Search Results: Titles starting with H from Michael Laird Rare Books LLC

London: Macmillan, 1902. First Edition. Good. 8vo. vi, 252 pp. Original publisher's cloth (somwhat worn, front hinge cracked). Pastedowns and endleaves opposite with foxing as commonly. Half-morocco case, front cover with reproduction of the original cloth design printed on paper. ONE OF THE BEST CHILDREN'S BOOKS OF ALL TIME, "Just So Stories" features 22 illustrations by Rudyard Kipling himself (who also designed the covers). FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (with the date 1902 printed on the title-page), FIRST IMPRESSION (with the printer's mark on p. [251]). "The 'Just So Stories' began as bedtime stories told by Kipling to his daughter Effie. When the first three were published in a children's magazine, a year before her death, Kipling explained: 'In the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be like charms,… Read More

Florence: Société Calcographique, 1803. Very good. Two prints, matted and framed (frame sizes approx. 460 x 360 mm, visible portions: approx. 293 x 207). One print with dampstaining along left side (SEE IMAGE). These are original prints, NOT reproductions! TWO OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL TERRACOTTA PRINTS OF ETRUSCAN VASES FROM WILLIAM HAMILTON'S SECOND COLLECTION. Hamilton actually formed two collections of Greek vases; the first he sold to the British Museum. The present prints depict vases from his second collection, part of which was lost at sea. The surviving portion was sold to Thomas Hope. Our prints belong to the 1801-1803 Florence Société Calcographique edition of the "Peintures des vases antiques / Pitture de vasi antichi" (1801-1803) which is distinguished by the sumptuous TERRACOTTA printed ground onto which the black ink was applied directly (one has handpainted with highlights). Hamilton's second collection was first made known to the public through the greatly inferior UNCOLORED… Read More

Kyōto: Ikegami, 1899. Very good. Large 8vo (268 x 196 mm). [3, 31] double leaves. Four-hole bound volume (yotsumetoji), traditional East Asian binding style (fukurotoji), original wrappers bound in (worn, soiled, and lightly foxed). Ex-ownership inscriptions to lower wrapper, seal to lower pastedown. Some foxing and browning, overall very good. FASCINATING WORK OF MIXED MEDIA WHICH COMBINES DELICATE HAND-PAINTING AND PRINT IN THE SERVICE OF FASHION AND COMMERCE, BEING AN ALBUM OF 52 DESIGNS FOR KIMONO. "In the Meiji era (1868-1912), Japan became active on the global stage, embracing new technologies, fashions, and design trends from the Western world. During this period, kimono design books were revived and evolved into print albums known as zuan-cho (literally 'design idea books'). These print albums circulated among artists, designers, kimono merchants, and wealthy patrons in Japan's major cities. Combining bold colors, geometric lines, and influences from Western styles such as Art Nouveau,… Read More

S.l.: s.n., 1980. Very good. A quantity of four paintings on paper, generally 370 x 280 mm each, hinged with cloth tape to mattes ca. 1980s (?). Some age toning, the painting of the Native American is slightly creased on the lower blank margin (SEE IMAGES). INTRIGUING COLLECTION OF FOUR STYLIZED PAINTINGS OF "EXOTIC" PEOPLES IN THE ART-DECO STYLE. The subjects are as follows: 1. African (bust) 2. Native American (full-length) 3. Persian or Mongol (full-length) 4. Indian (full-length). The painting for each subject has been delicately and exactingly rendered by an accomplished artist. This individual is unidentified; s/he may be for the 1930s or even as late as the 1980s, working in the Art-Deco style. MUST BE SEEN TO BE FULLY APPRECIATED.

London: Newton and Co, 1909. First Edition. Very good. 8vo. [8], 215, [5] pp. (including index and Price-list). COMPLETE with all 28 plates and requisite 27 printed tissue sheets (there are 2 tissue guards for plate V). Original publisher's green ribbed cloth, spine gold-stamped, patterned-paper pastedowns and endpapers. Some foxing here and there; slight shelf lean; faint traces of damp. The cloth is bright and the hinges are perfect, and there are no objectionable stamps or markings anywhere. NOT ex-library! HARMONOGRAPHIC PERFECTION, ANTICIPATING MATHEMATICAL ART OF EARLY COMPUTER GRAPHICS. The harmonograph is a mechanical apparatus that uses pendulums to draw a geometric image, the result being delicately rendered "analog" line drawings executed in real-time. The present volume introduces newly developed or perfected harmonographs, based on Lissajous curves; these are Tisley's compound pendulum (fully illustrated), and the twin elliptic pendulum of Goold, published here for the FIRST TIME. The… Read More

Washington DC: War Department, 1860. First Edition. Very good. Together two chromolithographs (287 x 212 mm), loose in mylar L-sleeve (plate XVI with short marginal tear at top, not affecting image). Our prints have VERY LITTLE offsetting which almost invarably spoils the illustrations of this publication and is SUITABLE FOR FRAMING. The are original prints, NOT reproductions! AN EXCELLENT PAIR OF AMERICAN HAWK CHROMOLITHOGRAPHS from the famed "Pacific Railroad Surveys" of 1853-1855. "The ornithological studies produced from the Railroad Surveys were of such outstanding quality that they were republished in 1860 under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution. Entitled 'The Birds of North America,' the illustrations and text by Spencer Baird are still considered to be among the best of the early ornithological works on American birds." (Brown University, The Robert S. and Margaret A. Ames Collection of Illustrated Books, online). The plates here are: Vol. XII, Book 2, Plate XI: Falco Nigricepsl… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878. First Edition. Very good. 32mo. 94 pp. (including integral 4-page advertisements for Harper's Half-Hour Series) + 2 pp. at end (advertisements for Wilkie Collins and Thackeray). Contemporary brown linen cloth, leather spine label (defective); paper stock toned; browning on first page of advertisements from offsetting of tipped on half-sheet; pencil scribbles on front endpaper; decorative pastedowns and endpapers. Henry James's "An International Episode" is partly a response to THIS little satire on American manners in New York City, which James rewrote from an American (instead of a "foreign") point of view. James was exasperated with the author's treatment of the New York "haut monde." In his 1878 review of "The Tender Recollections of Irene Macgillicuddy" (The Nation, 30 May 1878), James conceded that there were American social types, and "a considerable field for satire." James was "sardonic about the portrait of the young American female in which 'the great… Read More

Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Sons, 1883. First Edition. Large 8vo (265 x 175 mm). iv, 654 pp. 1 f., 2 color lithographs, 49 figures in text. Polished brown half calf, marbled sides, red morocco lettering piece with gilt lettering, top edges gilt, all original wrappers bound in. Front joint a trifle worn. Published on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of the introduction of printing to Sweden by Bartholomaeus Gothan and Johannes Snell, the book begins with a history of the introduction of printing to all countries of the world (Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Hungary, England, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland and Greenland, Norway, Poland, Lithuania and Galicia, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Asia, America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania), then proceeding with the history of Swedish presses up to 1800. There are Swedish statutes of the freedom of the press during the 1600s and 1700s, lists of printing presses in Sweden (including the names of printers and even their… Read More

Philadelphia, 1845. Very good. Stereotyped map of Oregon, highly detailed, neat line to neat line: 59 x 90 cm. Inset map of Columbia River, neat line to neat line (irregular shape): 54.4 x 24 cm. Scattered foxing and creasing where formerly folded, generally a very good copy. Matted in a handsome maple frame (not examined outside frame). THE FIRST OFFICIAL MAP OF THE NORTHWEST. It was in many respects the most detailed of this extensive area yet published, and for the main Oregon regions and the Hudson's Bay Company's territories to the north it was an accurate, quite extraordinary map. "The areas now embraced by Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are very well mapped... This map had much influence on the later maps of the area." (Wheat, 457). A GIGANTIC, EARLY, AND INFLUENTIAL U.S. MAP OF OREGON TERRITORY, stereotyped issue. The map conveys a detailed depiction, showing topography, river courses, and currents along the west coast. The map first appeared as an engraving in Wilkes' six-volume "Narrative… Read More

Boston and New York: Joy, Langdon & Co, 1873. Very good. Textile product label (170 x 135). Engraved script below imprint cropped affecting several words, one short tear, corner chip, light soil. Our example appears to have actually been used for its original purchase, namely pasted on fabric as there is still glue residue on the verso, and numbering in pencil and also red ink on the verso. The number of yards of the fabric is recorded in contemporary ink: "48.2" Wonderfully gloomy factory scene rendered at the height of the American Industrial Revolution. The engraving depicts the Boston manufacturing plant of Joy, Langdon & Co., located at 76 Chauncey Street. Here the viewer is confronted by a bleak "no exit" view, with towering factories on both sides bisected by train tracks leading inexorably towards a belching smoke stack; on the left is an almost ecclesiastical looking building topped with a bell tower. The scene is populated with a total of seven men in suits and top-hats; curiously, the… Read More

Brussels: Bibliotheca Wittockiana, 1986. First Edition. Softcover. Very good. Folio. 167 pp. Featuring 75 items, each beautifully illustrated in b/w and color. With an introduction by Jean Toulet in French. Original illustrated wrappers. The indispensable, profusely illustrated exhibition catalogue of 75 fine and historic bindings from the unrivaled collection of Bibliography formed by B.H. Breslauer. The famed "Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana" will certainly never be surpassed in terms of quality, scope, and size. Breslauer was one of the great antiquarian booksellers of the 20th century and his connoisseurship and erudition is attested by his epic catalogues. The BBB was his life's work; it was dispersed in 3 astounding sales at Christie's New York in 2005. Michael Laird was the principal author of the catalogues for the Second and Third sales, and his research was utilized through the catalogue for the First (obliquely credited in the introduction to same).

Austin: [Harry Ransom] Humanities Research Center, 1967. First Edition. Good. Tall narrow 8vo. 71 pp., illustrated throughout. Original grey boards printed in black and red (lacking dust-jacket, corners a little bumped; ownership signature on verso of front endleaf; spine a little palm-soiled). NOT ex-library! With descriptions of 120 Bibles in the collection of the HRC, manuscript printed. A revision and an expansion of the 1960 exhibition catalogue "The Holy Bible" by Edwin T. Bowden. The present catalogue is handsomely designed with decorated boards, decorated endpapers, a decorated double-spread title-pages, decorated initials, and a number of illustrations. It is not without interest that the catalogue was issued BEFORE the HRC acquired the great Pforzheimer copy of the 42-line "Gutenberg" Bible.