The Eighteenth Century
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 l’histoire des nations anciennes et modernes; situation actuelle des puissances de l’Europe, considérées dans leurs rapports avec la France et l’Angleterre; réflections sur l’armement 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.
