Rare books from Voewood Rare Books

1972, 1972. Photo silkscreen on graph paper (900x735mm). Inscribed in pencil in the bottom margin "For Francesco - [Signed] Robert Mapplethorpe '73". An early work from an important stage in the development of Mapplethorpe's career. When he graduated from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn in 1969, Mapplethorpe was making mixed-media collages using images torn from magazines. In 1971, he befriended John McKendry, curator of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. McKendry allowed Mapplethorpe access to the Museum's photography archives and later that year gave him his first Polaroid camera. Mapplethorpe initially used this camera to make material for use in his assemblages but he quickly began making self-portraits and exploring the possibilities photography offered as a medium in its own right, particularly after he met Sam Wagstaff in 1972. Wagstaff probably did more than anyone to ensure that photography began to be taken seriously as an art form in America. This triptych of… Read More

[Vienna]: [widow of Alberti for T.Mollo] [1799], 1799. Broadsheet (65 x 48 cm). Contemporary, probably original, pink cloth backing marbled boards. With fifty numbered woodcuts on forty three sheets, the first five sheets comprising the legend by Stabius, the last sheet also containing three woodcut inscriptions numbered fifty one to fifty three, the entire design made up from 174 original blocks and eighteen etchings by Bartsch on three sheets. Some splitting of cloth at joints but holding firm, front free endpaper renewed and helping reinforce front inner hinge, a few trivial marks at corners, but an excellent copy, clean, and fresh, with clear impressions printed on strong laid paper. Fourth impression of Dürer's Ehrenpforte, one of the great giant woodcuts of the Renaissance, printed from the original sixteenth-century blocks under the supervision of Adam Bartsch. The blocks are now preserved at the Albertina Museum, Vienna. The work was intended for assembly as a gigantic wall print… Read More

London: Printed by T.Cope and published by the author 1816, 1816. Second edition. Ten volumes. 4to. 269x208mm. Letterpress title page is present in volume one only, as usual and the engraved half title is present in all volumes. 664 plates, printed in colour with some hand colouring. The plates are in superb condition, the colours bright and fresh. Many, particularly in the last four volumes are folding. There is some foxing to the text leaves but overall the condition is excellent. Bound in contemporary brown half calf with marbled paper covered boards. Spine decorated and lettered in gilt, the head of the spines and the top compartment of some of the volumes have been neatly repaired. A very handsome set of one of the nineteenth century's most important botanical works. Henry Cranke Andrews (1758/9 - 1835) published his first botanical prints in 1794 and between 1797 and 1814, he issued The Botanists' Repository for New and Rare Plants in monthly parts. It was then reissued in 1816 in ten… Read More

London: T.C.Newby 1848, 1848. First edition. Three volumes. 12mo. 190x110mm. pp. [4], 358; [2], 366; [2], 342. Bound by Bayntun-Riviere (for Henry Sotheran) in modern green half morocco, boards covered in green linen. Spine lettered in gilt, five raised bands with gilt wavy line, compartments decorated with a single gilt border. Marbled endpapers. A neat, attractive binding in excellent condition. Internally very good with only slight foxing in places. Repair to half title in volume I. Two leaves (Q11 of volume I and D2 of volume III) have been expertly repaired and there is a closed tear to the foot of D9 of volume III not affecting the text. Volume 1 lacking final leaf with publisher's advertisements. A very good copy of the scarce first edition of Anne Brontë's only separately published novel. 500 copies were printed but no more than 300 were issued as the first edition. The book sold well and the remaining copies were issued a few months later, with a new title page and a (now celebrated)… Read More

London: Printed by M[iles].F[lesher]. for Iohn Marriot 1633, 1633. First edition. Small 4to. 190x140mm. pp. [12], 406. Attractively bound by Ramage in maroon full morocco. Triple filet border in gilt and blind with frame also in gilt and blind with gilt fleurons at the corners. Spine has five raised bands with double filet in gilt. Compartments with single filet border and fleuron, second and third compartment lettered in gilt. Doublures decorated in gilt filets and fleurons. Vellum endpapers. Spine slightly faded but overall a very smart binding. Slight soiling to F1 and small tear to head of Oo4, not affecting the text, otherwise near fine internally. Lacking final blank. The Printer to the Understanders (A1 and A2) and Infinitati Sacrum (A3 and A4) bound after title page and NnI is cancellandum, with running titles but omitting last 2 lines of text, which instead appear on the verso. Although attempts are made to ascribe "states" or "editions" to these variations, Keynes felt that such efforts… Read More

Rhemes: John Fogny 1582, 1582. The editio princeps of the translation of the New Testament made in accordance with Roman Catholic doctrine. Quarto. 227x165mm. pp. [28], 745, [27]. Handsome modern panelled speckled calf, decorated in blind, spine with raised bands, brown morocco label in second compartment, lettered and decorated in gilt. Title page has been remargined and the next two preliminary and the final three leaves repaired. Very small marginal worm track at the gutter between Yiii and Ddii, otherwise internally very good. Woodcut vignettes and historiated initials throughout. Some (illegible) contemporary manuscript annotations on the final two leaves. p378 has a hand-drawn Patriarchal Cross (Cross of Lorraine) in the margin next to the paragraph defining the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning good works. An excellent copy of a theologically important translation with combative doctrinal notes and commentaries marking a significant English contribution to the Counter-Reformation.… Read More

London: Printed for Nathanael Brooke 1675, 1675. Folio. 415x265mm. pp. [20], 68, [2], 221, [9]. Eleven leaves of plates, six folding. With an additional engraved title page, "The sphere of M. Manilius", signed and dated: W. Hollar fecit 1673. Contemporary calf, rebacked, edges and corners repaired. Wear to boards. On the upper cover, in gilt is stamped "Ex dono Iacobi Holliur A.M. Coll Regal Cam F. To the Mathematicall Schoole in Christs Hospital". Internally a few leaves have been repaired at the corners (without affecting the text), there are two repaired closed tears to the folding map of the Two Hemispheres and the folding map of the Sun has a tear along the central fold (no loss) and has a brown mark to the lower right corner (not affecting the image). Some foxing and toning to edges but overall a very good, complete copy of an important book in the history of early modern English science. Sherburne's Sphere of Marcus Manilius is a translation, in verse form, of the first book of Manilius's first… Read More

London: Wyllyam Bonham n.d. [1550], 1550. Third collected edition, ESTC describes it as one of four variants of this date with different publisher's names in the colophon. The text is the version edited by William Thynne. Folio. 295x197mm. ff. [8], cxciii, cxciii-cc, ccii-ccvii, ccx-cclxxi, cclxxiii-cclxxvii, cclxxix-ccclv. Lacking final blank leaf. Printed in double columns, woodcut initials and woodcuts of the Knight and the Squire. The Romaunt of the Rose has a separate title. Full brown sheep, single fillet border to covers, with corners decorated with crowned garlands framing dolphins. Spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt. Red edges. Front pastedown has armorial bookplate of Mr Baron Maule and Kenneth Rapoport. Front free endpaper has armorial bookplate of Newton Hall, Cambridge and ownership inscription of Jo. Maule. Head and foot of spine chipped with loss. Hinges strengthened. Some damp-staining to first gathering which is also a little loose. A very nice copy in a… Read More

New-York: Printed and Published by C.S. van Winkle.1818. First edition. 12mo in 6s. 163x100mm. pp. xii, 13-229, [55]. Folding "Scale for Calculating Work". The last, unpaginated fifty-five pages are "A Specimen of Printing Types from the Foundry of E.White, No 11 Thames-Street, New-York" and "A Specimen of Printing Types cast at D.& G. Bruce's Foundry, Chamber Street, New-York". Recently bound in mottled tan calf, single fillet gilt border, spine with dark brown morocco label, lettered in gilt, modern endpapers. Some browning and foxing, a small marginal tear to p77 (not affecting the text) and a tiny hole to the title page but overall a very good copy of an important and rare book, the last copy appearing at auction in 1925. The significance of van Winkle's book lies in its being the first printer's manual written by an American printer, for American printers and published in the United States. Whilst he admits his debt to Caleb Stower's Printer's Grammar, van Winkle explains that he was motivated to… Read More

n.p. n.p. n.d. [c1790]. Single leaf, 228x175mm. Inscribed on one side only in Horace Walpole's hand. The full text is: "The Castle of Otranto. a Gothic Story. translated by William Marshal Gent. from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of St Nicholas at Otranto. ----velut egri somnia vane./ Fingentur species; tamen ut pes, &caput uni/ Reddatur forme ------Hor." Some staining and a little creased to the edges but overall in excellent condition. Walpole has combined the title pages of the first and second editions (both appeared in 1765). The first edition title page contains the reference to the fictitious William Marshal and Onuphrio Muralto while these are omitted from the second edition. However, it is in the second edition that Walpole first describes his story as "Gothic" and includes the (slightly misquoted) epigraph from Horace's Ars Poetica, in a shortened form from that written here. These lines from Horace translate as "whose idle fancies shall be shaped like a sick man's dreams,… Read More

Lutetia [Paris] Ex officina Rob. Stephani [Robert Estienne], 1549. First edition. 4to. 214x145mm. pp. 199, [1bl]. Ten woodcut portraits making this one of only five illustrated books by Robert Estienne. Beautifully bound for Thomas Wotton in contemporary calf with elaborate gilt and dark brown strapwork with tendrils and leaf motifs in gilt and dark brown inlays. At the centre of both covers is a cartouche framing Thomas Wotton's coat of arms. Rebacked in the late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century with five raised bands, compartments with gilt flower motif, second compartment with morocco label lettered in gilt. All edges gilt, marbled endpapers, front pastedown has the bookplate of Hagley Hall. Housed in a brick-red morocco slipcase. In excellent condition but with a couple of tiny holes and a small mark on the upper cover and a small worm track on the lower cover. Internally very good, a little soiled in places and with the upper margin trimmed. All bindings made for Thomas Wotton are rare (it… Read More

Moskva [Moscow] T. Ris 1868-1869. First edition. Six parts in three volumes. 8vo. 225x150mm. Vol 1. Part I. [4], 297 [1bl],146; Part II. [4], 186. Vol 2. Part III. [4], 284; Part IV. [4], 336; Vol 3. Part V. [4], 323; Part VI. [4], 290. First edition issue points are present: part III, p227 for p127 and p265 for p255 and part IV, p153 for p253. Map on p239 of part IV. Smartly bound in modern red half morocco, marbled paper covered boards, with the title in French (Guerre et Paix) to the spine. Top edge gilt, marbled endpapers. Slight rubbing to corners. Internally very good, this is an excellent copy in superb condition of one of the cornerstones of Russian, and indeed any, literature. Described by Turgenev as "the epic, the history novel and the vast picture of the whole nation's life", War and Peace began as a serialised work called 1805 which first appeared in the magazine Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Messenger). Parts of the novel were published in 1867 but Tolstoy was unhappy with it and set… Read More

Dunkirk n.p. 23 January 1915. A recently discovered Cubo-futurist drawing by Nevinson. Photographic postcard (105x150mm) showing Nevinson standing in front of a British Red Cross Society ambulance. On the verso Nevinson has inscribed "A ma petite amie Simone du C.R.W.Nevinson". He has also drawn, in pen and ink, a biplane flying over a group of houses and a landscape. The houses and landscape are executed in the Cubist style while the aeroplane, superbly capturing the frantic blur of the propellers, the wings and the tail, is a brilliant, brief essay in Futurism, the politically controversial but aesthetically dynamic art movement which drew its inspiration from the speed, mechanism and violence of the modern world. After leaving the Slade School of Art in 1912, Nevinson moved to Paris where he met Picasso and fell under the influence of Cubism. A little later he was pulled into the orbit of the Italian Futurists, Marinetti and Severini. 1914 saw a huge a row with Wyndham Lewis when Nevinson published… Read More

[London] n.p. 18 March, 14 James I [i.e.1617]. One vellum sheet (210x332mm), twenty-one lines in Latin written in black ink in small gothic court hand. The capital "J" and the "b" of the first word "Jacobus" are decorated with elaborate strapwork. At the bottom right corner is the round wax seal of the Court of Chancery in amber wax pendant. On the verso is the endorsement "Per dominum custodem magni sigilli Anglia" below which, in a fine cursive hand, is Bacon's signature "Fr. B", followed by the initials "C.S." (Custos sigilli) denoting his office as Keeper of the Seal. Above this is written, in a later hand, "Stapleton". Housed in a later red morocco box lettered in gilt on the front. On the inside of the lid of the box is the label of the great collectors, Donald and Mary Hyde. This document is among the earliest to be signed by Bacon as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal: he had been appointed only eleven days previously, succeeding Lord Ellesmere on 7th March 1617, after four years as King James's… Read More

Leuven: n.p. 1670. A manuscript book containing detailed and extensive notes on a wide range of scientific subjects. 200x155mm. 494 leaves. 34 engraved plates. Text in Latin. The chapter headings are beautifully calligraphed and there are some attractive little drawings in the margins. Bound in contemporary full calf, upper and lower covers with a single fillet border in blind framing a blind triple fillet which then frames a lavishly tooled border with interwoven semicircles and floral motifs in blind. At the centre of each cover is a gilt supralibros with two men, one holding an armillary sphere and the other a pair of compasses. Above them are stars and between them a cartouche inside which is a triple-towered castle surmounted by a crown (this motif is repeated in the compartments of the spine save for the second which has a black morocco label lettered in gilt "Physica"). Beneath this is a shield with a hand holding a book and reaching down through the clouds. This is the coat of arms of the Old… Read More