Bauman Rare Books – November 2015 Catalogue

An Exceptional, Large, Uncut Copy In Original Boards: First Edition Of Ellis' Embassy To China, 1817, With Superb Hand-Colored Aquatints And Large Folding Map Of The Route To The British Embassy In China.

Recebi mais um dos excelentes catálogos da Bauman Rare Books – November 2015 Catalogue – que, para além de muitas obras já bem nossas conhecidas, nos apresenta duas que são pouco frequentes de aparecerem e que estão a ser tema de polémicas na actualidade (pelo menos aqui em Portugal…).

Refiro-me concretamente a O Capital de Karl Marx, que com a perspectiva de um regresso da esquerda ao poder e do eventual apoio do P.C.P. ressuscitou (aqui em Portugal) a discussão em torno dos velhos “fantasmas” marxistas.

56. MARX, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. London, 1887. Two volumes. Octavo, original gilt-stamped burgundy cloth recased. [$17,000].

First edition in English of the first part of Marx’s landmark Das Kapital, the only part published in his lifetime, containing substantial revisions made by Marx for the first French translation, this two-volume work edited by Engels and translated from the third German edition. A very scarce and important printing of a seminal work in economic and political thought.

“Marx himself modestly described Das Kapital as a continuation of his Zur Kritik des Politischen Oekonomie, 1859. It was in fact the summation of his quarter of a century’s economic studies… The ‘Athenaeum’ reviewer of the first English translation (1887) later wrote: ‘Under the guise of a critical analysis of capital, Karl Marx’s work is principally a polemic against capitalists and the capitalist mode of production, and it is this polemical tone which is its chief charm’” (PMM 359). “In his funeral eulogy for Karl Marx, Engels concluded that ‘Marx was above all a revolutionary… It is doubtful that any figure in history has inspired more violently contradictory opinions than Karl Marx” (Downs, 22). “Only this first part of Marx’s magnum opus appeared in his lifetime,” with its publication in German in 1867 (PMM 359). The remainder was constructed by Engels from Marx’s posthumous papers. Containing Marx’s central concept of surplus value, this first edition in English is translated from the third German edition of Moore and Aveling, is edited by Engels and incorporates substantial revisions Marx made for the first French translation (1872-5). Although Engels published the German edition of volume II in 1885, his preface notes that a translation of it without volume III was necessarily incomplete; the German edition of volume III did not appear until 1894. Bookplates of Manchester Reform Club with penciled notations. Interiors very fresh with only a few leaves roughly opened, closed tear to one leaf (I:337), expert archival restoration to spine ends of original cloth.

E a rara primeira edição, em inglês, dos comentários Martinho Lutero sobre A Epistola de S. Paulo aos Gálatas, 1575, obra muito importante para a história do prostetantismo, numa altura em que a temática religiosa é tema de discussão e contorvérsia em vários quadrantes na Europa.

(como simples nota de curiosidade refira-se que o Cristianismo teve um processo de Reforma e a consequente Contra-Reforma o que nunca se verificou no Islamismo)

58. LUTHER, Martin. A Commentarie of M. Doctor Martin Luther upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galathians. London, 1575. Octavo, mid 19th-century full vellum gilt. [$17,500].

Rare first edition in English of Luther’s important commentary on Galatians—“his most influential work in English”—bound in full 19th-century vellum-gilt.

Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation, held his study of Galatians to be “his greatest exegetical work” (Bray, Reformation Commentary on Scripture, Volume X). Certainly, no other book of Scripture excited such passion in him: “The Epistle to the Galatians is my own epistle,” he once declared. “I have betrothed myself to it.” In the apostle Paul’s letter, Luther found abundant support for his doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, an essential tenet of Protestant faith. “The original edition of this Commentary—in Latin, like the lectures on which it was based—was prepared for the press by George Rorer, one of Luther’s most assiduous and reliable reporters, with some assistance from Veit Dietrich and more from Caspar Cruciger… All three had attended the lectures in 1531, and Rorer… had taken very full notes” (Philip Watson). Luther approved the text and contributed a preface, and the work first saw print in 1535. “The importance of this Commentary on Galatians for the history of Protestantism is very great. It presents like no other of Luther’s writings the central thought of Christianity, the justification of the sinner for the sake of Christ’s merits alone” (Theodore Graebner).

Printed in Gothic type. This copy without Vautroullier’s printer’s device on verso of title page (no priority established). Leaves O1 and O2 misbound; all text present. Lowndes, 1415. Large engraved bookplate. Small ticket of 19th-century London bookbinder Charles Thurnam. Contemporary owner signature to title page. A few old ink markings and marginalia. Light green leafy sprays painted on gilt and gauffered edges of text block. Some minor dampstaining to first few leaves, expected mild soiling and rubbing to vellum-gilt, light wear to spine head, joints split, binding sound. An exceptionally rare and desirable copy of a major theological landmark.

Claro que os manuscritos dos presidentes dos USA têm um lugar cativo e com valorizações sempre muito significativas.

42. FRANKLIN, Benjamin. Document signed. Philadelphia, April 26, 1787. Original folio leaf (9 by 15 inches) in manuscript on the recto, docketed on the verso. [$25,000].

Official 1787 manuscript document in a secretarial hand signed by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin as President of Pennsylvania—”B Franklin, Presid”— only a month before making his much heralded appearance, as a Pennsylvania delegate, to the Constitutional Convention, containing his autograph endorsement in the “Petition of Daniel King & John Gardner” on the bankruptcy of a prominent Philadelphia coach maker who, having later survived in business, would sell George Washington a coach in 1793.

Franklin is the only Founding Father to be signatory to all four key documents in America’s founding: the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris, Treaty of Alliance with France and the U.S. Constitution.

Aqui ficam estes exemplares, mas mais do que pelo seu interesse bibliófilo, seria interessante reflectirmos sobre o seu significado na época em que foram escritos e que, passado tanto tempo, ainda hoje despertam paixões e ódios e continuam a ser tema de discussão.

Saudações bibliófilas