Search Results: Authors starting with I from Peter Harrington

New York: E. P. Dutton,, 1919. Inscribed by the author to a noted collector First edition in English, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title verso by the author: "Dedicated to Mr George T. Keating. Vicente Blasco Ibañez. New York, November 10, 1919." The recipient was George Keating (1892-1976), a noted collector: his Conrad collection, generally regarded as the finest in the world, is currently held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Mare Nostrum, first published in Spanish in 1916, was translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan (1862-c.1932), perhaps best known for her English translation of Ibañez's Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse, published the year prior to this. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front board lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom green linen chemise and green crushed quarter morocco slipcase. A superb copy in the scarce jacket, short closed tear to head of spine and front panel, fresh and remarkably bright. Read More

London: Thornton Butterworth Limited,, 1929. First UK edition, first impression, of one of Ibanez's costumbrismo novels, depicting the details of local everyday life, mannerisms, and customs in 19th-century Spain. This book is very uncommonly found with the dust jacket. Octavo. Original brown cloth, titles in black to spine and in blind to front board. With dust jacket. Ink ownership with "Bombay 1929" to front free endpaper. Faint soiling to boards, the binding otherwise firm and square, edges foxed, else internally clean and fresh. A very good copy in the very good jacket, light wear to corners without loss, light dust-soiling, clear tape repairs to spine ends verso, verso foxed, else notably birght.

Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives,, 1999. First edition, first printing, of this publication organized by the then Prince Salman Ibn Abdulaziz to coincide with Saudi Arabia's centenary celebrations. It profiles the 63 men who entered Riyadh with Ibn Saud and shared his "glorious journey" (p. 11) towards Saudi statehood. Large octavo. Original illustrated card wrappers lettered in green and black in Arabic and English. Text predominantly in Arabic, with pp. 12 in English. Wrappers and contents bright; a fine copy.

London: Jonathan Cape,, 1933. The story of Ibn Sa'ud's rise First edition, first impression, of this early biography, a "good general account of the Wahhabis and the rise of Ibn Saud" (Foreign Affairs). This book is a typically attractive Cape production of the period with an unusually well preserved jacket. Octavo. Original dark green cloth, lettered in yellow on the spine and front cover, top edge green. With typographical dust jacket printed in purple and black on light brown hammer finish paper stock. Portrait frontispiece from a photograph by HE Shaikh Hafidh Wahba, 3 full-page maps and 2 full-page pedigrees. Occasional minor staining; price-clipped jacket, minor creases and tears to edges: a near fine copy in near-fine jacket. Foreign Affairs, January, 1938.

Dammam, Saudi Arabia: Peter Holdstock,, 1952. Ibn Saud confers with the hakim of Bahrain Intimate portrait of King Ibn Saud and Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain, captured possibly at the Dammam Conference of 1952, at which Britain and Saudi Arabia discussed boundaries between the Kingdom and the British-protected states of the Gulf. Their host, Emir Abdullah bin Jiwuli Al Saud, was Saudi governor of the Eastern Province (1938-67), where Dammam is located. At Dammam, Ibn Saud successfully extended his boundaries beyond the "blue line" established by the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, which had defined the limits of Ottoman jurisdiction in the area of the Persian Gulf with respect to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the Shatt al-Arab. The Saudi monarch is pictured here with Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa (1894-1961, Hakim of Bahrain 1942-61), whose enlightened rule ensured important reforms in health, sanitation, and education. Their host, Emir Abdullah bin Jiwuli Al Saud was a paternal cousin… Read More

Venice: Petrus Maufer de Maliferis et Socii,, 1486. The father of early modern medicine An exceptional copy of this rare early Venetian printing of Ibn Sina's medical encyclopaedia in Latin, issued with De viribus cordis as often. This copy is in a beautifully preserved Italian period binding. No complete copies are traced at auction in over 80 years. The first edition of Avicenna's Canon, in the standard Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, appeared in Padua in December 1472. The original Arabic text was first printed in Rome in 1593. De viribus cordis, a treatise on psychiatry, was translated into Latin by Arnaldo de Villa Nova and featured as an addendum to early editions of the Canon from 1476. Drawing from the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, and Aristotle, as well as from the author's own experience as physician to the Emir of Bockhara, Canon "stands for the epitome of all precedent development, the final codification of all Graeco-Arabic medicine" (Neuburger, p. 368). Published in 17… Read More

Cambridge: printed by J. Archdeacon for the University, and sold at the shops of B. White and Sons, London, J. & J. Merrill, Cambridge; J. Fletcher, and J. Cooke, Oxford,, 1792. First edition of this noted history of Egypt from the Fatimid conquest to the mid-15th century. Ibn Taghribirdi (c.1410-1470) was the son of a Mamluk amir and himself a close companion of a son of Sultan Jaqmaq (r. 1438-53); his work is generally critical of the Shi'ite Fatimids and apologetic with regard to the Sunni Mamluks, though together with his predecessors al-Qalqashandi and al-Maqrizi he is considered one of the most important chroniclers of the Mamluk era. Ibn Taghribirdi is best remembered for a multi-volume chronicle entitled al-Nujum al-Zahirah, printed between 1851 and 1862, but the present text, Mawrid al-Latafah ("Source of Sweetness") was his first to be published. The Arabic text is accompanied by a Latin translation and extensive notes by the Cambridge Arabist Joseph Dacre Carlyle (1758-1804), who, during… Read More

Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag,, 1890. An exceptional copy in the rare jacket First trade edition, cloth issue, of a defining stage work of the period, ushering in one of the theatre's first truly developed neurotic female protagonists almost a decade before Freud's first work of psychoanalysis. This sparkling copy comes from the library of Aagot Juel, a Norwegian philanthropist. Copies are scarce in fine condition, particularly with the original jacket; we can trace only three copies in jackets appearing at auction in the last 20 years. Printing and the Mind of Man considers Ibsen's whole theatrical oeuvre canonical. "Ibsen's influence on the whole course of modern drama may be indicated by the inclusion of his plays in the repertoire of every avant-garde theatre of his day—the Theatre Libre, Paris, 1887, Die Freie Buhne in Berlin, 1887, and The Independent Theatre in London, 1891—and although on every occasion that they were produced audience reaction was largely a mixture of protest… Read More

Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag,, 1892. Hurra for bygmester Solness" - a beautifully preserved copy First trade edition, cloth issue, scarce in such fine condition, particularly with the original dust jacket; we can trace no copies in jacket in auction records. With Bymester Solness, Ibsen demonstrates his mastery of dramatic poetry and autobiography in the depiction of the aging architect, Halvard Solness, who fears the diminution of his creativity. In 1891, Ibsen returned to Norway after a self-imposed 27-year exile, keenly aware that he had to refresh and sharpen his knowledge of Norwegian life. "Compared to Hedda Gabler [published two years earlier], there may be found in Solness an even more intense realism. But there is the same intensity of dramatic situation, the same unfailing microscopic skill in the portrayal of character, and, above all, the same precision and power in studying and tracing the sources and growth of emotion" (Price, p. 258). Under the illusion that publication… Read More

London: H. F. & G. Witherby,, 1928. First edition of this interesting and uncommon travelogue. Ikbal ali Shah was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat who came to Britain as a young man to complete his education in Edinburgh, where he married the Scots author Morag Murray. He travelled widely undertaking assignments from the British Foreign Office, and became the publicist of a number of Eastern statesmen, King Abdullah of Jordan, Atatürk and the Aga Khan, writing popular biographies of these last two. He was also an active promoter of Sufism as a potential bridge between East and West, writing extensively on the subject and teaching Sufi "classes", an area in which he was succeeded and superseded by his son Idries Shah. The present work was reviewed by H. A. R. Gibbs alongside Philby's Arabia of the Wahabis in the journal of the Institute of International Affairs; "The Sirdar's book is the retort romantic to the classical severity of Mr Philby. Here is a well-spiced Eastern revue, featuring Afghan… Read More

London: R. Lee, D. I. Eaton, G. Riebau, J. Smith, and J. Burks,, [1795]. First edition of this radical tract, by the actor, playwright, and novelist Edward Henry Iliff, a friend of William Godwin. Iliff writes "the genus of society contains two species of odious monsters; Tyrants and Slaves" (p. 5), the former including soldiers, priests, and lawyers, the latter the poor multitudes. This "strident attack on the Army, Church, and political institutions was accompanied by a very Godwin-like insistence on the progress of reason and opinion and the utter repudiation of recourse to violence" (Mark Philp, Reforming ideas in Britain, 2014, p. 229). Patriotism should be enlarged to "a diffusive spirit or universal affection", so that "colour will make no difference in our relative duties, and a black Negro may enjoy the friendship of his white oppressor" (pp. 27-28). The pamphlet led to the prosecution of its publishers and sellers - Daniel Eaton was tried in absentia for publishing this pamphlet and a… Read More

Jeddah: Administration of Aziziah Water Supply,, [c.1972]. The gift of the late king to the Moslem Nations First edition, first printing, of this uncommon authoritative history celebrating the contribution of Ibn Saud and Faisal bin Abdulaziz to securing Jeddah's water supply. The city's modern infrastructure, developed in three decades after the Second World War, guarantees a steady supply of "potable, gushing, streaming strong, and clamouring water" (p. 71). Before oil, the new Saudi kingdom relied on revenues from the hajj. The improvement of facilities for pilgrims in the Hejaz was of vital importance. To improve water security for the hajj in 1947, Ibn Saud determined to tap new sources at Wadi Fatima. He awarded the contract to Gellatly Hankey, a British shipping and trading firm who nominated Balfour & Son to design and lead the project. The first stage was completed on time, with the rest in place by 1950. Faisal further expanded the supply in the 1960s and 70s, adding an additional input… Read More

London: James Imray & Sons., c.1870. Map of Taomasina, Tamatave in French, on the Eastern coast of Madagascar. Size: 214 x 141 mm. Copper engraving. Very good condition.

London: , [c.1858]. A map of Kyaikkami, formerly Amherst, in South Myanmar. Size: 185 x 213 mm Copper engraving. Hand coloured. Good condition.

London: , [c.1858]. A map of the entrance of the Arakan river in Myanmar. Size: 276 x 213 mm Copper engraving. Hand coloured. Some foxing to the paper otherwise, in good condition.

London: , c.1860. A map of Vohilengo, in Fenerive Est, together with a map of Foulpoint both on the Eastern coast of Madagascar. Size: 214 x 141 mm. Copper engraving. Very good condition, ligh toning.

Vladivostok: Livay Studio, No. 11 Svetlanskaya Street,, [c.1890]. A scarce late 19th-century record of styles of clothing and foot-binding followed by well-to-do Chinese women in the Russian border city of Vladivostok. The Livay photographic studio catered specifically to Chinese residents and visitors, and we have not been able to trace any other surviving examples of its work. Following China's transfer of the Haishenwei region to the Tsar in 1860, Vladivostok became a thriving centre of economic activity and cultural interchange between Russians and Chinese, with both of these communities served by the Livay studio, based on the city's main boulevard. This photograph is a pleasing corrective to the many surviving photographs of late-imperial Chinese women, often produced in cities such as Shanghai, which adopt an orientalizing gaze. While photography was introduced into Russia soon after its invention, it remained a preserve of the very wealthy until the 1860s when technological changes fuelled an… Read More

Ankara: Adalet Bakanl :, 1340-1342 [1924-26]. Reforming the Turkish legal system First editions, first impressions, of this attractive court journal from the fledgling Turkish Republic, employing various eye-catching methods of data visualization such as fan charts and circular bar plots in order to project courthouse statistics. Copies in collectible condition are uncommon in commerce. This journal was first published in 1873 by the Ministry of Justice, under the same Cerîde-I Mehakim, later Cerîde-I Adliye. It provided the latest news from the Tanzimat Nizamiye courts, with summaries of statistics, rulings, and newly adopted regulations. "The publication of Cerîde-I Mehakim was emblematic of the spirit of Tanzimat and the determination of the reformers to establish a new relationship between the Ottoman Empire, and its subjects, future citizens" (Lévy-Aksu, p. 116). The journal was uninterrupted under the reign of Abdulhamid II. The present run dates from the early years of the Republic of… Read More

Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press,, 1875-78. The most important interdenominational missionary journal of the time A collection of four scarce early volumes of this Shanghai-based periodical, which served as the expatriate missionary community's premier forum for sinological exchange, including contributions on philosophy, social history, linguistics, literature, and religion. Early volumes are now seldom encountered in commerce. The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal was first published in 1868 in Fuzhou under the editorship of Stephen Livingstone Baldwin and then Justus Doolittle. In 1874, editorial responsibilities were passed to Alexander Wylie (1815-1887), the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Shanghai, with the city's American Presbyterian Mission Press taking over printing and distribution. Issued every two months, the journal featured articles by leading missionary-sinologists including Emil Bretschneider, Henry Yule, Timothy Richard, and Samuel Wells… Read More

Shanghai: Shanghai shi huaxue yuanliao gongye tongye gonghui,, [c.1955]. An uncommon early Mao-period sampler issued by the Shanghai Chemical Materials Industrial Guild, presenting the tone and chemical composition of the 19 core pigments used in industries such as publishing and printing. In 1954, as part of a programme of nationwide consolidation, Beijing promulgated production guidelines for the 19 colours and placed the industry under the control of a national-level regulator. This sampler was likely distributed gratis at a trade event. Blank sections at the end provide space for the owner to list commercial contacts and write diary entries. Small octavo. Original illustrated boards, red cloth backstrip, front cover lettered in red, rounded board and page edges, decorative endpapers. With 19 plates. Text in Chinese. Binding worn, contents clean, plates bright. A very good copy.