Calf Bindings

London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850. 2 volume set, 9 inches tall. A superb tree calf binding by the great firm of Hayday with gilt raised bands, extra gilt panels and contrasting labels. A striking gilt roll frames the boards. Illustrated by Thackeray himself with vignettes and full page engraved plates throughout. Light foxing. The classic tale of a young English gentleman, Arthur Pendennis, born in the country who sets out for London to seek his place in life and society encountering a satirical picture of human character and aristocratic society.

Milan: Classici Italiani, 1806. Half vellum, 8 1/2 inches tall. A bright half vellum binding with a striking red label and an extra gilt smooth back. Slightly grubby boards and light foxing. Portrait. This is the masterpiece of the extraordinary Tassoni, the late 16th and early 17th century Italian poet. La Secchia Rapita , (in English: 'The Rape of the Bucket' or 'The Stolen Bucket') was hugely popular throughout Europe. In the original Italian.

London: Adam and Charles Black, 1893. 2 volume set, 8 inches tall. An exceptionally nice Victorian full calf with gilt raised bands, bright twin labels and delicate gilt tooling to the panels. With the gilt blocked heraldic device for Oriel College, Oxford on the upper boards. With the armorial bookplate of Edward Seymour Forster, the famous Greek classicist and scholar, and a neat prize inscription to him on the first blank. A superb set on this great study on the classic Greek poets.

London: Cassell & Company, 1887 - Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1917. 45 volumes, 5 1/2 inches to 8 inches. An extraordinary and unique set of first editions of works by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, also known as 'Q', all in uniform beautiful half morocco bindings by Zaehnsdorf. With raised bands and glorious floral gilt tooling in the Art-Nouveau style. Many have their original cloth covers bound in. All have the bookplate of Charles Plumptre Johnson. Arthur Quiller-Couch was a Cornishman and prolific novelist and poet. In 1887 he published 'Dead Man's Rock', a romance in the style of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. He continued to write popular novels and poetry as well as celebrated anthologies of poetry and Fairy-Tales throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. A unique collection, in superb bindings, in absolutely pristine condition.

London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1895. 2 volume set, 11 inches tall. A pristine and very good looking half mottled calf by the Geneva bookbinder Asper with gilt raised bands, maroon label, gilt framed panels and gilt top edges. Embellished with 18 full page plates by E. R. Hughes. A splendid English language edition of 1000 copies of the great work of the 15th century Italian poet best known for his 50 celebrated bawdy short stories, here first translated into English.

London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1894. 2 volume set, 11 inches tall. A pristine and very good looking half mottled calf by the Geneva bookbinder Asper with gilt raised bands, maroon label, gilt framed panels and gilt top edges. Embellished with 18 full page plates by E. R.Hughes. A splendid English language edition of 1000 copies of the great work of the early 16th century Italian writer of bawdy short stories, which include some of the original versions of well known fairy stories. This translation into English is the first collected English language version of Straparola's 'Nights', 'The Pleasant Nights' or 'Facetious Nights', as they are also known.

London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1892. 2 volume set, 11 inches tall. A pristine and very good looking half mottled calf by the Geneva bookbinder Asper with gilt raised bands, maroon label, gilt framed panels and gilt top edges. Embellished with a portrait and 14 full page plates. A splendid English language edition of 1000 copies of the great work of the early 16th century French renaissance satirist Francis Rabelais. Described as the first great French prose writer he revelled in the bawdy, grotesque, extravagant and robust tales that he is still celebrated for.

London: Cassell, Petter & New York, c.1890. 2 volume set, 8 1/2 inches tall. A lovely Victorian tree calf with gilt raised bands, sparkling twin labels and extra gilt panels. A gilt roll frames the boards and the gilt prize block of Rossall School on the upper boards. With the prize bookplate of Rossall school on the first paste down endpaper. Embellished with colour maps showing St. Paul's missionary journeys.

London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838. 2 volume set, 8 1/2 inches tall. A handsome early Victorian half calf from the recently dispersed Country House library of Bridehead in Dorset, with gilt raised bands, twin labels and delicate gilt tooling to the panels. Pink speckled edges. With the armorial bookplate of Robert Williams of Bridehead. A fine copy of the first edition of this treatise 'Designed Chiefly for the use of Students in Theology'.

Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871. 25 volume set, 7 1/2 inches tall. A very handsome Victorian half calf in pristine condition with gilt raised bands, twin labels and gilt tooling incorporating a thistle to the panels. Embellished with engraved frontispieces to each volume. An attractive set of the most popular novels of the the 19th century.

London: Rivington, Hatchards, Egerton et al., 1803. 2 volume set, 8 1/2 inches tall. A very handsome Georgian tree calf with gilt bands, twin labels and jaunty gilt tooling to the panels. Blue speckled edges. Neat former owner's signature at the head of the title-pages. A particularly nice set of this interesting and curious work.

London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1869. 22 volume set, 8 1/4 inches tall. A bight half straight grain calf with gilt raised bands and gilt tooling to the panels. Gilt top edges. Illustrated profusely throughout with vignettes and full page engravings. A fine set of the works of one of Victorian England's greatest novelists.

London: The Villon Society, 1890. 6 volume set, 7 1/2 inches tall. In a very smart half crushed morocco with raised bands and neat gilt framed panels, gilt top edges, the remainder untrimmed. This is the first English complete set of the novels, or novellas, of this extraordinary 16th century Italian writer on whose stories several of Shakespeare's plays were based, most famously, 'Much Ado about Nothing', 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Twelfth Night'. This work was published in a small edition on hand-made paper by Private Subscription and for Private Circulation only owing to the sexually explicit and outrageous nature of the tales. The set is not numbered. A splendid and scarce set.

London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1850. Half calf, 7 inches tall. A charming copy of one of Thackeray's popular Christmas books in a Victorian half calf with raised bands, extra gilt panels and label. Embellished with 13 full page colour plates. A humorous look at this respectable English family voyaging in foreign climes.

London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. Ltd., (1913). Full calf, 6 1/2 inches tall. Full early 20th century full limp calf with a blocked gilt design in the shape of an ornate mirror on the upper cover. The gilt title is on the slightly faded smooth back. There is an ink inscription "Xmas 1913 ....from Spratty" is found on the reverse of the front free endpaper. Mason notes that this edition was bound in blue linen boards, but this copy has been bound in an attractive blocked green leather.

London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1899-1901. 12 volume set, 9 inches tall. A very handsome Edwardian half calf binding with raised bands, twin labels and delicate gilt tooling to the panels, top edges gilt. Foxing to the preliminaries. An illustrated frontispiece to each volume. A splendid set of this great 18th century writer of picaresque novels which were hugely popular and which influenced later generations of British novelists, including Charles Dickens.

Londres (London): J. J. Stockdale, 1814. Full calf, 7 inches tall. A splendid 'Romantic' binding with gilt raised bands, red label and dense and intricate gilt tooling to the panels and blind tooling to the boards within gilt detail. French writer and classicist Jacques Delille's poem illustrates his Royalist sympathies and distaste for the Republican regime that forced him into exile. Embellished with an engraved portrait and 2 further engraved plates. With the neat ink inscription 'G. H. Wheeler' on the half title. A beautiful copy in fine condition, in the original French.

Edinburgh: William Paterson & and London: H. Sotheran & Co., 1874, 74, 75, 75, 79. 5 volumes, 8 inches tall. A sparkling half crushed morocco by Ramage with gilt raised bands, superb gilt framed panels and gilt top edge. 5 limited edition titles 'Printed for Subscribers Only' from the series 'Dramatists of the Restoration'. The outrageous and often sexually explicit texts were written for the stage during the reign of Charles II following the puritan interregnum. They are celebrated for their wit and brilliant humour, hence the need to be privately printed, and again today are rarely performed through fear of offending today's delicate audiences. A very nice collection of these scarce editions in pristine condition.