Titles starting with C from Stuart Bennett Rare Books

London: Printed for G. Auld for W. Cavell, . . . Ridgeway, T. Axtell, T. Wigg, W.T. Swift, and A. Lunan, [1786?]. xii, 348pp., 12mo. Engraved frontispiece, the dedication leaf dated Dec. 22, 1786, published in six parts each consisting of four duodecimo sheets, with the register including “Vol. I” and with “End of the Volume” on the last page. Contemporary sheep, spine gilt-ruled and with a morocco label; worn and cracked, but firm. First and only edition, published in parts and ev... more information

London: Hurst, Chance, & Co. St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1831. [iii]-xii, 488pp., 8vo. Without an initial leaf (possibly a discarded “series” half-title), but a large and fine copy in contemporary dark green pebbled morocco, spine and edges gilt, gilt inner dentelles. First edition, following what the preface to this work calls “the distinguished success which has attended the Editor’s former Selections.” These “former selections,” originally published in 1824-... more information

London: Printed, and now first published, by Robert Triphook, 1821. iv, 232 pp., 8vo. Engraved portrait and vignette illustrations. A very attractive copy in contemporary calf; expertly rebacked with the original label. First edition, the original 1785 sheets with two leaves of 1821 preliminaries and an engraved silhouette portrait of Ritson. Shortly before the present work was supposed to be published in 1785, a fire destroyed part of the printer's warehouse along with the manuscript of Ritson&#... more information

London: Printed for Henry Herringman, 1664. 68pp., 4to. Some soiling and minor staining throughout, cut a little close affecting a couple of page-numbers and headlines, and not quite touching the first line of the title. Early inscription on title below the author’s name “Wrote one more called ye Villain.” Bound with a defective copy of the first and only edition of that very play, The Villain, a Tragedy, 1663, with some extensive repairs to the first couple of leaves, and pp. 7-10 in o... more information

Southampton: Printed by T. Skelton. . . for Law and Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, London, 1815. 136pp., 12mo. Engraved frontispiece by S. Springsguth after H. Corbould (this rather foxed), with a printed errata slip long ago pinned to the front free endpaper and still happily present. Original red roan-backed marbled boards; spine head worn. First edition. A contemporary reviewer in the Literary Panorama remarked that this story was “too short,” in that the conversion of the spoiled, ill-educ... more information

London: On Sale by William Pickering Chancery Lane, 1834. [iv], 401, [3]pp., sm. 8vo. Hand-colored frontispiece “Fac-simile of an Antient MS Fragment of the Bible,” with the half-title and a two-page catalogue at end of “Works Published under the direction of the Trustees of the British Museum, sold by William Pickering.” Nice copy in the original green cloth; rebacked with the original spine and (darkened and slightly torn) paper spine label. A mouth-watering catalogue. The eighth... more information

London: Printed for C. Bathurst, 1767. [vi], 82; viii, 120; viii, 100pp., 8vo. A fine copy, handsomely bound in modern half maroon morocco, spine fully gilt, g.e. First edition of this collection, consisting of three separate works in sixteenth-century English translations: Xenophon’s “Treatise of Householde,” and two works, according to the eighteenth-century editor’s preface, “attributed, and with good reason, to that most able judge Sir Anthony Fitzherbert,” “The B... more information

London: Printed; and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1721. [iv], 38, [2]pp., 8vo. With the terminal blank leaf. Title just a little dusty, but an excellent copy, disbound. First edition, drawn from “Clarendon, Whitlock, Rushworth. . . Hobbs, or some other writer of those times” with a view to showing the compiler’s contemporaries “what Abuses a Corrupt Parliament is capable of.”... more information

London: James Burns, 1841. xii, 248, 16pp., 12mo. Woodcut frontispiece and plates, with the half-title and a sixteen-page publisher’s catalogue at end. Occasional very minor foxing but a nice copy in the original blue fine diaper-grained cloth, spine gilt-lettered. First edition, a novel about the dangers of socialism published in Burns’s series “The Englishman’s Library.” Wolff 2761; Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction 3744, no. 15: “the title is a curious coincidence, the boo... more information

Montrose: Printed by Da. Buchanan, 1798. vi, 350pp., 12mo. Fine and dramatic engraved frontispiece by M. Brown; a little minor browning. Contemporary roan; neatly rebacked with a gilt label. “The Third edition,” so stated, presumably taken from one of the series of London translations that began around 1786, with the out-of-the-way Scottish imprint testifying to how popular these tales by Berquin had become by the end of the 1790s. Of this edition OCLC records two copies: Aberdeen, and Miam... more information

London: Printed for T. Tegg, 1825. 143, [1]pp., 18mo. Engraved frontispiece of “The Children in the Wood” (contemporary Reward of Merit inscription on recto), some browning throughout. Contemporary marbled boards, expertly rebacked in gilt morocco. First edition, second issue with the Cruikshank frontispiece, of which I can trace no other copy. The poems include Cowper's “John Gilpin,” and the selection is clearly for younger children. According to Cohn, George Cruikshan... more information

London: Groombridge and Sons, 1860. vi, 153, [1]pp., 8vo. Additional wood-engraved title and five plates by F. Anderson after D.H. Friston, woodcut vignettes in text. Original pebbled blue cloth, upper cover pictorially gilt with title, g.e.; a couple of small heat blisters (candle-wax?), but a nice copy. First edition, a charming and late book by an interesting, neglected author. Emily Taylor began publishing at least as early as 1820 and continued well into the 1860s. This book tells tales of Engl... more information

London: Printed, And Dublin Reprinted by and for I. Jackson, at the Globe in Meath street, 1743. [viii], 214, [2]pp., 12mo (6 x 3½ inches). Woodcut portrait, this printed on the verso of the half-title and included in the pagination, with a final leaf of publisher’s advertisements; a well-used copy with some corners rounded, especially at the end, with loss of some page-numbers and the occasional letter, but all text perfectly intelligible, and the entire book lovingly restored (with a few v... more information

London: Printed and Sold by W. Boreham at the Angel in Pater-Noster-Row, 1718. 71, [1]pp., 8vo. With a leaf of nineteenth-century manuscript notes inserted after the title; title and last leaf dusty and a bit browned, a few other minor stains, but a sound copy. Disbound. First edition: as ESTC puts it, “the introduction and commentary are by Daniel Defoe.” Both are highly interesting, casting doubt on the authenticity of many of these speeches and on the motives for their publication. For... more information

London: John Harris, Corner of St. Paul’s Church-Yard, [circa 1824]. [36]pp., 12mo (6¾ x 4 inches). Sixteen leaves printed on one side only, numbered 2-17 with verses, and half-page woodcut illustrations finely hand-coloured, the printed pages facing each other and the intervening pages, including the last, blank, together with an unnumbered hand-colored woodcut frontispiece (“Portrait of Dame Trot. From an Original Painting”) and printed title with a vignette of the cat wearing a g... more information

London: Printed for Tipper and Richards, 1807. xvi, 342, [2]pp., 8vo. With the half-title and terminal advertisement leaf. A fine, fresh and entirely untrimmed copy in the original grey boards, cream paper backstrip partly missing, but firm on the sewing cords. First edition, by one of the worst of the English poets laureate. The present prose work, however, is one of his best, containing, as the Cambridge History notes, “some noteworthy matter. A man, who, born in 1745, could write ‘Sir Ch... more information

Oxford: Printed at the Theater for Anthony Peisley [et al.], 1717. 32pp., 8vo. Small area of black scribble in the title gutter (Eric Quayle attempting to obliterate an old Penzance Library inkstamp), but a nice copy in modern calf-backed boards. With Eric Quayle’s book-label on front pastedown, and some pencilled notes (e.g., “Rare!”). First edition of this modern version of a pseudo-Chaucerian poem which first appeared in John Stow’s 1561 edition, written in what has been called &... more information

Edinburgh: Macredie, Skelly, & Co., 1822. 194pp., 12mo. With the half-title, preliminaries mispaginated, but complete. Entirely untrimmed in the original blue patterned boards; backstrip missing but intact on the cords. First edition, a novel about Mary Queen of Scots, anonymously-published but with the preface written throughout in the first person plural and signed “The Authors.” Garside et al, English Novel, 1822:4; Block, English Novel, p. 48. OCLC records several copies of a se... more information

Glasgow: John Symington & Company, 1838. iv, 156pp., 8vo. Corner clipped from front free endpaper to remove an inscription, a few very minor spots, but a pleasant copy in the original green cloth, paper spine label (chafed but largely legible). First and only edition, by an Ayrshire poet and clearly a staunch Presbyterian. “The Covenanters” takes up the first eighty pages, followed by poems such as “On John Knox Preaching in the Old Baronial Tower at Galston”: The ow... more information