A polemic French Protestant novel Les Entretiens des Voyageurs sur Ia Mer (1715) with an illustration of a Jesuit book burning, captioned "Blind fools, do you think you can eradicate truth by burning books?" #newacq#NewAcquisition
A superb incunable with all the bells and whistles--contemporary binding with clasps and bosses, index tabs, decorated initials, rubrication. But I was especially taken with the the boards, where old manuscript waste had been removed, leaving an offset mirror image of the leaves that used to be pasted down there.
This was pricey but we have such a good Defoe collection I was surprised we didn't have it. His argument that sex for pleasure without the possibility of conception was fornication probably didn't make him a lot of friends but what was really shocking was the title, which was swiftly canceled and reissued as "A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed," making the original title page a considerable rarity.
A map of showing the path of a 1764 eclipse across Europe, printed in two passes, with the map in sepia and the shadow line in black.
A great acquisition in and of itself, but what's really special is that the map was designed by a woman, engraved by a woman, and printed by a woman. And not two weeks ago we were brainstorming ideas for a future exhibition on women in science, so it couldn't be more perfect.
My favorite purchase at the Boston Book Fair. the 1761 notebook of a shipbuilding apprentice, Honoré de Giraud, containing detailed tables and diagrams, as well as some very charming doodles, and a double self portrait with the tools of his trade. #Newacq#NewAcquisition
An 1800 imaginary voyage inside a hollow earth, featuring illustrations of the anthropomorphic animal inhabitants and a large foldout membership certificate for a secret society. #ScienceFiction#Newacq#NewAcquisition
A 1592 educational science text framed as a dialogue between a sister and brother reading a book their father has left out, with smaller print filling in technical details and instructions for experiments, including a sheet of paper instruments to cut out and assemble. #Newacq#NewAcquisition
Stop me if this sounds familiar--a 1787 speech warning German parents against their children reading dangerous literature from the "surging tide of books which, from [book] fair to [book] fair, inundate our country like the Flood."
An 18th century study of the history of beards--obviously an important subject to me, but what convinced me to buy it was that it contains a section on bearded women, shedding light on the construction of gender in the period.
1555 divorce petition in Mexico city by Doña Beatriz de Herrera against her husband Doctor Juan Álvarez de Castañeda, describing his physical and emotional abuse of her. #newacq#NewAcquisition