Rare books from The Owl at the Bridge

London: Printed for R. C. [Richard Chiswell?], S. S. [S. Smith or Samuel Sprint?], B. W. [Benjamin Walford?]... {1705]. Hard Cover. [x], 30, 23-286, 289-392, 351-553, [1] p., plates, portrait; 38 cm. The account of Hooker's life is by Izaak Walton (1593-1683). The first edition of [1553]-1597 is Printing and the Mind of Man 104. Pages 211, 220, 276, 432, 437 and 445 are misnumbered 221, 200, 476, 434, 435 and 436; text and register are continuous. Added engraved title-page: Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, Eight Books... Edited by John Gauden (1605-1662). Bound in contemporary leather, rebacked by Hope Bindery with gilt spine; very good. Stock#OB993.

New-York, Printed and sold by Samuel Campbell, no. 124, Pearl-Street, M,DCC,XCVI [1796] Vol. 2. Hard Cover. Two volumes: iv, [1], 6-296; [2], 311, [1] pages, (signatures: A-2O⁴; [A]⁴, B-2Q⁴, [2R]1, ([2R]1 verso blank); 19 cm. Title continues: between the United Colonies and Great-Britain, by His Excellency George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental forces: now President of the United States. Copied, by special permission, from the original papers preserved in the office of the secretary of state, Philadelphia. Vol. I [II]. Imprint of Vol. 2: Printed and sold by James Rivington... and Samuel Campbell. Edited by John Carey; cf. Evans 31423; Bristol B9738; Shipton & Mooney 48017. See Evans 29737 for the Boston 1795 edition. Title-pages foxed; bound by HG Bindery in half leather with marbled paper over boards; very good. Stock#OB825.

NY, Harcourt, Brace [1953]. First edition of O'Brian's second novel (precedes the first English edition, entitled Frozen Flame). A dark story of love and betrayal set against the brilliant colors of the Catalan country in southern France, where O'Brian himself lived in his later years. Cunningham 3a. Hard Cover. 250 pages; 21 cm. This copy has no remainder holes but does have an owner signature. Very good in dust jacket (with photo of author) also very good except for two small chips. StockOB947.

Dublin: Printed by T. Ewing, in Capel-Street. M. DCC. LXXI [1771]. Hard Cover. xiv, [1], 240 pages; 18 cm. "By John Millar, Esq. Professor of Laws in the University of Glasgow." "Upon the whole it has been the author's design to explain the causes of various manners and customs, rather than to enter into any formal discussion concerning the political advantages or disadvantages of which they have been productive..." Contents: Of the rank and condition of women in different ages; Of the jurisdiction and authority of a father over his children; Of the authority of a chief over the members of a tribe or village; Of the rise of a sovereign over an extensive society, and the advancement of a people in civilization and refinement; Of the condition of servants in different parts of the world. First published London that same year. Waterstain in bottom front margin of pages 63-83; internally clean and crisp. Re-sewn and handsomely rebound by Hope Bindery & Box Co., James DiMarcantonio, in mottled… Read More

Roma, Giovanni Zempel, 1787. Hard Cover. xvi, 271 pages, 2 maps (one folding); 29 cm. Bound with his Lettera dell' autore delle memorie Albane al cittadino Emmanuele Lucidi canonico dell' Ariccla ed autore delle memorie Aricine, Roma, A. Fulgoni, 1798, 1 preliminary leaf, 38 pages, 28 cm. Lozzi 32 (V. 1, p. 110). Very Good in vellum spine and marbled paper over boards. Stock#OB1045.

México: Editorial Séneca, 15 June 1940. Hard Cover. 187 p., [4] leaves of plates, illus. (2 color); 25 cm. Title printed in red & black. Second, revised, and first illustrated edition of Lorca's last cycle of poetry. Written while he was in residence in New York, 1929-1930, and taking courses at Columbia University; first published there in a bilingual edition in 1940. Bound in full red morocco; very good. Stock#OB897.

In Venetia: Francesco Baba, 1628. Hard Cover. [8], 308, [36] pages. (signatures: 4 leaves, A-Vv4; Qq2 misnumbered Rr2), index, 24.5 cm. Title continues: per l'acquisto di Terra Santa. Tradotta di francese in italiano dal signor Goi. Battista Parchi. Engraved title-page; imprint from colophon. Translated from Histoire de Sainct Louys roy de France, IX du nom, XLIIII du nombre. First pub. Paris, 1610. Pierre Matthieu (1563-1621) was French royal historiographer under Henri IV and Louis XIII. This history of Louis IX and the Seventh Crusade was published at a time when Islamic forces, Turkish and African, were threatening in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. This copy has deckle edges and wide borders but must have been near a fire as there are gray pre-scorch markings. Bound in beautiful full leather, blind-tooled, by Hope Bindery. stock#OB775.

London, Office, 37 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C., 1867. Also includes Vol. IV, July to December 1867. Zerah Colburn was an American engineer specialising in steam locomotive design as well as a technical journalist and publisher. This volume reports on and illustrates the engineering marvels of his era. It includes double-page spreads of The General Plan of the Paris Exposition; St Pancras Station, the largest single-span roof of iron; Roebling's suspension bridge at Cincinnati; 12 views of the Central Pacific line in California. New locomotives, steamships, bridges, and devices of all sorts are shown in sharp, clear engravings. Proposes a tunnel to France and other impossible ideas. Hard Cover. vii, 682; vii, 606 pages; illustrations; 34.5 cm. Very Good, rebound with new leather spine & corners. Stock#LL001/h.

MANUSCRIPT Brookline, Massachusetts, 1818-1822. Hard Cover. 167 pages, 2 leaves, an odd piece of paper plus a blotter; 20.5 x 16 cm. Charles Wild was an 1814 graduate of Harvard and of its medical school in 1818. In 1839 he became one of the "Homoeopathic Fraternity" of Massachusetts. This ledger shows the early business records of a young, newly-established physician in Brookline, in the Boston orbit, where he was respected for his knowledge, abilities and advice. Bound in marbled-paper covers over boards, leather spine, some waterstaining, but all legible; very good. Stock#OB634.

Louisville: Prentice & Weissinger, 1840. Soft Cover. 29 p.; 22 cm. The first text of Machiavelli published in the United States and a very rare book.Early Kentucky printing.   Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Stock#OB959. Good+, some foxing, original blue paper wrappers, early manuscript annotations on title-page.

NY, Garland, 1982. Contents: 1. Dydymus Mountain (=Thomas Hill), Gardeners Labyrinth; 2. Markham, English Husbandman (I & II); 3. Lawson, A New Orchard & Garden, with Marriott, Knots for Gardens, with Austen, Treatise of Fruit-trees together with Spirituall Use of an Orchard; 4. de Caus, Wilton Garden with New and Rare Inventions of Water-Works; 5. Worlidge, Systema Horti-culturae: or, Art of Gardening; 6. de La Quintinie, Compleat Gard'ner; 7. Nourse, Campania Foelix; 8. Gentil, Retired Gard'ner (2 vols.); 9. Laurence, Gardening Improv'd; 10. Switzer, Ichnographia Rustica: or, Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation (3 vols.); 11. Langley, New Principles of Gardening; 13. Switzer, Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks, Philosophical and Practical (2 vols.); 14. Morris, Essay upon Harmony As it relates chiefly to Situation and Building, with Trusler, Elements of Modern Gardening; 15. Serle, A Plan of Mr. Pope's Garden, with Gardens at Richmond, Kew, and Environs; 16.… Read More

A Colle, Et se trouve a Paris, Chez Froullé... 1788. Hard Cover. Four octavo volumes. v.1: [4], [i]-xvi, [1]-383, [1]; v.2: [4], [1]-259; v.3: [4, [1]-292; v.4 [4], [1]-366 pages. The Florentine Filippo Mazzei knew the United States more intimately, and was more involved in American life and politics, than any other Italian of the eighteenth century. He had come to know Franklin while representing the Grand Duke in London; he obtained land in Virginia next to young Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and imported laborers from Lucca to raise olives and vines. His Recherches, written after his return to Paris, where he was a champion of the new nation's cause, was the fullest account of the new Republic available to Europeans at the time. The first volume is a constitutional history of the thirteen colonies; the second and third rebut  the works of Mably and Raynal two books critical of America; the fourth is a collection of essays on a variety of subjects including a refutation of charges of anarchy in… Read More

Boston, Printed by Wells & Lilly. For Charles Ewer, 1820. First Edition. Hard Cover. 272 pages, interleaved with plain white paper (for notation); 24 cm. First official U.S. pharmacopoeia. Lyman Spalding headed the Committee of Publication created by the General Medical Convention meeting in Washington, D.C., January 1820. Based mainly on the Pharmacopoeia of the Massachusetts Medical Society (1808). Austin 1500; Garrison-Morton 1845; Norman 1691; Waller 1716; Shaw Shoemaker 2733. Bound in original boards with new leather spine; in slipcase. An early practitioner splashed some non-acidic substance affecting pages 163 / 176. Stock#OB783.

Romae, sumptibus Venantii Monaldini, MDCCLVII. [1757]. Hard Cover. xv, 184, 66 pages, illus.; 27 cm. Title continues: nunc Crypta-Ferrata D. Basilii Cardoni... disceptatio apologetica." Cardoni's work has special title-page: De Tusculano M.T. Ciceronis, nunc Crypta-Ferrata, adversus P. Joan Lucam Zuzzeri... D. Basilii Cardoni... disceptatio apologetica. Romae, sumptibus Venantii Monaldini, MDCCLVII. Tusculum, the ancient city in the Alban Hills near Rome and Cicero's summer place, yielded rich finds to early archaeologists, including the Greek coins amply illustrated here. Stock#OB1039. Very Good, bound in full contemporary vellum.

Harper's Franklin Square Library. Number 570. Thousands of young Americans first encountered Stevenson's adventure tales through this paper's series of adaptations, yet the only copy known to WorldCat/OCLC is at Yale. Hard cover; 88 pages plus four leaves of publisher's advertisements at end (the last one, pasted down, has a closed tear); 29 cm. Bookplate, "Library of Invincible Lodge, I. O. G. T. East Sumner, Me." pasted at top of title-page; heavy brown paper folded & pasted over the original paper boards. Spine chipping, fragile but holding. Stock#OB1025.