Target Practice for the British Troops
Amherst, Jeffrey. Manuscript document, signed. [London] Office of
Ordnance: July 6, 1774. $600
1 page folio with integral blank leaf (194mm x 339mm); signed by Amherst as Lieutenant
General of the Ordnance.
This document justifies the issue by John Parr, storekeeper of His Majesty's Ordnance
at Chatham, of targets and posts "for service of the Long Gun Practise of the First
Battalion Royal Regiment of Artillery." Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British
forces in North America from 1758-63, had played a very important part during the Seven
Years War in securing all Canada for Britain, and his North American experience led to his
advice being sought frequently by George III's government during the War of Independence.
Audouin, François Xavier. Du commerce
maritime, de son influence sur la richesse et la force des états, démontrée par
lhistoire des nations anciennes et modernes; situation actuelle des puissances de
lEurope, considérées dans leurs rapports avec la France et lAngleterre;
réflections sur larmement en course, sa législation et ses avantages. Paris:
Paris, Baudouin, an IX [1800]. $1,000
8vo (21 cm); 2 vols. [4], 280, [2]; [4], 258, [4] pages. Half titles present. Bound in
contemporary half heep over marbled paper-covered boards. Red and green labels on spine.
Few contemporary annotations in margins in ink. Rubbed at edges, but clean, sound and
entire. Cf. Goldsmiths-Kress library of economic literature ; no.
18002.1.
Not found in bibliographies of Americana, yet text includes extensive comment on the
American War of Independence and on the Compagnie des Indes.
Bailly, Jean Sylvain (1736-1793). Histoire de l'Astronomie
ancienne, depuis son origine jusqu'a l'établissment de l'école d'Alexandrie
... Paris: De Bure, 1781.
Second edition. Quarto (26 cm); xxiv, 527, [1] pages, and 3 full-page
engraved plates. Woodcut head pieces and ornaments. Bound in
contemporary mottled calf, tooled in gilt on spine with gilt-stamped
leather title label. Lightly scuffed over boards and worn at corners.
Marbled endleaves, speckled edges. Title page and three plate leaves
toned at edges, otherwise a clean and unblemished copy. Reference:
Brunet I, 615 ("on préfère la seconde édition, parce qu'elle contient
des augmentations.")
Introductory volume of Bailly's monumental history of astronomy, here
in its second, enlarged edition. The project developed into five
volumes, including his histories of modern and Asian astronomy. A
pioneer figure in History of Science, Jean Sylvain Bailly became mayor
of Paris in the tumult of the French Revolution. He was guillotined in
the Terror of 1793. A lunar crater is named in his honor. (4811) $350.00
Explaining America to France
Crèvecoeur, J Hector St John de. Voyage dans la haute Pensylvanie et dans
l'état de New-York : par un membre adoptif de la nation Onéida . Paris:
Maradan, 1801. $1,500

First Edition. 20cm; 3 volumes. Complete including half-titles, 11 engraved
plates and maps (some folding) and 5 tables (3 folding). Frontispiece portrait of George
Washington. Portraits of Onandaga and Oneida leaders. Scenes of the Hudson Valley and
Niagara Falls. References: Sabin 17501 ("much information and personal gossip not
readily found elsewhere.... No other writer has so well described the Indian great
councils"); Howes C-884; Siebert Sale 216.
A French immigrant to the United States, Crevecoeur effectively defined the emerging
American national character in his Letters of an American Farmer (1791; we know of no
earlier or more elegant formulation of the 'melting pot' theory). He returned to France in
the 1790s and published there this three-volume account of the United States. The lively
and enjoyable text describes amazing landscapes, records conversations with remarkable
Americans, seeks to understand historical events, and penetrates deeply into the
civilization of Northeast American Indian nations. Contemporary tree calf with leather
labels, rubbed at extremities. Old ownership stamp on half titles. A very good set.
He Built an Asylum in Haiti
Moreau de Saint-Méry, M.L.E. (Médéric Louis Elie), 1750-1819. Éloges
de M. Turc de Castelveyre, et de M. Dolioules, fondateurs des deux hospices appelés
maisons de providence, au Cap-Français, isle Saint-Domingue. Paris: G. A. Rochette,
1790. $2,000
First edition. 20cm; 40 pages. Half title present. Paper slightly toned, with
few spots or blemishes. Bound in 20th-century marbled boards with leather label on spine.
Martin & Walter, Révolution française, 25156; Bissainthe, Bib.
haitienne, 7027. Not in Sabin, Lande, Gagnon.
First biography of Louis Turc de Castelveyre, known as Frere Chretien (1687-1755),
founder in 1735 of "La Providence," a large asylum and orphanage at
Cap-Français in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Cap-Haitien, Haiti). Brother
Chretien had gone to Montreal from France in 1719, and within five years he became
administrator of the Hôpital Général. After unfortunate administrative gambles, Brother
Chretien and the institution in his charge sank into debt, which chased him out of
Montreal and through France to Saint-Domingue. Turc intended to start a brewery at
Cap-Français to pay off his creditors, but he opened his house first to orphans and then
to the elderly and infirm. He raised funds for the incipient asylum and eventually
received government funding. The subject of the second sketch in the book, Dolioules,
founded a school for girls in Cap-Français.
Ovidius Naso, P.; Girolamo Pompei (1731-1788). L'epistole
d'Ovidio volgarizzate. Bassano: Remondini, 1785. $200
Octavo (22 cm); xxviii,
410 pages, and engraved frontispiece of the poet, book and muses. Engraved
device on title page, engraved ornaments throughout. Text in Italian and
Latin. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards, with title hand-tooled in
gilt directly on spine, rupturing the vellum along the edge of the gilt
ornament. Later owner's ink stamp on preliminary blanks and title page. Very
few spots or blemishes in text.
Translation (with original Latin text) of Ovid's Heroides by the
18th-century poet from Verona. Pompei wrote lyrics, tragedies, literary and
philosophical essays, and is best remembered for his translations of
Plutarch, Ovid and other classical texts. Heroides is Ovid's book of
imaginary letters of complaint from the mistreated women of classical
mythology addressed to their heroic husbands and lovers, who have
abandoned them or misused them. With this book of fictional epistles,
Ovid invented a completely new literary mode, never seen before in
Classical literature.
Ricardo, David (1772-1823).On the principles of political economy,
and taxation. London: John Murray, 1817. $18,000
First edition 23cm; viii, 589, [14] pages. P7 and P8 appear to be cancels.
Errata on verso of last text page. Bound in later 19th-century half burgundy morocco over
marbled boards, with original label. Binding worn and scuffed, with rebuilt corners,
reinforced edges, and repaired joints and hinges. Title page somewhat dusty with some
marginal notations in ink. Ghosts of old cello-tape repairs (cello tape removed) in early
pages and on end leaves. Ownership stamp of Samuel M. Levin. Preserved in custom-made
clamshell case with leather label titled in gilt. References: PMM 277; Kress B 7029.
Ricardo's groundbreaking theory of value and distribution. "Ricardo was in a sense
the first 'scientific' economist.... [He] saw the study of economics as a pure science
whose abstractions were capable of quasi-mathematical proof" (Printing and the
Mind of Man, 277).
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Lettres Ècrites de la Montagne.
Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey [but pirated], 1765. $150
12mo (17 cm); 2 parts in one volume: vi, 231, [3
blank]; [2], 153, [1] pages. Bound in half calf over boards, worn and
scuffed, yet strong and entire. Pages evenly toned, with some light
foxing present. See Dufour, 237.
One of about five pirated editions of Rousseau's letters on political
philososphy, first published by Rey in December 1764 and widely
plundered by unscrupulous publishers in the ensuing year.
Valli family of Cortona. Ricordi di casa. [Cortona]:
1765-1804. $800
Manuscript on paper. 28 cm; 100 leaves. Bound in 1/4
vellum over paste paper and titled in manuscript on upper panel. Binding
cracked and frayed. First 45 leaves in hand of Giovanni Francesco Maria
Petrucci; latter leaves in several hands.
A family book recording land transactions, testaments and property
transfers among the Valli family of Villa Vaglie, in the center of
Cortona, Italy. The secretary, Giovanni Petrucci, copied out the initial
leaves in 1765, faithfully reproducing testaments, acquisitions and
sales arching back to 1703. The book continues in Petrucci's hand until
1773, followed by less professional scribes until the closing entry,
dated 1804. The entries are rich with proper names and extensive details
of family relationships. While most entries regard property or real
estate, there are excursions into the reflective mode (in the context of
testaments). In all, the text provides a vivid account of the land
holding society of Cortona in the 18th century, and of their commercial
relations.