors… Read More

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. 395 x 303 mm. (15 1/2 x 11 7/8"). 69 pp., [1] leaf (additional plate). EXQUISITE FULL VELLUM BY JAMES BROCKMAN (stamp-signed and dated 1979 in gold on rear turn-in), covers with extensive gilt maze-like design in the form of an electric circuit, the lines emanating from and connecting to painted multi-colored "resistors," FULL VELLUM DOUBLURES, the gilt lines carried over from covers to become parallel rules joining long, colorful waves resembling light passing through a prism, smooth spine with gilt lettering, all edges gilt. Original printed glossy wrappers bound in. Housed in a (slightly worn) blue cloth drop-back box. With four maps in black & white, and 46 maps printed in color, showing the geographical distribution of various minerals throughout England and Wales. With two clear overlays tucked into folder at rear; final free endpaper with book label of Lord Wardington. ◆A short, very light mark on upper board, otherwise in perfect condition. In a meeting of… Read More

East Aurora, New York: The Roycrofters, 1908. ONE OF 600 COPIES. 213 x 162 mm. (8 3/8 x 6 1/2"). 157, [3] pp. ATTRACTIVE ETCHED LEATHER BINDING, unsigned but likely by the Roycroft Bindery, upper cover with curving stalks of wheat and titling, raised bands, compartments also with titling, all of the lettering in the distinctive Roycroft style designed by Dard Hunter. With frontispiece portrait of Alice Hubbard by Jules Gaspard; title page, initials, and ornaments designed by Dard Hunter. Rear flyleaf with a (binding?) ticket engraved with decorative frame and the Roycroft insignia, the number "30" written within it in pencil. ◆Light offsetting from ribbon on preface opening, otherwise in virtually mint condition with only the most trivial imperfections. This manifesto on the equality of women and men and the necessity of their working together as equals was written by the wife of Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard, and produced by that Arts & Crafts community. Alice Moore Hubbard (1861-1915) was… Read More