New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. first edition. Two volumes, large octavo, (25cm x 17cm), xii, (4), 400; xii, 397 pages. This detailed pair of volumes called on experts in many fields to include 18 chapters, which include William Stoddard on Women in Their Business Affairs, Lillian Betts on the Principles of Housekeeping, Constance Cary Harrison on Society and Social Usages, P.G. Hubert on Occupations for Women, Kate Douglas Wiggin on the Training of children, Elizabeth Bisland, who raced Nellie Bly around the world for their publications post-Jules Verne, Thomas Wentworth Higginson on Books and reading, Samuel Parsons Jr. on the Home Grounds, and Helen Churchill Candee on House Building. There are 400 illustrations, including a dozen color chromolithographs, plus myriad drawings and photographs in black and white. The books are in extremely good condition. Most of the color plates retain their laid-in tissue guards, which have left left acidic stains on facing pages, and there are a few sprinkles of foxing on the endpapers, and a narrow paper split at the gutter margin threads on page 161. Otherwise,there is not a mark or dog-ear or stain in the pair of books, which is one of the most interesting Victorian... More

John & Arthur Arch, John Hatchard, Loddi ges and Cooke, 1817 - 1821. 83/4 x 6 3/4", 22cm x 16.7cm, six volumes. These are the first six volumes of the 20-volume Botanical Cabinet, which continued to be issued yearly until 1833 by Loddiges, which was a leading plant nursery of England. The nursery had its gardens and hothouses at Hackney, at that time north of the city, and now a northern London borough. At the time that The Botanical Cabinet was being issued, the nursery was at the height of its quite amazing powers, receiving plants from around the world -- including the United States -- and operating immense hothouses for the cultivation of tropical plants. This set of six contains 599 of 600 hand-colored illustrations, one (a picture of a heath) presumably mislaid by the first printer or binder, not swiped by the stickly-fingered. The entries are meticulous in giving a plant's history and home territory. They have on occasion been criticized for spilling over into religious praise, but this affects only a minority of the texts explaining the plants, is not inttrusive, and is most vividly part of the period. The plant descriptions are interesting, brief, and couched... More

Paris. A collection of five works by the French Symbolist poet (1892-1960), laid in a custom blue buckram clamshell case lined with patterned paste paper and a somewhat edgeworn pebbled morocco spine, and with a leather title patch reading "Oeuvres de Paul Fort", somewhat rubbed. The works, each measuring 29cm x 19cm, are in French and in wrappers, and were destined for members of the "Groupe des Amis de Paul Fort". They are as follows: LA POESIE DE PARIS, Paris: Aux Editions de la Marjolaine, 1930, #91/651 copies, 55pp., drawings by Paul Velsch, inscribed by Fort, signed and dated 21 May 1931. CONTES DE MA SOEUR L'OIE, Paris: Armand Jules Klein, 1930, unpaged, with a lithograph of Paul Fort, other illustrations by Gino Severini, 42 / 530 copies, initialled, with a cancel leaf identifying the owner of this copy, and with a long inscription and poem, signed and initialled by Fort. This copy is somewhat foxed on the earliest pages, and the rear wrapper is slightly torn. L'AMOUR ENFANT DE BOHEME. Paris: Armand Jules Klein,1930, quarto, unpaged, 59/500 copies, initialled by Fort on the colophon, inscribed and signed by him on the endpaper, and with a maxim, handwritten and initialled... More

Paris: Chez Duchesne, 1755. 16mo. Two volumes: cxxiv, 283, errata; 407, (5)pp. Volume I contains " Description de la Germanie et des Moeurs des ses Habitans", in French, paired with the text in Latin: "De Situ Moribus et Populis Germaniae". Volume II, in the same vein, contains "Vie de Julius Agricola", in French, followed by "Julii Agricolae Vita Scriptore Tacito", in Latin. The books are bound in mottled calf with paneled spines,and with oval leather inserts in both front and rear boards (probably replacing long-gone portrait cameos). These were made by bookbinder Joanna Bliss of Connecticut in 1981, who restored the bindings. All edges are stained red and there are ribbon markers in each volume. Endpapers are marbled paper of the period, and the books retain their half-titles. Faint waterstain to the bottom margin up to page 6 of volume 2, and minor wear to spine ends, else very good. An attractive pair, particularly with the leather inserts on the covers. The bottom half of the front board of the second volume is darkened, (and is visible on one of the accompanying photographs). Two volumes:. More

New York: copyright 1847. Published by J.S. Redfield, Clinton Hall, 136 Nassau Street, New York. This a set of wooden alphabet blocks, covered with paper on which alphabets, words and small engravings are printed. The blocks are in their original cardboard carton, worn but nearly intact and with a couple of corners mended long ago with thread. On the cover, texts on the borders read: "Amusements that interest but never tire", "Mind is developed by its own action", "Home toys to promote home joys" and "Educate and restrain by pleasing employments". The boxtop lining reads "The Parents' and Children's Guide to a pleasing and beneficial use of these blocks, designed for children from two to eight years old", with instructions for use. Wickham was an educator, and a member of the New York State Teacher's Association, He published a previous set, called "Alphabet on Blocks", in Sag Harbor, NY, about 1839, of which the OCLC records a single set, at Yale. The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal owns a similar but slightly larger copy dated two years earlier. This set seems to be unrecorded. It consists of 21 large wooden blocks (2 3/4" x 1 5/16" x 5/8"), covered... More