James Cummins Bookseller is pleased to share a selection of recently acquired books in all fields. Highlights include all five of the lifetime editions of the Compleat Angler, a medal struck in commemoration of the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, an extensive and outstanding manuscript account of travel in Southern Africa by a Jewish-American immigrant, Martin Luther King Jr.'s timely "The Crisis in America's Cities" speech, an early-18th Century French Illustrated Manuscript on Astronomy and Cosmography, and an unrecorded catalogue of an 18th Century Wunderkammer.
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Hartford: [Printed by Finlay Brothers and sold by Dunster House, Cambridge, Mass.], 1925. Unauthorized edition, one of 99 copies , nos. 1-5 on vellum, 6-99 on thick paper. This is a paper copy, no. 34. VERY RARE. Read More about Fragments Now First Collected some being hitherto unpublished
Price: $400
Boston: February 27, 1783 - November 17, 1785. "On 30 Aug. 1783, with Anglo-American hostilities having ceased and eager to profit from the commercial opportunities offered by the Dutch-American Treaty, De la Lande & Fynje signed a five-year contract with Boston merchant and loyalist Frederick William Geyer (d. 1803). The..... Read More about Manuscript retained letterbook of the Boston merchant firm William Foster & Company,...
Price: $3,000
New York: Published for the Booksellers, 1841. First edition. The Second Wall Street Novel – Rare. A very early — in fact, the second — Wall Street novel about a young broker who fails on the street. It explains all the chicanery, stock manipulation, scams and even a faked panic..... Read More about A Week in Wall Street. By One Who Knows
Price: $5,500
London: T & R. Willats, [1851]. First edition. Read More about Plain Directions for Obtaining Photographic Pictures upon Albumenized Paper and Glass, by...
Price: $2,000
Cambridge, Massachusetts: March 9, 1844. Read More about Autograph fair copy, signed of "A Mystical Ballad." 10 stanzas
Price: $2,250
Shanghai: 1870. First edition "This singular pamphlet, of which 500 copies were originally printed, but of which no more perhaps than 100 now exist, the remainder...having been destroyed..." The book was published in a small edition (Ashbee says 500 copies), and is a verbatim translation of a series of scurrilous..... Read More about Death blow to corrupt doctrines. A plain statement of facts. Published by Gentry and People....
Price: $3,000
New York: 1937-1938. This photographic archive documents the construction of a massive double-barrel sewer line running from the World's Fair grounds, largely in the vicinity of Grand Central Parkway and Roosevelt Avenue. Many of the images are dated in the negative depicting the surveying of the region in June 1937..... Read More about Archive of photographs depicting the construction of the sewer system on the grounds of the...
Price: $3,500
New York: Vincent Fitz Gerald, 1982. One of 125 copies all on Somerset handmade paper, watermark: "Somerset" / "England"), the first 25 of which were signed by the artist and the translator in pencil. This is number 15 of the 25 deluxe issue. ONE OF 25. The Second Book of..... Read More about 10 Poems...Newly Translated by Michael Feingold
Price: $1,250
London: J. Dodsley, 1775. First edition. A first edition by an Englishwoman extraordinary in her time. Jane Vigor (née Goodwin, b. 1699, d. 1783), was born to a clergyman in Yorkshire. Her first husband was Thomas Ward, Esq Consul General to Russia, and it was through that marriage that she..... Read More about Letters from a Lady, who resided some years in Russia to Her Friend in England. With Historical...
Price: $1,750
Lichfield: Printed and Sold by J. Jackson, for the Author, 1781. Second edition (same year as the first). Signed by the "Swan of Lichfield" In the Fall of 1780 the young and dashing British officer, John Andrè, was arrested in civilian clothes, with a false passport, bearing reports from Benedict..... Read More about Monody on Major Andrè. By Miss Seward. (Author of the Elegy on Capt. Cook.) To Which Are Added...
Price: $1,500
Woolwich: Boddy and Co., Printers, Artillery Place, 1872. Extra-illustrated manuscript and print compiled book on 19th-century artillery. Compiled by W. A. E. St. Clair in 1872, this fascinating student manuscript provides a glimpse into 19th-century British artillery manufacture with detailed descriptions of the entire process of making gunpowder. The book..... Read More about Notes on Artillery
Price: $2,500