Search Results: Authors starting with G from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

FIRST EDITION. This celebrated report represents the first major government plan for systematic internal improvements to promote American industry and agriculture. The report includes a letter from Robert Fulton on canals (pp. 102-23), and a letter by Benjamin Henry Latrobe on railroads, the earliest printed call for building railroads in the U.S. Gallatin called for the federal government to build a system of canals along the Atlantic seaboard and to establish communication between the Atlantic, the midwestern rivers, and the Great Lakes. "The historic Gallatin Report . . . defined a concept of internal improvement which, in its broad terms has remained up to modern times a virtual statement of national policy" (The District . .. Army Corps of Engineers 1866-1971). Gallatin believed the improvements could be made for $20 million and the debt paid within 20 years. The proposed indebtedness would have been unprecedented, and many including Jefferson believed the plan was… Read More

Albumen print (8 ½ x 6 ¼ in.), original mount signed in print "A. Gardner, Photographer / Washington." Closed horizontal tear across steps. Good tones.
This dramatic photograph by Alexander Gardner shows the Capitol as it was during Lincoln's presidency. Scaffolding, cranes, ladders, and other construction equipment are visible. The East Front of the Capitol was the site of Lincoln's inaugurations in 1861 and 1865.
A giant of American photography, Alexander Gardner is credited with introducing the large-format Imperial portrait to the United States while working as a staff photographer for Mathew Brady. Gardner left Brady's employ in early 1863, and his studio quickly rivaled Brady's for the quality and extent of its war and portrait photography.
Gardner first photographed Lincoln as president-elect while working for Brady, and he went on to take Lincoln's portrait more than any other photographer. Lincoln sat for Gardner on several occasions, usually visiting his studio on Sunday to… Read More

7 albumen prints (approx. 7 x 9 in.), original mounts with lithographed frame and caption. Minor occasional soiling and fading. Generally in excellent condition, with good strong tones.The most celebrated collection of Civil War photographs, Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War contains "many of the most graphic and memorable Civil War images that have come down to us" (ICP). The photographs covered the entire conflict from Manassas in 1862 to the dedication of the monument at Bull Run in June 1865. Gardner presents the photographs, each accompanied by his descriptive text, as "mementoes of the fearful struggle," recording war as it had never been recorded before.Alexander Gardner joined Mathew Brady's studio in the 1850s and introduced the new wet-plate collodion process there. This process was employed in the photographs of the Sketch Book. When Brady's sight deteriorated in the 1850s, Gardner became the studio's chief photographer. Working with the Army of the Potomac as a civilian… Read More

Salted paper print (5 ¼ x 7 ½ in., on publisher's 8 ¼ x 10 ¼ inch mount with gold lithograph captions and decorative border. Neat punch holes in upper margin, ½ inch adhesion at lower right, faint pencil note in lower corner. Very good.
The earliest dated photograph of Mount Vernon, this is one of the very earliest known photographs of George Washington's home.
By this time Mount Vernon was badly dilapidated. This view from the northeast shows ship masts propping up the portico's sagging roof where several columns had rotted away. A man wearing a dark suit and top hat stands in the foreground, his arm on a white painted fence protecting a small tree.
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, formed in 1853, purchased the mansion and estate from Washington's descendant John Augustine Washington III for $200,000. After an intensive fund raising effort and protracted negotiations, the organization took possession on February 22, 1860, nearly one year after this photograph was made. Extensive… Read More

The earliest dated photograph of Mount Vernon, this is one of the very earliest known photographs of George Washington's home.
By this time Mount Vernon was badly dilapidated. This view from the northeast shows ship masts propping up the portico's sagging roof where several columns had rotted away. A man wearing a dark suit and top hat stands in the foreground, his arm on a white painted fence protecting a small tree.
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, formed in 1853, purchased the mansion and estate from Washington's descendant John Augustine Washington III for $200,000. After an intensive fund raising effort and protracted negotiations, the organization took possession on February 22, 1860, nearly one year after this photograph was made. Extensive renovations were soon made. As a result this image shows a number of architectural and landscape elements differing from those seen in photographs of the 1860s.
Rare. The other known examples are at the Fred W. Smith National Library at Mount… Read More

4to. Six volumes. Contemporary calf, red morocco labels, spines heavily gilt- tooled, spine ends neatly restored. First volume recased, spine ends and joints restored. Two small worm trails at front of vol.I in upper margin not touching text. A handsome set.
First editions of all six volumes of the most celebrated historical work in English literature. Gibbon's Decline and Fall covers the thirteen centuries from the age of Trajan to the fall of Constantinople with unmatched erudition, clarity, and organization. "Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equaled to this day; and the result was clothed in an inimitable prose" (PMM).
Gibbon wrote that it was in Rome on October 15, 1764 while "musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, where the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter … the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started into my mind." It was not until 1772, after his father's death and… Read More

204 pp. Original red cloth. Spine slightly faded, very light rubbing. Near fine.
FIRST EDITION. Sinologist Herbert A. Giles began his distinguished career was a British diplomat in China. There he wrote these literary and historical sketches to show that, contrary to prevailing Western views, "the Chinese are a hardworking, sober, and happy people, occupying an intermediate place between the wealth and culture, the vice and misery of the West." Giles later became professor of Chinese at Cambridge for thirty-five years.
Chapters include Position of Women, Etiquette, Literature, Education, Dentistry, Medical Science, Loan Societies, Guilds, Pawnbrokers, Postal Service, Slang, Fortune Telling, Games and Gambling, Jurisprudence, Buddhism, Superstition, Feng-Shui, Money, and more.
Provenance: East Asian Institute of Karl Marx University (now Leipzig University), withdrawn, with neat stamp on verso of title.

GODDARD'S DESIGNS OF ROCKET VALVES.

This manuscript contains Goddard's technical notes and three illustrations of rocket engine valves. Two drawings fill the center of the page: a large outline of a rocket engine valve and a smaller depiction of a diaphragm cover. Goddard's notes read in part: "For main valves, Ox. P = supply line . . . control valve. For tank valves, Ox. P = tank, B = supply line." The verso has a diagram of a tank valve accompanied by notes stating, "Tank Valves, short distance," and "diaphragm, if it gains enough travel—otherwise use a bellows—35 lbs."

Goddard (1882-1945), the "father of modern rocket propulsion," launched the world's first liquid-propellant rocket on March 16, 1926, at Auburn, Massachusetts, a "feat as epochal in history as that of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk" (NASA). Goddard had a rare genius for invention and these notes suggest the endless refinement necessary to create a dependable, operational rocket engine.

The illustrations and annotations show… Read More

4to. Two volumes. Contemporary half calf, spines gilt, marbled boards. A very fine, fresh copy. Half morocco cases.
FIRST EDITION. In Political Justice, his most famous work, Godwin responds to Burke's attacks on the French Revolution and Thomas Paine. He applies the principles of the Revolution to inquire into the philosophical basis of government. Believing that political and social institutions are tyrannical and corrupt, Godwin calls for reason to guide human affairs and advocates individual liberty.
The Enquiry Concerning Political Justice was "one of the earliest, the clearest, and most absolute theoretical expositions of socialist and anarchist doctrine. Godwin believed that the motives of all human action were subject to reason, that reason taught benevolence, and that therefore all rational creatures could live in harmony without laws and institutions. Believing in the perfectibility of man, he thought that 'our virtues and vices may be traced to the incidents which make the history of our… Read More

Albumen print (13 x 7 ½ in.). Gutenkunst mount (worn with abrasion at foot). A very good print, signed by the photographer in the negative.This impressive full-length portrait of Grant in uniform was made at war's end to capture the triumphal hero at the height of his powers. Grant wears a black mourning ribbon, tied to his left arm and hanging down, in honor of the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
This portrait shows Grant emulating the pose of Napoleon in David's famous Napoleon in his Study (1812), a pose favored in military portraits of the time.
Gutekunst was known as the "dean of American photographers," and only Gardner and Brady could equal the quality of his Civil War portraits. Leading politicians and generals flocked to his Philadelphia studio.

Albumen printed cabinet card mark with Mathew Brady backmark. Some wear at edges of mount, but an excellent photograph with strong contrast.
This Mathew Brady portrait of General Ulysses S. Grant is inscribed and signed by Brady
to J.E. Kelly on the mount. Stamp of Brady Studio, Wash. D.C. and handwriting attributed to J.E. Kelly on verso. Brady was nearly blind during much of his photographic career as well as semi-literate throughout his life and so he rarely signed or inscribed photographs.
Brady was the preeminent photographer of his generation, and he was particularly remembered for documentation of the American Civil War. Long before his fame from the war he made his mark in photographic history in portrait photography with his galleries of notable Americans in New York City and Washington, D.C. The galleries were widely acclaimed tourist attractions as well as social meeting places for all classes of citizens.
The photograph features Grant wearing his military uniform, before his… Read More

This is a rare original script for Graham Greene's play Carving a Statue which opened on September 17, 1964 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The production, directed by Peter Wood and starring Ralph Richardson, closed after a month. Greene blamed Richardson's "humourless" interpretation of the main character for the play's failure.Green wrote, "Never before have I known a play like this one so tormenting to write or so fatiguing in production. I am grateful to the reviewers who may have a little accelerated the end. At the age of sixty there is no reason to work, except to earn a living or to have 'fun.' This play was never fun and I earn my living in another field."NOT IN WORLDCAT. Greene employed Dr. Jan Van Loewen, whose name is printed on the first leaf of this script, as his theatrical agent beginning in the 1950s.Provenance: Anthony Peek, manager for the original 1964 production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.[65] pp., xerographic, rectos only, 1 carbon typescript revision page paper clipped to… Read More

A splendid view of Angkor Wat with deep, rich tones. Émile Gsell accompanied de Lagrée on his expedition to Angkor, where he made a series of dramatic photographs only a few months after John Thomson's expedition. The French photographer Gsell became the first commercial photographer based in Saigon in 1866. He returned to Angkor in 1873 with the famous expedition led by Louis Delaporte.
"Reports of an abandoned city in the jungle had reached Europeans in 1850, and in 1863 de Lagrée conducted the first archaeological exploration of the ruins. The finest and most extensive of all Khmer monuments, Angkor Wat was built early in the twelfth century as a temple symbolizing Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain at the center of the Buddhist and Hindu universe. It had been abandoned in the eighteenth century, and by the time this photograph was made many of its buildings had been overtaken by the forest" (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
"One of these temples, a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by… Read More

Albumen print (10 ¾ x 7 ¾ in.), mounted on card. Light wave in mount. Minor fading at edges.The French photographer Émile Gsell became the first commercial photographer based in Saigon following his first expedition to photograph Angkor in 1866.
The example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is titled in manuscript "Musiciens Annamites, Cochinchine— Saïgon"
On the verso of the card mount is a second photograph, a studio portrait of a seated woman of Saigon (albumen print, 7 ¾ x 7 ¾ in.).

FIRST EDITION. A "masterpiece of scientific history," Guicciardini's History of Italy was "undoubtedly the greatest historical work that had appeared since the beginning of the modern era. It remains the most solid monument of Italian reason in the 16th century, the final triumph of that Florentine school of philosophical historians which included Machiavelli …" (Britannica, 11th ed.).

Born in Florence, Francesco Guicciardini's colleagues and contemporaries included Niccolò Machiavelli, Girolamo Savonarola, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and popes Leo X, Clement VII, and Paul III. Oliver Goldsmith wrote of him: "He was at once (what seldom happens to be united in the same person) a scholar, a soldier, and a politician." This lent him a unique perspective on the history of the powerful nation-state of Florence and the role of Italy in Europe at the turning of the sixteenth century. The Historia d'Italia was the first to discuss the Italian peninsula as a unified entity among the other nation-states in… Read More