Bauman Rare Books – Spring 2014 Catalogue

93. (GERMANY) (ACKERMANN, Rudolph) GERNING, Baron Johann Isaac von. A Picturesque Tour Along the Rhine, from Mentz to Cologne. London, 1820. Folio, early 20th-century full green straight-grain morocco gilt.

A Bauman Rare Books lançou recentemente lançamos o seu catálogo para o final da Primavera/início do Verão, um catálogo ricamente ilustrado onde apresenta 254 itens notáveis de todos os campos de interesse e com uma grande variedade de preços [estamos a falar do mercado americano…].

Mas confesso que não consigo resistir à excelente qualidade destes catálogos nem à sua excepcional beleza estética – são de facto uma pequena jóia (mas como diria a raposa da fábula de La Fontaine: “pena é que as uvas estejam tão verdes!”

Catálogo

E deixo apenas estas três referências:

Este catálogo apresenta uma muito desejada 1ª edição de Pride and Prejudice, o segundo e o mais popular romance de Jane Austen, um dos títulos mais procurados na literatura inglesa.

115. AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the Author of “Sense and Sensibility.” London, 1813. Three volumes. 12mo, contemporary full speckled calf gilt rebacked, later endpapers. [$72,000].

First edition of Jane Austen’s second and most popular novel, one of the most sought-after titles in English literature, in contemporary calf boards.

“Elizabeth’s own energy and defiance of character respond to Rousseau’s and the popular notion of the pliant, submissive female… None of her novels delighted Jane Austen more than Pride and Prejudice… She had given a rare example of fiction as a highly intelligent form… This remains her most popular and widely translated novel” (Honan, 313-20). “The size of the edition is not known… perhaps 1500 copies… The first edition was sold off very rapidly and a second one was printed in the same year” (Keynes, 8). “The print run of the first edition isn’t known but is likely to have been around seven hundred copies. It sold fast enough for a second edition to appear later the same year, which was still available in 1815; a third edition came out in 1817. A conservative estimate of those sales (based on the print runs of other Austen novels) would be 1500 copies” (Harman, Jane’s Fame, 42). Volume I of the first edition was printed by Roworth and Volumes II and III by Sidney, and their imprints appear at the end of the text of each volume. Volumes I and II with first edition half titles; Volume III with second edition half title (most often, half titles are not present). Keynes 3. Gilson A3. Armorial bookplates. Scattered light foxing. Volume I with loss to upper corner of leaf C1, not affecting text. Contemporary speckled calf boards most handsome with expert restoration. Scarce in contemporary binding and with half titles.

Mas iremos encontrar também uma 1ª edição de Emma:

116. AUSTEN, Jane. Emma: A Novel. By the Author of “Pride and Prejudice.” London, 1816. Three volumes. Tall 12mo, contemporary marbled boards rebacked and recornered in green straight-grain morocco gilt, original endpapers preserved. [$38,000].

First edition of the last novel Austen published in her lifetime, her exquisitely comedic and unerringly insightful social satire, a tall copy in contemporary marbled boards.

“Emma was the fourth and last novel which Jane Austen published in her lifetime. When it was written the author was at the height of her powers, and she wrote the book rapidly and surely, encouraged by the success of her previous novels to express herself with confidence in the way peculiarly her own” (Rosenbach 29:24). “Jane Austen’s fourth novel has a profundity similar to that of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, only more elusive since Emma’s character is far more subtle than Elizabeth or Marianne’s… Austen’s self-knowledge, her love of detail… [helped her] to create a proud, self-willed, self-guided, vexing and outrageous Emma and her greatest novel” (Honan, Jane Austen, 356-364). Complete, with rare half titles. Armorial bookplates. Scattered light foxing, lower corner of leaf H2 in Volume III expertly restored, touching only catchword. Volume III rear board renewed; contemporary marbled boards mildly rubbed, with expert restoration. A tall copy, exceptional in contemporary boards.

Destaco também um conjunto completo das três viagens no Pacífico de James Cook, in 4º e dois volumes in-folio, compreendendo a segunda edição (preferível à primeira) da primeira viagem —“considered the best edition” (Hill)— junto com as primeiras edições das segunda e terceiras viagens, completa com o volume de atlas num esplêndido folio grande para acompanhar a terceira viagem e com muitas das gravuras para a segunda viagem encadernados separadamente num volume de in-folio — um conjunto raro e procurado.

113. (WORLD) (COOK, James). Cook’s Three Voyages, Comprising: HAWKESWORTH, John. An Account of the Voyages undertaken for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. Three volumes. WITH: COOK, James. A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World. Three volumes (two quarto volumes plus atlas folio). WITH: COOK, James and KING, James. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. Four volumes (three quarto volumes plus atlas folio). London, 1773, 1777, 1784. Ten volumes altogether. Quartos, contemporary full diced brown calf gilt rebacked; Atlas volumes large folio, contemporary marbled boards rebacked and recornered in tan calf gilt. [$65,000].

Scarce complete set of Cook’s three Pacific voyages, comprising the preferred second edition of the first voyage—issued the same year as the first, and “considered the best edition” (Hill), with material suppressed from the first—along with first editions of the second and third voyages, complete with the splendid large folio atlas volume to accompany the third voyage, and with many plates for the second voyage bound separately in a atlas folio plate volume, an unusual and desirable arrangement. Superbly illustrated with 205 engraved charts, maps and plates, many double-page or folding, with many plates for the second voyage additionally provided in two copies. A uniformly and very handsomely bound set.

Facing challenges surpassed only by modern space flight, Captain James Cook embodied the spirit of the great age of maritime discovery. The only 18th-century explorer to lead more than one Pacific voyage, he embarked on three circumnavigations between 1768 and 1776, essentially transforming into their modern form the dangerously unreliable maps of the Pacific’s expanse and the New World’s western coast. Official accounts of his three voyages, with their remarkable engravings and splendid atlas, found an eager public, the first edition of the final voyage selling out in three days. In the words of his principal biographer, “The study of Cook is the illumination of all discovery.” “The famous accounts of Captain Cook’s three voyages form the basis for any collection of Pacific books. In three great voyages Cook did more to clarify the geographical knowledge of the Southern Hemisphere than all his predecessors had done together. He was the first really scientific navigator and his voyages made great contributions to many fields of knowledge” (Hill).

In his first voyage (1768-1771), Cook observed the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, rediscovered and charted New Zealand, and discovered and charted the east coast of Australia. This second edition is “considered the best one” (Hill 783) and contains 52 engraved plates, maps and charts, several folding, and includes the strategically important (and previously suppressed) “Chart of the Streight of Magellan,” and the “Directions for placing the Cuts and Charts,” neither of which are present in the earliest issues of the first edition. In his second voyage (1772-75), Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history and disproved the existence of the supposed “Great Southern Continent”; includes 64 engraved plates and maps, several folding. In his third voyage (1776-79), he searched for the North-West Passage, charted the American west coast from Northern California through the Bering Strait, and discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the Sandwich Islands; includes frontispiece portraits of Cook (Volume I) and King (Volume III), and 24 plates and maps, several folding, accompanied by the atlas folio volume of two maps and 61 large folio plates. This especially important third voyage was “the first voyage attempting an adequate examination and charting of our northwest coast” (Howes C729a). The first voyage is from the preferred second edition, but is bound with first edition title pages (likely by the publisher). A few plates bound out of order; text and plates complete, with many plates for the second voyage provided in two copies, one bound with the text and one in the separate atlas volume. PMM 223. Holmes 5, 24, 47. Beddie, 650, 1216, 1543. Bookplates. Plates and text generally fine, contemporary boards of quarto volumes quite handsome, light wear to original marbled boards on atlas volumes. An excellent set, unusual and desirable with two atlas volumes.

Como veêm as obras são de grande raride e muito boa qualidade (claro que o preço corresponde a estes atributos... pelo menos os americanos lá saberão).

Resta-me convidá-los para a consulta e leitura deste excelente catálogo.

Saudações bibliófilas.