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I am not a professional bookseller. Just a private person. I used to collect books, years ago, and that’s where most of the pictures and texts come from on this Web site. But now times are hard and so I’m offering some of the books for sale privately.
To make an offer, or to ask for more details, send mail to liam at fromoldbooks dot org, with "book offer" in the subject line. Please remember to say where you live (including the country!) so I can estimate shipping costs.
The prices are all negotiable. I am in Canada, and shipping will be extra, dependng on where you live. I can’t trust Canada Post, so I will normally use FedEx unless you say otherwise.
If Canada post is on strike, neither Canada Post nor Purolator will be available.
If you spend over $1800 you can have free shipping up to $200. Prices are in US Dollars because that’s easiest for most people, but I can also accept other currencies via paypal. If you are in Canada say where, as there may be sales tax; if you’re an individual I’ll pay it for you.
I can give you a receipt with a business number on it for tax purposes; i have a business number for fromoldbooks.org even though i’m not a bookseller, but normally just scan the pictures.
Includes nativities for Queen Elizabeth I, Cromwell, Luther, Erasmus, Jesus Christ and more.
This 1100-page book is a major sourcebook for early American astrology especially.
The booksellers notes for the copy I bought said,
Four parts in 2 volumes (pagination is continuous). Quarto, pp xii, [13]-618; 1 pl., [619]-1126, [4]. 27 engraved and 2 woodcut plates, including 2 frontispieces and a portrait of the author. Numerous diagrams in the text. Contemporary calf, rebacked with gilt spines mounted (some foxing and occasional stains).
The stains are mostly browning of the paper used for the plates; since they are similar across different plates, but not on adjacent text pages, I think maybe insufficient care taken in the drying when they were printed, and other bookseller descriptions mention browning on the plates.
There are some slight cracks to the cover, but it’s over two hundred years old, so maybe no surprise. There is an owner’s inscription and some tiny ink blots, probably where the writer tried to push the dip-pen instead of pulling ot finish a flourish! Photographs of this on request; i also photographed most of the plates and checked that indeed they are all present.
See also scans of some occult pictures from this book. I did not scan them all, as I didn’t want to weaken the binding.
$2200
Slightly out-of-focus photograph showing one of the plates.
You might also be interested in a book about the Officina Bodoni where this book was produced, see next item..
$2,000
My copy is in excellent condition and comes in a cardboard slipcase. (the first 99 copies had an additional volume of illustrations and sell for over $1,000 today)
$250
This book was designed by Martino Mardersteig and printed in Verona; includes an essay by Rudolf Koch, plate reproductions of Hammer’s works, essays by Ulrich Middledorf, R. Hunter Middleton, Hermann Zapf and W. Gay Reading Jr. Includes extensive lists of Hammer’s works.
There are some marks on the slipcase from rubbing; otherwise as far as I can tell an excellent copy of a collectible edition.
$175
This is a really stunningly beautiful fine press edition. Many pages are stil uncut (they have deckle edges) and the illustrations are truly fabulous. I have scanned some of them here
Ths book is in excellent condition, except for some fading (as is common) to the colour of the spines.
The typeface is robust and the letters are large, giving a strong and beautiful effect to the page. The printed lines are actually probably perfectly straight, but I didn’t weigh down the page to scan it, as I didn’t want to weaken the binding.
This set seems fairly rare.
$2,000
Good condition. Black pigskin backed orange cloth. Copy 126 out of a limited edition of 206 copies made by one of the most famous early fine presses. Includes fourteen zinc-engraved illustrations by Lettice Sandford and printed on hand-made paper by F. J. Head. Uses 18pt New Hellenic Greek and Eric Gill’s Perpetua Roman.
I made some pictures mostly of the outside here.
$750
My copy is a fac-simile bound in black buckram with a heavy slipcase, from 1987 (September Press) in a limited edition of 480 copies.
The original is on Abebooks starting at around $15,000 if you’re curious, but even this 1987 facsimile edition lists at well over a thousand dollars there. This has been described as the most beautiful book produced for five hundred years; at any rate students of type and book design generally view this book as the pinnacle of combining illustration and text. It is a folio over a foot tall.
$750
I bought this book partly because of the subject matter, partly because it’s a beautiful physical object, but mainly because of the page layout, which is reminiscent of Biblical commentaries from the Middle Ages.
$700
[sold, sorry.]
A set of seventeen pamphlets, most of which seem to have been printed in a limited edition of 150 or so copies and are numbered, together with a folded index sheet. There is an elegent presentation case with marbled blue paper on the outside. The pamphlets were printed at different presses in 1989 and 1990.
$270
This book has samples of texts in every language known to Mr. Fry, over two hundred of them.
See also Public Domain Review, or Wikipedia, with some sample scans from this actual copy at From Old Books.
The only copy on Abebooks right now lists at $1800 but also includes the prospectus and a publishers note.
This book appears to be very rare.
$1500
I have scanned many of the pages (all? I forget) at fromoldbooks.org including a related insert, a 1759 tablet in the British Museum (if I got the Latin right), you can see it here: Eduardi Bernardi’s tablet.
Edward Bernard was a scholar at Oxford. Wikipedia shows the insert, perhaps reconstructed from teh pages I scaned; at any rate the wikimedia page for teh image links to it. Charles Morton (1716-1799) is mentioned as the source of hte engraved table of alphabets here but I have only found one other copy for sale, which was damaged and incomplete, and all the online images i found point to the ones i scanned.
I did find (a few years ago) a bookseller’s description of another copy of this rare volume:
Small 4to. (6) + 71 (ie 72)pp. Allegorical engraved title-page vignette. 3 plates in text (for ‘Brachmanica’, ‘Sinica’ & ‘Gjorganica’ versions). The Lord’s Prayer printed in more than one hundred languages, often with accompanying phonetic reading version. A ms. note on front endpaper presumably written by William R. Williams (New York 1868) whose inscription appears at top corner of title-page, states that the ‘present is an enlarged edition of the First Edition’ which ‘had become rare & high priced’. In 1715 an Amsterdam reprint of this edition gave the editor’s name as ‘John Chamberlayne’ (d. 1724). Another note in the same hand suggests the editor was an Irish Catholic mercenary employed by the Duke of Savoy in the Waldensian massacres (p52-the ‘Waldensis’ version is in fact Irish). On pp. 64 and 65 are two forms from the projected ‘Universal, Philosophical Language’ of Dr Wilkins. The work is essentially a display of fine printing types; some 90 translations of the word ‘Father’ are given at end. Early calligraphic ownership signature of ‘Thomas Blyth.’
This is missing eight leaves, and has a loose/detached binding (which doesn’t matter since it’s incomplete). But it does say the Pope is the Antichrist, you have to give it points for that, and it also has the page about Adam and Eve sewing breeches out of fig-leaves, which gives this translation the name The Breeches Bible.
I found one other copy from 1581 on abebooks, for $3,200, with damp stains on every page, and maybe even more incomplete, but with a complete binding.
Some pictures here.
I still have the notes from the bookseller when I bought this at the Toronto antiquarian book fair in 1991:
1581 BIBLE
This is Herbert 170. It is small 4to in format, but the dignatures comprise 8 leaves. Bound in early nineteenth century morocco, gilt, spine and edges gilt, gine dentelles (binding
soemwhat rubbed and stained). There is a photographically reproduced bookplate of Huss inside the front cover.The title page and conjugate leaf “Howe to take profite” are both lacking, as is the whole of Proper Lessons except for two leaves of Calender. (2/0)
The text of the Bible is present, but eight leaves are either lacking or torn with substantial loss of text (folios 255, 363-66, and 525 are lacking, while folios 259 and 524 are toen with loss of text. [there is a note in pencil, all supplied, next to this paragraph, , however]
The Concordances are complete. The Whole Book of Psalms, at the end of the volume, has the lower half of the title-page torn away [supplied], and pp. 79-80 has the bottom of the leaf torn away with loss of text. It ends with verse 3 of Psalm 150, and we believe, therefore, that the final leaf is lacking (unless there was further material after Psalm 150 also lacking.)
To sum up, some (8) leaves are lacking of seriously defective, and the whole of Proper Lessons to all intents and purposes, is also lacking. The leaves are a trifle browned and stained, with a few corners torn away or repaired at an early date. A few headlines are shaved. Blank pages have been interleaved where material is lacking (and in places where nothing is missing). However, the text is, in general, in very good condition.
Not stated is that the front cover is detached.
It all sounds rather dire but in fact a Geneva Bible from 1581 with only eight pages missing is pretty good going. Serendipity Books closed in I think 2012, but were very well respected.
Typographically, the Geneva Bible may have been the first to use footnotes with explicit lettered callouts. The first edition was also the first to use a roman, rather than blackletter, typeface. Here, the notes are in roman but the main text is in blackletter, as you can see from the scans and photographs.
$2251
Three volumes, late 20th century buckram binding.
Volume I (1883) The Lives of the Berkeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley, in the County of Gloucester, From 1066 to 1618.
Volume II (1883) The Lives of the Berkeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley, in the County of Gloucester, From 1066 to 1618.
Volume III (1885) A Description of the Hundred of Berkeley in the County of Gloucester and of its Inhabitants.
This book includes a glossary of West Country terms and dialect as well as some woodcuts. Each volume is 400 or more pages.
These are heavy. And fascinating. I found two copies on eBay, (one for a lot more money than i am asking, and the other a little cheaper but with staining to some pages, and none that have been sold recently.) I did not find any copies at booksellers, except for paperback reprints.
Pictures to follow over the next few days. There may be some spotting on the covers, likely caused by mildew in the past, and likely some foxing or browning to the pages, but that’s usual.
See also Ewbank’s page on John Smyth, the historian author of this book.
I bought this on a trip to Oxford in 1991 or 1992.
$600
This is a large book, 50mm (over 16 inches
) tall, in two heavy volumes.Ainsworth’s Latin Dictionary is cited in Johnson’s Dictionary, and was very successful, if somewhat inconvenient to carry around.
Full leather but cover is worn in placs.
I did not find a copy on sale to guess a fair price; only much later and smaller volumes, greatly abridged. let me know if you find one.
$800 but this is a wild guess. Extra shipping applies. Bring an elephant.
William Huddesford and Thomas Warton, editors. Printed at the Clarendon Press for J. and J. Fletcher and Joseph Pote, Oxford; 1772. In Two volumes approx. 25cm high. Contemporary full leather with gilt bits. With engravings.
Three important English antiquaries; the life of Leland (who famously compiled his Itinerary, an edition of which was published by Hearne in I think 1740, a copy of which I also have) was written by William Huddesford. The lives of Hearne and Wood are autobiographical, with additions by the editors.
$400
To make an offer, or to ask for more details, send mail to liam at fromoldbooks dot org, with "book offer" in the subject line. Please remember to say where you live (including the country!) so I can estimate shipping costs.
If Canada Post is on strike I can only send through other methods. It can take a week or two to get to a post office in Winter, but that is not a problem for a courier pick-up.
I can also list these on Abebooks (i think) or on ebay (definitely) if that’s easier for you; ebay takes 15% or so of the price, though, and i am not running an ongoing bookselling business; these are books that don’t fit with the others, or that i already studied enough.