Literature

The free adaptation of Pastor fido into Spanish by a Sephardic poetess of Spanish ascent

Extremely rare first edition of Sephardic Jewish poetess Isabel Correa’s Spanish adaptation of Guarini’s Pastor fido, a notable work of 17th century Sephardic literature and one of the few substantial literary publications associated with a Jewish woman of the Western Sephardic diaspora; written and published in the ancestral Spanish of her family, kept for centuries after their expulsion of Spain, and after their settling in Portugal. The edition was shared by two printing houses: Johannes van Ravesteyn’s in Amsterdam and Cornelis and Henricus Verdussen’s in Antwerp, this being the rarest one.

Sterne's masterpiece in a complete first-state first edition, signed by the author

The anarchic masterpiece that revolutionized the English-language novel, in its first state and first edition, signed by the author. All original features are preserved, including the marbled page in lively colour: an especially advanced and daring visual effect in eighteenth-century printing, which Sterne called “the motly emblem of my work”.

First edition of Heywood’s poems, and an early English woodcut book

First edition of Heywood's illustrated allegorical poems, one of the most extraordinary illustrated printed books of the Tudor era; “the illustrations and decorations as well as the general typographical excellence make this book outstanding among English work of the time” (Pforzheimer 469). Heywood’s parable represents the Catholics as flies and the Protestants as spiders, with butterflies, ants and beetles in attendance, was too much for the contemporary audience, and was not reprinted.

Remarkable ensemble of Brussels editions of the Quijote

An exceptional ensemble of lifetime editions, pairing the first edition published outside of Spain of the second part (the second overall, published only months after the first), with an early edition of the first part, incorporating corrections to the text, published six years after the first.

First edition of the Arte de Ingenio.

First edition, very rare, one of the most important productions of the Golden Century of Spanish literature, and an influential work in world literature, specifically on literary aesthetics, and certainly the crowning jewel of Gracian´s ouevre. An unusually fine copy of a book that, when found, is usually in terrible condition or simply incomplete.

Felix Dennis’s own complete set of the London OZ: all 48 issues of the defining British countercultural magazine

An exceptional association set of one of the central documents of the 1960s counterculture, preserving the complete London run together with material that reflects the experimental processes by which the magazine was made, with most of the major original inserts, rare variants and proof material, originating from the OZ editorial office Felix Dennis’s personal set, one of two complete sets owned by the later co-editor of OZ, and originally retained at the magazine’s London editorial office.

One of Kavan's most radically experimental novels

Scarce first edition of The House of Sleep, one of Kavan's most radically experimental novels, in the extremely rare dustjacket.

Early Edo manuscript of the Hogen-Heiji tales

An early Edo manuscript of the paired war tales Hogen monogatari and Heiji monogatari, preserved in six volumes distinguished by their sumptuous gold-decorated covers and endpapers. This copy matters above all for the survival of an evidently deluxe reading manuscript of two foundational narratives of medieval Japanese military literature.

Bombay Persian Nights in Soviet trade cloth binding

First edition: a conspicuous and historically layered specimen of the Persian Thousand and One Nights. Lithographed at Bombay by the Fath al-Karim press in 1890 and issued in an edition of 1600 copies, it represents the vigorous late-19th-century Indian phase of Persian-language printing, dependent on the authority and legibility of manuscript calligraphy.

Fundamental text for the formation of Spanish golden age literature

First Spanish edition of Plutarch’s Lives, the translation prepared by the influential Palencia, a curious copy only annotated for the life of Corolianus.