Rare books from SOPHIE SCHNEIDEMAN RARE BOOKS

New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1955. Bound by Peter Jones in black morocco backed trademark wooden boards constructed of two different types of wood slotted together perfectly on two rods, black paper endpapers, black edges. Housed in the original black cloth covered slipcase.|||

London & Boston: Elkin Mathews & John Lane & Copeland & Day, April 1894 to April 1897. Thirteen volumes, all published. Numerous illustrations and covers by Aubrey Beardsley, William Rothenstein, Walter Sickert, Housman 8vo., original yellow publisher’s pictorial cloth embossed in black. A remarkably good set with only slight bumping to the headcaps and corners and occasional mild darkening. ||A complete set of the most famous periodical of the 1890s. It became infamous when it was rumoured that Oscar Wilde was reading it when he was arrested (he was in fact reading Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite). It began as an avant garde publication with new departures in literature and art especially with Beardsley’s graphic contributions. However it became more conservative and mainstream after Wilde’s arrest. It remained very popular and was widely owned and read with contributions by Henry James, Max Beerbohm, Yeats, Le Gallienne, Charles Conder, Baron Corvo, Kenneth Grahame, etal.| A complete set

c.1890. 53 x 53 cms. Mounted on wooden frame with a linen back. Framed in a box frame.||Morris & Co. embroidery kits were sold with the design painted onto soft cotton cloth, known as ‘Manchester cloth’.This has a suitably open weave, allowing embroiderers to define the design with stem stitch and cover areas of ground quickly with darning stitch using the silk threads or ‘twist’ supplied by Morris & Co from their Merton Abbey workshops. Sufficient thread to complete the design was supplied wrapped in tissue paper bundles.|

London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1836. First and only edition. Pp. {8}, 141. 8vo., in the original green silk cloth binding with a printed paper label on the upper cover, the joints have been extremely carefully restored.||INSCRIBED by the author to ‘Col. Oswald with the Author’s Compts.’An assessment of the history and present state of trade in China. A man of his time he holds China to be ‘a boundless field a indefinite curiosity and vague speculation’ which afforded a vast field for commerce, even under the most discouraging circumstance which resulted “in opening a communication between Europe and China, which has led to an annual interchange of millions of capital”. He delves into the recent history of trade with China and the actions of the English government. He has some interesting chapter on negotiating with the Chinese, on duties levied on foreign trade in Canton. The last parts of the book are clear statements of British trade in Canton including imports and exports, in 1834 and… Read More

London: Hacon & Ricketts & Iohannes Lane, [Vale Press], 1901. Full page floral border, one large initials and 5 woodcut illustrations by Charles Ricketts. One of 310 copies on handmade paper. Printed in Vale type on heavy paper with a watermark of engraving tools and wreaths. Pp.30. Tal 4to, original linen backed blue paper covered boards with printed paper label on upper cover, largely unopened. Slight darkening to spine and bumping to corners, rubbing to edges of the boards, some browning and spotting to first and last few leaves, particularly to endpapers and edges. ||One of Ricketts’s most powerful books, the woodcuts being among his best illustrations. A design for one of the woodcuts was reproduced in ‘The Pageant’ and another in ‘The Dial’. With the signature of Charels Ricketts in pencil on the front free endpaper.| Signed by Charles Ricketts

Paris?, c.1660. Illuminated manuscript on recto only of a single vellum leaf (195 x 271 mm) written out by Gilles Rousselet in black, red and gold ink, title in a cartouche, historiated initial P, initials in red outlined gilt and red and a tailpiece in gold and colours, all within a ruled red and gilt border.Mounted and bound by Riviere and Son as a folio in full dark blue goatskin, with gilt double fillet border, spine in compartments with gilt fillets, gilt lettering, turn-ins tooled with gilt rolls, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a half red morocco chemise with marbled paper sides, lined in felt.||A remarkable and exquisite manuscript of The Lord’s Prayer by the great French calligrapher Gilles Rousselet (1610-1686). He worked as calligrapher, engraver and printer-publisher at the Imprimerie Royale from 1642 to 1648 and as Graveur du Roi he reproduced 14 of the great Masters in the Royal collection. He was one of the most skilled engravers and calligraphers of the 17th… Read More

1929. Original wood engraving, numbered 6 of 20 by the artist. Titled ‘Illlustration to 15th Cent Morality Play’, signed and dated by the artist in pencil. Image size 165 x 141 mms, sheet size 233 x 222 mms. Mounted and framed. Tiny repair to base of image, otherwise an excellent impression.||A very good impression of the engraving made by Jones for an edition of Everyman suggested as a project by Robert Gibbings which was announced in the Golden Cockerel Press Spring 1932 prospectus but which was later abandoned. According to Thomas Dilworth, he found the medieval morality play ‘utterly’ uncongenial.|Cleverdon E199/ Dilworth, David Jones p.114. One of an edition of 30, signed, titled and dated by the artist

Oxford: Printed at the University Press, 1935. Two volumes. One of 200 sets on large paper, without the limitation leaf, as usual. With half-titles. Typography and design by Bruce Rogers. Printed double column in Rogers’s Centaur type by John Johnson at the University Press on linen rag handmade paper. Pp. xxii, 576; [iv], 577-1215. Folio, in the original blood red cloth, spines lettered in gilt. Housed in morocco backed, gilt titled slipcases and chemises. Slight rubbing to extremities and some mild marking to boards, internally a very good, fresh copy.||Bruce Rogers’s magnum opus. "The Oxford Lectern Bible represents the full flowering of Bruce Rogers's genius as a designer of books. In the grandeur of its conception, in its classic severity without ornamentation, in the smooth flow of words across the page, and in the mastery of the subtle depth of impression of type on paper, the Oxford Bible takes its place among the noblest works done since the invention of movable type." - Blumenthal -… Read More

Oxford: Published for the press by Basil Blackwell, 1930-32. Eight volumes. No. 268 of 375 copies. Hand coloured wood engravings throughout by Hilda Quick. Initial letters, title page lettering and headings engraved from designs by Joscelyne Gaskin printed in red, blue and black. Double page engraved map and title for ‘A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland’ by Macdonald Gill. Printed on Batchelor’s Shakespeare Head handmade paper in 16 pt. Caslon. Edited by W.L. Renwick. 4to., original quarter green morocco over marbled green boards with vellum tips, gilt lettering on spines, fore and lower edges uncut, a largely unopened set. Spines a little darkened with some slight rubbing, boards with some rubbing and scratching, internally bright and clean.||With full and splendid printings of The Shephearde’s Calendar and The Faeirie Queen, together with shorter works including Daphnaida, Epithalamion, Astrophel, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe and A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland, | A… Read More

London: Printed for A. Bell and B. Lintot, 1712. First edition. Pp. xxi, [1], 428, 56, [14]. 5 folding maps. 8vo., later speckled calf, decorated in gilt, immaculately rebacked in period style with extra gilt spine, all edges gilt. The inner edges of the boards are slightly crackled and the world map, often missing, is backed with linen with a few small surface repairs but in all this is an unusually good and crisp copy, in a handsome binding.||Contemporary ownership inscription of R. Hopwood dated 1716. First edition of one of the classics of British buccaneering, and an important Pacific voyage. Rogers went out via Cape Horn, rescued Alexander Selkirk from the island of Juan Fernandez (making this the source book for ROBINSON CRUSOE, with an account of his experiences). This is the edition Defoe would have read before wirting his novel, the first in English, in 1719. Rogers was a pirate and having rescued Selkirk went on to attack Spanish shipping on the west coast of South America and Mexico,… Read More

Paris: Imprimerie Motteroz, 1882. 112 pages of well executed hand-illumination given as a gift for a first communion of Rita and Yvonne Lauranceau on 24 June, 1894. These ‘wedding books’ were sold with the text and borders of each page printed. Subsequently the plain, printed pages were all illuminated in colour including silver and gold by the owner or someone commissioned to do so by the owner in this case by Charles Defrance in 1883 according to a note on the verso of the title. Inserted loose is the illuminated first communion notice handpainted and written on vellum. Pp. viii, 107. 8vo., beautifully bound in full tan calf, both boards with borders of gilt tooled blue and red morocco and two further gilt tooled borders, spine in compartments with raised bands, gilt lettering in the second panel and the others with two gilt fillets and gold tooled design, turn-ins with elaborate gilt border, ivory silk endleaves, all edges gilt. Some rubbing to spine and corners but generally a handsome… Read More

London: Nonesuch Press, 1937-1938. IIllustrated with wood and steel engravings printed from the original blocks or plates; the title-page device by Lynton Lamb. One of 877 sets. 23 text volumes and the fold-over box in deep purple cloth containing the original engraved steel-plate. Large 8vo., a good set in original variously coloured buckram (either apple-green, black, blue, brown, dark green, fawn, maroon, orange, red or yellow), black leather lettering-labels to spines, top edges gilt on the rough, others uncut. A little fading to some of the spines and two very small holes and a small stain on the spine of Our Mutual Friend but generally in good condition.||The original engraved steel-plate by “Phiz” is a good one being from Little Dorrit: “Visitors at the Works” and comes with the original letter of authentication signed by Arthur Waugh, the Deputy Chairman of Chapman and Hall, and a print from the plate.The text illustrations are printed from the original steel plates or wood-blocks… Read More

Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1892. One of 500 copies printed on paper, there were no vellum copies. 20 architectural line-block figures in text. Border on the first page of the text, 111 six- and, mainly, ten-line initial letters, all by William Morris, engraved on wood by W.H. Hooper et al, the initial letters then being electroplated. Press device printed in two places at the end of the table of contents and on the colophon. Printed in black and red Golden type on hand-made Batchelor Flower paper, with decorated initials, numbers, titles and side notes printed in red throughout. Sm. 4to., original stiff vellum with brown silk ties, yapp edges, spine lettered in gilt, fore- and lower edges untrimmed. A very good tight copy without the usual bowing and with all the ties, vellum with some marks and a little darkening to the edges.||The chapter from his Stones of Venice which Ruskin always believed to be the most important and which was first printed separately in 1854 as a sixpenny pamphlet. Morris… Read More

[London: Privately Printed for the author by Manning Pike and H.J. Hodgson], 1926. Subscribers’ or ‘Cranwell’ edition being one of only 170 complete copies, inscribed ‘Complete copy 1.XII.26, TES’ by Lawrence in ink on p. xix, together with his ink correction of the artist for ‘The gad-fly’ plate from Roberts to ‘K’[ennington]. Frontispiece portrait of King Feysal, 66 plates (mostly colour) & text illustrations after Roberts, Eric Kennington, Paul Nash, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Nicholson and others, decorative initials by Edward Wadsworth, endpapers by Kennington, 4 linen backed folding maps. Here is included the ‘Prickly Pear’ plate not called for in the list of illustrations but, as usual, doesn’t have the Nash line drawings as called for in the list on pp.92 and 208. Printed in red and black. In this copy page xv is mispaginated as viii.4to., in a handsome contemporary full scarlet morocco binding with gilt fillets across each spine band reaching points on each side with… Read More

Waltham St. Lawrence: Printed by Robert Gibbings at the Golden Cockerel Press, 1925. No. 14 of only 30 special copies, with hand coloured engravings and signed by Eric Gill and Robert Gibbings, the artist and printer. 20 hand coloured wood engravings by Gill. Printed in Caslon in black and red. 26.2 x 19.8 cms, bound in full white buckram with a gilt bird by Gill on the upper cover, gilt lettering on spine.||A really fine copy of the rare special of the Song of Songs. It has a tiny ownership inscription of Thomas Balston and a tipped in letter to him from Robert Gibbings himself on Golden Cockerel headed paper dated 9-10-35. In it he notes Balston's new standing order and give details the books he should get immediately as well as letting him know about the impending Gill Song of Songs which Gibbings describes as "damn fine".He offers him one of the 30 specials which Balston obviously bought very quickly.Thomas Balston as the director of the publisher Duckworth and Co. and a scholar of book… Read More