Search Results: Titles starting with O from Bull's Head Rare Books

Boston: Robert Hodge for William Green, [1783]. Third edition. 8vo. 91, [5, ads]. Original wrappers; spine perished; covers stained, foxing From the library of Hallowell, Maine, physician Benjamin Page (1770-1844), one of the earliest proponents of Jenner's smallpox vaccine in America, with a presentation to Page on the ffep: "For Dr. Benja. Page, From his most obt. humble servant, A. Stoddard. Hallowell, [ME], 17th Sept. 1793" and signed by Page on the front wrapper ("Benjamin Page's 1793"). "Memoir of Benjamin Page, M.D., 1770-1844" published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1845, describes Page's early use of the smallpox vaccine: "he was furnished with some vaccine matter by his most intimate and attached friend, Benjamin Vaughan, Esq., who had just received it directly from the hands of Dr. Jenner, of London. He immediately made use of it and was the first American physician, be it known, who applied the vaccine virus to the arm of a human subject in this country." The vaccine… Read More

Basel: [for Hieronymus Froben and Nikolaus Episcopius], 1555. Third Froben edition edited by Erasmus. 4to. Vols. I-III in 1 only (lacking vols. IV & V). Titles with woodcut printer's device. [xliv], 176; 191, [1]; 366, [2, colophon] pp. Contemporary (Italian?) dark brown morocco over pasteboards, tooled in blind to a panel design using a variety of rolls, double- and triple-fillets, a small knot tool, and featuring a centerpiece medallionon both covers with a cross in the very center, spine in compartments with raised bands; portions of loss to the binding with old repairs using elements of another binding, front hinge tender, some references to Erasmus in the text struck out in ink. Volumes 1-3 of 5 only of the third Froben edition of the works of Saint Ambrose edited by Erasmus. An uncommon example of a full morocco binding of the period.REFERENCE: Adams A941; VD16 A 2182

Miami, February 11, 1941. Vintage blueprint (22 x 23 inches), white on blue ground, 1/4" to 1' scale, with architect's embossed seal lower right; strong, unfaded image, with some minor edge and surface wear, old creases. Original blueprint plan for a shotgun house, a narrow single-family gable-front home in which the rooms are arranged in a single file (one theory for the name being that one could fire a shotgun through the front door and it would pass through the house and out the rear door). The blueprint, by Miami architect George A. Coffin, formalizes what was essentially a folk or vernacular style built to efficiently house working class poor on narrow urban lots. Though both blacks and whites lived in shotgun houses (Elvis was born in one in Tupelo, Georgia), it is here marketed specifically as a One Family Negro House. The plan's designer George A. Coffin (1896-1969), started his architecture practice in Miami in 1934 after some 12 years of apprentice and junior draftsman positions at various… Read More

Paris: José Corti, 1932. 8vo. 145, [7] pp. Publisher's printed wrappers; front wrapper chipped and worn, with loss to corners and old cellotape repair to verso A remarkable and telling association, inscribed from the French critic, traditional jazz impresario and founding member of the Hot Club de France, Hugues Panassié (1912-1974) to the legendary American record producer and talent scout who discovered or promoted an astonishing roster of jazz, rock and folk talent, John Hammond (1910-1987): "To my dear John Hammond / who certainly should have done better / Hugues Panassié."The enigmatic inscription is perhaps a reference to Hammond's championing of musicians, such as Benny Goodman, who Panassié despised, as he did nearly all white jazz musicians (he also despised bebop, cool jazz, or anything else that he felt strayed from traditional jazz rooted in African American musical traditions — he was one of the original Jazz Police). In contrast, Hammond pushed for more racial integration in jazz… Read More

London: J. Payne, 1757. First thus, second edition of Persian Eclogues. 8vo. [iii]-vii, 23, [1, ads] pp., lacking half-title. 2(— 1, half-title) A-G2. Removed from pamphlet volume (numbered "6" in ink at head of title) and bound in later blue wrappers, light soiling to E2v and F1r The second edition of Collins's first published work, Persian Eclogues (1742), with new title and revisions to the text. The preface outlines the conceit of the work, that the poems originated in the Middle East, written ca. 1700 by one Abdullah, a Persian from Tauris, and passed from a silk and carpet merchant to the unnamed English translator. The four eclogues follow in succession the passage of the day from morning to midnight, and though retaining many elements of form and language of contemporary English poetry, attempt to capture an “Oriental” mode of thought. "There is an elegancy and wildness of thought which recommends all their [i.e. Arabian or Persian] compositions; and our [i.e. English] genius's are as… Read More

Dover, [NH]: Printed by Samuel Bragg, Jr. for Wm. T. Clap, Boston, 1797. First American edition. 12mo. [xiv], 232, [1, blank], [1, bookseller's advertisement] pp. [A]6 B-U6 W6(—W6, blank). Contemporary sheep, red morocco spine label; covers rubbed, title-page stained and damaged with old crude thread stitch repair, textblock toned, worn and frayed throughout, occasional tears and areas of loss, portion of text from N6 torn away, still a sturdy, serviceable copy The FIRST AMERICAN EDITION of the first English translation of the Arabian Nights for young readers, a bowdlerized version of nineteen tales that includes Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor. The hack writer and printer Richard Johnson (ca.1733-1793) translated and cleaned up these tales from an unnamed French edition, presumably Galland's. In his preface (signed “J. Cooper”), Johnson notes that he has "carefully expunged everything that could give least offence to the most delicate reader.” An additional guarantee of decency is Johnson's… Read More