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12 BORGES, Jorge Luis. El Aleph. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1949 WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT, ARIADNE? THE MINOTAUR SCARCELY DEFENDED HIMSELF First edition of this key collection of Borges’s short stories, including the title story “The Aleph”, “The House of Asterion” (set in the labyrinth at Knossos), and “The Writing and the God”. Octavo. Original brown wrappers, spine and front cover lettered in black and red, fore edge untrimmed. Spine somewhat tanned, superficial split to wrappers along rear joint fold, light rubbing along other edges, a few marks to wrappers, leaves toned within as usual but otherwise clean, text block discreetly reattached to wrappers. £1,750 [153810] 13 BOSWELL, James. An Account of Corsica. Glasgow: by Robert and Andrew Foulis for Edward and Charles Dilly in the Poultry, London, 1768
established Boswell’s reputation, and did much to promote the Corsican cause both in Britain and across Europe. “With its reports of the gallant islanders and a Plutarchan depiction of Paoli paralleled with several classical heroes, it was an immediate success. The work was widely read and translated, stimulated great interest in Paoli and the Corsican cause, brought its author wide fame in Britain and Europe, and found an interested readership among the Americans . . . though Boswell’s ambition for British intervention was not to be fulfilled, he probably influenced Britain’s decision to send secret supplies of arms to the Corsicans” ( ODNB ). Octavo (205 × 129 mm). Early 20th-century calf to style, red morocco labels, gilt in compartments, plain endpapers. Large engraved folding map of Corsica (second state, with imprint); engraved rococo title vignette incorporating the Moor’s Head arms of Corsica. Bound without terminal blank. Ownership signature to title page dated 1771, early 20th-century bookplate to front pastedown of T. H. Parnell, Mounton. Binding fine, light toning to endpapers, head of central leaves, half-title, and terminal leaf, short closed tear to folding map in gutter, scattered light foxing. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC T26157; Gaskell, Foulis , 473; Pottle 24; Rothschild 442. £2,000 [154271]
translations, though very little is known of their dating and subsequent appearance in print. WorldCat and Library Hub find complete sets at nine institutions worldwide (four in France, and one apiece in Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, South Africa, and Canada). The Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève holds an incomplete set, lacking volume 2, which they specifically catalogue as in square wrappers. The University of Leeds and Zentralbibliothek Zürich have volumes 1 and 2 only, and copies of volume 3 are at the National Libraries of Israel and Poland. The University of Windsor Leddy Library in Canada catalogues a “two-volume work in three” under this title, dated 1920. 4 volumes, octavo, the first 3 “en carré”. Uncut in the original buff printed wrappers. Diagrams in text. Spines of first 3 vols slanted and creased, wrappers remarkably well preserved, browned and with a few chips, light creases, and short closed tears at extremities, contents in fine condition. ¶ Caillet 1212 (US and UK editions; “This work made an epoch in Occultism”). Maria Carlson, No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875–1922 , 1993; John Golding, Visions of the Modern , 1994; Michael Gomes, foreword to the abridged edition, 1972; Vsevolod Solovyov, A Modern Priestess of Isis , 1895. £3,750 [153829]
ESTABLISHING BOSWELL’S FAME AND ADVANCING THE CORSICAN CAUSE
First edition of Boswell’s first important publication, an account of his travels to Corsica in 1765, where he took up the cause of Corsican independence and befriended the leader Paoli. The publication
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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