Search Results: Titles starting with L from Edmund Brumfitt Rare Books Ltd

Two volumes, 8vo, pp. xvi, 200; 188, [4] bookseller's catalogue; with engraved frontispiece to volume one, and vignette on title-page of both volumes; woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces; some light foxing and browning throughout, and light dampstaining to head of the second half of volume two; in contemporary carta rustica with decorative paper spine; some marking and wear, and spine of volume 2 chipped at head, but still an attractive copy.
First edition, uncommon, of this semi-autobiographical novel by the Jesuit, playwright and author Pietro Chiari (1712-1785).
Chiari spent fifteen years as court poet to Francesco III d'Este, based in Venice, writing over fifty comedies and numerous novels, and becoming throroughly immersed in Venetian literary society. It is this that informs the present novel, his fourth, written after he had already been in Venice for over a decade. La commediante in fortuna is the third and final novel what can be seen as a trilogy of works set within the Venetian… Read More

8vo, pp. 116; woodcut vignette on title; some light staining to last couple of leaves, but otherwise clean; crudely bound in recent maroon wrappers.

Very uncommon first Venetian printing of a surprisingly uncommon book, first published in Modena the previous year. One of the last works of the philosopher, translator, and sometime tutor of Manzoni, Francesco Soave (1743-1806).

In Italian philosophical circles, Soave had made his name with his translations of Locke in the 1770s, and his empiricist instincts are very much present in his treatment of Kant's philosophy. The dedication, to Francesco Melzi d'Eril, sets out Soave's stall, calling Kant's philosophy one 'that tends to destroy all the ideas and the maxims that had been most firmly established, both in the practical and in the speculative sciences'. Soave, noting that Kant had been largely ignored in France and Italy until the publication of Villers' Philosophie de Kant ou Principes fondamentaux de la philosophie transcendale in 1801, relies… Read More

8vo, pp. 28; manuscript shelf number on title-page, and 'Réclamation' in contemporary hand at foot of final page; uniformly lightly browned; in recent plain wrappers.
Rare revolutionary pamphlet marking the funeral of the republican journalist Elysée Loustallot (1762-1790), editor of the Révolutions de Paris.
Loustallot not only edited the Révolutions de Paris but also contributed a great deal of the content; after his death, the periodical continued under the editorship of Prudhomme, with contributors including Maréchal and Fabre d'Eglantine, before its closure in 1794; while always supportive of the ideals of the Revolution, it had become increasingly seen as unduly moderate, and the execution of Fabre d'Eglantine did not encourage Prudhomme to continue. Loustallot, in these circumstances, could almost be seen as fortunate: he died after a long illness at the age of 28 in 1790, and his funeral is here described by the popular revolutionary writer Fenon de Litany, who reflects on Loustallot's… Read More

8vo, pp. 66; engraved vignette on page 3; printed on very light blue paper; some spotting and browning in places, first three gatherings detached; in contemporary mottled calf, board bordered in gilt; red edges; somewhat bumped and worn, wormhole near head of spine, and spine chipped at head; despite faults, quite an attractive copy.
Uncommon collection, printed on light blue paper, of poems on astronomical themes printed to celebrate the wedding of Count Bernardino Antonelli to Baroness Caterina Ancajani, edited by Count Girolamo Fagnani Tesini (born 1746).
In his preface, Tesini notes that the Greek poets 'applicarono i successi umani alle Stelle, e gl' Italiani Poeti applican' oggi le stelle ai successi umani'. And so we open with a sonnet addressed to Uranus, before a canzone on the pole star by the poet (and translator of Addison) Gaetano Golt, an ode on Ursa Major by Ignazio Ondedei, another on the Boreal Triangle by the Roman antiquarian and politician Enni Quirino Visconi, and many more; aside… Read More

8vo, pp. xxxvi, 1-48, [2], 53-317, [1] blank; with folding frontispiece 'panorama des curiosités'; short marginal note in ink on p. 168, staining to margins of a few gatherings, and occasional spotting, but largely clean and crisp; uncut in contemporary stiff interim wrappers, covered in brown and blue marbled paper, later handwritten paper label on spine; light rubbing and marking, but a lovely copy.
A good copy of this rare guide to Paris in 1804, designed 'for the foreigner who would like to know our capital and instruct himself on the topography, history, government, religion, literature, arts, and customs of Paris, that is, of France, of which this city is the centre and the motive force'.
Opening with a section of instructions for the foreigner arriving in Paris, explaining where to stay, where and how to eat, how to send a letter, the various types of vehicles for getting around, and the importance, for someone who wants to learn the language properly, of going to the theatre. Then, after a… Read More

12mo, pp. xvi, 138; a4 and a5 misbound at end, but present; occasional small marginal tears, and light spotting in places, but largely clean and crisp throughout; in contemporary pink mottled boards, handwritten paper label on spine; binding worn but sound.
Uncommon later edition of this treatise on logic by the French philosopher and encyclopédiste César Chesneau, sieur Dumarsais (1676-1756).
First appearing posthumously in 1769, where it was accompanied by a theory of grammar, the Logique here is presented on its own, as part of a series of classic works 'approuvés par MM. le principal et professeurs du collége Louis-le-grand'. It is one of several books, according to the verso of the half-title, approved for the elementary logic classes at the college (originally the Jesuit College de Clermont, and still extant as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, on the rue Saint-Jacques in Paris); other authors include Condillac, Bonnet, Clarke, and Fénélon.
Dumarsais's conception of logic is a broad one: 'the… Read More

Four volumes in two, 12mo, pp. 241, [1] table; 248, [2] table; 214, [1] table, [1] blank; 261, [1] table; with engraved frontispiece to each volume, included in each case in pagination; old stamp "G.S Baechingen an der Brenz" on title-page of volumes one and three, old ownership signature "d' Forstner" on title-page of volume one; aside from some sporadic light browning, clean and fresh throughout; in contemporary German calf-backed boards, spine with raised bands and paper labels with titles in a contemporary hand; light wear, but an attractive copy.
A good copy, in an attractive contemporary German binding, of this early French adaptation of The History of Charlotte Summers, the Fortunate Parish Girl, which had first appeared in English in 1749 and is often attributed, probably erroneously, to Sarah Fielding.

The basics of the plot would feel familiar to any reader of Tom Jones, and the eponymous heroine can be seen perhaps as a sister to the foundling of that novel. Certainly, there are many… Read More

Two volumes bound in one, 12mo, pp. [ii], viii, 243, [1] blank; [ii], 298; engraved title-pages to each volume, and occasional engraved head- and tailpieces and initials; occasional spotting, but largely clean and fresh; in contemporary sheep-backed boards; spine ruled in gilt with gilt lettering-piece; some wear and marking to spine and boards, upper joint cracked at foot; nonetheless an attractive copy.
First edition in French of Susan Smythies' second novel, The History of Lucy Wellers, which had first appeared in English in 1754.
Notable as the first novel to state on the title-page that it was 'Written by a Lady', Lucy Wellers tells the story of a girl, born to unknown parents, and her virtuous resistance to the advances of an unsuitable man, with the reward of a happy marriage to a well-off landowner. The translation is the work of Adrien-Nicolas Piédefer, marquis de La Salle, and is one of two to have appeared in the same year, with the other, by Eidous, being published in Lyon under the title… Read More