Rare books from Timeless Tales Rare Books

A very rare signed edition of privately printed 100 copies of Captain Francis W Dawson's memoir by The News and Courier Book Press. Blue-gray cloth binding decorated with red stamped C.S.A and embellishments. 240 x 150 mm. (9 3/8 x 5 7/8"). 180 pp.
Author signed: "Mr. W.L. Daggett, from F.W. Dawson, Jan 1883". The author inscribed this book to William L. Daggett (1824-1889), a printer working for the Charleston's News and Courier with Dawson. Presumably Mr. Daggett was responsible for printing this book, making this a presentation copy.
This very rare book is a remarkable account of an Englishman traveling to the American South to join the Southern Confederacy. His book includes 18 wartime letters to his friends and family in England.
Note: A few pages (pp 9-16) inside are loosening from spine (not completely detached, there is also no loss to text or tear), hence we have adequately reduced the price. Overall this book is in great condition and would be a beautiful addition to the library of someone… Read More

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING with the "A" and publisher's seal on copyright page and brown lettering on inside of dust jacket; FIRST ISSUE dust jacket with blue tinted photo of Hemingway in back panel and "$ 3.00" on front flap of dust jacket. No mention of Nobel/Pulitzer prize. Text inside is clean and in fine condition Previous owner's inscription present. 8vo, light darkening of spine and minor tear of dust jacket at extremities. Provenance- Estate of a distinguished MIT professor, whose signature is inscribed. An exceptional copy of the true first edition, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1952.

Volume I--(Second Edition) The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse: Adorn'd with Sculpture. London: Printed by Thomas Roycroft for the Author, 1668. Second edition with new title page, a re-issue of the 1665 edition sheets. This volume contains the frontispiece, engraved vignettes and initials, (missing Ogilby portrait), and has all eighty-one full-paged plates in fabulous condition. Light yellowing/browning of initial few pages as regular. Volume II--(Second Edition) Aesopics, or a Second Collection of Fables, illustrated with sixty-eight full-paged plates in early issue before captions were added. Pages are remarkably clean without any browning. Large folio volumes, both illustrated throughout; Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) engraved eighty-eight of the illustrations for these works, the others were executed by Dirck Stoop (c. 1610-1686) and Francis Barlow (c. 1626-1704). Both volumes are uniformly re-bound with original leather panels inset in full brick morocco bindings with gilt titles.

****LIMITED EDITION (1/100) in LARGE PAPER****
The Fables of Aesop, Selected, Told New and Their History Traced by Joseph Jacobs. London: Macmillan & Co., 1894. illustrated by Richard Heighway; this scarce, limited large-paper edition was published in a limitation of 100 copies; bound in 3/4 blue calf over marbled boards. [2], xxv, [1], 222 pp including index.

Lord Byron's The Corsair, A Tale. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. 1814 London: John Murray. 1814. 8vo. 108 pp. Bound in light brown calf, with gilt tooling, marbled endpapers. This narrative poem about the pirate Conrad, this poem was ORIGINALLY printed as 108 pages AS IN THIS COPY; the second and third issues were released without the last four leaves containing "To a Lady Weeping," because of the controversy the poem had generated on the very first day after publication of this very first issue. However, Randolph states that all four of the four "issues" of the first edition were available and issued to the public on the same day.

NOTE (as per King's College, London)-- Following Byron's initial requests to his publisher to
make public his authorship of 'Lines to a Lady Weeping'
by publishing the verses with The Corsair, Murray
cautioned on 20 January 1814 that "as the present work
is to be read by women & the lines would disturb the
political feeling, they should instead be slipped quietly
into a… Read More

First edition, 1846. 8vo. 2 volumes: xviii, 399; vii, 498 pp. 19 lithograph portraits. Contemporary calf, spine with 5 raised bands, gilt lettering and ornamentation, marbled endpapers and text block edges. 1865 gift inscription to Simon M. Lockhart on front endpaper. Endpapers toned, as is the title page which has offsetting from the frontispiece, which is foxed. Interiors and other plates are mostly clean, very good throughout.

FIRST edition, with ALL 12 engraved folding plates present in great condition, Plate 6 is misbound before Page 33 instead of before Page 17; internally in very good and clean condition throughout. 2 pp. advertisements at end, marginal damp-staining towards end, scattered faint spotting, ex-library with occasional ink-stamps, modern calf-backed boards, 8vo, 1816.

FIRST Stockdale edition, first issue with the long "s" throughout; 2 volumes, large 8vo (270 x 165mm). VERY SCARCE Large Paper Copy. 2 Engraved title-pages and 110 plates (All 112 plates are in fabulous, unmarked condition; there is no foxing and the volumes are internally clean). Some leaves are slightly browned. Leather boards are slightly worn and previous owner's bookplates are present. Both volumes are bound in early (perhaps original) full leather bindings with faded gold lettering and decoration on the spines, gold borders on the boards.Page 198 of Vol I is misprinted as 891; the text is by Samuel Croxall. A very good, collector's copy of the richly illustrated, first edition of the famous Stockdale's Aesop.

Published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co, London in 1896. A collector's set of the Bard's works in 6 volumes, in FINE BINDING. Remarkable early 20th century tree calf, spines are elaborately gilted in compartments with extensive and richly decorated floral motifs; spine labels are in bright red morocco. The binding and outer covers are in fantastic condition with almost no wear or fading. Internal text pages are clean and spotless. Overall, the set is a remarkable collection of the complete works of William Shakespeare.

First edition, illustrated with ALL 13 folding plates engraved by Mad. De Lusse. Advertisement and Errata leaves present, pages remarkably clean. This book is 4to (true first printing, larger size); popular copies were released later that same year in octavo.First encylopaedic approach toward creating a dictionary of music by the eminent French philosopher and music lover Rousseau.

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 3 vol., first 'Jesuit's' edition, titles in red and black with engraved vignette, illustrations and diagrams, in quarto (4to)
Usual minor damp-staining and foxing, old ink stamp to titles, contemporary sheep, original hardcover, spines gilt, worn, Geneva, 1739-42.
The Jesuit edition is based on the third edition of Newton's Principia (1687), by the minim frias Thomas Le Seur (1703-1770), François Jacquier (1711-1788), both of whom were French priests, and Jean-Louis Calandrini (1703-1758), a Swiss mathematician. This edition includes several commentaries, explanations and addendums to the Principia that did not originate with Newton. The editors of the "Jesuit Edition", made use of the formalism developed by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), outlined in his work Mechanica (1736), to rewrite Principia's propositions into differential equations.Notably, the commentators "1) explain Newton's propositions in a clearer manner than Newton did; 2) translate the… Read More

FIRST edition, extremely scarce copy, modern cloth backed boards, occasional spotting, foxing and soiling, quarto, complete copy with all maps in great condition, pages internally clean.
Note- The Map of India was not originally included in the FIRST edition, and was included in the third edition onwards.
Overall condition-Very good or better.
James Rennell, often called "the Father of Oceanography", was the surveyor general of Bengal. In 1767 Lord Robert Clive, the then Governor of Bengal and Bihar, appointed him as surveyor-general of the East India Company's dominions in Bengal. Rennell produced some of the first accurate maps of Bengal at one inch to five miles as well as accurate outlines of India and his Map of Hindootan is "the first approximately correct map of India". He oversaw the earliest maps of the course of the Ganges, British Bengal and published his famous Bengal atlas in 1780.
His Map of Hindoostan was published in 1782, and three editions of his accompanying Memoir of a map of… Read More

First edition of the Baskerville Bible, 1760.
Exquisite fore-edge painting adorning a desirable Baskerville imprint. The Hereford Cathedral is pictured from the other side of the river Wye, with an old stone bridge leading to the church.
About 284 leaves. Final leaf 2M2; lacks gatherings x-2b and 2N-2Q, as often in other copies. 22.5x14 cm (9x5½"), period straight-grain crimson morocco, covers and turn-ins with gilt floral border, flat spine decorated and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, fore-edge painting of Hereford Cathedral.
Binding gently rubbed and soiled, more so to spine, front board nearly loose; title page foxing, only minor spotting throughout; fore-edge painting very well preserved; very good or better.
Provenance: Bookplate of N. Brinsley Acworth, front flyleaf with inscription of John and Elizabeth Willett, Stoke, 1808.

4to,280x210 mm. Contemporary binding on pig skin. Gold titles on spine. Pages [50], 407, [1]. Engraved frontispiece vignette, twelve folded engraved plates, headpieces, historiated initials engraved by John Pine. A very good first edition copy with wide margins of the important introduction to Newton's natural philosophy. Pemberton was invited to supervise the editing of the third edition of Principia Mathematica, which appeared in 1726. The work is illustrated with several fold-out diagrams explaining key scientific principles, including Newton's celestial mechanics plans showing the orbits of the six known planets around the sun.

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, third edition, half-title, engraved portrait frontispiece, title in red and black, woodcut illustrations and diagrams, some foxing and soiling, contemporary calf, joints and corners worn, 4to, William & John Innys, 1726.This edition was edited by Henry Pemberton and Sir Isaac Newton wrote a preface with new edits, just one year before he passed away in 1727. This third edition printed in London is the very basis of all subsequent printings of the Principia and a true history existing through time.One out of 1250 copies printed and with complete pagination, this copy is a remarkable and rare book in the history of science.