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Edinburgh Book Fair 2024
LAW, John; PIOSSENS, Chevalier de. Mémoires de la Régence de S. A. R. Mgr. le duc d'Orléans, durant la minorité de Louis XV, Roi de France.Amsterdam : 1729
First edition of a history of the regency in France during the minority of Louis XV, charting all the political and financial upheavals of the duc d'Orléans regency, with much information on John Law and his system between 1715 and 1723. It was published simultaneously at The Hague.Learn More
HUME, David (attrib.). Poem engraved on a pane of glass.Carlisle : [c.1750]
A famous piece of Humean apocrypha, long thought to have been inscribed by Hume with his only extant verse. Walter Scott quoted the poem in 1815, and it was kept for many years at Corby Castle, an ancestral home of the Howard family.
The four lines are a reflection on Carlisle and its surrounding countryside. "Here chicks, in eggs for...Learn More
SMITH, Adam. Autograph letter signed, to the Earl of Shelburne on the sickness of his son.Glasgow : 1760
One of very few remaining Adam Smith autograph letters in private hands, written to the Earl of Shelburne to detail the sickness of his son Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice, Smith's student and lodger. Mossner & Ross's census counts 232 letters written by Smith, 53 of which could not be traced (p. vii). Virtually all are in public...Learn More
KNIGHT, Joseph. Information for Joseph Knight, a native of Africa, pursuer in the action at his instance; against John Wedderburn of Ballandean, Esq; Defender;[Edinburgh : 1775; 1775; 1776]
First editions of three printed pleadings in the landmark Scottish freedom suit of Joseph Knight v. John Wedderburn (1775-76), the first case to test the Mansfield judgement north of the border and a decisive moment in the British debate over slavery.
Knight, brought from Africa to Jamaica and later to Scotland as Wedderburn's enslaved...Learn More
BEATTIE, James. Essays.Edinburgh : 1776
First edition of this collection by a significant Scottish Enlightenment figure. Each essay in this collection appears here for the first time, except that on truth, which was first published in 1770 and is here revised and provided with a six-page preface.
This edition is a lavish subscription quarto, whose list of subscribers includes the...Learn More
MCFARLAN, John. Inquiries Concerning the Poor.Edinburgh : 1782
First edition of this study of poverty in both England and Scotland, a hybrid of speculative history and empirical data collection typical of the Scottish Enlightenment. The work of Dr John McFarlan (1740-1788), a minister at the Canongate Church, Edinburgh, is a key and oft-cited source for understanding "official" attitudes towards poor relief...Learn More
COLQUHOUN, Patrick. Heads of a Plan for Establishing a Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures in the City of Glasgow, comprehending the towns of Paisley, Port-Glasgow, Greenock, and the places adjacent.[Glasgow] : [c.1782]
First edition. Patrick Colquhoun (1745-1820) was a prominent member of Glaswegian society and served as the city's lord provost from 1782-84. Colquhoun was the founder of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures, Britain's first chamber of commerce, and served as its first chairman, promoting new commercial opportunities for the city in...Learn More
HUME, David. Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul.London : 1783
Second edition in English overall, the first to acknowledge Hume as the author. These controversial essays assert that individuals have a moral right to commit suicide, and that life after death is highly improbable. This edition is scarce in commerce: we trace one previous auction listing in the past 60 years.
Hume (1711-1776) originally...Learn More
PENNANT, Thomas. A Tour in Scotland; MDCCLXIX;London, & Chester : 1790 & 1772
A handsome set of the fifth edition of Pennant's two famous tours of Scotland, accompanied here by a first edition of the scarce Supplement. Originally published in 1771 and 1774, the tours "did much to strengthen a growing perception of a common British identity, and served to make remote areas of the British Isles recognizable to southern...Learn More
PALMER, Thomas Fyshe. A Narrative of the Sufferings of T. F. Palmer and W. Skirving, during a Voyage to New South Wales, 1794, on board the Surprise Transport.Cambridge : 1797
First edition of this scarce contribution to early Australian convict literature, three copies traced at auction in the last 40 years; ESTC locates three copies in Australasian libraries, at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, Auckland Museum Library, and the State Library of South Australia.
Palmer (1747-1802), a Unitarian...Learn More
CAIRD, John. The Complete Confectioner and Family Cook.Edinburgh : 1809
First edition. Includes many recipes for still popular Scottish sweets, oat cakes, bannocks, shortbread, barley sugar, apple dumplings, and apple fritters, as well as recipes such as macaroni and cheese. John Caird was a grocer and confectioner based in Edinburgh, known for his internationally imported fruits and spices. This work is notable for...Learn More
MILL, James. Autograph letter signed, to Maria Sophia Bentham.Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire : 1820
A letter from James Mill, apparently never published in its entirety, making arrangements for the foreign education of the teenage John Stuart Mill. The third side carries a supplemental letter by Jeremy Bentham, discussing personal matters and the impending divorce of George IV. Mill's letter demonstrates the importance of feminine guidance for...Learn More
CORDINER, James. A Voyage to India.Aberdeen : 1820
First edition of Cordiner's highly uncommon second book, an appealing, informative, and breezy narrative describing his life in the East - the Cape, Bombay, Madras and Colombo.
James Cordiner (1775-1836) was a Scottish Episcopal clergyman, "in 1797, while still a divinity student, he was appointed to superintend the Military Male Orphan...Learn More
SHELLEY, Mary. Autograph letter signed to John George Cochrane.33 Somerset Street, London : 23 December 1829
A very scarce signed letter of one page from Mary Shelley to John George Cochrane, the Scottish editor and publisher of the Foreign Quarterly Review, describing "M. Beyles' book" (Stendhal's Promenades dans Rome) as "so trite so unentertaining - so very commonplace that I have found it quite impossible to do anything with it". This letter was...Learn More
MILL, James. Autograph letter signed, to Jeremy Bentham.East India House : 1831
An unpublished letter from James Mill to Jeremy Bentham arranges a meeting with the reformer Ram Mohun Roy (1772-1833), often regarded as a founder of modern India. Writing from East India House, Mill notes that he is to dine with Major Carnac and meet Roy there - "who comes mainly to meet me" - and therefore need not trouble Bentham for an...Learn More
YACHTING. Signals of the Royal Northern Yacht Club, 1831.Glasgow : 1831
First edition thus, scarce, with just two copies located NMM and NLS, which also has a similar volume dated two years earlier. This copy with a pamphlet in printed blue paper wrappers containing the Rules & Regulations, 8 pages, and a bifolium with Resolutions for 1834, retained by a blue silk ribbon at the front endpapers, and a list of members...Learn More
WYLIE & LOCHHEAD. Set of three albums of original albumen prints showing interiors.Glasgow : [c.1890]
Wylie & Lochhead's photographic in-house showroom books, illustrating a series of interiors in excellent, finely detailed images. The Glasgow-based company of cabinet makers and upholsterers flourished between 1829 and 1957 and played a significant role in disseminating fashionable taste to a discerning clientele.
By the 1880s, the firm had...Learn More
HIGHLAND SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. Minute book of the Burns Club.[Sydney] : 1880-85
A unique manuscript book, recording the meetings of the first six years of the Sydney Burns Club, together with a scarce facsimile printing of Burns's original manuscript for the poem "Scots Wha' Hae", presented to the Highland Society of New South Wales in the 1890s. Together, these items offer a fascinating insight into the preservation and...Learn More
STEVENSON, Robert Louis. Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers.London : 1887
Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, "To my mother, Robert Louis Stevenson".
Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson (1829-1897), known to her family as "Maggie", married Thomas Stevenson in 1848. The pair lived in Edinburgh, and there Margaret gave birth to RLS, her only child, on 13 November 1850. As a child, RLS was...Learn More
KELMSCOTT PRESS: TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. Maud. A Monodrama.Hammersmith : 1893
First Kelmscott edition, one of 500 paper copies, bound in contemporary morocco to the house style of collector Sir William Stirling Maxwell, 9th Baronet (1818-1878), with the Stirling clan crest badge gilt-stamped to the covers.
Housed at his estates in Glasgow and Perthshire, Stirling's collection included mostly Spanish art (he was the...Learn More
