Search Results: Titles starting with I from William Reese Company

[Np, ca.1875].. [1]p. printed on a half quarto sheet, 4 x 6½ inches. Fine. An accomplished late 19th-century facsimile printing of the first oath of allegiance to the United States, administered at the outset of the American Revolution. The original was printed by John Dunlap in Philadelphia, 1776, and all civil and military officers were required to sign it. It reads in full: "I [blank] do acknowledge the United States of America to be Free, Independent and Sovereign States, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to George the Third, King of Great-Britain; and I renounce, refuse, and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him; and I do [blank] that I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain and defend the said United States against the said King George the Third, his heirs and successors, and his or their abettors, assistants and adherents, and will serve the said United States in the office of [blank] which I know hold, with fidelity, according to the best of… Read More

[London]: Privately Printe, 1844. 21pp. Dbd. Else clean and very good. Part one consists of letters by J.A. Roebuck (Agent in London for the Assembly of Lower Canada), as well as Bancroft and Jared Sparks, the historians. The letters deal with the practice of appointing colonial agents in London. Part two is by Falconer, an English county court judge who travelled in America in 1840-42 and later served on the Canadian Boundary Commission. A scarce privately printed work by an Englishman famous for his part in the ill-fated Texan- Santa Fe Expedition, which he participated in as an observer. TPL 2642. SABIN 23727.

New York: American Bible Society, 1875.. iv,717pp. Contemporary calf, ornate blind- stamped covers, gilt-lettered spine, neatly recased. Rubbed. Scattered foxing, pencil scribblings on both pastedowns. Small, chipped broadsheet of religious hymnals laid in. Good. Third edition, after editions of 1844 and 1856. "The A.B.S. Report for 1844 states that this version was made by S. Hall and other missionaries of the A.B.C.F.M. near Lake Superior. J.C. Pilling, however, in his bibliography of the Algonquian Languages ascribes it to Henry Blatchford." BANKS, p.133. EVANS 580. PILLING, ALGONQUIAN, p.52. DARLOW & MOULE 3040. AYER, INDIAN LINGUISTICS (CHIPPEWA) 35. PILLING, PROOF- SHEETS 396.

Venice, 1829. xxii,[2],397pp. Antique-style three-quarter calf and marbled boards. Very good. Later edition of Marco Polo's travels in Asia. A relatively scarce Italian edition, with fewer than twenty copies recorded in OCLC

[Augsbourg: F.X. Habermann, ca. 1780].. Four engravings, each approximately 19 x 15 1/2 inches. Moderate edge wear and creasing. Minor dampstaining on first engraving. One print with two-inch piece torn from upper right corner. Light vertical fold line through center. Good. Archivally matted, protected with mylar sheet. A charming set of four views of Martinique. The first three images show Fort Royal from several approaches, including a detailed view over the fort into the harbor which best displays the fort's layout. The fourth view, of Port de la Trinité, shows the settlement in the distance with several ships of the line, including a British vessel, in the foreground. Habermann (1721-96) was a prolific artist who produced several engravings of American scenes for a series he called "Collection des Prospects," which appears in the upper left corner of each of the present images. They were often executed with exaggerated perspectives, and produced in Paris, London, and Augsbourg. The images were… Read More

[Paris: Felix Malteste, 1849].. 15,[1]pp. Modern half calf and marbled boards, spine gilt. Light, intermittent soiling. Very good. The first issue of Étienne Cabet's periodical ICARIE, dated March 15, 1849, a compendium of letters and journal entries providing news of the Icarian utopian settlements in America to French and European audiences. This is an important and exceptionally scarce resource for a firsthand view of the difficulties settling in America that were faced by followers of the French politician, journalist and author, Étienne Cabet, whose theories for creating a communist utopia they sought to put into practice. The Icarian communal society "was the quixotic hope of Frenchman Étienne Cabet, who visualized a community with a controlled economy based on democratic decision rather than dictatorship. Cabet, a utopian socialist, contended that men suffered misfortune in society only because society was poorly organized, that inequality could be abolished only through common ownership of… Read More

New York: Scribner's Son, 1883. xi,[1],344,[4]pp. plus three maps. Publisher's pictorial cloth. Minor shelf wear. Unobtrusive library stamp to front and rear flyleaves, loss to top of rear flyleaf, removed library pocket on rear pastedown. Internally very clean. About very good. First edition of Gilder's narrative of the expedition to recover the missing U.S.S. Jeannette. Gilder, a soldier and journalist, accompanied the voyage as a correspondent for the New York Herald whose proprietor, James Gordon Bennett, also happened to be the owner of the missing vessel. The Jeannette was intended to travel through the Bering Strait, focusing on scientific observations of the region. It ran into heavy ice conditions, eventually sinking and forcing the men to evacuate into the unforgiving Arctic. ARCTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY 5744.

[Amsterdam: Cornelis Claes, 1604. Twenty-nine (of thirty) plates, plus two maps and one extra plate. Oblong quarto. Contemporary Dutch vellum, gilt. Cockled, soiled. Marginal stains on two plates; one plate chipped in margin, not affecting text. Very good. In a cloth clamshell case, leather label. This extremely rare portfolio of plates consists of fine early impressions of Linschoten's famous views of Portuguese Asia. They are among the first eyewitness illustrations of the East to reach Europe, and were by far the most widely disseminated. Donald Lach has called them "a watershed in Europe's pictorial impression of Asia." They rank among the most influential images of the period, and appeared in the many subsequent editions of Linschoten's works. The illustrations were executed by Joannes and Baptista Doetechum from sketches brought back by Linschoten. Linschoten described the images of the people, places, methods of travel, and animals of Asia as "counterfeits from life," which would give a… Read More

Cambridge, Ma.; London, 1864. viii,216pp. plus 129 copperplate engravings. Large octavo. Contemporary three-quarter green morocco and marbled boards, spine gilt, t.e.g. Extremities worn. Bright and clean internally. A very good copy. The most famous and important work of this eminent American bryologist, illustrated with 129 finely detailed engravings. The author writes, in the preface: "In preparing the illustrations, no pains have been spared to make them as complete as the extent of analysis, and the size of the plate adopted, would allow. The drawings were made, under my immediate supervision, by Mr. August Schrader, a draughtsman of rare merit. They were engraved on copper by Mr. William Dougal, equally distinguished in his art." This work established Sullivant as the premier bryologist of his day. NISSEN, BOTANICAL 1912. DAB XVIII, p.201.

Calcutta, 1854.. [2],xii pp. plus 311 plates. Large quarto. Original green printed wrappers bound into modern vellum. Very good. The fourth volume only of Griffith's posthumously published work on Indian botany, arranged by John M'Clelland and printed by the government of Bengal. Griffith (1810-45), a physician and botanist, served in the British Colonial Service in Bengal and as assistant surgeon at Madras, and contributed greatly to the herbarium of the East India Company. An interesting illustrated work from a 19th-century Indian press, complete in itself in treating this class of botany. TAXONOMIC LITERATURE 2169. NISSEN 759. PRITZEL 3568.

San Francisc, 1885. 150pp. Modern three-quarter cloth and paper boards, front board lettered in blue. Lacking front wrapper. Modern bookplate on front pastedown. Titlepage dust soiled and slightly dampstained, with short closed tear to fore- edge near lower corner. Good. A scarce Idaho promotional pamphlet. Quite detailed sections on mining, stock raising, native trees and plants, and agriculture in general. Also a chapter on Idaho Indian tribes. An early work on the prospects of Idaho. HOWES O92, "aa." GRAFF 3112. ADAMS HERD 1717

Lima: Imprenta Real Calle de Palacio, 1772. [74],127,[1]pp. Titlepage printed in red and black. Small quarto. Contemporary tree calf, tooled in gilt, spine gilt, gilt morocco label. Boards lightly rubbed and edgeworn. Bookseller's ink stamp on front free endpaper. Signature inked out on titlepage; early ownership signature on verso of titlepage and verso of following leaf. Generally clean internally. Very good overall. Concerning the theological concept of probabilism and the recent expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America. This work is not extraordinary for its content, since it was no more than a compilation of often-used arguments against probabilism, known to any theology student of the time. Rather, the book is interesting because it relates to the debates at the Fourth Council of Lima, and is explicitly connected to the moral system of probabilism which led to the expulsion of the Jesuits a few years earlier. Rodo argued that the accusations made against the Society of Jesus, including… Read More

Camden, Me, 1899. 71pp. plus advertisements. Illus. Folding frontis. Lacks front wrapper, stapled. Frontispiece splitting at couple of folds, some light foxing. Good. Gives a brief history of Camden, and lists the natural attractions. The frontispiece is a bird's-eye view of the area

Pari, 1787. [4],34pp. Quarto. Contemporary blue wrappers, stitched. Minor wear. Near fine. Memorial of the French East India Company, freshly reconstituted in 1785 after its liquidation in 1769. Here they justify their proposed exclusive trade privileges

Hempstea, 1896. 24pp. printed in double-column format. Original printed wrappers. Wrappers chipped at spine and dampstained. Tanned, else internally quite good. Published during the controversy between the U.S. and England concerning the boundary line between British Guiana and Venezuela. Supports Republicanism

Stuttgar, 1886. [8],139,[1]pp. Original pink printed wrappers. Some loss to top portion of cover, some chipping and light dust soiling. Internally quite clean. Very good. Untrimmed and unopened. First German edition of this work on the Icarian community, which translates as ICARIA, A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF COMMUNISM. Founded by Etienne Cabet, the Icarian Community was among the most interesting of Utopian experiments in the United States during the 19th century. Cabet relocated a group of French bourgeoisie and peasants to America to form the basis of his utopian community. After an unsuccessful attempt to settle in Texas, the Icarians established themselves in Nauvoo, Illinois, an abandoned Mormon town. After Cabet's death in 1855, the group splintered, with some of the remaining Illinois group moving to Corning, Iowa. This work follows the movement from 1848, when the group migrated to America.

Livorno: Marco Coltellini, 1763.. Three volumes. xxiii,216,[1]; 256,[1]; 253,[2]pp. Seventy-eight engraved maps and plates (twenty-four of them folding). Frontis. Half title in first volume. Large quarto. Contemporary vellum, spines gilt. Some wear and light staining to boards, spine ends of first and third volumes repaired, spines a bit darkened. Occasional light foxing and soiling, small holes at lower outside edges of frontispiece and titlepage of vol. 1 (due to paper faults). Contemporary donation inscription on each titlepage. Very good. The first edition of the Italian translation of this handsomely illustrated topographical dictionary of the New World, providing information on the geography, natural history, manufactures, trade and commerce, settlements and fortifications in North and South America. This edition is vastly superior to the first English from which it is translated; that work has only eight maps and is on a duodecimo format. "A comparison of the entries [between the English and… Read More

[Milan, 1849. 482pp. including numerous illustrations. Engraved titlepage. Contemporary three- quarter green morocco and green pebbled cloth, gilt-lettered spine. Gilt ornamental endpapers. Minor browning. Very good. A presentation copy, inscribed from the author to an unnamed person, dated 1861, on front fly leaf. A fine work on numismatics, with engravings of 684 silver and 563 gold coins from around the world. Contains numerous samples of North and South American coinage. The author was for many years a missionary to Indian tribes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and wrote a book (now very rare) about his employment there. A lovely work. Rare. Not on OCLC.

Venice: Appresso Antonio Tiuan, 1683. [16],516,[19]; 147,[5]pp. Small quarto. Contemporary vellum, gilt title on spine. Some persistent dampstaining in lower gutters of many leaves, titlepage bit tanned. Lacking four preliminary leaves of index and dedication, otherwise very good and quite clean. First published in Rome in 1672, this 1683 edition is the first to contain the SECONDA SPEDITIONE ALL' INDIE ORIENTALI of Giuseppe di Sebastiani, which has its own titlepage. An early, very detailed account of travel in India by a Carmelite missionary. The NUC locates only four copies, at Indiana University, Ohio University, Harvard, and Yale

Venice, 1543.. 40 leaves. 12mo. Modern half morocco over marbled boards, spine gilt. Occasional very minor spots, some leaves expertly restored in lower margin, not affecting text. Leaf C3 bound before C2, leaf C7 bound before C6. A very good copy. The rare third edition of Contarini's account of his travels from Venice to Persia and Russia between 1473 and 1477. A member of a prominent Venetian family, the author was delegated by the republic, which at the time was at war with Mahomet II, to travel to the court of Hussum Hasan Bey, the sovereign of Persia. The purpose was to encourage that ruler to continue to wage war against the Ottomans, who were threatening Venetian interests in the Middle East and Europe. Unable to travel by sea, Contarini traveled by land through Poland to the Crimea, crossing the Black Sea and continuing to his destination through Mingrelia and Armenia. "Contarini encountered Hussum Hasan at Esfahan, accompanied him to Tabriz, and then returned homeward by way of Derbent and… Read More