Manuscripts and Letters
66 items found
Affò, I.
[Original manuscript] Vita di Pierluigi Farnese. Primo Duca di Parma, Piacenza, e Castro.
Guastalla, 1778 [not published until 1821]. Folio (31.1 x 20.8 cm). Title and four additional chapter titles (all in red and black), [iv], 161 text pages; all carefully hand-written, and with floral vignettes in three colours at the end of two chapters. Four blank leaves in the rear. Contemporary full mottled calf. Spine rich gilt with floral vignettes and burgundy morocco label with gilt title. Boards with rich gilt ornamental borders and corner pieces; gilt-lined edges. Marbled endpapers. All edges red. (Italian binding).
Read more[after T. H. Ekart]
Synopsis Hepaticarum. Descriptiones Jungermanniarum. [Original Manuscript].
France, no place, no date [ca. 1860-1880]. Small folio (24.7 x 20.0 cm). Manuscript of 46 pp. with 31 original, fine, mounted, ink drawings of liverworts, most with handwritten descriptions at the foot or on loose leaflets. Patterned quarter linen over burgundy grained linen. Marbled endpapers
Read more[Anonymous, but probably A. Malard]
Manuscript on algae.
No place, no publisher, no date [but ca. 1900]. 8vo (various sizes). 65 original parts with hundreds of handwritten notes and drawings in black-and-white and in colour. All contained in an original portfolio, size 25 x 20 x 9.5 cm.
Read more[Ant, H.]
Manuscript based on Staudinger's printed list of Palaearctic Lepidoptera.
Not published, no date [but after 1936; probably ca. 1950]. Large 8vo (24.0 x 16.1 cm). 161 ruled pages with mounted strips with printed text. Mid-20th century black blind cloth over marbled boards.
Read moreCapitani, F. di
Francesco di Capitani. [Manuscript design examples].
Roma, di Capitani, [ca. 1935]. Large, oblong cardboard binder with two metal pins. Folio (36.5 x 53.5 cm). 64 leaves with original drawings, of which 61 in full colour (crayon). Black morocco boards with embossed title and patterned pastedowns. Stiff brown endpapers.
Read more[Carriages]
Two fine, original drawings of carriages.
No place, no publisher, 1906-1907. Two oblong drawings: one in thin ink lines with fine gouache colouring, over 15.0 x 23.0 cm, in oblong cardboard frame (30.5 x 23.5 cm); the other in sharp pencil, and with an overlaying, smaller board with the carriage top (over 16.2 x 24.7 cm) in oblong cardboard frame (32.1 x 43.4 cm).
Read more[Cars]
Large original watercolour illustration of a 1920's luxury model.
[No place, no publisher, ca. 1925-1930]. Large, oblong sheet (61.6 x 22.7 cm) with watercolour (partly paint-brushed) illustration of a ca. 1925 luxury car; mounted on another contemporary card board (same size).
Read moreCorrevon, [L.] H.
Fleurs des champs et des bois. [Dedication copy with author's typed letter, signed]
Neuchatel, Deleachaux & Niestlé, [1922]. 8vo (20.5 x 14.8 cm). 260 pp.; 75 coloured plates after watercolours by Ms S. Rivier. Original pictorial boards with colourful floral endpapers.
Read moreCoupin, H. [E. V.]
Album général des cryptogames. Avec la collaboration de M[ademois]elle Fernande Coupin. Algae. [Complete].
Paris, E. Orlhac, [1911-1912]. 4to (27.5 x 18.6 cm). 394 plates with explanatory text leaves, title pages and indexes. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards. Spine with five raised bands and gilt title. Marbled endpapers.
Read moreFauché, B.
Histoire naturelle, botanique.
[France, unpublished, ca. 1850]. Folio (39.8 x 28.8 cm). Title page with polychrome title and vignette, heightened with gold; 15 plates with watercolour images of fungi (1) and flowering plants with explanatory text leaves in fine calligraphy. Original full embossed and pebbled black calf; gilt-stippled board edges and fine gilt inner dentelles. Iridescent endpapers. Spine with five raised bands and gilt title; front board with gilt initials "B. F." (= Berthe Fauché); rear board with gilt vignette "Maison des Oiseaux". All edges gilt.
Read more["JAM" (R. de Bouillé, Comte)]
[Original watercolour sketches of French landscapes]
[France], no place, no publisher, ca. 1863-1890. 13 oblong sheets (22.3 x 29.2 cm), all with fine watercolour paintings, either full-sized, or smaller, in a drawn rectangular frame. And one drawing on slightly smaller paper, more sketchy, in pencil.
Read moreLacretelle, J. C. D., De
Histoire de France, pendant le dix-huitième siècle.
Paris, Treuttel et Würtz, 1819-1826. 14 parts in 14. 8vo (21.5 x 13.5 cm). Frontispiece (portrait of the author), 6,136 pp.; seven additional frontispieces, 204 portraits, (four hand-coloured), 69 original letters of which many large, folded, six letters in facsimile, 12 signed printed documents, 13 original printed billets, 67 other engraved plates of which 13 tinted and two large, folded and hand-coloured. Uniform original red half morocco over red grained boards. Rich gilt spines.
Read moreLloyd, T.
Trevor Lloyd's sketchbooks of New Zealand.
New Zealand, ca. 1925. In two volumes. Folio (35 x 25 cm, and 36 x 33 cm). The first of white paper, with his name handwritten on the second leaf, and (68 groups of) illustrations, mostly on leaf rectos only, a few using both sides of a leaf. The second, largest, of brown paper, with his name written on the front cover. Inserted: one sheet of trace paper with pencil drawing, and 24 leaves with colour pencil sketches of New Zealand landscapes, and people.
Read moreMacInnes, D.G.
A study of fossil Mammalia from East Africa [original manuscript].
Unpublished [n.d., but ca 1938.] 4to (26.0 x 20.4 cm). Original typed manuscript with 336 pp.; 143 original photographs in various sizes, and some original drawn maps. Full contemporary dark blue cloth with gilt title on spine.
Read moreMartyn, T.
Unknown illustrations for the "Universal Conchologist": Fine hand-coloured stipple engravings of lesser-known Indo-Pacific and South Pacific marine shells.
[London, the author], ca. 1780. Six oblong sheets (27.0 x 33.2 cm) with original stipple-engraved hand-coloured illustrations of shells.
Read moreMertens, R.
[Original manuscript of his paper on the development of salamanders from the Caucasus]
[Frankfurt am Main, 1968]. Handwritten on rectos (and one verso) of two uniform, loose, ruled leaves (21.0 x 14.9 cm), and two leaves (30.0 x 21.0 cm) of the same text, as typed manuscript.
Read moreMertens, R.
[Original manuscript on the variability of the striped kukri snake, Oligodon octolineatus (Schneider)].
[Frankfurt am Main, 1969]. Handwritten in ink on rectos of 23 uniform, loose, ruled leaves (20.8 x 14.8 cm), a photocopy of a single leaf of G. A. Boulenger's Catalogue of the snakes in the British Museum, volume II (1894) with a few annotations by Mertens; and another 14 leaves of several sizes, a few with printed text.
Read more[Original drawings]
Mongolian horsemen with falcons, cats and rabbits. [Eight original paintings on silk].
Mongolia, mid to late 19th - early 20th century. Oblong (27 x 35 cm). Eight paintings on silk, each mounted on large, iridescent silk sheets, and framed behind glass. Early to mid-20th century black varnished, bevelled wooden frames, each measuring 38.0 x 47.5 cm.
Read more[Pattern book]
Musterbuch für Stahldruck.
Unpublished [n.d., but ca. 1890]. Folio (32.5 x 21.0 cm). Ca. 150 leaves with over 2,500 finely hand-coloured decorative transfers in Art Nouveau and romantic styles. Black blind half calf over black boards. Front board with original, neatly handwritten label.
Read moreRaspail, X.
Les procédés de Pasteur. Jugés en 1882 par l'éminent chemiste Duclaux, nommé en 1895, directeur de l'institut Pasteur, fonction qu'il a occupée jusqu'à sa mort, en 1904 [AND] Le centenaire de Pasteur, a servi, pendant 18 mois, à lui édifier une apothéose mondiale, par une accumulation journalière, dans la presse française, de faux scientifiques et de mensognes scandaleux.
Gouvieuz, [the author?], 1924. Small 8vo (17.3 x 11.0 cm). 20 pp. Original printed wrappers.
Read moreReineck, A.
Anglertagebuch. Meine Erlebnisse am Wasser.
[Frankfurt am Main, unpublished, 1930-1933]. Oblong folio (20.5 x 26.4 cm). "Frontispiece" self-portrait of the author in pencil and watercolour; 40 pp. with handwritten text [in German] and numerous illustrations in pencil or ink, a cut-out ink drawing by the author mounted on the rear board. Bound in gilt-green-black pochoir "camouflage" boards. In a custom-made marbled slipcase (27.3 x 22.4 x 1.9 cm), with a photocopy of the latter drawing mounted on the front board.
Read moreTollmann, A.
Das Neogen am Südwestrand des Leithagebirges zwischen Eisenstadt und Hornstein. Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Wien.
Wien, [not published], 1953. Small folio (29.8 x 21.0 cm). 226 pp.; 28 text figures (tipped in), three large folded maps (one hand-coloured), five folded tables and graphs. Black half cloth. Hand-written label on the spine.
Read moreVaillant, L. [L.] and M. [F.] Bocourt
Mission scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale. Recherches zoologiques pour servir à l'histoire de la faune d'Amérique Centrale et du Mexique. Poissons.
Paris, Mission du Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale, 1874-[1915]. Large 4to (35.5 x 27.5 cm). Title to the Zoology section, title to part IV, half title to the ichthyology, [i ("avis"), 265 pp.; 31 plates, numbered 1-16, 1bis, 1ter, 5bis, 5ter, 5quat, 8bis, 9bis, 10bis, 10ter, 11quint (error for 10quint?), 11bis, 11ter, 11quat, 13bis, 13ter; all with original descriptive text leaves, of which 26 in fine chromolithography with additional hand-colouring; plates 1bis, and 1ter tinted, and plates 9bis, 10ter, and 10quint plain, as always. Printed wrappers to part IV, dated 1874, bound in. Contemporary half morocco over marbled boards. Spine with five raised bands, and gilt title. Marbled endpapers. Top edge gilt.
Read moreVuijk, J.
[Original orchid drawings and descriptions]
Amsterdam, [unpublished], ca. 1950-1975. A huge collection of more than a thousand sketches, drawings (b/w line drawings in pencil or ink, and in [full] colour) of wild orchids, with additional annotations - in Dutch, with Latin names. On 376 leaves, including 41 partially or (near) completely in original watercolours. Preserved in contemporary folders, titled by the author.
Read more