Rare books from Royoung bookseller, Inc.

London: James Ridgeway And Sons, 1842. New Series. Hardcover. Orig. publisher's green cloth. Very good. 10 vols. 26 x 17 cm. Total of 688 hand-colored engraved botanical plates with tissue guards, lacking 26 plates. The young Edwards made some drawings from the plates in the "Flora londinensis" which eventually caught the eye of Curtis who was sufficiently impressed with the work to arrange for Edwards to come to London for further training and instruction. Eventually he made many hundreds of drawings for "The Botanical Magazine," and severed his connection to Curtis only when he started his rival periodical in 1815 described here [see: HENREY, Vol. II, p.306]. NISSEN 2739. Plates very fresh and clean, descriptive data rear of each volume partly unopened, covers decorated in blind, backstrips lettered and decorated in gilt. minimal shelf wear. Glasgow booksellers' label. Vol I lacks [5,22,29,32-33,38,49,58,65]. Vol.2 [13]. Vol. 3 [2,46,50,56]. Vol.5 [37]. Vol.6 [1,42,53,58]. Vol.7 [37.52.67]. Vol.9… Read More

Taliesin, 1931. Glass Framed. Fine condition, matted and gilt framed -- suitable for hanging. Typed letter, 45 x 20 cm. to friend and architectural critic, Lewis Mumford. "My dear Lewis: I've read `The Brown Decade' you so kindly sent me and it is a useful work in your splendid style. I didn't agree in total but admire and respect......The Guggenheim has asked me for a recommendation for the new work she wants to do and I gave my best - but wrote her what I though of her thesis. You know what I must think about that. Enclosed is a copy of what I think about it for your files if you care for it." Wright would later accept the contract to build the Guggenheim three years later in 1943: Hilla R, the curator stated to Wright that he wanted to build, "A temple of spirit, a monument." The balance of the letter notes his apology to Mumford for missing a meeting with him, his reading of Mumford's critique of the Metropolitan Museum in the New Yorker Magazine, an invitation to Mumford to visit that winter:… Read More

Shanghai: North China Daily News & Herald Ltd, 1917. Second edition. leather_bound. Orig. publisher's gilt lettered, blind stamped black morocco. Very good. Elephant folio, 53.5 x 38.7 cm. 18 colored graphs and diagrams ; 26 colored maps and two half page colored maps -- all are color lithographs. The largest, most comprehensive atlas of China in English so far published to that date. It contains detailed surveys of Chinese geography, commerce, economics and education, a trade research section, and sections on Chinese production, railways, communications, forestation, geology, fauna and flora. The commercial section presents detailed information on China's exports and imports: the opium, silk, tea and treasure trades. Also of special note is a a list of the "Principal commodities of the World's economic and commercial development of China." -- Maps: no. 1. Chihli. -- no. 2. Shantung. -- no. 3. Honan. -- no. 4. Shansi. -- no. 5. Shensi. -- no. 6. Kansu. -- no. 7. Szechwan. -- no. 8. Hupeh. -- no. 9.… Read More

Chillicothe: Dard Hunter, 1950. First edition. Hardcover. Orig. beige linen-backed decorated boards, printed paper spine label in two colors. Fine in fine brown morocco spine lettered in gilt and beige cloth clamshell box. 326 pages. Folio, 43 x 30 cm. Limited edition, copy 69 of 210, 200 of which were for sale; however, as noted in his own bibliography there were only 180 completed. "The last work of the Mountain House Press and the author's magnum opus, this book provides a history of American papermaking by listing and describing the first paper mill in each state from 1690 until 1811 ... There are in the book 123 facsimiles of documents and watermarks and forty-two reproductions of labels used by these early paper manufacturers. The book is printed on Dard Hunter's paper." This last, most ambitious work, with more illustrations and samples than any of the earlier works: the bold, and elegant type was designed by Hunter's son, Dard Jr. As usual, all type-setting and presswork for the book was… Read More

Hamburg, 1672. Second edition. Hardcover. Contemporary vellum backed marbled boards. 20.5 x 16.8 cm. *4 **2; A-Z4 Aa-Ff4 Gg2. As in other copies of the second edition, p.42 reads 24, and p.207 reads 213. Woodcut printer's device, Roman, italic and Hebrew type. Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656, and thereafter adopted the the Latin form Benedict of his birth name. BRUNET Vol. V p.491. PRINTING & THE MIND OF MAN 153. "Spinoza's thought, a fusion of Cartesian rationalism and Hebraic tradition in which he grew up, is a solitary but crystal-clear exposition of the theory of natural right. He defends with eloquence the liberty of thought and speech in speculative matters, and 'Tractatus' contains the first clear statement of the independence of each other of philosophy and religion, in that speculation and precepts of conduct cannot collide." The first edition published 1670, and the third and fourth appeared posthumously in 1677. By trade Spinoza was a gifted lens grinder, after his death the lenses found… Read More

Weimar: Cranach Presse, 1929. Hardcover. Orig. vellum backed boards, spine and front cover lettered in red. Near fine in original worn plain paper jacket. Craig, Edward Gordeon. 203 pages. Folio, 35.2 x 24. Limited edition, copy 74 of 230. Woodcut illustrations by and after Edward Gordon Craig, half title and title printed in red and black from type by Eric Gill, typeface designed by Edward Johnson. Ancillary texts in English, French, German and Latin printed in the margins. A monument 17 years in the making, Count Harry Kessler's Cranach Hamlet began with a proposed stage production of Gordon-Craig, from which Kessler agreed to do a lavish book in 1912. Working through World War and through the 1920's, Gordon-Craig designed the woodcuts, cutting them himself, and master craftsman Edward Johnson designed the typeface "after that used by Fust and Schoeffer in their Mainz Psalter of 1457, it was cut by Edward Prince and completed after his death by G.T. Friend." [see: FRANKLIN THE PRIVATE PRESS] who… Read More

Chillicothe: Dard Hunter, 1950. First edition. Hardcover. Unbound in original sheets. Fine in fine linen covered chemise in original red/brown morocco and linen clamshell case, spine lettered in gilt. 326 pages. Folio, 43 x 30 cm. Limited edition signed by Dard Hunter, copy 8 of 210, 200 of which were for sale; however, as noted in his own bibliography there were only 180 completed. "The last work of the Mountain House Press and the author's magnum opus, this book provides a history of American papermaking by listing and describing the first paper mill in each state from 1690 until 1811 ... There are in the book 123 facsimiles of documents and watermarks and forty-two reproductions of labels used by these early paper manufacturers. The book is printed on Dard Hunter's paper." This last, most ambitious work, with more illustrations and samples than any of the earlier works: the bold, and elegant type was designed by Hunter's son, Dard Jr. As usual, all type-setting and presswork for the book was done… Read More

London: T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803. First edition. leather_bound. Modern, sympathetic full brown calf and marbled boards. AEG. Fine. 222 [2] pages. 35 x 29.5. Stipple engraved portrait of Repton, twenty-seven engraved plates [12 hand-colored, 3 tinted, 12 with overslips, one colored folding and one double page]. Numerous engraved aquatint vignettes, one hand-colored, two with overslips. After trying and failing in a multitude of business endeavors, Repton launched himself as a "landscape gardener," a term he coined himself. After Capability Brown's death Repton filled the void in garden design, more as a consultant, charging for his Red Book designs, but allowing clients to arrange actual execution, This work is considered his classic. Some plate offsetting, frontispiece portrait toned, endpapers renewed, text generally clean, two large foldouts with nicks result of careless folding repaired with archival clear tape at corners. Raised bands, spine panels decorated in gilt arabesque motifs, red… Read More

London & New York: Faber & Faber Limited & The Viking Press, 1939. Hardcover. Orig. publisher's orange/red buckram, backstrip lettered in gilt. Fine in the original yellow cloth slipcase as issued. Teg. 628 pages. 26 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 22 of 425 signed by James Joyce in green ink. Joyce wished to puzzle critics with his novel's plot which is not nearly as complex as the linguistic tactics he employed, and he did both. Finnegans Wake met with mixed review: some said it was unreadable, others praised Joyce for ingenuity. Joyce combined use of a number of languages with complex ironic implications to create wordplay and hidden meaning throughout this work. His polyglot idiom of puns and portmanteau words was intended to convey the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. The density and layers of meaning have induced scholars to dedicate a good portion of their lives studying it. The critic and scholar Richard Ellman was best known for his literary biography of Joyce noted,… Read More

New York: Maecenas Press - Random House, 1969. Hardcover. Loose as issued in original brown cloth chemise, quarter morocco folding case with replaced bone clasps. Very good. Dali, Salvador. 151 pages. Folio, 44 x 29 cm. Limited edition, copy 2430 of 2500 signed by Dali on title, and one original colored etching by Dali signed in pencil is opposite the frontispiece. Printed on Mandeure paper by Ateliers Rigal. In addition, twelve full page color heliogravures. Interior contents bright, clean and fresh. Spine of morocco case rebacked, some soiling to beige cloth of folding case.

Paris: Editions Albert Levy, 1928. First edition. Boards. Orig. decorative cloth backed boards with full color paper inset on front cover, contents loose as issued in string tied portfolio. Near fine. Folio, 49 x 38 cm. Title leaf: Twenty pochoir lithographs colored by Jean Saude after Benedictus with 86 Art Nouveau and Art Deco textile and wallpaper designs by an artist who was also a chemist who invented bullet proof glass. A stunning array of designs in an amalgam of colors creatively combined, if not normally expected. Pochoir upper cover design, some modest rubbing to backstrip head and foot.

Vienna: Franz Deuticke, 1946. Hardcover. Orig. worn cloth and board portfolio. Very good. Limited edition, copy 116 of 270, reprint of the 1931 edition, with introduction by Benno Fleischmann. A portfolio of 30 collotypes prints, 15 are multi-color and 15 are monochrome, on chine colle paper laid down on heavy cream-wove paper with deckled edges; Max Eisler, Editor-Publisher; Osterreichischer Staatsdruckerei (Austrian State Printing Office), Laid-in, the twenty page 30.5 x 23.5 introductory text in German. Plates bright, fresh and clean, portfolio wear extremities and corners. Ex-library with small stamp at bottom of each plate.

London: Ashendene Press, 1923. Hardcover. Publisher's quarter brown calf over vellum covered boards lettered in gilt. Fine in fine brown slipcase. VIII, 408 pages. Folio, 44 x 30.5 cm. Limited edition, one of 180 copies on Batchelor paper bearing the Knight in Armour watermark, from the library of English architect and founder of the Essex House Press, Charles Robert Ashbee (bookplate front cover paste-down). Text based upon a collation of the Quartos of 1590 and 1596 and the Folio of 1609 and printed in three colors -- red, blue and black. A fine exemplar of Ashendene's large folio efforts. CAVE: THE PRIVATE PRESS, notes, "Nobody can declare that one or another book was a printer's best, with the variety of Ashendene books issued.......on the whole I thinks I like the Faerie Queen and Morte Darthur best...." HORNBY 32. RANSOM p.206. Raised bands, slight dark spot lower front cover.

Waltham St. Lawrence: Golden Cockerel Press, 1927. Hardcover. Orig. quarter morocco spine and patterned boards. Teg. Very good. Gil, Eric. Small Folio, 309 (1) pages. 32 x 20 cm. Limited editions, copy 107 of 225, (six copies on vellum), Compositors: F. Young and A.H. Gibbs, Pressman: A.C. Cooper. Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in same pattern style covers as The Canterbury Tales. Five full-page plates, sixty decorative borders and four tail pieces by Eric Gill. Printed in blue, red and black in Caslon Old Face type on Kelmscott hand-made paper. It is the first and considered the scarcest and the first of the three books produced by Gill and Gibbings at the Golden Cockerel Press, having a relatively small limitation as the Canterbury Tales and The Four Gospels (Edition of 500 copies). CHANTICLEER 50. GILL. 279. CAVE & MANSON. pp. 50 ff. RANSOM, p. 297. Raised bands, spine lettered in gilt, slight wear at corners, interior contents very bright, clean and fresh.

Hammersmith: Kelmscott, 1892. leather_bound. Finely bound in full tan morocco, elaborate acanthus leaf pattern stamped in brown, with borders of gilt and brown rules, matching full morocco doublures with acanthus leaf devices at corners, ruled borders, morocco endleaves with ruled borders, untrimmed. Aeg. [2], viii, 249, [1] pp. 21x14.5 cm. Woodcut border to first leaf of text; woodcut initial letters throughout. One of 200 copies printed on paper. Spectacular binding by Zaehnsdorf, with their gilt name stamp on front doublure (dated 1900) and their small pictorial stamp on rear endleaf. Bookplate of M.C.D. Borden on verso of front endleaf and of George Edward Dimock on recto of rear endleaf. The first octavo volume issued by the press. The author a sometime fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. PETERSON A9.