WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. “Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung.” 1921. Peter Harrington Rare Books.

Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington. First edition, first issue, of the extremely rare journal publication of Wittgenstein’s earliest published work, the first we have seen. Bertrand Russell’s foreword for the edition secured the publication of Wittgenstein’s work. “‘In any other case I should have declined to accept the article’, Ostwald wrote to Dorothy Wrinch on 21 February: ‘But I have such an extremely high regard for Mr Bertrand Russell, both for his researches and for his personality, that I will gladly publish Mr Wittgenstein’s article in my Annalen der Naturphilosophie: Mr Bertrand Russell’s Introduction will be particularly welcome'”.

Wittgenstein replied on 28 November: “‘I must admit I am pleased my stuff is going to be printed'” (Monk, pp. 203-4). It was published in book form the following year with parallel English translation by C. K. Ogden under the title Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The journal further includes two works by A. Ölzet-Newin, one by Fritz Dehnow, a review of a new book by Joseph Petzold, and the contents page for the full four-part journal.

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Bronte, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 1848. Peter Harrington Rare Books.

Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.

First edition, first issue, of Anne Brontë’s last and only separately published novel, which “reverberated throughout Victorian England” (May Sinclair, Brontë biographer) with its realistic and disturbing portrayal of alcoholism and debauchery.

Thomas Cautley Newby was a notoriously shifty publisher who had taken a deposit for the earlier publication of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey but failed to publish until the reviews of Jane Eyre proved favourable, then printed fewer than the agreed number, leaving most errors uncorrected. His behaviour on this occasion was little better: he offered it to Harper Brothers of New York for publication in America, implying it was by Currer Bell; printed reviews of Jane Eyre on the half-title verso with the same intent; and published only about 250 or 300 copies, instead of the agreed 500, leaving the remainder to be sold, with a cancel title and preface, as the second edition.

As a result, copies of the first issue are scarce. Michael Sadleir, whose collection of 19th-century literature remains unparalleled among private collections, considered it the scarcest of the Brontë sisters’ works and never found an adequate copy for his collection.

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Catherwood, Frederick. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. 1844.

Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington. First edition, limited to 300 copies. Stephens met Catherwood in 1836 and the two had a mutual interest in the ancient ruins of the near east. They decided to travel to Central America after reading an account of the ruins of Copan.

Their travels resulted in three titles written by Stephens and illustrated by Catherwood, but this is the only volume published as a folio. Although many of the views and subjects appeared in his work with John L. Stephens, the large-scale lithographs here reveal detail and beauty lost in the smaller format. Many of Catherwood’s original drawings and paintings were destroyed when a building in which he was exhibiting his work caught fire. “In the whole range of literature on the Maya there has never appeared a more magnificent work than Views of Ancient Monuments” (V. W. von Hagen, Frederick Catherwood Archt. ).

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Darwin, Charles, Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands. 1844. Peter Harrington.

Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington. First edition.

This was the second of three “major geological works resulting from the voyage of the Beagle, and contains detailed geological descriptions of locations visited by Darwin… it provides valuable insights into one of the most important scientific voyages ever made” (Cambridge edition 2011). These three works were issued as separate volumes over five years Coral Reefs (1842), Volcanic Islands (1844), and South America (1846) however Darwin’s intention was always to treat the geology of the Beagle in a single volume, so in 1851 the three parts were issued together, made up from unsold sheets and with a new title page. Freeman states that Volcanic Islands was published in November 1844; he notes the presence of “inserted advertisements Jan. 1844 in some copies” but not dated January 1845, as here. Although well represented institutionally, Volcanic Islands is in commerce decidedly uncommon, particularly in the original cloth.

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Erasmus. Institutio principis christiani. 1516. Peter Harrington Rare Books.

Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.

First edition of Erasmus’s famous treatise Institutio principis christiani, published at about the same time as Machiavelli’s Il Principe. Written as advice for Prince Charles of Spain (later the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), Erasmus’s work goes far beyond the education of the Prince, and is in fact, like Machiavelli’s, a general treatise on the state, its structure, the art of government and the conduct of the Prince; Erasmus, however, aims at harmony and peace, recognizing the rights and duties both of the Prince and the people.

Other pieces treating the same subject were added, a list of which is given on verso of the title. Of these Erasmus’s translation of a letter by Isocrates to King Nicocles on the importance of education for a king is published here for the first time. Further added are his Panegyricus to Philip the Fair, composed at the occasion of his return to Brussels in 1504 and already containing the same ideas as postulated in the Institutio, together with his letters in defence of this work to Paludanus and Nicolas Ruter. At the end of this part an extra printer’s colophon is present, dated April 1516.

The dedication, according to Allen, must date from March 1516 and the whole work at the end is dated May 1516. The second part then contains Erasmus’ translations of Plutarch’s treatises on true friendship, on the use to be made of enemies, on government by the Prince’s personal qualities rather than by fear, and on the value of philosopher-friends to the Prince. The first two are respectively dedicated to Henry VIII, king of England, and to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

The Institutio principis christiani is bound first in the volume with two other works. At the end of the volume is the second edition of a collection of Erasmian texts headed by Enchiridion militis christiani (Handbook of a Christian Knight), Strasbourg: Matthias Schürer, September 1515. In the same month Enchiridion militis Christiani was published as a separate work at Leipzig by Valentin Schumann, at Hieronymus Emser’s urging, as it was then in short supply in Saxony. A similar collection was first published at Antwerp, Th. Martens, November 1509.

Bound between the two is an incomplete copy of Erasmus’s translations from Plutarch (Basel: J. Froben, August 1514), lacking the title leaf.

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