Rare books from John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller

4to. Bristol: Douglas Cleverdon, 1929. 4to, (xii), 49, (5) pp. Frontispiece and 103 plates showing 147 engravings. Original black cloth, gilt vignette to upper cover, hinges cracked but the covers still firmly attached by the ties. In a new quarter calf folding box. § Limited to 400 copies from a total edition of 490, this copy not numbered. Gill's own copy with his bookplate, and filled with corrections and annotations to the List of Engravings, plus a marginal note to his Introduction. The Prospectus for this work is loosely inserted, with Gill's pencil calculations to the final page as to how much money each variant of the edition will bring in - a total of £3,192, plus a press cutting and a couple of other pieces of ephemera inserted as well. The ultimate copy of a scarce title - the first collection of Gill's work, including his magnificent illustrations for several Golden Cockerel Press books as well as designs for the St. Dominic's Press and many other ephemeral pieces. Gill's Preface sets… Read More

8vo. London: Chapman and Hall, 1857. 8vo, vi, 403 pp. Original green cloth lettered in gilt, yellow endpapers, a remarkably good copy with two bookplates, in a quarter red morocco box. § First edition, scarce, an interesting association copy of this ground-breaking feminist work, inscribed by Watts Phillips, the popular Victorian playwright, to his mistress and the mother of his children: “Watts Phillips presents this book the work of a great female poet to Caroline Huskisson who lacks but time and perseverance to become one.” Watts was a student and a lifelong friend of Cruikshank. He was accused of borrowing elementsfrom Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities for his most successful play, The Dead Heart, but it turned out Dickens had in fact borrowed them from him. Bookplates of John Thompson Fitz Adam, and Edwin Holden (dated 1894), president of the Grolier Club and amajor collector of the time.

Roy. New York: The Viking Press, 1941. Roy. 8vo, [67] pp. Letterpress text and drawings in lithographic crayon on zinc, printed throughout in brown with title page lettered in green, pictorial endpapers. Beige cloth, lettered and pictorially stamped in green. Dust-jacket printed in green and brown, $2.00 price flap unclipped. A little edge wear to dust-jacket and half inch chip to bottom of spine, some toning of pastedowns but otherwise a lovely bright copy inside and out. § From the library of Nobel Laureate in Physics Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, signed by him, with his bookplate and with a compliments card signed by the author both loosely inserted. First edition in an early dustjacket, still priced $2.00, and with the Caldecott Medal sticker for 1942. Chandrasekhar's seminal work in astrophysics led to the currently accepted theories on the lives of black holes.

80 leaves. Paris: The Trianon Press, 1966. 80 leaves. Large, unbound folio in stiff, glassine covered wrappers, housed in large, vellum box, stamped with gilt lettering on front, back, and spine, with double clasp closure, but one clasp is missing the hook. Some spotting on box. Fine condition. § One of 16 super deluxe copies lettered K to Z which include an extra set of colored plates on Auvergne hand-made paper, a set of uncolored plates on Arches Verge paper, three each of the original guide sheets and stencils, and two proof states of the frontispiece. This is copy K. Signed and stamped with the artist’s cypher on the frontispiece. Ben Shahn (1898-1969) enjoyed a long career as a social realist artist and left wing visionary, widely recognized for his murals, paintings, commercial illustrations and photography. He collaborated with Diego Rivera and undertook commissions for the Farm Security Administration. Perhaps his most famous work, the Jersey Homesteads Mural, has also been linked to the… Read More

8vo. London: Chapman & Hall, MDCCCLIX (1859). 8vo, [ix], [1]-254, 16 etched plates including frontis and title vignette. Full olive green fine-diaper cloth, entirely stamped in blind with a three line border which encloses a rectangular frame within which is is an ornament of leaves and stems in each corner and a chain-like design with each link enclosing a four-leafed flower. Housed in a green cloth slip-case. The head and tail of the backstrip are very slightly bumped with some sun toning; minor scattered foxing mostly near plates and some off-setting; a good clean copy in a beautifully preserved original cloth binding. § First edition in the rare secondary green cloth binding. Two of the eight internal flaws identified by Smith as necessary for the first issue have been corrected: “l” and “f” are printed on p.116 and 213 is numbered correctly. Of the latter point Eckel observes “The absence of this error does not invalidate a first edition but it fixes the priority of printing” and… Read More

London: Chapman and Hall, April, 1838 - October, 1839. Thick 8vo., 24[ads], 8[ads], 8[ads], 2[ads], [4 original wrappers], [4 ads], xvi, [1]-624, [4 ads], [6 ads], 8[ads], 8[ads] pp., 40 plates including frontisportrait. Full dark-brown calf, backstrip with maroon label and title stamped in gilt. All plates are foxed, though text and binding are bright; very good. § First edition, bound from the original parts, with blue wrappers from number eighteen, and numerous advertisements bound in. A unique selection and collation of choice advertisements and all relevant material to the novel, collected and handsomely bound.

4to. Edmonton: William Muir, 1885. 4to, 1p.preface by Muir, 27 leaves hand-colored, 1p.appendix, 2 leaves at the end in facsimile of Blake’s manuscript arrangement of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and the separate plate ‘A Divine Image’. Original printed wrappers, bound into contemporary half navy calf gilt with navy morocco gilt label on cover and navy cloth boards, with the bookplate of H.C.Plimmer. Very good with tissue guards as issued. § The superb Muir facsimile, limited to 50 copies, this copy numbered 2. Reproduces copy A - the Beckford-Harvard copy. See Bentley, BB, #249e.“This book is Blake’s Principia, in which he announced a new concept of the universe.” (Damon, Blake Dictionary). “Through the voice of the “Devil,” Blake parodies and attacks the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, the cosmology and ethics of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and biblical history and morality as constructed by the “Angels” of the established church and state. Energy and passion are… Read More

8vo. New York: D. Appleton, 1881. 8vo, 231, [viii] ads pp. Illustrations by Frederick Church and James Moser. Original red cloth stamped in gold and black, an unusually bright, near fine copy with only faint soil to the backstrip and lower board. Enclosed in a modern, custom box. § First edition, first issue, with presumptive mis-spelled on p.9 bottom line and without ads for this title in rear. This red color binding is not listed in BAL and is exceptionally rare. A classic of American children’s literature with a complicated legacy. Joel Chandler Harris, a white Southern journalist, collected these folktales from enslaved and formerly enslaved African Americans on Georgia plantations. Serialized in newspapers across the country, they proved hugely popular, and this first collection published by Appleton in 1881 was bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. The books were responsible for compounding racist stereotypes and disseminating them across generations of readers, as well as popularizing… Read More

Anvers: Henry van Dunewalt, (parts 1, 2, and 4) and La Haye: Henry van Bulderen, (part 3), 1688. 4 vols. in one, thick 12mo, (18), 1-233 (5, table)pp. Engraved general title by Romeyn de Hooghe, separate letterpress titles to each volume, small engraved plate at the head of each fable all by Henrik Cause. Old speckled calf, gilt backstrip, gilt rubbed largely away but quite sound. In all an excellent copy of a very scarce and important book. § First printing thus, this copy inscribed at the front in an early hand "Au Comte Frobenius de Furstenberg" with the donor's initials inked out. As there were two Furstenberg families it is unclear exactly to whom this copy was donated. Landwehr (p. 314) notes: "The first illustrated edition of [La Fontaine's Fables] was published in March 1668... in Paris. It would take yet twelve years before the 124 fables were published in the Low Countries... in 1688... the first illustrated edition was published in Antwerpen by Henry van Dunewalt who commissioned Henrik… Read More

8vo. London: Methuen and Co., 1928. 8vo, xi, 178 pp. Original rose cloth, boards stamped and panelled in gilt, backstrip gilt lettered, top edge gilt, in the original illustrated dust jacket. A near fine copy with bright and clean boards, subtle professional restoration to two faint patches of abrasion on the front free endpaper; dust jacket very clean and unfaded with light professional restoration. Bookplate tipped to verso of front free endpaper. § First edition, signed on the title-page by Milne. A handsome copy of the fourth book about Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin and friends, the first to introduce the irrepressible Tigger. Illustrated with E.H. Shepard's line drawings.

Boston: John P. Jewett & Company. Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852. 2 vols, 8vo, [iii], vi-x, [1], 13-312; [i-iii], iv, [1], 6-322 pp. With six engraved plates by Hammett Billings (three in each volume). Original publisher’s brown cloth over boards. BAL B binding with vignette on top cover stamped in gilt; backstrips lettered in gilt, otherwise blindstamped, all edges plain. Very occasional foxing as usual, light dealer pencil annotations, foot of the backstrip of vol. 2 with minimal repair to the cloth. Enclosed in two crushed red morocco pull-off slipcases lettered in gilt. § First edition, first printing, BAL "B" binding. "In the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century America Uncle Tom's Cabin exploded like a bombshell. . . . Whatever its weaknesses as a literary work . . . the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since." (PMM 19343) This is as fine a copy as has been seen in the last 25 years.… Read More

London: James Phillips, George Yard, Lombard Street. And sold also by S. Leacroft, Charing Cross; T. Mills, Bristol; and E. Score, Exeter, MDCCLXXVIII [1778]. 4to, [2], lvii, [3], 412 pp. Early calf, modern rebacking, red morocco label, old ink signature on title, ink signature on front free endpaper "Susanna Byrne (?)" dated 1779, occasional spotting, a very good, wide-margined copy. § First edition in English, translated by William Cookworthy and Thomas Hartley. A very scarce book in commerce, appearing in auction records only five times since 1900. Heaven and Hell was first published in Latin in 1758 under the title De Caelo et Eius Mirabilibus et de inferno, ex Auditis et Visis. Described in a current publication of the Swedenborg Society as "an explorer’s account of heaven, hell and the world of spirits," it describes the different communities in the afterlife and what happens when we die. It is still one Swedenborg's most read and most influential books. Important themes include the… Read More

Small thin 4to. Toronto: Hawkshead Press, 1961. Small thin 4to, [16pp.], loosely inserted (once glued) into stiff white card wrappers with a black and white design on the upper cover repeated in reverse on the lower cover. Staining where the glue bled through the cover, otherwise in very good condition as issued. § Rare first state of Margaret Atwood's first book, a collection of poetry published letterpress in the Market Book Series as Book One of the series. This copy is one of the first state where the glue attaching the booklet to its cover dried up and the booklet is loose in the covers. It is estimated there were 80 or 90 of these. Atwood then decided to staple the remainder to the cover, for a possible total of 200 to 220 copies in all. Today they are all but unfindable in acceptable condition. Margaret Atwood is probably best known for her speculative fiction such as The Handmaid's Tale, though her published works range so widely as to defy description.

4to. London: John Camden Hotten, 1868. 4to, 27 hand-coloured plates over lithographs, printed on paper replicating Blake's original supply. Rebound in full red morocco with gilt decoration and black leather gilt label to spine, in fitted red morocco slipcase. Very good with occasional pages spotted as usual in this edition but the coloring in reasonably good condition. § The first facsimile of a Blake book (excepting only a few selections in monochrome in Gilchrist’s first edition of the Life). Limited to 150 copies, this facsimile is rarely found in acceptable condition as the watercolor usually turns almost black and the paper tends to fox badly. In this copy the foxing is almost completely absent from the images though quite noticeable in the margins and at the front and back. The facsimile is from copy F, now at the Pierpont Morgan Library. The limitation is derived from Hotten’s ledger sheets as cited by Paley (Hotten, Swinburne, and the Blake Facsimiles of 1868... NYPL, 1976.). Bentley,… Read More

Folio. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1878. Folio. Full page plates with tissue guards, plus title vignette and other decorations. Original burgundy cloth, stamped in gilt and blind, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Scattered foxing, backstrip faded. Ex-library copy with shelf mark in white pen on backstrip, bookplate on front pastedown, blind-stamp on title, and library pocket on rear pastedown. Letter presenting the book to the library tipped to front free endpaper. § First American edition. (First London edition was 1875.) A respectable ex-library copy (properly released) of an uncommon book very hard to find in good condition.