Calcutta: G.H. Huttmann, Military Orphan Press, 1836. Hardcover. First edition. Sir William Henry "Thuggee" Sleeman (1788 - 1856) sailed to India to work for the East India Company early in life. He fought in the Gorkha War, remained in India, and joined a British campaign to investigate and prosecute "the Thugs" in Central India. "The Thugs" were a group of people notorious for befriending travelers, then robbing and murdering them. Sleeman spent most of his military career studying and apprehending thugs. This book collects correspondence between Sleeman and various informants, depositions, accounts of crimes committed and arrests, observations about the Thugs, lists of Thug families, and a list of Thug vocabulary with definitions. Bound in blue cloth covered boards. Professionally rebacked using the original spine and boards. Spine has faded to tan and boards are dark blue. Original paper title label to spine. Some soiling and rubbing to spine and boards. Wear and fraying to corners and edges of boards. Light dampstain to top and bottom margins of some pages. Sporadic foxing and occasional pencil markings. Includes three fold-out genealogies, some with short closed tears. 270 pages plus 514 pages of appendices. IND/070722. Very Good. More

Buenes Aires: Marina Soria, 2016. Unique. An engaging and personal work by world renowned calligrapher and book artist Marina Soria. It is a light blue wooden box with a glass window that opens to reveal calligraphic text and monograms done in watercolor and gouache on Strathmore paper. It is decorated with compartments containing old sewing threads and nibs. There is also a found object - a delicately embroidered white handkerchief. The artists writes: "The monograms are made from the initials of my daughters and my husband´s names. My daughters: MFJ: Mora Fernández Jurado / CFJ: Catalina Fernández Jurado / MFJ: Marina Fernández Jurado. GFJ: Gustavo Fernández Jurado. My monogram is at the back of the box: MS The text is a quote my granny used to say to me when I was a child. The original text is in Spanish "Cosiendo y descosiendo la niña va aprendiendo" Translation: "stitching and unstitching the little girl keeps on learning." In fine condition. Measures 32.5 x 12 x 3 cm. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marina Soria is a seasoned artist and educator with degrees in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. Not content to just immerse herself in learning calligraphy at international conferences, and through courses with renown calligraphers, she studied Eastern principles of Beauty in sumi-e (Japanese painting). She distilled and blended these principles with her rich experience and background in the fine arts, typography and graphic arts, employing unique approaches and techniques. She has also dabbled in the textile arts, creating a metaphor for weaving; letters as stitches and text as if it were a textile. Her works, vibrating with a love for nature and exploding with life and color, can be found in calligraphy collections in museums, universities, and libraries in the U.S., Europe, and South America. Marina has received numerous national and international awards, and has been featured widely in calligraphic arts publications. A prolific artist, experimental calligrapher, book artist, and educator, her goal is to mingle diverse disciplines to challenge the limits of conceptual art and technique. ARTISTSB/070522. Fine. More

Buenos Aires: Marina Soria, 2014. This is one of two versions made of this book, each unique. The text is a poem written Ms. Soria about two women - one living in the East and the other in the West - both sharing the same dream and experience. It reads in part: "Her mind was empty, her senses awaken, her breath rhythmic. She lay on her back on the green carpet. Light slightly filtered through the cherry tree leaves." The work is a beautiful accordion book created with watercolor and pastels on Magniani Bianca and Canson papers using a Japanese brush to represent the dream of the lady in the East and pen nibs for the lady in the West. This lovely calligraphic text is bound in purple and green batiked cloth (done by the artist) with a light green ribbon and a title tag that wraps around the book. Housed in a purple paper portfolio that is held closed by a purple and green batiked ribbon with a tiny metal elephant button. In fine condition. Size: 31 x 9.5 cm closed, 31 x 93 cm open. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marina Soria is a seasoned artist and educator with degrees in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. Not content to just immerse herself in learning calligraphy at international conferences, and through courses with renown calligraphers, she studied Eastern principles of Beauty in sumi-e (Japanese painting). She distilled and blended these principles with her rich experience and background in the fine arts, typography and graphic arts, employing unique approaches and techniques. She has also dabbled in the textile arts, creating a metaphor for weaving; letters as stitches and text as if it were a textile. Her works, vibrating with a love for nature and exploding with life and color, can be found in calligraphy collections in museums, universities, and libraries in the U.S., Europe, and South America. Marina has received numerous national and international awards, and has been featured widely in calligraphic arts publications. A prolific artist, experimental calligrapher, book artist, and educator, her goal is to mingle diverse disciplines to challenge the limits of conceptual art and technique. ARTISTSB/072622. Fine. More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903. Hardcover. Bound in three quarter red morocco over marbled paper covered boards with gilt titles, raised bands, and gilt floral devices to spines. Minor wear to spine ends, corners, hinges, and edges of boards of most volumes. Eight volumes have at least one detached (but present) board and / or loose spine piece. Several volumes have cracked or starting hinges. Chips to spine ends of some volumes. Clean, bright interiors. Previous owner's signature in pen dated 1904 to front free endpapers of each volume. Frontispiece engravings with captioned tissue guards and additional illustrations to some volumes. Marbled endpapers and top edges gilt. An attractive set; however, restoration is needed on many volumes. A good reading copy. LIT/041719 This set will require an extra shipping fee. Very Good Minus. More

Bennington, VT: The Bird Press, 2000. Since 1997, The Bird Press has been an artist-run publishing project that has focused on hand printed artists’ books. All projects utilize some inherent aspect of the book and often take the form of open-ended collaborations with writers. Each project is a response to the last, both in form and content, in order for the work to continually evolve. Poetry, broadly defined, is a major inspiration for most of the work. Editions between 15-40 utilize various print media including: flatbed offset lithography, stone lithography, etching, letterpress, wood blocks, and digital pigment printing. Book artist Thorsten Dennerline creates paintings, drawings, and prints in addition to artists’ books. He has exhibited work across the U.S. as well as in Chile and Denmark. His work is represented in numerous collections including Yale University Library, the Library of Congress, UCLA, Stanford University, and the Kunstindustri Musset (Denmark). Number 26 of 40 copies in the regular edition. There are also 10 special bindings and 5 unique artists proof bindings. Signed and numbered by the book artist. A collection of eight poems by Danish poet, typographer, art critic, and translator Peter Laugesen (1942 - ). He was awarded the Danish Critics Prize for Literature in 2003. These poems were written in Denmark in 1999 specifically for this collaborative project with artist Thorsten Dennerline. He describes his eight etchings in this book: “[They] are meant to be an accompaniment to the text that functions as a collaboration similar to the way musicians might play together.” Bound in quarter vellum over blue cloth boards, which are laced into a vellum covered spine with five strips of alum-tawed thongs. The endbands are buttonhole stitched with waxed yellow thread. The front cover is titled in black and the rear cover has a black star printed near the bottom edge. The text is in both Danish and English. The Danish text is printed on translucent Seikishu Japanese paper and the English translation is printed on a thicker stock. This allows the reader to view the poems in both languages mirroring each other through the transparent paper. Unpaginated. [50 pages.] Size: 9.75 x 10 inches. In fine condition. ARTB/032417. Fine. More

Seaton, UK: Old School Press, 2018. Paperback. Number 22 of 60 copies. Numbered and signed by the poet, artists, translator, and printer. This collaboration between Mexican poet, Carmen Boullousa and English artist, Philip Hughes was inspired by space travel. According to the introduction, both the poet and artist decided to create this book after viewing new images of the planets and moons taken during recent space missions. The first step in this collaboration was Hughes's paintings, which are colorful abstractions of photographic planetary landscapes. Boullosa's poetry draws on Hughes's imagery and also on her research into celestial bodies in mythology, ancient rituals attached to their worship, and perfumes used during these rites. She cites Hesiod's "Theogony" and "Orphic Hymns" as being influential. This is the third book that Boullousa, Hughes, and translator, Psiche Hughes have collaborated on.  This work is comprised of an introductory booklet and twelve folders containing poetry and artwork, each devoted to planets or moons including: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Europa, Saturn, Enceladus, Rhea, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. All text is letterpress printed in English and in Spanish. The contents include 32 artworks by Phillip Hughes, printed digitally from paintings, pastels, and digital collages, 13 poems, an introduction, and a list of included celestial bodies with details about relevant space missions. The poetry was hand-set in Hunt Roman type on Somerset Velvet Radiant White and the images were printed on Somerset Velvet Enhanced and mounted on Velin Arches Noir. Housed in an aluminum box with magnetic closure, which was produced by Graphic Metal Company, Ltd. with a blue silk-screened design to the front panel. Phillip Hughes (1936 - ) is a self-taught English artist that often paints unusual landscapes from remote areas and archaeological sites; however, this is his first series of work dealing with extra-terrestrial topography. For this book, he was heavily influenced by photography from the New Horizons mission (2015) which provided close-up images of Pluto as well as images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2016), the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn (2016), the probe Dawn to the dwarf planet Ceres (2016), images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and more. His work is held in international collections including The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Library of Congress. Mexican poet, novelist, and playwright, Carmen Boullousa (1954 - ), often addresses issues of feminism and gender roles in her work. When researching celestial bodies for this project, she was pleased to learn about Tapputi, a Babylonian woman who is considered to be the first female chemist and perfumer recorded in history. It is perhaps due to her that Boullousa chose to include references to perfume within her poetry.  Folder Size: 12.5 x 14 inches. Box Size: 14.75 x 16.5 x 3.75 inches. Fine. More

London: Chapman and Hall, 1880. Hardcover. FIRST EDITION. Three volumes in the original cloth. This book was never reprinted in its original triple decker form (Sadleir). It is the last book of Trollope’s wonderful Palliser series. The six books of the series follow the lives of Plantagenet Palliser, later the Duke of Omnium, and his wife, Lady Glencora. She is one of Trollope’s most memorable characters, full of life and personality. The book is bound in dark blue-green cloth with block design on front cover, and spine with gilt title, author, and publisher. The bindings are in very good condition with some bumping to boards and spine edges. The interior pages are quite clean with the usual aging to the page margins. In Volume I the rear hinge is cracked, although the binding is otherwise tight. There is a diagonal tear across the top right of the first page of each volume, with a few words from the first four lines of the recto missing. Volumes II and III are tender but holding tight. Very nice except for the odd tears to the first page of each book. Volume I: 320 pages; Volume II: 327 pages; Volume III: 312 pages. This set may require an extra shipping fee. LIT/010913. Very Good. More

London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., 1864. Hardcover. FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY to Louis Tennyson d’Eyncourt inscribed: “The gift of the author ... to L.T. d’Eyncourt.” The recipient was the author’s cousin and a member of the part of the family which inherited the property, fortune, and aristocratic ambitions of their grandfather. Charles was the older brother of the renowned poet Alfred Tennyson. Very good in original green cloth boards with lightly rubbed gilt title to spine and gilt rules to front board. Minor wear to corners and edges of boards, with a few light spots of damp staining to rear board. Bump to top edge of front board. Bookplate of C.J. Sturman to front paste down. 102 pages plus 2 pages of notes. POE/043009. Very Good. More

Philadelphia: Joseph Rakestraw (tract 2), 1820 and 1822. Hardcover. 35153. Second tract published by Joseph Rakestraw. RARE AMERICANA. This volume includes two tracts written in 1820 and 1822 that provide an engrossing account of an important debate of the day on whether the Bible requires the observance of the Sabbath and, if so, whether it is proper for a civil government to enforce this observance. Tract one reprints the text of an essay appearing in the Boston Patriot that holds the position that the enforcement of the Sabbath is “not warrantable from Scripture.” It is followed by two responses in disagreement. The second tract of essays on the Sabbath’s observance first reprints the Boston Patriot essay, and then prints several essays for and against the position of the writer in the Boston Patriot. Both tracts are in very good condition, with aging and some foxing. The front and rear pages of tract two are more heavily foxed. There is also foxing to the front and rear pastedowns. In a later black cloth binding with very light bumping and rubbing and the gilt title “Sunday Police” to front board. Tract one: 36 pages; tract two: 48 pages. 12mo. Black cloth boards with gilt title to front board. AMHIST/022609. Very Good. More

Toronto: George A. Walker, 2020. Number 23 of 35 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. An additional 10 hors commerce copies were made and lettered A–J. In this handsome pictorial biography, noted wood engraver George A. Walker celebrates the life of Mary Pickford (1892-1979), a silent film star whose groundbreaking contributions to the motion picture industry earned her the title ‘Queen of the Movies’. Toronto-born Gladys Louise Smith, who would later come to be known as Mary Pickford, first burst onto the silent-film scene at the tender age of 17. But Pickford was more than just ‘the girl with the curls’. In addition to her acting career—a brilliant success that spanned 52 features—Pickford also helped establish the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as United Artists studio. In this edition Walker tells the story of Pickford’s life in a sequential narrative not unlike the silent films of old, complete with inter-titles. The 87 black-and-white wood engravings recall the monochromatic media of Pickford’s films, and echo the experience of interpreting stories visually. The number 87 was Pickford’s age when she died and the number 35 (copies of the limited edition) refers to the 35mm film on which silent movies were shot. The engravings are hand printed on 250 gsm Revere Felt mouldmade paper created at the 600 year old Cartiere Magnani mill in Italy. The deluxe book is beautifully bound in blue Asahi silk cloth and is housed in a protective clamshell box with a drawer that contains authentic ephemera from Pickford's career. The ephemera included with this copy include a typed letter signed by Pickford written in 1935 to Mr. Carl Gray thanking him for a letter about her article, "Why Die?" featured in Liberty magazine; two United Artists publicity postcards; a film cell from an early 20th century Charlie Chaplin film (this type of film is flammable; however, a single cell should not pose a problem for most collections); a postcard of the Pickford residence sent by a women who took a Hollywood field trip; an 8-page "Echos Programme" (No. 68) featuring Pickford; an original Canadian stamp featuring an image of Pickford by George Walker - mounted on a signed print; a small vintage color illustration of Pickford; and a reproduction of a bi-fold publicity release for her performance in "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall." The book features hand marbled end leaves and beveled cover boards with a wood engraving print sunk into the cover. In fine condition. Book size: 6.25 X 7.5 X 1.75 inches. Unpaginated(160 pages printed recto). PRI/071122. More

London: Methuen and Co., 1895. Hardcover. FIRST EDITION. This is a collection of fifteen science fiction short stories, many of which originally appeared in periodicals, including the Pall Mall Gazette, Pall Mall Budget, and the St. James Gazette. This was the author’s first book of short stories. Stories include: The Stollen Bacillus, the Flowering of the Strange Orchid, the Triumphs of a Taxidermist, A Deal in Ostriches, the Flying Man, Aepyornis Island, A Moth - Genus Novo, the Treasure in the Forest, and more. Very good in original dark blue cloth boards with gilt title to spine and front board. Elaborate Art Nouveau style illustration to spine and front board. Light damp stain to front board, minor rubbing to edges of boards and spine ends, and crease to spine. The interior is clean overall with a few spots of foxing to first and last few pages. Small chip to front free endpage. 275 pages plus 32 pages of ads dated September 1895. LIT/092308. Very Good. More

Risbury, England: Whittington Press, 1994. Hardcover. Number 23 of 95 copies of the deluxe edition. There were 975 total copies printed including the regular edition. This is one of the special copies of the annual publication of Matrix, one of the foremost publications on the book arts during its 36 year existence. Sadly, Matrix 36, published in 2020, was the last annual edition of the Matrix series. After 36 years, Whittington Press owners, John and Rose Randle, decided to discontinue producing this fine annual for printers and bibliophiles on the book arts that compiled articles, illustrations, paper and typography samples and book reviews. This issue includes a number of articles by such well-known bibliophiles as Ruari McLean, John Dreyfus, Sebastian Carter, David Butcher, William Peterson, and Roderick Cave. Interspersed throughout are photographs, printing samples, and illustrations. There is a loose print and the volume's prospectus inserted in a back pocket. Quarter bound in magenta Oasis leather with magenta and orange marbled boards. The deluxe copy includes a separately bound book of wood engravings for Virgil's Georgics by Edward Craig. Both volumes are housed in a stiff board slipcase. Fine condition save for the slightest wear to Georgics. Matrix volume measures 8, x 11 inches. BOB/102621. Fine. More