Authors starting with L from Stuart Bennett Rare Books

London [but Brussels?]: Se vend chez la Société Typographique, et à Bruxelles, chez B. Le Francq, 1784. avec Un Précis de la Constitution de l’Angleterre, & de sa Décadence. 191, [1]pp., 8vo. A nice large copy, bound with another work (Regnault-Warin’s Memoirs, 4 parts, Paris, 1819) in early nineteenth century Continental morocco-backed boards, spine gilt and lettered “Melanges Historiques.” First edition of this anti-English commentary, opening... more information

London: Printed for and sold by the Author, [1791]. xxxii, 344pp., 8vo. Engraved portrait, with the half-title, woodcut illustration of a “brank” on p. 285. A fine, entirely untrimmed copy in the original marbled boards; rebacked. First edition of one of the great bookselling autobiographies. Smug and self-congratulatory it certainly is but it is an engaging book, written in the form of letters to a friend, and a real rags-to-riches story, full of the author’s affection not only for his... more information

London: Printed for G. Robinson, 1783. [viii],xlii,[636]pp., 4to. With a subscribers’ list, including a section headed “Libraries,” which includes Cambridge and Oxford colleges, a page of five specimen alphabets, a table of chronological events, and an index; the lexicon itself printed in double columns. An excellent copy, attractively bound by Philip Dusel in full natural goatskin, simply gilt in period style. First edition, with an extensive list of sources including Minsheu, Skinner,... more information

Shrewsbury: Printed by Sandford and Maddocks, 1800. or, a Short and Easy Method of Teaching and Learning Geography. . . whereby Even Children may in a short Time know the Use of the Terrestrial Globe and Geographical Maps, and all the considerable Countries in the World. xii, 154pp., 12mo. Folding engraved hemispheric map of the world as frontispiece, two engraved charts, and a folding engraved table of the spheres; one short split in a fold of the frontispiece, but a good fresh copy in the original bli... more information

Edinburgh: Stereotyped and Printed by C. Stewart, for the Author, 1826. Being Part II. of an Easy Introduction to the Child’s Ladder. 36pp., 18mo. A fine copy in the original stiff grey wrappers. Unrecorded “Stereotype Edition,” a somewhat reorganized version of part of Lennie’s The Child’s Ladder. Clearly this was a very successful tool for beginning readers, as it went on being reprinted in various guises well into the 1850s. The preface to this edition is dated 1815, and it... more information

London: John Murray, 1846. By Lord Lindsay. xii, 110, 16pp., 8vo. With the half-title, three folding diagrams and tables, and a sixteen-page publisher’s catalogue at end, together with a slip requesting communications tipped in after the title. A fine copy in the original pebbled cloth, printed paper label on upper cover, this with the contemporary ownership inscription of the author and photographer R.H. Cheney. First and only edition, both a philosophical argument with some echoes of Hegel and a... more information

Franckfurt am Mayn: Johann Maximilian von Sand, 1702. [xiv], 255, [1]pp., 12mo. Engraved frontispiece by Stridbeck, title printed in red and black, two folding genealogical tables; some browning from the poor paper quality. A pretty copy in pebbled red morocco, spine fully gilt, g.e., silk endleaves. An old newspaper clipping about this book is pasted to a front flyleaf. First edition, an exhaustive treatise on the Duchy of Orange, from its origins in the Holy Roman Empire onwards, and ending with a p... more information

London: Wm. S. Orr & Co, 1843. a Series of Eccentric Historiettes. By Arthur Wallbridge. With Forty Illustrations on Wood by Henning, and a Frontispiece by Crowquill. viii, 154pp., 8vo. Tinted woodcut frontispiece “Aesop’s Province Invaded,” woodcut illustrations throughout. An attractive copy in later nineteenth century half red morocco. Second edition of a charming and quite rare book, first published the preceding year, and set in the present, i.e. Victorian, era. Fables inclu... more information