Search Results: Titles starting with B from Bernard Quaritch Ltd

Small 8vo., pp. 14; A2 a cancel (as usual according to Foxon), wanting the final blank leaf; slight offset from binding on title-page but a very good copy; disbound.
First edition, rare (British Library and Yale only) of a very attractive description in verse of a country estate in Richmond. The first pages offer a prospect of the garden with its flowers and shrubs, shaded walks and arbours, a bower with the escutcheon over the door of the late Sir William Humble, Bart. (d.1724, presumably a previous owner), statues and ornaments, a wilderness, orchards, and a summer house. Footnotes explain in prose some of these features –
Near this Recess appears a sylvan Space,
Where Fortescue enjoys the Sweets of Peace ….
'Contiguous', the note explains, 'is the Vineyard, a pleasant retir'd spot belonging to the Right Honourable William Fortescue, Esq; Master of the Rolls, a Gentleman of the greatest Worth and Integrity'. William Fortescue was Pope's… Read More

A splendid copy of the Good and Harding Book of Common Prayer, in a striking masonic binding by John Lovejoy.
The London bookbinder John Lovejoy (fl. c. 1781–1812) is known by his distinctive Masonic bindings, employing an array of Masonic tools often arranged in striking compositions. He was himself a Mason, from around 1791 until 1812. His practices as an employer, however, earned him a certain notoriety among binders and the nickname 'the Tyrant': as a journeyman in 1781 he advocated a reduction in the working day (from fourteen to thirteen hours) but, when a master binder, he bitterly opposed such a change and was among the employers who prosecuted the leaders of the 1786 strike. Although it is accepted that Lovejoy was not, as previously thought, the only binder using Masonic motifs, close comparison of the tools with other examples of his work suggests this binding to be his.
Good and Harding's 1794 Common Prayer appeared in two settings, one octavo and the other a splendid large quarto,… Read More