Search Results: Titles starting with M from Hordern House Rare Books

Rotterdam: Jean Hofhoudt, 1729. An attractive copy, professionally rebacked.. Octavo, woodcut vignettes; in contemporary sprinkled calf. First edition of one of the more popular utopian satires of the era, written by a friend of both the economist John Law (of South Sea Bubble fame) and the jurist Montesquieu. Mahmoud purports to tell the tale of the Caliphate (translated, of course, from a newly-discovered Arabic original) but was quickly recognized as 'une satire de la régence' of Louis XV (Nouvelle Biographie Générale). Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the book is that the author was a warm partisan of luxury as the true engine of civilisation (see his Essai Politique sur la Commerce), meaning that he had no interest in making bland attacks on the supposed decadence of the East. The novel was one of the first books by the economist Jean François Melon (1675-1738), an influential French intellectual, who, amongst other things, helped found a literary society under the protection of the… Read More

Stockholm: J. A. Probsts, 1825. Marbled paper sides a little rubbed, yet beautifully preserved overall.. Folding concertina case of 24 individual handcoloured ethnographic portraits, each measuring 88 x 57 mm., mounted upon linen within marbled card covers; with accompanying 24mo booklet of some 42 pp., both housed within original papered slipcase. Early-nineteenth century Swedish pocket guide to the peoples of the world, featuring three Pacific studies and complete with the original printed booklet and slipcase. Such materials were produced for a juvenile audience and effectively showcased traditional European folk dress and the native peoples of the wider world for the education of children. Unsurprisingly, such pedagogic aids are now rare given they were printed in limited numbers and faced the depredations of children over ensuing decades. This example, printed in Stockholm and dated 1825, features three Pacific subjects - the Tahitian dancing maiden famous from the first depictíon in Cooks… Read More

Papeete, 1854. French manuscript, single leaf 212 mm x 273 mm. A ship's manifest for the barque Selma of Adelaide, including Cognac, beer, Bordeaux, sherry and salted pork, as well as a sizable cargo, inall, calculated at 62,500 francs signed by the French merchants in Tahiti. In November 1853, the Selma, "so well-known in the Adelaide trade... changed hands. Mr Samuel Argyle having become the purchaser for the purpose of working her on a trading voyage to Tahiti and the Polynesian Islands. Her Royal Highness the Princess Tusana [sic] of Tahiti, we believe returns by this vessel" [The Argus 16 November 1853]. This prosperous trade was forestalled a year after the provisioning noted in this manifest. In February 1855 the crew mutinied and Captain Pike gave over the barque to a French man-o-war to take to Tahiti. The Selma was recorded as wrecked off Tahiti in 1855. An interesting document relating to the early days of commercial shipping between Australia and Tahiti. .

Paris: chez Brunet, 1814. Some light foxing throughout, joints wearing; a very good set.. Four volumes, octavo; contemporary half calf, flat spines gilt with black leather labels. Second edition, greatly expanded from the first of the most famous rare book bibliographies. 'Brunet's annotations... are often still unsurpassed. There is hardly any other bibliography in which the wide range of its author's knowledge is more favourably displayed' (Grolier 118). .

Calcutta, 1831. Single sheet folded to letter-size 201 mm x 248 mm, address panel loose with red wax seal of Fergusson & Co; with enc. bill of loading on Whatman paper 225mm x 100 mm with red wax seal of Fergusson & Co. Interesting survival and testament to the considerable commercial might of pioneer landowner George Ranken of Bathurst. In the 1830s Ranken was occupied expanding his pastoral holdings near Bathurst. As well, he along with a number of other prominent pastoralists established the Bathurst Bank for which capital was sought. The contents concern advice that George's brother James had arranged the delivery of "two boxes of 2500 Spanish dollars" to him with a separate signed, wax-sealed deed/receipt. We believe this to be one of the earliest letters from India to Australia to survive in private ownership. .

France, probably Paris, 1850. Generally in very good original condition, a few pages with marginal water damage.. A small archive of manuscripts comprising: (1) a detailed illustrated South Seas catalogue on six large wove paper bifolia, 292 x 384 mm., in pencil, folded in half; (2) a similarly-sized illustrated but less-annotated South American catalogue on eight large wove paper bifolia, 301 x 404 mm., in pencil, folded in half; (3) a simple catalogue handlist on seven large sheets of wove paper, 360 x 230 mm., completed in ink with some pencil corrections, the sheets folded in half on the vertical axis; (4) a numbered catalogue of South Seas artefacts on two bifolia 312 x 400 mm., central fold; (5) some working papers, including one sheet numbered in pencil, 304 x 210 mm.; a 5-pp. handlist in pencil on two bifolia, 285 x 197 mm.; and a 2-pp. list in pencil, 315 x 205 mm., almost entirely struck through. An exceptional and valuable archive of manuscripts relating to one of the most historically… Read More

London: Rolls Building, 1776. Clean tears to all folds but otherwise in good condition.. Manuscript in ink, folio, written on one side of a leaf, verso blank, conjugate leaf with docket-title on verso; originally folded; blind and wax seals; signed and dated by two witnesses, An important and rare original document offering a significant insight into the early life of Fletcher Christian, who would lead the famous mutiny on the Bounty and with his fellow mutineers would settle on remote Pitcairn Island, where some of their descendants still live today. Fletcher's father, a barrister, had died in 1768 when Fletcher was four years old. His mother, Ann, was profligate with money, and this document bears testimony to the huge loans she took on, leading to debts in excess of £6500 -- at least a hundred times that today -- by 1779, just three years after this document was drawn up. The family home listed on this document, at Moorland Close, Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in Cumbria, was lost and Ann,… Read More

Dunedin: New Zealand Institute, 1896. In good original condition apart from creases to the portraits of Wiremu Te Manawa and Tawhiao; the collation is complex with variants found in recorded copies, in this copy (in the original binding) the content pages for parts 2,3,4 and 5 were not originally included.. Large quarto, profusely illustrated throughout (including seven special plates printed in black and red), a very attractive copy in original half morocco binding. A special publication of the New Zealand Institute to record and photograph all outstanding examples of surviving Māori art and design as a record for posterity. The range of material encompassed is impressive: carved prows of war canoes and seafaring craft, architecture and habitations, weapons, implements of agriculture and handicraft, fish hooks and lines, musical instruments, mokomokai and so forth. Of special interest is the section of seven plates printed in black and red depicting rafter patterns. The material is presented out… Read More

Amsterdam: Jansson, 1646. Engraved map, 185 x 435 mm.; with central fold, in fine condition and mounted. Important early map of the Pacific with insets of the Le Maire Strait and New Guinea from Commelin's compendium of Dutch voyages, Begin Ende Voortgangh. This map comes from the chapter which describes Spilbergen's second voyage to the Moluccas via the Strait of Magellan and the narrative of Le Maire and Schouten's voyage of 1615-1617 to the Australian regions. The momentous Pacific crossing of Le Maire and Schouten was 'the last expedition of the seventeenth century to search for Terra Australis from the east...' (Schilder). The larger inset shows Le Maire's discoveries along the northern coast of New Guinea, including the detailed voyage track. Of particular interest is the westernmost island depicted, which clearly shows Gilolo. Gilolo or Jailolo, which is situated on Halmahera - the largest island of the Moluccas - was the original home of Giolo, Dampier's "Painted Prince". Giolo and his mother… Read More

London: John Harris, 1744. Some browning yet very good.. Engraved chart measuring 245 x 410 mm. (sheet size). The Bowen map of William Dampier's discoveries along the Papuan coastline and adjacent islands. Dampier sailed in the Roebuck in January of 1699, landing in Shark Bay, Western Australia in July of that year, before going on to explore the Papuan coastline in some detail. This map charts the path of the Roebuck from Timor to the large islands to the northeast of New Guinea named New Britain by Dampier. The voyage of the Roebuck is one of the most significant expeditions to the region, but was disastrous for Dampier, especially after the vessel, rotten and leaking badly for much of the voyage, finally foundered at Ascension Island. This fine map was engraved by Emanuel Bowen (1694-1767), one of the pre-eminent English cartographic printers of his era and geographer to both King George II and Louis XV. Bowen drew upon a wide range of materials to ensure the accuracy of his work, attracting… Read More

Lyon: Vander Aa, 1692. One part moderately water-stained, another with slight marginal worming, three of the folding plates repaired.. Eleven volumes, duodecimo, the first with four engraved folding plates, and all eleven volumes embellished with charming ornamental title-pages; a handsome set in mid eighteenth-century panelled calf with original labels. Attractively bound set of Cicero in eleven volumes, noted as 'respectable and correct' by Moss. The title-page boasts that the accuracy of the text arises from the editorial finesse of Dutch classical scholar Jacob Gronovius, whose portrait comprises the frontispiece to the first volume (curiously, the English literary lion Thomas Dibdin claimed the editorial attribution to Gronovius was spurious). Jacob Gronovius was the father of botanist Jan Frederik Gronovius, correspondent and patron of Carl Linnaeus and the author of a treatise on the native plants and herbs of Virginia. This is a considerable publication, continuously paginated for a total of… Read More

London: John Murray, 1821. Rubbed at joints and extremities.. Tall octavo, missing both half-titles, 'Marino Faliero' without terminal ad.; contemporary green half morocco, gilt, Attractive volume of two important works by Byron. First edition, first issue of Marino Faliero: the Doge's speech on page 151 consists of only five and a half lines (Byron added seven new lines for the second issue) and page 154 has only twenty-one lines; in the second issue there are twenty-five lines. Set in Venice in 1355, it is the story of 'a man of talents and of courage' and, as the preface and appendix attest, of a figure who fascinated Byron. It is bound with the first edition, first issue of Werner (without imprint or 'The End' on the terminal page). Dedicated 'To the illustrious Goëthe', it is one of Byron's most important works, and again takes as its motivation the tragedy of the great man assailed by the forces of the world. Byron notes in the preface, 'When I was young (about fourteen, I think) I first read… Read More

Sydney: Government Printer, 12 December, 1862. Fine.. Foolscap, four pages. Details legal issues surrounding declaration of martial law following aggression and rioting against Chinese miners at the Burrangong goldfields suring July 1862. .

Sydney: Hordern House in association with the State Library of NSW, 2002. Octavo, 272 pp., 19 colour illustrations; bound in burgundy cloth with colour illustrated boards and a silk book ribbon. Matthew Flinders: personal letters from an extraordinary life offers the reader a representative selection of over one hundred of Flinders' letters, including many relating to his great circumnavigation of Australia, as well as his time on Mauritius where he was held by the French for over six years. The letters written in Mauritius are published here for the first time, and cover a tragic, though little known, period in his life. Also of particular poignancy are the letters written by Flinders to his beloved wife Ann. After only three months of marriage, Flinders sailed for Australia, and the couple were not to meet again for nine years. Of great significance is the audacious letter written by a young Flinders to the "Father of Australia" Sir Joseph Banks, where Flinders volunteers himself for the formidable… Read More

London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1946. A fine copy.. Folio, with a map and wood-engravings by John Buckland Wright; uncut in the original full green morocco gilt by Sangorski. The scarce de luxe issue, one of only one hundred numbered copies in full morocco binding. This important first publication of the manuscript in the State Library of Victoria gives Flinders' account of his 1798 voyage in the Francis that led to his exploration of Bass Strait, and to the discovery of the Illawarra coal seams by Bass. .

Nuremberg: Endter, 1664. A little spotting but a very nice copy.. Folio, title-page in black and red, additional engraved title, 59 full-page portrait engravings in the text; in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink. First edition of this handsome work on the Hungarian monarchy with a wonderful series of fifty-nine full-length heraldic portraits of kings and nobles of Hungary, sometimes with detailed views in the background of battles, landscapes, or cities. The text contains laudatory poetry for past kings and leaders, in both German and Latin. Ferencz III, Count de Nádasdy, was a prominent nobleman and patriotic Hungarian statesman who opposed the despotic policy of the Emperor Leopold. Unjustly condemned for conspiring against Leopold, he was beheaded in 1671. In this book, which is dedicated to the Hungarian nobility, he had promoted the idea of an independent Hungarian monarchy. The unsigned engravings, here in notably fine and dark impressions, are of great quality. Further editions of… Read More

Paris: Depaulis, 1826. Good even tone, traces of die-rust, about extremely fine.. Bronze medal, 50 mm, Rare original medallion commemorating the departure on 25 April 1826 of the first voyage of the Astrolabe to the South Seas, under the command of Dumont d'Urville. The Astrolabe (Duperrey's old ship the Coquille renamed in honour of La Pérouse) was instructed to explore the principal island groups in the South Pacific, completing the work of the Duperrey voyage, on which the commander had been a naturalist. The expedition sailed via the Cape of Good Hope, through Bass Strait, stopped at Port Phillip, and arrived at Sydney on 1 December 1828. They later sailed via the northwest coast of Australia to Tasmania, from where they proceeded to Vanikoro in search of traces of La Pérouse. The full inscription on the reverse reads: "S.A.R. Monseigneur Le Dauphin, Amiral de France. M. Le Cte Chabrol de Crouzol, Pair de France, Ministre de la Marine. M. Dumont D'Urville, Captaine de Fregate, commandant… Read More

Paris: Puymaurin & Andrieu, 1817. Silver medal, 41 mm. A scarce example of the silver issue of the medal struck to commemorate the sailing of the Uranie for Australia and the Pacific in 1817 under Louis de Freycinet. The design of the Freycinet medal had an interesting after-life, appearing as an engraving on the title-pages of several volumes of the official published account of the voyage. The Uranie landed at Shark Bay on the West Coast of Australia, on 12 September 1818, where an observatory was set up. After visiting Timor and the Sandwich Islands they reached Port Jackson in November 1818. They left on Boxing Day that year on a course for Cape Horn but on 13 February 1820 the ship was wrecked off the Falkland Islands. However all the crew and most of the records of the voyage and natural history specimens were saved and the voyage was completed on the Physicienne. The voyage had been organised by the French government to make observations on geography, magnetism and meteorology, and became… Read More

London: Jacob Tonson, 1682. Small quarto, 32pp.; protected in modern wrapper. First edition, second issue: 'the second of Dryden's political satires'. The acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury on charges of treason for opposing the succession of the Catholic James was regarded as a great Whig victory. Flushed with success, they issued a medal, Shaftesbury's head on the obverse, the sun rising over the Tower of London on the reverse. It was the perfect prompt for Dryden's mock-heroic satire: 'Of all our Antick Sights, and Pageantry, Which English Ideots run in crowds to see, The Polish Medall bears the prize alone...'. .

Paris: Dumont and Charles Gosselin, 1834. Some foxing, a good set.. Four volumes, octavo; in uniform later nineteenth-century quarter calf. The French edition of Basil Hall's Voyages. Hall captained the sloop Lyra which, with the Alceste, brought the Amherst Embassy to China. Hall made a voyage to Korea and to the island of Loo-Choo (present day Okinawa). "Korea had been sketchily explored by Europeans, but it was not until the Alceste and Lyra expedition of 1816-17, under Captains Murray Maxwell and Basil Hall, that detailed information was obtained about the Ryukyus" (Hill). This Paris edition is not listed by Cordier in the Bibliotheca Sinica. .