Rare books from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

Pioneering photographs of Central Park. One of the earliest photographers to work in New York, Victor Prevost (1820-1881) studied photography in France under Paul Delaroche and with Gustave Le Gray. In 1850 Prevost came to New York and established a studio at Broadway and Bleecker. He achieved limited commercial success, giving up photography as a career in 1857. Prevost continued to take photographs of major construction projects in New York City, the most important of which are his images of the new Central Park. These images are among the earliest extant photographs of the construction of Central Park. The Olmsted-Vaux plan was accepted in 1858, and work began at once, but it was not until the 1870s that the immense project was completed. As a result, these very early photographs present an unfamiliar view of the park, with immature plantings, temporary structures, worker housing, all without the towering buildings that figure prominently in later images. Three of the photographs are signed in the… Read More

This splendid, enormous hand-painted map of Beijing shows and names the main streets, official residences of imperial family members, important buildings, temples, geographical features, fortifications and garrisons of the Forbidden, Imperial and Inner Cities.
Only three other examples of this remarkable form of map painted on silk are known, and this is the only example in private hands. Professor K. Tanaka (Sugiura) of Kyoto University, the leading authority on these maps, has located only four examples on silk: National Library of China, Royal Geographical Society, Royal Ontario Museum, and the present example (three copies on paper are known). The National Library of China map on silk, the only one to include the Outer City, was a highlight of the 2016 exhibition at the National Library of Australia, Celestial Empire: Life in China, 1644-1911. That map appeared as a frontispiece in the associated book of the same name.
The map appears to have been drawn primarily to identify and locate… Read More

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (with the integral Eliz. Holt title-page). An excellent, fresh copy of this classic of philosophy, the first modern attempt to analyze knowledge. "Few books in the literature of philosophy have so widely represented the spirit of the age and country in which they have appeared, or have so influenced opinion afterwards" (Fraser).
"The Essay has long been recognized as one of the great works of English literature of the 17th century, and one of the epoch-making works in the history of philosophy. It has been one of the most repeatedly reprinted, widely disseminated and read, and profoundly influential books of the past three centuries" (Nidditch).
"Locke is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). This reputation rests on Locke's greatest work, the monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Locke sold the copyright to the publisher Thomas Basset for… Read More

This is an excellent example of the Second Folio, the second edition of Shakespeare's collected plays. This is "incomparably the most important work in the English language" (Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue).
The First Folio, published in 1623, was such a success that just nine years later the collection was printed again. The Second Folio venture was undertaken by a group of booksellers and rights holders, some of whom had been members of the First Folio syndicate. The massive book includes 36 plays, half of which had not been printed prior to the First Folio, as well as commendatory verses and dedicatory epistles by contemporary admirers of Shakespeare. One of these, John Milton's "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. Shakespeare," was Milton's first appearance in print.
For almost four centuries Shakespeare's transcendent genius has been recognized. In 1623 Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare, "He was not of an age, but for all time." In 1840 Thomas Carlyle called Shakespeare,… Read More

This American flag, flown to the Moon on Apollo 11, is one of the most sought-after relics of space exploration. This wonderful relic of the first Moon landing is accompanied by the original printed certificate reading "This flag traveled to the moon with Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, July 20, 1969" and includes the dates of the mission, the last names of the astronauts, and Neil Armstrong's famous words, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." The mission emblem is printed in the center.All three members of the Apollo crew, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, have signed the certificate. The excellent signatures do not show the fading that typically plagues the signed certificates.The United States flag is in excellent condition, without the dark stains usually seen at the corners where adhesive typically has bled through.United States flag printed on silk (6 x 4 in.). Mounted on the original signed official certificate (sight size 9 ½ x 11 ½ in.). Fine… Read More

One page. Beautifully presented in a spectacular 19th-century carved wood frame with surmounted eagle. Abraham Lincoln, writing at the outset of the Civil War, recommends that the Army admit three volunteers from the highly divided city of Baltimore. He advises Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, "I hate to reject any [volunteers] offered from what is called a Southern State."Maryland's Southern sympathies were of paramount concern to Lincoln. On February 23, 1861, learning of a rumored assassination plot, president-elect Lincoln passed through Baltimore in secrecy to reach Washington. On April 19, 1861, just a week after the surrender of Fort Sumter, a mob killed four soldiers and wounded thirty-six more when the 6th Massachusetts Infantry passed through Baltimore en route to Washington. A week later Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus to maintain control in the state. Maryland's governor had ordered the militia to burn railroad bridges north of the city to prevent more federal troops from… Read More

Large oblong folio. 39 albumen prints, on thick card mounts, recto and verso, comprising: 29 mammoth (approx. 20 x 16 in.), 4 large format (approx. 8 x 10 in.) and 6 medium format (approx. 5 x 8 in.) prints. Six of the mammoth photographs bear the Taber imprint and the Watkins negative number. Contemporary half red morocco gilt, gilt edges. Minimal wear, some fading to the handsome binding. Foxing to mounts. Minor fading. A splendid volume with the prints generally in excellent condition.
This magnificent American West photograph album contains an astounding 21 mammoth photographs by leading photographers including Carleton Watkins, Charles R. Savage, and Isaiah West Taber, as well as other important photographs.
The album features a major new discovery, Carleton Watkins's Sentinel Rock, Down the Valley, from U. Point, Yosemite, which is not in Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: Complete Mammoth Photographs. Weston Naef has examined this print and confirms that it is the only located example of… Read More

Provenance: Emma Frances Johnston (1834-1905), with her inscriptions dated 1858, 1864 and 1904; her niece, Anne R. Hanson, with her inscription dated March 1915.
This tremendous discovery is the extensive photographic archive of the little-known Victorian photographer Emma Frances Johnston. This is apparently the earliest comprehensive archive of a female photographer in private hands. Beginning around 1858, Johnston made this wonderful series of portraits of her friends and extended family comprising the intellectual and social world of nineteenth- century Hampstead in London.
The introduction of the wet collodion process in the 1850s brought a minor wave of amateur photographers, very few of them women. At around the time that Emma Johnston was making her portraits in Hampstead, Lady Clementine Hawarden began to make her photographs. Julia Margaret Cameron took up photography when she received a camera as a gift in 1863.
This unique collection is essentially the only known source for the study of… Read More

Small folio. Engraved portrait of Whitman (state A, printed on heavy paper). Original gilt decorated green cloth, all edges gilt (binding A), inner hinges expertly repaired. Copyright notice printed in two lines as usual, "cities and" correctly printed on p. iv. Very minor wear, several leaves neatly repaired at gutter. Morocco case. A very handsome copy.
First edition, first issue, one of only 337 copies of the first issue, distinguished by its elaborately gilt-stamped cloth binding prepared in June/July 1855. Whitman reported that only 800 copies were printed; this copy is from the first group to be bound. The copies bound later did not have the extensive gilt stamping. Whitman paid for the book, supervised its production, and even set a number of pages in type.
"If one attempts to list the artistic achievements of our nation against the background of Western tradition, our accomplishments in music, painting, sculpture, architecture tend to be somewhat dwarfed. … The exception is in literature. No… Read More

81 albumen prints on carte de visite mounts, inserted two per page in the original calf CDV album, brass clasps. Rubbed. Excellent condition overall.
This is likely the most important extant Charles Darwin family photograph album. The scientist's wife Emma Darwin evidently assembled this well-preserved album of cartes de visite and has identified almost all of the sitters with initials or names on the album mounts.
The dazzling array of sitters includes Charles Darwin, his wife Emma, all seven of their children who reached maturity, a grandchild, and other relations from both family lines, the Darwins and the Wedgwoods. The families of some of Darwin's principal scientific peers are also represented including Huxley, Galton, Lyell, Hooker, Haeckel, Henslow, and more.
This album also collects important photographs known from Darwin's correspondence to have been sent to the naturalist. Their whereabouts or survival has been unknown until now. For example, the photographs of German scientist Ernst… Read More

A key navigational aid in taking man to the Moon and back to Earth. The astronauts of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, used this very star chart to find their way to the Moon and back in July 1969. Collins has extensively annotated this star chart and written on it, "During the flight of Apollo Eleven, I used this chart to help me locate stars. (The numbers were entered into the Command Module Computer) Michael Collins CMP."
5 x 10 in. This star chart shows dozens of stars and constellations for reference aboard the Command Module Columbia. Key stars are marked and named in orange and black ink, and the stars to be entered into the Apollo Guidance Computer are boldly numbered 1 through 45.
"With the advent of the digital computer that was introduced into the Apollo spacecraft, the star charts changed to accommodate the new system. The star charts were redesigned from the circular chart type to a more rectangular chart. The constellations were aligned on the ecliptic.… Read More

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING sheets of Common Sense, here with the third edition title page and prefatory leaf. Richard Gimbel s definitive study identifies points in every gathering distinguishing the three editions that Bell printed in early 1776. This copy of Common Sense contains all of the points of the first printing, save the two-leaf gathering [A]2 (title and preface). Bound in at the end is Paine s Large Additions to Common Sense, which Bell pirated from a competitor and offered separately for one shilling to buyers of Common Sense. Paine s Common Sense, published anonymously in January 1776, was the first vigorous attack on King George … and the first public appeal for an American Republic. It is not too much to say that the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, was due more to Paine s Common Sense than to any other single piece of writing (Streeter). Born in England in 1737, Paine moved to London in 1774 where he met Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged him to emigrate to America.… Read More

This extraordinary manuscript is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's heavily revised autograph working notebook for The Seraphim, and Other Poems, the book that first brought her fame.
This notebook contains drafts of all of the major poems in The Seraphim, published by Saunders and Otley in 1838. This work helped to establish her as one of the most important poets of her day. In addition, the manuscript contains nine other poems that remain unpublished as well as countless otherwise unknown lines not used in the published text.
This visually dramatic notebook is crowded with Elizabeth Barrett's manuscript revisions, making it a vital untapped source for the study of the poet's working methods and artistic development. She has filled the notebook's pages with her verse in her minuscule hand. Painstaking revisions reflect the intensity of her process. Many abandoned passages—some quite long—are known only from the survival of this volume.
The Seraphim was the first work that Elizabeth Barrett issued under… Read More

In this rare manuscript poem by Emily Dickinson, the speaker solicits a "shopkeeper's" smile:
I came to buy a smile—today—But just a single smile—The smallest one upon your faceWill suit me just as well–The one that no one else would missIt shone so very small—I'm pleading at the "counter"—sir—Could you afford to sell—I've Diamonds—on my fingers—You know what Diamonds are?I've Rubies—like the Evening Blood—And Topaz—like the Star!'Twould be "a Bargain" for a Jew!Say–may I have it–Sir?
The poem showcases the poet's signature use of ballad verse as well as jewel imagery representative of her "interest in the natural world and aesthetic presentation" (Kelly et al., The Networked Recluse: The Connected World of Emily Dickinson).
Dickinson famously published only a handful of poems in her lifetime. Instead she shared her work in letters to mentors, friends, and a few others. She evidently sent this poem to family friend Samuel Bowles, the publisher of the Springfield… Read More

The Great "She" Bible, the "authorized version" or King James Bible, one of the greatest monuments of English literature. This edition is known as the "She" Bible for the reading "She went into the citie" in Ruth 3:15. In this copy he error "Judas" for "Jesus" in Matthew 26:36 is corrected with a pasted-on slip. Fry styles this the "first edition, second issue," though it is more properly the second edition. "The general title is usually dated 1613, though the NT title bears the date 1611. Probably the greater part of the book was printed in 1611, but the publication, for some reason or other, was delayed till 1613. . . . Smith suggests [the delay resulted from] an accident in the printing-office which destroyed a large number of sheets" (Herbert).
One of the masterpieces of the English language, the King James Bible is surely the greatest literary work ever created by committee. In the preface, Miles Smith, one of the dozens of translators, commented on the importance of the work: "Translation it is… Read More