Tag Archive: 0fictitious imprints

Printed in Meaux, east of Paris (and presumably in limited numbers), this is a copy of the first edition of a rare little book of epigrams by Ange-Denis Maquin (1756–1823), a professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres who subsequently fled across the Channel during the Terror.  Settling at Hastings, ‘he began learning English and supported himself […]

This is a copy of the first edition in German of William Gilpin’s famous Essay on Prints, ‘published anonymously in 1768, which had influence on the Continent, [and] contained his earliest definition of the Picturesque’ (Grove Art).  The translation is by Johann Jakob Volckmann (1732–1803).  A former owner here has created an index of the […]

I had quite a bit of interest when I wrote about this book over on The New Antiquarian, so thought I’d share it here, too.  I’ve written before about a fictitious Boston imprint.  That book had no obvious connection with the United States, but this one does: it’s an early satire on emigration to America, from 1818. […]

Princess Caroline Matilda (1751–1775), the youngest sister of George III, was married off to her cousin, Christian VII of Denmark, when she was only 15.  It was not a happy marriage.  Christian was a mentally unstable philanderer who claimed it was ‘unfashionable to love one’s wife’, and Caroline eventually drifted into an affair with the […]

Sometimes, as a bookseller, you come across a book which makes you do a double take.  Here’s one I discovered recently: Briefe über den Verlust der Regenten und Völker Europens an, und durch Frankreichs Republik (pp. [2], 66), with the imprint ‘London 1798.  In allen Buchhandlungen Deutschlands in Englischer, Französicher und Deutscher Sprache zu haben.’  It’s […]

This very rare book, a biting satire on Poland (its form of government, parliament, laws, military, society, women, dirtiness, duelling, etc.), is the first book to be published with a ‘California’ imprint, preceding the first book actually printed in California by over 50 years (Reglamento provicional, Monterey, 1834).  It was in fact printed in Berlin. […]