Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
First editions, first issues (except Golden Gun which is in the second state binding as usual, without the gilt gun design on the front board, which proved too expensive and was dropped after the first 940 copies had been sent abroad), all in first state jackets, except Octopussy, which has the publisher’s overprice sticker.
The copy of Moonraker is in one of two variant states of the first impression, printed on thicker paper stock and with the word “shoot” at p. 10, l. 31 correctly printed. This is a complete set of the original sequence of James Bond novels and stories by Ian Fleming, comprising: Casino Royale (1953); Live and Let Die (1954); Moonraker (1955); Diamonds are Forever (1956); From Russia With Love (1957); Dr No (1958); Goldfinger (1959); For Your Eyes Only (1960); Thunderball (1961); The Spy Who Loved Me (1962); On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963); You Only Live Twice (1964); The Man With the Golden Gun (1965); Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966).
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Edmund Gosse from Thomas Hardy. October: 1913.” An exceptional association, one of four presentations recorded by Purdy, of Hardy’s last collection of stories in book form.
Gosse was a biographer and critic, now best remembered for his book Father and Son (1907), which portrayed his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist Christian father. The two men first met in 1874, beginning a friendship that lasted for the rest of Hardy’s life. Although Hardy was nine years Gosse’s senior, Gosse took a protective attitude to him, to the extent of calling him his “dear Child”, and defending him from hostile reviews.
It was Gosse who wrote a favourable review of Jude the Obscure, one of the first to appear before the critical deluge, and Gosse who carried the coffin at Hardy’s public funeral in Westminster Abbey.
Provenance: Edmund Gosse, the sale of his library, Part I, 30 July 1928, lot 70, to Bickers; Frederick B. Adams, Jr., sale, Part II, Sotheby’s 7 November 2001, lot 548, £4,465 including buyer’s premium.
Presented by Ben Houston of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
First edition, number 68 of 170 copies. Hemingway’s second book, published in an edition of only 170 copies, being the final part of a series of books published by the Three Mountains Press under the editorship of Ezra Pound, entitled ‘The Inquest into the state of contemporary English prose’.
The fragile nature of this production means copies have not generally worn well, so copies as well preserved as this, particularly in the original glassine, are very seldom encountered.
PROVENANCE: Lester Douglas (American book designer, bookplate to front pastedown).
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First edition in French and first published edition.
Jefferson’s only book-length work published in his lifetime was written in response to queries from Francois Barbe de Marbois, then secretary to the French legation at Philadelphia. In May 1781 Jefferson told Marbois that he would give him “as full information as I shall be able to do on such of the subjects as are within the sphere of my acquaintance” and duly forwarded Marbois his answers in December of that year. At the urging of Chastellux, Jefferson refined and augmented his text, which was then printed in an English-language edition of 200 copies for private circulation (Paris, May 1785, though dated 1782 on the title).
Jefferson claimed more than once that this French edition was pirated by Pierre-Theophile Barrois, who “employed a hireling translator and was about publishing it in the most injurious form possible” (TJ Papers 9:265). This fostered the theory that Jefferson felt compelled to have Stockdale publish his Notes in London in order to prevent its re-translation from the supposedly butchered French version into English. However, in his lengthy article, “Unraveling the Strange History of Jefferson’s Observations sur la Virginie” (Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, 2004, Vol. 112, Issue 2), Gordon S. Barker refutes the general notion that Jefferson had disowned the French edition at the time of its publication. In fact, Jefferson persuaded Barrois to delay publication until he could further hone and polish the translation. Jefferson used the delay to rearrange his text from a sequence of answers to a questionnaire into a more unified work. The result of this editing was “probably the most important scientific and political book written by an American before 1785”, and the document upon which “much of Jefferson’s contemporary fame as a philosopher was based” (Peden, Introduction to Notes on the State of Virginia, p. xi).
One important addition was the map of Virginia for which Jefferson sent instructions to the London engraver S. J. Neele in September 1786; the map was completed by December. Jefferson paid 33 francs to have 40 copies of his map coloured by Le Valle and added to later copies of his 1785 private edition. There were, however, errors in the first plate which Jefferson corrected before the printing used in this edition; a restrike of this map on thinner paper was used in Stockdale’s London edition of 1787.
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First edition of a very rare work by La Jonchère, one of the most original works of political economy of the 18th century.
Writing after the death of Louis XIV in 1715, La Jonchère puts forward a detailed and comprehensive plan of financial reform. Although he “expressly denies having followed Vauban’s Dixme Royale, he starts from the same initial principle… He advocates one sole tax, to be paid without privilege or exemption, by all Frenchmen without distinction, to consist of a percentage collected in money or in kind, on the general produce of the ground, mines quarries, etc., by a ‘Compagnie du Commerce’, to be formed for the purpose. This company was to have the monopoly of foreign trade, its shares being given as reimbursement of the price of all the offices sold by the king’s predecessors and of the capital of the rents due to towns or individuals. The corn collected by the company was to be sold at a permanently fixed price. The company was also to be entrusted with the recoinage and ‘diminution’ of the metallic currency, which were to bring it down to what… La Jonchère calls its ‘intrinsic value.’” (E. Castelot in Palgrave). Unlike Vauban and Boisguilbert, La Jonchère sought not simply to find a fiscal system to meet the enormous debts left by Louis XIV, but also to find a solution to the general misery of the people.
According to Alphonse Callery, La Jonchère wasted little time criticising earlier authors (though he does indeed criticise the work of Boisguilbert and of Vauban); what he proposes is a complete fiscal system, and with the precise detail of his plan, it is easy to see that he is no dreamer, but a clear minded thinker, with a well established understanding of mathematical concepts. An engineer by training, he had travelled extensively both in France and abroad, accumulating precious documents on financial administration. The book was printed between 1718 and 1719 (though dated 1720) and presented to the Regent as a gift. It is suggested that the book’s rarity is due to the fact that John Law stole many of the ideas for his own financial system, and destroyed as many copies of the book as he could to hide the fact.
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