Rare books from Reginald C. Williams Rare Books

Two volumes. Tall Quarto (9 by 11 inches), near-contemporary half-calf and marbled boards. pp. xiii, (21), (1) 2-378; (xxviii), (389) 380-895. With half-titles in each volume and errata leaf with directions to the binder. FIRST EDITION of Godwin' revolutionary masterwork "his passionate advocacy of individualism, his trust in the fundamental goodness of man, and his opposition to all restrictions on liberty have endured" (PMM) a profound influence on Thomas Jefferson, who had the first American edition in his library and is viewed as Godwin's "American born counterpart." Along with those of Burke and Paine, Godwin's Enquiry was one of the most influential English political books of the late eighteenth century. It was an equally important landmark in the development of Utilitarian thought, and on political thinking in general. Godwin-the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft-"saw no good in human institutions and sought to put an end to all organized politics, religion and society… The Enquiry was, and… Read More

Ex Officina Henrici Stephani [Estienne], no place (Geneva) 1557. Quarto (252 x 170 mm) Printer's device on the title page. (8)+, 395 (i.e. 397, page 138-139 numbered * and **). Bound in contemporary paste boards. Top of spine (c. 2 cm.) is missing, so is the title label on the spine. Inside is nice and clean apart from minor darkening and a wormhole the first three leaves. This is a decent unsophisticated copy with an interesting provenance. Housed in a quarter-morocco clamshell box by the Heritage Bindery. Text in Greek, commentaries and introduction in Latin. ** First complete edition in Greek of the tragedies and the and the Editio Princeps of Agamemnon, one of the greatest tragedies ever written. The work is beautifully printed with types in two sizes by Estienne. As Henry Estienne states on the title page, this is the first complete edition of Aeschylus as it contains the Editio Princeps of Agamemnon. Henri Estienne was still in his twenties when he returned to Paris to establish his Imprimerie,… Read More

Full contemporary mottled calf with red and blue leather spine labels. Both volumes are lavishly illustrated with engravings throughout, including frontispieces and title page vignettes, full page illustrations, numerous pictorial head & tailpieces (including a couple of maps) and decorative initials; First Edition, first issue, with the misprint 'post est' in the medallion of Caesar on p. 108, Volume II. This copy CONTAINS THE SELDOM SEEN LIST OF ANTIQUITIES IN VOLUME I. very few copies were bound with this list which makes this set particularly desirable. Pine's edition of the works of Horace, for which he engraved both the text and illustrations, is considered a masterpiece of 18th century book art. The numerous subscribers for the edition included royalty and nobility (the Prince of Wales, the Holy Roman Emperor, the King and Queen of Spain, the Prince of Orange, several Dukes and Earls), Edmund Halley, George Frederic Handel, Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole, Jonathan Swift, Richard Sheridan, and… Read More

Octavo, A beautiful Contemporary full decorative dark blue morocco binding, elaborately gilt decorated spine and boards, raised bands, All edges gilt. No previous ownership inscriptions. Housed in green clamshell box with a marbled interior and a black morocco label. FIRST EDITION of this collection of works by these three Romantic poets. Comprises the first collected edition of Shelley, the first collected edition of Keats, and only the second collected edition of Coleridge, with many poems published for the first time. With frontispiece portrait of the three poets. This edition was published in Paris because the poets lacked international copyright protection and no royalties needed to be paid. However, Galignani in fact worked closely with friends and relatives of the poets to create these three exhaustive collections. The frontispiece portrait is the first printed portrait of Shelley. MacGillivray B1. Peck ii, 440. A scarce and desirable copy in a beautiful and very appropriate period binding.

Small folio. pp [16], 398, [2], fine engraved frontispiece portrait bust of Lucian by Faithmore, with verse underneath, bound in contemporary speckled polished calf, spine with braided bands and red Morocco label, sympathetically rebacked by the Heitage Bindery using the original spine. A very good fresh copy throughout with nice margins now housed in a cloth clamshell box with a red morocco label. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Much confusion surrounds this title, as to whether or not it was issued with the second edition of Hicks translated Lucian, as indicated by the title page, but nowhere else referred to. Hick s second edition was indeed issued in 1663, though by a different publisher, and is often found bound up with the second issue of the present collection, which is dated 1664. Copies of this 1663 first issue appears to be complete without it. Since this copy is in a contemporary binding, it s independence of the Hick s is quite certain. Madan makes this clear when he says [III. 2642]: The two… Read More

FIRST EDITION of this translation, the FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION OF THE POETICS, a little minor spotting in places, tiny worm track to blank area of first two leaves, early ownership inscription (Jacobi Peruli Vabmatis') to title page, pp. xii, 355, 25, 4to, eighteenth-century Italian vellum, spine lettered in ink, all edges blue, a few tiny wormholes to backstrip, a very good copy house in a maroon clamshell case with a black morocco label. A nice clean copy of the first edition of this translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric and poetics into Italian by Bernardo Segni (1504-1558), the first translation of the Poetics and the second of the Rhetoric to be printed. there was enough demand that a second edition was printed two years later.

Folio (8-1/2 by 13 inches), contemporary full brown calf, Skillfully rebacked with blind-stamped spine, raised bands, red morocco spine label. First edition of former censor Roger L Estrange s classic version of Aesop s Fables, with copper-engraved frontispiece portrait of L Estrange and fine copperplate frontispiece of Aesop. In 1690 John Locke was the first to suggest Aesop as a beginning book for children. Shortly thereafter, Tory pamphleteer and onetime Surveyor of the Press, Roger L Estrange, was commissioned to produce this edition of fables, likely the first compiled expressly for children. He included many other fabulists besides Aesop, notably a selection from La Fontaine within 20 years of the first appearance of any of his fables in French. It is highly probable that this was their earliest appearance in English (Muir, 24). Simple and somewhat racy in style, L Estrange s edition was continuously reprinted, helping to popularize both Aesop and the genre of fables among children. The most… Read More

FIRST EDITION. Octavo, 270 pp., [1] leaf (ads) attractive contemporary paneled calf. No spine label. Half-title is present and the text is very fresh for its age with white pages. The rear hinge is a little weak and shaken, but an excellent contemporary copy usually found rebound or in later bindings. Housed and chemised in a quarter morocco slipcase with marbled boards and a green morocco label by the Heritage Bindery which will insure protection. British clergyman Francis Hutchinson was "the man who gave the coup de grace to the witch delusion in England" (Robbins), leveling "a final and deadly blow at the dying superstition" (Note stein). "Of most interest to him were the witchcraft accusations at Boston and Salem, and… [the case] of Jane Wenham (1712), which provoked intense passions and vicious politicking… Hutchinson's account of witchcraft is thoroughly modern a history book 'of the moment'… and his carefully modest appeal for reform of the laws on witchcraft was indeed heeded, although… Read More

Small octavo (4-1/2 by 7-1/4 inches), contemporary full brown calf, spine professionally rebacked, later red morocco spine label, raised bands with blind-tooled compartments; pp.(46), 223, (1), 59, (1). Rare 1683 3rd edition in English, first issued the previous year, of Roman poet Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, a seminal work in Western history offering "key principles of a modern understanding of the world," as well as a "crucial guide" to Thomas Jefferson, who proclaimed himself "an Epicurean" like Lucretius, owned an edition of Creech's translation, and gave the Declaration of Independence "a distinctly Lucretian turn" by naming "the pursuit of happiness" to be a pivotal American right, with copper-engraved frontispiece. The first and last pages have some soiling and staining, the frontispiece is slightly trimmed (no loss to image) and the title page is slightly stained with some pencil marks . The book consists of 223 pages followed by 60 pages of notes and 6 index pages. All pages have some… Read More

The Second authorized edition: the Author's Unabridged Popular Edition. Octavo, pp.365. Bound in original brown paper wrappers printed in black, with Phoenix design to front cover, white label to spine, price "60Frs" to upper right and "LeCram Press-Paris" printed on back cover. One of 3000 copies printed; the novel was initially published in an edition of 1,000 copies by the Orioli Press, Florence (1928), and was almost immediately pirated by at least four different publishers. Lawrence had always intended to release a cheap version, and hoped that this official cheaper edition would discourage piracies. some slight wrinkling near the spine bottom with the full title label intact. A pleasing copy of this very fragile book, seldom seen in such condition. Housed in a blue clamshell box with a black leather spine label.

Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie. 8vo. xii, 870, [2, errata]pp. Text illustrations. 232 x 158 mm. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1874. Publisher s original brown cloth. Some browning throughout the text, mild wear at the spine ends and the front hinge starting to crack but holding firm. A nice copy and notoriously scarce in the publisher s original cloth. Housed in a grey cloth clamshell case by the Heritage Bindery. A work that came to be one of the most important in the history of psychology. This was the first textbook that was written pertaining to the field of experimental psychology. Known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. Wundt, who noted psychology as a science apart from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research at the University of Leipzig. This marked psychology as an independent… Read More

THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF PLATO S REPUBLIC INTO FRENCH WHICH PRECEDES THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DECADES. Published by aux Frais & sous les Yeux Traducteur, 1726. Octavo [ 20 X 26 cm ], [1], xx, 319pp, with an initial leaf of quotation from Cicero. with an initial leaf of quotation from Cicero. Full contemporary brown calf, raised bands, contrasting label on spine, gilt decoration in boxed on spine, top and bottom of spine repaired, occasional minor marginal soiling and foxing, clean tear in blank outer margin of O2, armorial book plate, ordinary paper issue, Hoffmann 145, first edition in French.

FIRST EDITION with all points per Smith. Two Octavo volumes. [i-vii] viii-ix [x] Xi [xii], [1] 2-320, [1] - 36 (catalogue dated January 1865); [i-v] vi-vii [viii] , [1] 2-309 [ -312] (colophon and ads), [4] (catalogue dated November 1865). Forty inserted plates after Marcus Stone.Publisher's original purple sand grain cloth, Boards conventionally blocked in blind, Spines decorated and lettered in gilt. Original pale yellow in papers. Previous owners signature to front pay down of same volume; Hugh Mitchell Pitlochry. On the half title Mr. Mitchell has added his notary embossed stamp (reading High Mitchell, Notary Public, 1874). The second volume with the binders ticket (Virtue & Co.) On the lower front pace down and with our armorial plate of Beatrice Lady Ellenborough. With a small embossed stamp on front free in paper of book seller WH Smith and son. The first volume has been carefully and almost imperceptibly rebacked by the Heritage Bindery. Volume two is a bit darker than volume one extremities… Read More

8vo. 554 pp., including index. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION Translated from the 2nd edition of the German original. there was also an English edition published by Churchill in London the same year (1860). Small 4to. 554pp. With 144 text wood engravings. Full Contemporary calf, spine in compartments with black Morocco label, some light wear with a crack staring at the bottom of the top board, otherwise an excellent copy now housed in a custom slipcase. Virchow founded the medical fields of cellular pathology and comparative pathology (comparison of diseases common to humans and animals). His most important work in the field was Cellular Pathology (Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre) published in 1858, as a collection of his lectures. This is regarded as the basis of modern medical science, and the "greatest advance which scientific medicine had made since its beginning." Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist,… Read More

Thick octavo, original olive cloth gilt. Housed in a custom chemise and green cloth slipcase with leather label.
First edition, First issue of Hudson's "romance of the tropical forest," an excellent copy in the original cloth.
"Of all living authors—now that Tolstoy has gone—I could least dispense with W.H. Hudson. Why do I love his writing so? I think because he is, of living writers that I read, the rarest spirit, and has the clearest gift of conveying to me the nature of that spirit… Without apparent effort he takes you with him into a rare, free, natural world, and always you are refreshed, stimulated, enlarged, by going there" (John Galsworthy). "Hudson forms an important link between 19th-century Romanticism and the 20th-century ecological movement. Green Mansions is a poignant meditation on the loss of wilderness, the dream of a return to nature, and the bitter reality of the encounter between savage and civilized man" (Ian Duncan). In FIRST-ISSUE binding, without the publisher's device… Read More