- Home
- Online Catalogues
- Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair
Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair
We're bringing a fantastic selection with us to the Toronto book fair this weekend, including single leaves from the Gutenberg Bible and Caxton's Canterbury Tales, a sumptuous double Cosway binding rendering Robert Burns's iconic portrait, and a vibrant original painting by Derek Walcott.
JOSEPHUS, Flavius. De antiquitate Judaica; De bello Judaico.[Augsburg] : 1470
First edition of two of the most important works for understanding first-century Judaism and the early history of Christianity.
Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian of priestly lineage, wrote chiefly in Greek, though his native tongue was Aramaic. His account of the Jewish war against Rome - an uprising in which he initially took part...Learn More
SACROBOSCO, Johannes de, & Georg von Peuerbach. Opusculum de sphaera.Vienna : 1518
A profusely annotated copy of the scarce first and only Viennese edition, featuring a world map based on Waldseemüller's design, where part of America is visible. Compiled by a university student, the marginalia enrich the text with arithmetic, geography, astronomy, literature, and technical knowledge.
An online institutional search...Learn More
BRUNSCHWIG, Hieronymus. A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye or homely physick booke, for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye.Cologne : 1561
First and only edition in English of Thesaurus pauperum, first published in 1507, a popular book of medicine designed for self-treatment, "which became the model for later pharmacopeias for the poor" (Cleveland Herbal Collection).
Brunschwig presented his work as a charitable endeavour for the poor, allowing them access to the knowledge...Learn More
TRITHEMIUS, Johannes. Polygraphie, et universelle escriture cabalistique.Paris : 1561
First edition in French of the earliest printed Western work on ciphers, complete with all 13 volvelles. The translator Gabriel de Collange expanded the original text with an additional chapter demonstrating that Trithemius' tables may easily be converted into cipher wheels and explaining how to use them. A beautiful example of Renaissance book...Learn More
SCOT, Reginald. A perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden,London : 1578
Third edition, following the first of 1574, of this "entirely original work and the first to be written expressly on the culture of hops in England" (Henrey), here extensively annotated by an early reader. Scot's is "an eminently practical treatise, illustrating the various methods of setting the roots, making the hills and ramming the poles,...Learn More
MONARDES, Nicolás. Joyfull newes out of the newfound world,London : 1580
First complete edition in English of the first treatise on Central and South American medicinal plants, from the library of the Suffolk physician and author Philip Moore (fl. 1564-1580), with his gilt supralibros on the front cover and numerous annotations, possibly in his hand.
Monardes's treatise was published in Spanish in 1565 as...Learn More
SCARUFFI, Gasparo. L'Alitinonfo.Reggio Emilia : 1582
First edition of Scaruffi's theoretic treatise on money, "a practical treatise written with the object of formulating suggestions to intended to improve the monetary system, then in a state of great confusion, owing to alterations in the money, a multiplicity of coins, bad coinage, and abuses of every description." (Palgrave). Scaruffi (1519-84)...Learn More
APULEIUS, Lucius. The XI. Bookes of the Golden Asse: containing the Metamorphosie,London : 1639
Uncommon early edition of Adlington's translation, the first in English and a source for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Apuleius's The Golden Ass is the only complete surviving Roman novel and a precursor of the picaresque genre. Its best-known episode, the tale of Cupid and Psyche, is recounted by an old woman to the protagonist...Learn More
LAET, Johannes de. L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde ou Description des Indes Occidentales,Leiden : 1640
First edition in French of this finely produced compilation on the geography and natural history of the Americas, expanded from the previous Dutch and Latin editions. The maps feature early depictions of Canada, show California as a peninsula instead of an island, and include the first appearance of the names "Manhattan", "New Amsterdam" (now New...Learn More
BILLS OF MORTALITY. London's Dreadful Visitation:London : 1665
First edition of this complete annual sequence of the London bills of mortality for 20 December 1664 to 19 December 1665, issued at the height of the Great Plague. First instituted in 1592 and placed under the control of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks in 1611, the bills formed the essential statistical substrate for John Graunt's Natural...Learn More
POYNTZ, John. The Present Prospect of the Famous and Fertile Island of Tobago:London : 1683
First edition, one of the earliest accounts of Tobago, a prospectus for settlers to the island, "an exercise in highly coloured colonial real-estate advertising" (Grove, p. 228).
A naval captain in the Caribbean, John Poyntz (1629/30-1712) captured a Dutch settlement in Tobago in 1666. The garrison he left was forced to surrender to a...Learn More
BERNOULLI, Jacob. Ars conjectandi, opus posthumum. Accedit tractatus de seriebus infinitis, Et Epistola Gallicè scripta de ludo pilae reticularis.Basel : 1713
First edition of the first systematic treatment of probability theory, the source of the law of large numbers, binomial distribution, and Bernoulli numbers. The Ars Conjectandi was the first work to suggest that probability could be applied in civil, moral, and economic matters, and it remains the foundation of much modern practice in such fields...Learn More
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA - SMELLIE, William; Andrew Bell; & Colin Macfarquhar. Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences compiled upon a new plan.Edinburgh : 1771
First edition of the most celebrated encyclopaedia in the English language, an enduring achievement of the Scottish Enlightenment. This copy, the primary and preferred Edinburgh issue, contains the complete 160 plates, including the three on midwifery that George III ordered removed from every copy.
Drawing on Chambers's Cyclopaedia (1728)...Learn More
ORTES, Giammaria. Della economia nazionale parte prima. Libri sei.Naples : 1774
First edition, by "undoubtedly the most eminent of the Venetian economists of the 18th century" and "unquestionably the most original thinker among all Italian economists" (Palgrave).
As Ortes saw the maldistribution of wealth as an evil, Marx praised him in Das Kapital as "an original and clever writer" and "one of the great economic...Learn More
COOK'S FIRST VOYAGE - MANLEY, Isaac George. Logbook kept while commanding HMS Fairy.Mostly at sea : 1789
A window onto the later career of Isaac Manley (1755-1837), mourned on his death as the last remaining participant in Cook's historic first voyage. Manley joined Cook's crew aged only 13 and was promoted to midshipman on 5 February 1771, during the journey home. He rose to the rank of admiral of the red, becoming one of the fifteen most senior...Learn More
GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust. Ein Fragment.Leipzig : 1790
First edition of the Faustfragment, the preferred Einzeldrucke issue. Goethe's first commercially available version of Faust was published in April 1790 in a print run of 4,000. Of these, 3,000 were issued as Volume 7 of the complete edition of his works, the Schriften, and 1,000 were issued as Einzeldrucke.
The subject of Faust...Learn More
HUME, David. Über die menschliche NaturHalle : 1790-92
Very scarce first edition in German of A Treatise of Human Nature, the first translation into any language of Hume's greatest (and rarest) work; it is issued here with a commentary by Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob (1759-1827), professor of philosophy at Halle who helped greatly to popularize Hume's work in Germany. Although the translation seems late...Learn More
CONFUCIANISM. The Works of Confucius; containing The Original Text, With a Translation.Serampore : 1809
First edition of this translation of the first ten books of the Analects, the first time any part of the text was directly translated into English, and one of the first books printed at the influential missionary press in Serampore.
Marshman (1768-1837) moved to Serampore in 1806 to study Chinese under the tutelage of Professor Hovhannes...Learn More
KOTZEBUE, Otto von. Voyage of Discovery, into the South Sea and Beering's Straits,London : 1821
First edition in English, following the German edition of the same year. Kotzebue's celebrated narrative is "important for its descriptions of Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Micronesia" (Forbes).
Sponsored by Count Romanzoff, this was the second Russian expedition into the Pacific for scientific exploration. Kotzebue (1787-1846) had...Learn More
RAE, John. Statement of some new Principles on the Subject of Political Economy exposing the Fallacies of the System of Free Trade, and of some other Doctrines maintained in the "Wealth of Nations."Boston : 1834
First edition, scarce and often overlooked, of "one of the highlights of classical economic theory" (K. H. Hennings in The New Palgrave). A native of Scotland, Rae (1796-1872) emigrated to Canada, and thence to America, where this, his only publication, was written. Originally intended as an appendix to a larger work on the Natural History and...Learn More
