The Essays Or Counsels, Civil and Moral -
Sir Francis Bacon
1680 - Printed by M. Clark, London - Enlarged by the Honourable Author himself
'One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'.’
An early edition of Bacon’s most famous work, in which he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and rich in Renaissance learning. Bacon believed that rhetoric - the force of eloquence and persuasion - could lead the mind to the pure light of reason, and his own rhetorical genius is nowhere better expressed than in these vivid essays'.
‘Deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later, work in the English language’ - Henry Hallam.
Essays and Counsels consists of 58 essays on a diverse range of important topics including: Truth; Death; Love; Parents and Children; Envy; Superstition; Travel; Riches; Friendship; Youth and Age; ; Beauty; Studies; Honor and Reputation; Revenge; Cunning; Fortune; Anger; and Ambition.
Added to the Essays are the Colours of Good and Evil , and Wisdom of the Ancients, in which Bacon unveils the ancient wisdom behind Greek fables, thirty-one of which he retells here, suggesting that they contain hidden teachings on varied issues such as morality, philosophy, religion, civility, politics, science, and art.
With frontispiece portrait of Sir Francis Bacon engraved by F. H. Van Houe.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1680 - Printed by M. Clark, London - Enlarged by the Honourable Author himself
'One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'.’An early edition of Bacon’s most famous work, in which he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and rich in Renaissance learning. Bacon believed that rhetoric - the force of eloquence and persuasion - could lead the mind to the pure light of reason, and his own rhetorical genius is nowhere better expressed than in these vivid essays'.
‘Deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later, work in the English language’ - Henry Hallam.
Essays and Counsels consists of 58 essays on a diverse range of important topics including: Truth; Death; Love; Parents and Children; Envy; Superstition; Travel; Riches; Friendship; Youth and Age; ; Beauty; Studies; Honor and Reputation; Revenge; Cunning; Fortune; Anger; and Ambition.
Added to the Essays are the Colours of Good and Evil , and Wisdom of the Ancients, in which Bacon unveils the ancient wisdom behind Greek fables, thirty-one of which he retells here, suggesting that they contain hidden teachings on varied issues such as morality, philosophy, religion, civility, politics, science, and art.
With frontispiece portrait of Sir Francis Bacon engraved by F. H. Van Houe.
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Price HK$ 8,000
The Morals of Confucius -
Confucius
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.
Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Works -
Thomas Jefferson
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’
A superbly bound nine volume set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
With folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 30,000
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’A superbly bound nine volume set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
With folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 30,000
The True Prophecies or Prognostications - A Work Full of Curiosity and Learning -
Michael Nostradamus, Translated and Commented by Theophilus de Garencieres, Doctor in Physick Colleg. London
1672 - Printed by Thomas Ratcliffe and Nathaniel Thompson, London - First Edition in English
A nice clean copy of the first English translation of Nostradamus, with the engraved frontispiece. With the original French quatrains, followed by the English translations and commentary. Prefacing this is ‘The Life of Michael Nostradamus’.
Michel de Nostredame ‘began his prophetic writings in the early 1540s with a series of short yearly almanacs in which he made predictions in verse. The new art of printing gratified a popular demand for supernaturally acquired 'certainty,' and such almanacs were a common literary production of the day. It was with Les Prophéties (1555), however, that Nostradamus became an author of contemporary reputation and a figure who has had an impact on later history… [His more than 1000 rhyming quatrains, arranged in ‘centuries’ of 100] constitute the largest body of prophetic verse prepared to that day, perhaps in all literature’. (Clute & Grant).
Theophilus de Garencières, a French apothecary and occultist living in England, provided the first English translation of the famous prophecies of Nostradamus, along with explanations for each, (with a few exceptions for those entries either too obvious to require it or too obscure to interpret). However, Garencières unknowingly used a fake edition of Nostradamus’s work, printed in 1649, which contained two quatrains, known as the Mazarin Quatrains, that were forged by an unknown author in order to discredit and foretell the downfall of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, prime minister of France.
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Price HK$ 95,000
1672 - Printed by Thomas Ratcliffe and Nathaniel Thompson, London - First Edition in English
A nice clean copy of the first English translation of Nostradamus, with the engraved frontispiece. With the original French quatrains, followed by the English translations and commentary. Prefacing this is ‘The Life of Michael Nostradamus’.Michel de Nostredame ‘began his prophetic writings in the early 1540s with a series of short yearly almanacs in which he made predictions in verse. The new art of printing gratified a popular demand for supernaturally acquired 'certainty,' and such almanacs were a common literary production of the day. It was with Les Prophéties (1555), however, that Nostradamus became an author of contemporary reputation and a figure who has had an impact on later history… [His more than 1000 rhyming quatrains, arranged in ‘centuries’ of 100] constitute the largest body of prophetic verse prepared to that day, perhaps in all literature’. (Clute & Grant).
Theophilus de Garencières, a French apothecary and occultist living in England, provided the first English translation of the famous prophecies of Nostradamus, along with explanations for each, (with a few exceptions for those entries either too obvious to require it or too obscure to interpret). However, Garencières unknowingly used a fake edition of Nostradamus’s work, printed in 1649, which contained two quatrains, known as the Mazarin Quatrains, that were forged by an unknown author in order to discredit and foretell the downfall of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, prime minister of France.
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Price HK$ 95,000
Life and Writings of Thomas Paine -
Thomas Paine, Daniel Edwin Wheeler (editor)
1908 - Vincent Parke and Company, New York - Independence Edition of the Centenary Issue
‘These are the times that try men's souls’
Elegantly bound ten volume set of the de luxe independence edition, number 166 of just 500 hand-numbered sets signed by the editor Daniel Edwin Wheeler, published to celebrate the centenary of Paine's death.
Included are Paine’s ‘Common Sense’, ‘The American Crises’, ‘The Rights of Man’, and ‘The Age of Reason’, as well as essays, letters and speeches. Each volume with three photogravure or facsimile plates, as well as a frontispiece, title-pages printed in two colours, autographed limitation leaf to volume one.
‘On January 10, 1776, an obscure immigrant published a small pamphlet that ignited independence in America and shifted the political landscape of the patriot movement from reform within the British imperial system to independence from it. One hundred twenty thousand copies sold in the first three months in a nation of three million people, making Common Sense the best-selling printed work by a single author in American history up to that time. Never before had a personally written work appealed to all classes of colonists. Never before had a pamphlet been written in an inspiring style so accessible to the “common” folk of America.’ - Jack Miller Center.
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Price HK$ 35,000
1908 - Vincent Parke and Company, New York - Independence Edition of the Centenary Issue
‘These are the times that try men's souls’Elegantly bound ten volume set of the de luxe independence edition, number 166 of just 500 hand-numbered sets signed by the editor Daniel Edwin Wheeler, published to celebrate the centenary of Paine's death.
Included are Paine’s ‘Common Sense’, ‘The American Crises’, ‘The Rights of Man’, and ‘The Age of Reason’, as well as essays, letters and speeches. Each volume with three photogravure or facsimile plates, as well as a frontispiece, title-pages printed in two colours, autographed limitation leaf to volume one.
‘On January 10, 1776, an obscure immigrant published a small pamphlet that ignited independence in America and shifted the political landscape of the patriot movement from reform within the British imperial system to independence from it. One hundred twenty thousand copies sold in the first three months in a nation of three million people, making Common Sense the best-selling printed work by a single author in American history up to that time. Never before had a personally written work appealed to all classes of colonists. Never before had a pamphlet been written in an inspiring style so accessible to the “common” folk of America.’ - Jack Miller Center.
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Price HK$ 35,000
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values - Signed -
Robert M. Pirsig
1974 - William Morrow &, New York - First Edition
Signed true first edition of a modern classic that was rejected by 121 publishers before William Morrow stepped up.
Well, as Robert Pirsig points out, this ‘should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either’. The motorcycle being a 1966 Honda Super Hawk, now on permanent display at the Smithsonian.
‘Inspired, original. . . . The analogies with Moby-Dick are patent.’ – The New Yorker.
‘The truly great road trip novel. … Many former angsty teens will surely fondly recall their own dog-eared, heavily underlined copies of Pirsig’s book, and the initial joy that accompanied reading something that felt so specifically personal and yet so urgently universal.’ – GQ Magazine.
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Price HK$ 30,000
1974 - William Morrow &, New York - First Edition
Signed true first edition of a modern classic that was rejected by 121 publishers before William Morrow stepped up.Well, as Robert Pirsig points out, this ‘should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either’. The motorcycle being a 1966 Honda Super Hawk, now on permanent display at the Smithsonian.
‘Inspired, original. . . . The analogies with Moby-Dick are patent.’ – The New Yorker.
‘The truly great road trip novel. … Many former angsty teens will surely fondly recall their own dog-eared, heavily underlined copies of Pirsig’s book, and the initial joy that accompanied reading something that felt so specifically personal and yet so urgently universal.’ – GQ Magazine.
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Price HK$ 30,000
The Stones of Venice - The Foundations, The Sea-Stories; The Fall. With Illustrations drawn by the Author -
John Ruskin
1873-1874 - Smith, London - Signed Limited Edition
Illustrated with 53 mixed technique plates (including lithograph, mezzotint, aquatint and engraved, some tinted or hand-coloured), together with wood engraved illustrations and diagrams throughout the text.
‘Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she had the good fortune to become the object of passion to a man of splendid genius’ - Henry James on John Ruskin.
The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin
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Price HK$ 30,000
1873-1874 - Smith, London - Signed Limited Edition
Illustrated with 53 mixed technique plates (including lithograph, mezzotint, aquatint and engraved, some tinted or hand-coloured), together with wood engraved illustrations and diagrams throughout the text.‘Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she had the good fortune to become the object of passion to a man of splendid genius’ - Henry James on John Ruskin.
The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin
More details
Price HK$ 30,000