Certain books stand as true milestones over the many hundreds of years of printed history. They bear significant importance in human civilization as testaments to our glorious achievements in science, religion, literature and cultural progress. We are proud to have the following books in our Special Collections and they are only available for viewing and educational exhibitions at this moment. Offers are welcome and will be considered on a case by case basis.
Oliver BYRNE (1810-1880). The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid. London: [printed by Charles Whittingham for] William Pickering, 1847. Small 4to. (9 x 7 ¼ inches; 230 x 183mm).
First edition of “one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century” (McLean).
Oliver Byrne was an Irish mathematician and engineer who focused greatly on improvements in educational materials for school children. In this marvelous effort, he elucidated the first six books of Euclid’s Elements by coloured graphic explanations of each geometric principle. He designated the angles and lines of geometric figures instead of usual letters throughout the entire book, envisioning such a visual appeal will make it easier for schoolchildren to learn plane geometry.
Exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London 1851, the book was praised for the beauty and artistry of the printing. It was quite unusual of a Science book to showcase such glamour and lavish richness of decorated printing and stands as a true masterpiece of the Victorian era.
The book has become the subject of renewed interest in recent years for its innovative graphic conception and its style which prefigures the modernist experiments of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements.
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Francois Balthazar SOLVYNS (1760-1824). Les Hindous, ou description de leurs moeurs, coutumes et cérémonies. Paris: : chez l’Auteur, 1808-12. 48 parts in 4 volumes, 2°, Large Folio (566 x 410mm). Rare, complete copy in fine condition.
First edition of arguably the greatest book on India ever printed.
A native of Belgium, Balthazar Solvyns set sail for India in 1790, arriving in Calcutta the following year. Having undertaken a commission in 1792 for Alexander Kyd, the Surveyor-General in Calcutta, in which he provided illustrations for a report written for the East India Company on Kyd’s expedition to Penang and the Andaman Islands, Solvyns noticed the keen interest shown by the British in Indian costumes and ways of life. This led him to produce his comprehensive work on India, A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings Descriptive of the Manners, Customs, and Dress of the Hindoos (Calcutta, 1799, 4°), encouraged by the orientalist, Sir William Jones. He issued the enlarged and improved French folio edition, Les Hindous, in 48 parts from 1808-1812, with 288 coloured plates (292 in total with titles) and an English translation by his English wife, Mary Anne Greenwood Solvyns. Abbey Travel 430; Brunet V, 432; Colas 2767; not in Lipperheide.
Out of the four volumes, the first is devoted to professions, including images of tradesmen and their tools, princes, and doctors. The second is attributed to dances, religious devotees, different types of musical instruments, and customs associated with marriage and death. The third volume depicts transportation and entertainment, including types of boats, games, modes of transportation, games, and various methods of smoking. And the fourth looks at classes of domestic servants and native flora and fauna.
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AESOP (c.620-564 BCE) and Francis BARLOW (c.1626-1702, artist).Aesop’s Fables with his Life: in English, French and Latin. Translated by Thomas Philipott and Robert Codrington. London: Printed by William Godbid for Francis Barlow, 1665., Folio (370 x 240mm).
Pre-fire First edition and large paper issue of Barlow’s masterpiece on Aesop’s Fables.
The first edition of 1665-1666 is a rare survivor as nearly all copies were destroyed in the 1666 London fire. According the Yale Center for British Art who has a similar copy, the first edition was largely destroyed in the London fire, this copy has the Rob. Codrington (trans.) entry on the title page, consistent with the pre-fire first edition. The Fables themselves are in English verse (by Mrs Behn) and French and Latin prose, each followed by a moral. Hodnett describes Barlow’s anatomically-skilled drawings as ‘the special glory of the Aesop illustrations’ and affirms ‘No artist has responded with more sensitivity and less sentimentality to the gentle grace of deer … The least of creatures, the frog, the hare, the snake, and the swallow, and the least favored of them, the ass, the boar and the wolf — he draws them all with an intimacy, charm, and inviolable integrity never surpassed in an English book’, (Edward Hodnett, Francis Barlow: First Master of English Book Illustration, London, 1978, pp.182, 185).
The fables we now associate with the (legendary) ancient author Aesop have a complicated textual transmission history, but they have been an important part of the educational tradition of the Greco-Roman world and its successors for thousands of years—not only teaching moral lessons but playing a role in language instruction through their many translations.