61 FOXE, John. [Foxe’s Book of Martyrs:] Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happening in the Church, with an universall historie of the same. London: Printed [by Humphrey Lownes] for the Company of Stationers, 1610 “of immense, almost unquestioned, authority” The masterpiece and monument of the English Reformation, an exhaustive and abundantly illustrated Protestant martyrology and anti-papist history of the church, of extraordinary influence for the following two centuries, “at once both the most important narrative source for the English Reformation and a work that helped to shape its later development” ( ODNB ). The work was first published in Latin in 1559 and in English in 1563. It was frequently reprinted afterwards, with revisions by Foxe and by editors following his death in 1587. “ Acts and Monuments remained a living and evolving text long after Foxe was dead” (ibid.); this edition of 1610 (sixth overall) brought the text up the time of King James and included a retelling of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The decades around this 1610 publication saw the pinnacle of the book’s influence: “through the first half of the seventeenth century Acts and Monuments was not merely a remarkably popular book but was one of immense, almost unquestioned, authority. It was also a work of direct relevance to its readers on a range of theological, apologetic, homiletic, and even political issues of central concern” (ibid.). “‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’, as it has been called ever since its first English publication, was for more than two centuries one of the most widely read books in England . . . In 1571 a decree of Convocation ordained that copies were to be placed in all cathedral churches and that the houses of archbishops, bishops, archdeacons and resident canons should all have copies for the use of servants and visitors . . . The lively style of the book, not to mention the gruesome illustrations, which first appeared in the English edition of 1563, was thus given an opportunity to influence – and prejudice – the minds of people in all classes of society, including those who could not otherwise have afforded it” ( PMM ). The frequent handling that copies thereby endured accounts for the fact that they are often found defective, or in far shoddier state than here.
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60 FORD, Walton. Pancha Tantra. Cologne: Taschen, 2007 Limited Art Edition, number 5 of 100 copies signed by Ford and issued with the original intaglio print “Limed Blossoms”, depicting a group of ruby-red throated hummingbirds trapped in flower blossoms.
Folio. Original full brown leather, spine lettered in gilt, illustration of two birds to front cover in gilt, housed in publisher’s cloth clamshell box with lettering to spine and illustration of a bee to lid, all in gilt. With original six-colour intaglio print in a quarter cloth folder with cardboard sides. With original packaging box. Illustrations throughout. A fine copy. £10,000 [156735]
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