Literature & Linguistics

[PROPAGANDA FIDE - ALPHABETA]. [Alphabets of non-Latin scripts, including Hebrew, Samaritan and Syriac].
Rome, Propaganda Fide, [ca. 1700/60?]. Oblong 8vo (11 x 17 cm). A complete set of 12 leaves published without a title-page, printed on rectos only, each page with a frame of double rules and an additional single rule (built up from short rules) delineating a panel at the head that contains the title of the leaf, 10 of the 12 beginning "Alfabeto ..." and showing woodcut (3) or typographic (7) alphabets, the latter showing Hebrew (meruba & rabbinical), Samaritan (majuscule) and Syriac (estrangela & serto) types. The other 2 leaves show a woodcut illustration of an inscription in stone and an interpretation of it (including a smaller woodcut). Contemporary vellum, with the spine at the head of the leaves. [12] ll. Full description

ULPIANUS of Emesa and Valerius HARPOCRATION. Commentarioli in olynthiacas, philippicasque Demosthenis orationes. Enarrationes saneque necessariae in tredecim orationes Demosthenis. ...Dictionarium decem Rhetorum. [preceded by the titles in Greek].
(Colophon: Venice, heirs of Aldus Manutius, and his father-in-law Andrea Torresano dAsola [& sons], June) 1527. Folio (31 x 21 cm). With Aldus's famous woodcut dolphin device on the title-page and an older but very similar version on the verso of the otherwise blank last leaf. Set in Greek type (the Upianus in 1 column; the Harpokation in 2 columns) with incidental roman. Recased in 18th-century vellum over flexible boards. 119, [1] ll. Full description

VAENIUS, Otto (Otto van VEEN). Le theatre moral de la vie humaine, representée en plus de cent tableaux divers, tirez du poëte Horace ... et expliquez en autant de discours moraux par le sieur de Gomberville. Avec la table du philosophe cebes.
Brussels, François Foppens, 1672. Folio. With engraved illustration on title-page, engraved authors portrait, 103 engraved emblems by Pierre Daret after Otto Vaenius, and an engraved folding plate. 18th-century gold-tooled tree calf. XI, [5], 211, [1] pp. Full description

VAIRASSE D’ALAIS, Denis and Gerard van BROEKHUIZEN (translator). Historie der Sevarambes. Volkeren die een gedeelte van het darde vast-land bewoonen, gemeenlijk Zuid-land genaamd...
Amsterdam, Timotheus ten Hoorn, 1682. 4 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With an engraved title-page by Jan Luiken (dated 1683), 16 engraved plates (including 4 signed by J. vanden Aveele), some decorated woodcut initials, ornamental woodcut tailpieces and three divisional title-pages for parts 2-4. Contemporary vellum. [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [12], 253, [1 blank]; 96 pp. Full description

VAIRASSE D'ALAIS, Denis. Historie der Sevarambes, volkeren die een gedeelte van het darde vast-land bewoonen, gemeenlyk Zuid-land genaamd, ...
Amsterdam, Willem de Coup, Willem Lamsvelt, Philip Verbeek, and Joannes Lamsvelt, 1701. Small 4to (20 x 16 cm). With engraved frontispiece drawn and engraved by Joannes Lamsvelt and 16 plates engraved for this edition, at least mostly by Lamsvelt, after those of the first Dutch edition. Recased in contemporary(?) vellum, new endpapers. [16], "349" [= 345], [7] pp. incl. integral frontispiece. Full description

[VAIRASSE D'ALAIS, Denis]. Histoire des Sevarambes, peuples qui habitent une partie du troisiéme continent, communément appellé la Terre Australe.
Amsterdam, Etienne Roger, 1702. 2 volumes bound as 1. 12mo. With engraved frontispiece (repeated in volume 2) and 2 title-pages printed in red and black. Contemporary mottled, tanned sheepskin; rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down, with a new red title-label. 333, [1 blank]; 303, [25] pp. Full description

[VAIRASSE D'ALLAIS, Denis]. Geschichte der Sevaramben aus dem Französischen übersetzt vom Verfasser des Siegfried von Lindenberg.
Itzehoe, Johan Gottwerth Müller, 1783. 8vo.
(2) MÜLLER, Johann Gottwerth. Literarische Anmerkungen über die Geschichte der Severamben. Eine Beylage zur Uebersetzung dieses Buchs. Göttingen, Johann Christian Dieterich, 1783. 2 works, the first in 2 parts, in 2 volumes. 8vo. With a small illustration on each of the three title-pages. Contemporary half calf. 350, [2 blank]; 302, [2 blank], 31, [1 blank] pp. Full description

VERHAEREN, Émile. Les plaines.
Paris, Henri Piazza (colophon: printed by G. Kadar, Paris, 15 February 1934). 4to (23 x 16 cm). With an original watercolour drawing (10 x 10 cm), 35 colour collotype facsimiles of watercolour drawings (1 as frontispiece, the others in the text), some finished by hand, and 70 plates repeating the 35 illustrations: once in black and white and once in colour, all by Henri Cassiers. Contemporary (1934) gold-blocked brown morocco by George Canape and Georges Corriez in Paris, each board with an unidentified (prince's or duke's?) coat of arms in the centre in a frame of rose branches (the roses in red), spine with author and title in gold and rose branches in red and gold, gold fillets on board edges, turn-ins in gold with red roses, decorated cloth doublures and free endleaves (yellow background with multi-coloured flowers all woven), gilt edges. 174, [2] pp. plus 70 plates and 1 watercolour drawing. Full description

VERNAY, Charles. Poésies nationales et religieuses Françaises, Italiennes, Turques et Persanes, 195 pièces orientales, leur traductions, et le texte Turc et Persan de 57 pièces ...
Paris, Albert Franck (on back of half-title: printed by Firmin Didot frères), 1860[-1861]. With a lithographed portrait of the author, 5 lithographed facsimiles of the author's autograph manuscripts and 4 of the letterpress pages printed in gold. Extra-illustrated with 3 lithographed and 4 engraved Royal folio illustration plates (including 2 portraits of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I).
With:
(2) VERNAY, Charles. Poésies Turques et Persanes (cent quarante et une pièces) ...
Paris, Albert Franck (below frame: lithographed by [Mathieu] Masson), "1858-1859" [= AH 1275]. With a letterpress wrapper-title in French, printed in gold, a lithographed Turkish and Persian wrapper-title (dated "1275" and "1858") and text in Turkish and Persian, lithographed from the autograph manuscript in Arabic script, all printed in gold, and a lithographed portrait of the author (the same as in ad 1).
(3) VERNAY, Charles. Nouvelles poésies Persanes et Turques ...
Paris, Albert Frank, July 1860 (colophon: lithographed by [Mathieu] Masson, r. de Valois 48, Paris). A large 4to bifolium, with a lithographic facsimile of a 4-page autograph manuscript in Arabic script, printed on blue paper.
(4-18) VERNAY, Charles. [Miscellaneous publications in various formats, some letterpress, others lithographed facsimiles of the author's autograph manuscripts in French, Turkish and Persian, and including a 1-leaf autograph manuscript in Persian].
Paris, Firmin Didot frères and others, 1851-1858.
18 publications in 1 volume. Royal folio (49.5 x 34.5 cm) with a few items in smaller formats. Contemporary diced, richly gold-tooled calf, each board with a double frame of rolls and stamps, a crescent moon and star inside each corner of the inner frame, blind-tooled turn-ins, green silk brocade endleaves. [2], 4, [1], [1 blank], 142, 4, 143-262, 263-266[bis], 263-266[ter], 263-476, [2], [1 blank], [1]; 112; [4] pp. plus the wrappers and numerous inserted items. Full description

VESDIN (VEZDIN), Filip (PAULINUS A SANCTO BARTHOLOMAEO). Viaggio alle Indie Orientali umiliato alla Santita di N. S. Papa Pio Sesto pontefice massimo ...
Rome, Antonio Fulgoni, 1796. 4to. With 12 engraved illustration plates (6 with 2 illustrations each to make 18 in total), engraved roundel portraits of Pope Pius VI (on the title-page) and the author (above the opening of the main text) and some small woodcut illustrations of "Indian hieroglyphs". Set in roman and italic types with occasional words in Greek, Arabic, East Syriac, Devanagari and more extensive texts in Malayalam, plus a Malabar song with a double staff made with built-up round-head music notes. 19th-century maroon half sheepskin. XX, 404 pp. Full description