Rare books from W. C. Baker Rare Books & Ephemera

[London]: Lowndes, Printer, [1808]. Broadside, approximately 11 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, untrimmed. Portion of bottom line of text unprinted. Small remnants of paper tape on verso, else fine. Broadside advertising the twelfth performance of the opera, KAIS, OR, LOVE IN THE DESERTS, at Drury Lane, starring and produced by the renowned English tenor, John Braham. John Braham (ca. 1774-1856) rose from poverty and orphanhood in London to the heights of European opera, where he celebrated as one of the great voices of his age. As a British Jew, he also represented a major shift in Jewish status and social potential in the late Georgian era, becoming not only an artist of acclaim but also eventually the father-in-law of several English aristocrats. KAIS was based on the ancient Arabian love story of Layla and Majnun, which had been adapted into a famous work by Persian Poet Nizami Ganjavi in the 12th century, which in turn became the source for numerous later poets and mystics throughout the Middle East and… Read More

Paris: Chez l'auteur... Laurent d'Houry... Jean Boudot, libraire..., 1699. 12mo. [18],300;112 pp. plus 26 plates (three folding). Contemporary speckled calf, spine richly gilt, gilt leather label, raised bands, edges rouged. Light institutional inkstamp in title page. 18th-century inscription in titlepage and signature of Theophile Leonard in title page and final page of the dedication. Occasional 18th-century marginalia. Minor wear. Near fine. First edition of the first major work of Nicolas Bion, complete with 26 plates of terrestrial and celestial maps, diagrams, and images of globes. Bion (ca. 1652-1733) was a Paris-based cosmographer and maker of mathematical and astronomical instruments, holding the title of "king's engineer for mathematical instruments" under Louis XIV (DSB II, pp. 132-1330). A landmark in its field.

Moscow: Molodaya Gvardia, 1964. First Russian Book Edition. 351,[1] pp., with several in-text illustrations. Cloth-backed pictorial paper over boards. Early Russian ink inscription and inkstamp on rear pastedown. A few small scribbles in blue ink on covers and ink stains on cloth. Edges of boards lightly worn, front hinge cracked. Contents lightly toned, but surprisingly fresh for the quality of the paper. A good copy. The pirated first Russian book edition, after a 1963 appearance in the periodical INOSTRANAYA LITERATURA ("Foreign Literature") and a 1964 special separate issue of ROMAN-GAZETA ("Novel as Newspaper"). Like other books by foreign authors published in the USSR at the time, this edition is a piracy, with no royalties paid to the author. Nevertheless, it was a major undertaking, engaging major Russian literary talents of the day, with the still-authoritative translation by Nora Gal (1912-1991) and Raisa Oblonskaya (1924-2010), an introduction by celebrated literary critic Raisa Orlova… Read More

New York: Hand Set & Printed by Michael Martin & David Lewis, apprentices at Uranian Press N.Y.C., 1960. Bifolium, [4] pp., with 2 inserted leaves (printed rectos only), all 12 x 9 inches, printed in red and black on brown paper. Light wear at edges, 1 3/4- inch crease in outer edge of first leaf, else near fine. The existential manifesto of the Uranian Press, presenting the original basis of Tyler's integrative vision of art, life, creativity, and journeys through forms of consciousness. Its main text, printed in three pages on a bifolium, is supplemented with two broadside inserts, one of which introduces the manifesto: In this this paper Creativity is to be understood in the sense of a Self Documented life work toward a more fully integrated individual, able to bridge consciousness between these states, & impart the result in a symbol system seeking to evolve self transcendence to the point of holding in consciousness the knowledge of unity with the universe. From his decision to leave Chicago in… Read More

[London, 1968]. Folio (14 x 11 1/4 inches). [1],1-117 pp. Manuscript sheet music, inscribed and signed on the final page by the composer, "End | London 7 April 1968 | Tyringham-Cleveland-London 1966-1968 | John Stewart McLennan." Occasional manuscript corrections in pencil. In cardboard plastic-comb binder, manuscript paper cover label. Covers moderately worn, nearly all of binding comb perished. Contents toned, especially at edges, else fine. Overall very good. Original holograph musical score for the unpublished SONATA FOR ORGAN, by 20th-century American composer John Stewart McLennan, Jr. (1903-1996). McLennan was the son of the Canadian senator of the same name (1853-1939) and the American writer Grace Seeley Henop Tytus McLennan (1875-1928). He was born in Tyringham, Massachusetts, at Ashintully, his maternal family's estate. He acquired that property in 1937 and lived there for the remainder of his life. After the estate's Georgian-style mansion was destroyed by fire in 1952, McLennan moved into… Read More

Amsterdam: Daniel van den Dalen, 1691-1693. Four books and one pamphlet in two volumes. Quarto. [4],[4],[16],138,[2];[8],262,[2];11; [8],32,188,[2];[6],277,[3] pp., including portrait frontipiece and facing description leaf in first volume and in-text illustration of the Oldenburg Horn on p. 141 of fourth book. Contemporary parchment, manuscript spine titles. Autograph signature of the author on half-title verso of first book, title-page verso of second book, and following the introductions of third and fourth books. Matching contemporary ownership inscriptions of C. V. D. Hell on title pages of first and third books; early ownership inscription of "[?]. [?]. v. d. Bosch" on front free endpaper of both volumes; 1961 gift inscription on front free title page of first volume; occasional contemporary underlining and marginalia throughout; booksellers' pencil notations in front and rear endpapers of both volumes. Boards bowed, parchment moderately soiled and, in first volume, turn-ins separating from… Read More

[Brussels]: Ligue nationale belge contre le péril vénérien, 1929. Large octavo. 44 pp., containing eight in-text graphs, plus one double-page map. In French. Contemporary blue half morocco and marbled boards, stamped, ruled, and lettered in gilt, original stiff printed wrappers bound in. Spine lightly worn and sunned, light stain in upper margin of p. 23 (touching some text), else fine. An account of the progress of the Belgian National League Against the Veneral Perils fight against syphilis, by its president, Professor Adrien Bayet (1863-1935), delivered on December 8, 1928, and published in 1929. The League had held its first conference in the great hall of Brusellss Palais des Académies on October 8, 1922, with its founding patron, Elisabeth, Queen of Belgium, and various other dignitaries in attendance, to address the spread of syphilis in Belgium in the aftermath of the First World War. Six years later, Bayet delivered the speech printed here to report on the League's overwhelming success.… Read More

Philadelphia: Printed for Thomas Dobson [by Archibald Bartram], 1804. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. [13],10-151,[22],152-219 pp. plus 2 folding plates. Antique-style quarter calf and marbled boards, gilt leather label, endpapers refreshed. Minor chips at outer corners of title leaf, professionally repaired. Mild toning throughout, heavy toning at edges of rear endpapers, light offsetting in plates. Very good to near fine. "Said to be the first book on distilling printed in the United States" - Amerine & Borg. The author, Michael August Krafft of Bristol, Pennsylvania, received a fourteen-year-term patent in 1801 for an improvement in stills, around which, he writes in the book's Advertisement, "Many unsuccessful attempts have been made to deprive him of the fruits of six years of sacrifice of property and labor" with "[s]light evasions of form, without a departure from the principle." Krafft's patent beat the attempted evasions, and, by the time of writing, 217 distilleries were legitimately… Read More

Plattsburgh [N.Y.]: Printed by F. P. Allen, 1833. 280 pp, including 3 wood-engraved figures in text. Original cloth-backed plain paper over boards, in modern cloth clamshell case. Bookplate of Jacob L. Chernovsky in case. Binding worn, joints cracked, leaves wrinkled, mold stains in outer leaves, contents mildly foxed. Good. "To the medical bibliographer there are few more treasured Americana than the brown-backed, poorly printed octavo volume of 280 pages with the imprint "Plattsburgh, Printed by F. P. Allan, 1833'" (Osler 1972). William Beaumont (1785-1853), the "Father of Gastric Physiology," was serving as a U.S. Army surgeon in the Michigan Territory in 1822 when he treated Alexis St. Martin, an 18-year-old French-Canadian guide who had been wounded in his left side by an accidental discharge of a musket loaded with duck shot. The wound healed but left a permanent fistula - a hole through which Beaumont would access St. Martin's stomach to study gastric juice and digestive processes over the… Read More

Paris: Éditions de la Revue Verve, 1960. 36 cm. [17],95,[16] pp. including 96 monochrome plates, plus 24 color plates. Original color lithographic covers not present. In French. Brown morocco, red and tan morocco onlays, pictorially tooled in gilt, spine titled in gilt, turn-ins ruled in gilt, red suede doublures, all edges gilt. Binding signed in gilt by Catherine Stanescu. Housed in a clamshell case, quarter morocco and marbled paper over boards, gilt leather labels, tan suede doublures. Paper edges of case rubbed, joints and leather edges of case moderately scuffed and worn, else very good. Binding and contents of book fine. In 1930, Paris art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard commissioned Marc Chagall to produce a suite of etchings illustrating the Hebrew Bible. The project precipitated Chagall's two-month visit the following year to the Holy Land, where he and his family were guests of Meir Dizengoff, founder and mayor of Tel Aviv. Chagall biographer Jackie Wullschlager describes the object… Read More

New York: VVV, 1944. 11 inches. 86,[12] pp. including numerous in-text images, plus 7 tinted half-page plates and double-leaf work comprising 2 tinted plates, the first die-cut to reveal the second, which is also embossed. In English and French. Light soiling in covers, light foxing in outer leaves, some offsetting in and from plates. Very good to near fine. The substantial fourth and final issue of the important U.S.-based Surrealist magazine, with contributions by more than two dozen artists, poets, and scholars in the realms of myth, dream, and theory. Among the visual pieces in this issue is Duchamp's ALLEGORIE DE GENRE, in which an embossed plate showing strips of fabric containing slivered stars and red bloody stripes is framed by a blue-tinted plate die-cut in the profile of George Washington. The final twelve pages, printed on green paper, contain an index of contributors to all four issues of the magazine. The cover features an image of a vagina dentata by Roberto Matta.

Paris: Les Cent-Une : Société de Femmes Bibliophiles, 1961. Folio. [2],140,[3] pp. including 10 original etchings by André Masson: 9 double-page aquatints in colors and one single-page aquatint printed 9 times, each in a different tint and section heading. Signed by the artist and by the president and vice president of the Société de Femmes Bibliophiles. Loose signatures in original printed wrappers, portfolio (maroon cloth and paper over boards, silver spine title), and clamshell case (blue cloth, printed paper spine label, colored patterned endpapers). Light toning at edges of wrappers, minor stains (not exceeding 1/4 inch) at foot of front wrapper panel, portfolio lightly scuffed, case lightly rubbed. Internally near fine, untrimmed. The twenty-first book published by the elite international society of women bibliophiles, Les Cent-Une, printed in 140 copies on large Rives paper, numbered I-CI for members of the society and 1-39 for collaborators in the project. This is copy VIII, printed for… Read More

[ca. 1994]. Image 8 x 10 inches, sheet 10 1/4 x 12 inches. Pen and ink on paper. Signed with "EG" monogram. Traces of pencil guide lines in margins, artist's corrections in white tempera. Pencil measurement inscription in lower margin. Light stains in margins (largest 3/8 x 1/4 inches), most visible in lower margin; tiny stains (not exceeding 1/12 inch) in lower portion portion of image. Very good to near fine. Between 1992 and 1997, the PBS-affiliated SIGNALS gift catalog issued ten limited-edition lithographic prints from art commissioned from Edward Gorey. The present drawing, made for LITHOGRAPH No. 4 (first published in 1994), later traveled in ELEGANT ENIGMAS, the first international exhibition of Gorey's works, curated by Karen Wilkin. It appears as the final image in the exhibition's catalogue and the as the sole image on the rear panel of its dust jacket. Eventually entitled "Gazebo," the drawing presents a 19th-century séance taking place outdoors in winter. Objects float around the… Read More

Kathmandu: [Angus Maclise and Francis Brooks], 1973. Folio (18 1/4 inches). [16] pp., including numerous woodblock illustrations (printed variously in black and red) plus 1 full-page woodblock print tipped in. In original pictorial wrappers, all on handmade rice paper. Small closed tears at head of front wrapper, light discoloration from original paste affixing large print, else fine. Numbered 102 of 150 copies. The second of three issues of TING PA, one of the early publications of the circle of American and European expatriate writers and artists living in Kathmandu during the 1970s. The woodblock illustrations include Himalayan and East Asian subjects, chiefly from religious traditions, as well as images drawn from the Rider-Waite Tarot.

[New York]: [s.n.], 1979. First Edition. Softcover. Near fine. [14] loose leaves, 6 inches, comprising [13] illustrated postcards illustrated and hand-colored on recto and captioned on verso and [1] colophon card signed and numbered by the artist. Contained in original colored pictorial envelope. Envelope lightly toned and mildly worn. Cards fine. Number 9 of the first edition, limited to 76 signed copies (50 numbered copies for sale, 26 lettered copies reserved for use of the artist and publisher). A set of postcards illustrating thirteen traits with an anthropomorphic lizard and the capital letter, "I": Inanity, Inconstancy, Indecency, Indecision, Indigestion, Indolence, Ineptitude, Innocence, Inquisitiveness, Insipidy, Insouciance, Inspiration, and Intractability. Edward Gorey hand-colored each of the 13 illustrated cards and the envelope in watercolor and several of the cards additionally in casein. "Of the several hand colored limited edition Gorey pieces created over the years, this is the… Read More