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

Oahu: Na na Misionari, 1834. Duodecimo, 360 pp., 194 hymns many with full musical notation; in excellent condition in old sprinkled and polished calf, later spine ornately gilt with red leather label; in a full calf protective bookform case. Rare and important: a delightful copy of this Hawaiian hymnal with extensive four-part musical scoring, the very first music to be printed in the Islands. The title translates as 'The rules of music, for hymns and psalms [with which] to praise God.' This title refers to the first section of the work (56 pp.), which is a musical instruction manual, beginning with 'names for various notes (sharps, flats, clefs, etc.) and ways of reading music; then scales and octaves (here La, Mi, Pa, Ko, Li, Ha, No, La); music notes with scores; and finally music and words.' (Forbes) The second part is a hymnal with 194 hymns. Copies were known to have been distributed before the work as a whole was completed (and some copies are known with only the first 56-page section).… Read More

Göttingen: Johann Christian Dieterich, 1780. Neatly rebacked, wrappers professionally strengthened.. Small octavo, a handsome copy in the original decorative wrappers (thus retaining the publisher's prospectus on the front and rear endpapers), untrimmed. A good copy and now rare: known to O'Reilly & Reitman's exhaustive bibliography as the earliest full publication regarding the Spanish voyages to Tahiti in the 1770s. This is the first issue of the first volume of the Göttingisches Magazin, the important scientific periodical edited by Georg Forster and Georg Lichtenberg. Included here is Georg Forster's notable contribution on Tahiti, a 36-page essay on the Spanish voyages to Tahiti in the 1770s. This essay is revelatory concerning the continuing interest and expertise of the Forsters regarding the Pacific, beginning as it does with Georg's discussion of how his father had received, in Summer 1778, a Spanish manuscript regarding Tahiti from the Director of the King's Botanical Gardens in Madrid,… Read More

London: W.Bulmer and Co, 1804. Very good.. Quarto offprint, title-page, 7 pp., engraved plate; recent wrappers. Detailed monograph on the venom glands of deadly serpents, with a detailed engraved plate, published as an offprint of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Sir Everard Home (1756-1832) was a surgeon and author of over 100 Royal Society papers, efforts which won him the prestigious Copley medal in 1807. Home wrote primarily on surgery and the challenges associated with post-operative infection. He also dabbled in natural history subjects (of which this offprint is one such example) and was elected keeper and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in 1817. The plate in this offprint 'is taken from a preparation in the Hunterian Museum'. Home was a problematic individual, described in the Dictionary of National Biography as 'vain, overbearing, and violent in language'. His reputation was seriously damaged by charges of plagiarising the work of his brother-in-law, the surgeon John… Read More

Paris: Barrois, 1787. Half-title and final two leaves a little chipped, a little foxing and browning yet very good.. Quarto, 112pp, bound with two later Hebrew and Arabic grammars, in early nineteenth-century quarter calf (spine scuffed). A rare and eccentric treatise promoting Celtic as the foundation for all languages ancient and modern. The work includes a chapter on Tahiti based upon vocabularies in the voyage accounts of Bougainville and the account of Cook's second voyage published by Georg Forster, who accompanied his father Johann Reinhold Forster on the Resolution. Jacques le Brigant (1720-1804) was a lawyer and keen amateur archaeologist who surveyed and unearthed ancient sites in England and his native province of Brittany. Le Brigant boldly promoted his hypothesis that the ancient language of Brittany was the original Celtic tongue, being composed from pure monosyllabic elements. Yet, like many pioneers of grand historical derivation so fashionable throughout the eighteenth-century, le… Read More

London J. Reynolds & Sons 174 Strand nd, 1875. Hand coloured lithograph, 430 x 690mm; mounted and framed. A large nineteenth century lithograph showing full length portraits of people from Oceania and America. To the left of the lithograph are depicted examples of "typical" Oceanic inhabitants - Malay, Sandwich Islands, Marquesas Islander, New Zealander, North and South Australia, whilst to the right are Papuan, Patagonian, Araucanian, Chippeway and Cherokee. An interest in ethnography took a central place in the lives of educated Europeans as science and world history were not yet too esoteric and specialised for the average person to understand. Maritime discovery was enthusiastically followed by both the French and English nations and the savants of both countries had a keen intellectual curiosity in the ethnography of the newly-discovered countries. Published in London, this image was designed by Ernst George Ravenstein (1834-1913) a German- English geographer and cartographer. Born in Main,… Read More

Paris: Jean-Francois Bastien, 1790. One or two joints slightly weak.. Eight volumes, octavo, engraved portrait frontispiece in volume 1 and a folding plate in vol. 2; a fine set in contemporary French polished marbled calf; flat spines ornately gilt with double red labels. A very attractive set of Fontenelle's works, including his enormously popular Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes: this utopian analysis of the universe took Europe by storm and was precursor and inspiration to scores of imitations. It was first published in 1686, and first translated into English by Aphra Behn only two years later. Although the Entretiens clearly owes a tremendous debt to the astronomical traditions of Galileo and Brahe, Fontenelle's sensational tale of the inhabitants in 'other planets, in other galaxies, and even on comets, could hardly fail to captivate' (Nina Rattner Gelbart, Introduction to the Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds). In the form of an elegant dialogue between a scientist and a… Read More

Amsterdam: Jean Frederic Bernard, 1741. Joints of first volume just starting but a very attractive set.. Three quarto volumes, with two frontispieces, two engraved decorative titles, and 16 plates (of which three are folding), contemporary binding of polished calf, flat spines gilt with complex ornaments in panels. Beautifully printed with an impressive array of engraved plates, this is widely considered the most desirable eighteenth-century edition of Rabelais. It is notable for its learned commentary by the scholar Jacob Duchat, and for the inclusion of letters and other material related to the life of the master satirist. This lavish enlightenment production contains sixteen plates including three folding studies of Rabelais' family estate of La Déviniere at Indre-et-Loire (namely, a birds-eye view of the estate with its walled vineyard, Rabelais' chamber, and the domestic courtyard). As the title-page boasts, many of the engravings are from the Amsterdam workshop of Bernard Picart (1673-1738),… Read More

Whitehall, London, 1823. Two pages, folio, manuscript in ink on a bifolium, the third page receipted to the Lord Chancellor by Treasury, the fourth page a docket title. Rare official document marking the appointment of the English lawyer John Lewes Pedder to the very consequential office of first Chief Justice of Van Diemen's Land, at the point when the judicial system of Tasmania became separated from that of New South Wales. Pedder, who arrived in Hobart in March 1824, would serve in the office for thirty years. He was also a Member of Tasmania's first Legislative Council, serving from 1825 until 1851, and a member of the Executive Council until 1836. "On 26 March 1824, after Pedder had arrived in Van Diemen's Land, Lieutenant-Governor Sorell issued a Proclamation declaring him duly appointed Chief Justice, and that on 10 May the Supreme Court would 'enter upon the Exercise of its Jurisdiction according to the full Powers granted by the Royal Charter'. The Charter of Justice was read out by the… Read More

Rome: Zacharias Kallierges (for Cornelio Benigno), 1515. A little occasional very light foxing; a very good clean copy with good margins.. Quarto, [480] pp., Greek types, printed in black and red; complete with the two blank leaves; woodcut devices of a caduceus and Kallierges's double-headed eagle on the title, eagle device repeated on final leaf; modern binding of period style. Produced in Rome by Zacharias Kallierges, a native Cretan, Renaissance humanist and scholar, who had set up the first Greek-owned printing press in Venice in 1499, subsequently moving to Rome to set up his press there. Pindar, the classical ancient Greek lyric poet, was a perfect choice for Kallierges to put into print: the first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry and on the poet's role, he was hugely prized by later writers, not least the Latin poet Horace who admiringly compared the vigour of his writing to the "uncontrollable momentum of a river that has burst its banks". Pindar's four books of epinikia or… Read More

Sydney: J.S. Prout, 1842. Tinted lithograph, page size approx 230 x 365 m, corners tipped to backing sheet. Charming Victorian rural scene by a pioneering Australian lithographic artist. John Skinner Prout was "the first itinerant painter in the colonies whose work ceases to be dominated by the requirements of topographical accuracy" (Smith, European Vision in the South Pacific). He arrived in the colony in 1841 and began lecturing at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts and sketching around Sydney He made extensive sketching tours of New South Wales, before travelling to Van Diemen's Land in January 1844 where he worked for four years before returning to England. .

Amsterdam: Johannes van der Hey, 1822. Three volumes, each with engraved title-page (the last hand-coloured), four hand-coloured plates and three folding plates, five folding maps, an excellent set in early twentieth-century vellum, decorated gilt and blind. Fine set in vellum of the uncommon Dutch edition of the Kotzebue voyage to the Pacific, the second Russian scientific expedition. 'A Dutch edition of the first Kotzebue voyage, translated by P.G. Witsen Geysbeek, with prefaces by the translator in volume I and II and footnotes throughout. The three hand-coloured portraits in volume II are "Tameamea, Konig der Sandwich-Eilanden" (p. 28), a version of the "red vest" portrait by Choris; "Rarick" (p. 130); and "Kadu" (p. 230). A folding plate in volume II... depicts the heiau and Kamehameha's residence at Kailua, Kona. The hand-coloured vignette on the volume III title is of the butterfly named for Kamehameha' (Forbes). A fourth hand-coloured plate in the first volume depicts "Inwoners van… Read More

London: Payne and Edwards, 1792-, 1793. Spine of one volume slightly chipped, joints a little split but quite firm, nonetheless a splendid set.. Two volumes, quarto, with a portrait frontispiece; in contemporary tree calf, flat spines with gilt panelling, red and green morocco labels. Fine and scholarly printing of Horace: 'a very magnificent and valuable edition; the text of which is formed chiefly on that of Gesner' (Moss, Manual of Classical Bibliography). A contemporary evaluation in the Critical Review of 1796 applauds the quality of this edition: 'With regard to the typographical merits of the present work, they must be acknowledged to be great. It is printed on fine wove paper; the type is excellent, and the press-work is extremely clear and neat. The margin is also spacious, and the arrangement such as does the printers much credit.' One of the most beloved Roman poets, Horace is cherished for his elegant poetry and robust satire, combining humorous self-reflection with philosophy: 'His… Read More

London: W. Browne and J. Warren, for T. Payne and J. Edwards, 1793. Quarto, two volumes, with an engraved frontispiece portrait of Combe (foxed); a very fine set in a most handsome contemporary binding of straight-grained red morocco, sides with triple gilt roll borders, spine compartments banded in gilt beside double raised bands, lettered in gilt, all edges gilt. A stunning copy of this luxurious and "very magnificent and valuable edition; the text of which is formed chiefly on that of Gesner' (Moss, Manual of Classical Bibliography). Charles Combe (1743-1817), a physician, began the project of this massive edit of Horace (the footnotes are a great deal longer than the text) along with the classical scholar Henry Homer (1752-1791). Combe brought it to completion after Homer's death and it was published as two separate volumes over two years. Aside from the quality of its printing and composition, the London Horace of 1792-1793 is noted for its exhaustive commentaries. Accordingly, this 'variorum'… Read More

London: T. Dring & C. Harper, 1694. Faint marginal stain; spine slightly aged, front joint splitting but firm.. Octavo, with an additional engraved allegorical title, letterpress title printed in red & black, complete with the often missing imprimatur leaf at start; with a map and other figures in the text;; early eighteenth-century calf with contemporary armorial bookplate. The first edition of Macrobius to be printed in England, a fully-indexed "modern" critical version with notes by Pontanus, Meursius and Gronovius, and illustrated with numerous figures including the famous world map (p. 106) showing a massive antipodal southern continent. By the time of this edition, some two centuries after its first appearance in print, the map has become somewhat simplified. Its large southern continent now carries the legend "Perusta inhabitabilis / Temperata". .

Frankfurt: the heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1617. A few pages lightly spotted but generally good.. Four volumes in two, folio; contemporary sprinkled calf, spines panelled in gilt between raised bands. The complete works of the Italian jurist and scholar, here in its final edition. Competing texts of the enormous collection of work had been published in the 1570s and 1582, but this was the definitive edition. Alciato was one of the leading exponents of legal humanism, the school of thought that arose in the Renaissance based on the reverence for Roman law, in deliberate contrast to the prevailing school of so-called "Commentators" who were committed to the practices of medieval law. The humanists preferred to trust the logic of classical Roman law and to rely on its texts. Their thinking, which was mirrored in contemporary social change and religious reform with the rise of protestantism, and which honoured antiquity and stressed the eternal principles underlying classical society, had a great… Read More

London: published by the Author, 1869. Hand-coloured lithograph (510 x 350 mm), with letter-press text. Delicately hand coloured original lithographic plate from Gould's most famous work, Birds of Australia, one of the great natural history publications of all time. Known more commonly today as the Orange Chat, Epthianura Aurifronis was noted by Gould at the time to be of great rarity. Taken from Gould's description "This... must be regarded as a bird of the greatest rarity... I wish to direct the attention of residents in New South Wales (to)... Gammon Plains in which it was seen by Lieut. Breton". As both a dedicated ornithologist and entrepreneurial publisher, Gould's lasting contribution to was his lavish series of colour plate folios. Indeed, his biographer Allan McEvey asserts that 'nothing can detract from this gargantuan achievement that ranks highly in the world's ornithology' (John Gould's Contribution to British Art, 1973). Birds of Australia was one of Gould's most successful publishing… Read More

Whitehall, 1786. Original folds, a little split and rubbed, very good condition overall.. Two laid paper sheets measuring 315 x 205 mm., the first comprising the manuscript letter, the second being the original cover sheet with docket title. Early manuscript document pre-dating the departure of the First Fleet concerning two principal figures in the foundation of the penal colony at New South Wales. The letter concerns a directive of Lord Sydney and is signed by Evan Nepean in his role as Under-Secretary of State. Nepean (1752-1822) was appointed secretary to Lord Shuldham, Port-Admiral at Plymouth in 1782, and later that year became Under-Secretary of State in the Home Department. In this capacity he was concerned in the arrangements for the dispatch of the First Fleet and the administration of the newly established settlement at Sydney Cove during its formative years. Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, is remembered as the principal instigator of the British colonisation of Australia, a keen proponent… Read More

London: The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, 1871. Very good.. Photograph measuring 89 x 59 mm. (image), on card with printed caption, verso bears printed details of the London Stereoscopic Company, fine. Scarce contemporary photographic image of Arthur Orton, the butcher from Wagga Wagga who claimed the identity of Roger Tichborne, an English aristocrat who drowned off South America in 1829. Orton's claim to the Tichborne baronetcy was one of the most widely publicised scandals of the 1860s. Orton travelled to England in 1866 where he convinced Roger Tichborne's mother he was her long-lost son. Here began a lifestyle of debauchery and excess, cut short when the family dragged Orton through the courts in 1871-72. Their civil case was unsuccessful, but laid the foundation for a successful conviction for perjury in 1874, and Orton spent the next ten years in gaol. Several variant carte-du-visites were produced to help fund Orton's legal defence. The National Library of Australia hold a… Read More

London, 1871. Fine.. Photograph, 89 x 59 mm. (image), on printed card, with ms. ink inscription on the bottom margin: "Arthur Orton - alias T. Castro - alias Sir Roger C. Tichborne - 1871. Sentenced to 14 years penal servitude - 1874" A rare image of the claimant. Arthur Orton came to Australia in 1851, moving from Hobart to Gippsland and then to Wagga Wagga, where he married Mary Ann Bryant. It was at Wagga, with the help of a local solicitor, that he responded to a world-wide advertisement seeking Roger Tichborne, the heir to an English baronetcy. Pursuing his claim, he returned to England in 1866. What followed earned him the title of the "Tichborne claimant" - and fourteen years in prison. .

Sydney: March, 1835. Very good.. Parchment grant measuring 340 x 390 mm., signed by the Governor of New South Wales, with well-preserved wax seal; folded to docket size. Original colonial document for a discrete land purchase. Land grant to William Henry Chapman for lot 74 on Appin road, Cumberland County. This original parchment grant comprises letterpress with manuscript additions by a scribe, with the full signature of Governor Richard Bourke. .