First printing of the earliest memoir of Charlemagne (742–814), written perhaps a decade after his death by a former courtier adopting the literary model of Suetonius’ Vita Augusti. The fine title-page illustration, depicting Charlemagne and Charles V together within a border charged with imperial insignia, and also the printer's device, and woodcut initials, were designed and cut by Anton Woensam von Worms (circa 1493/1500–1541).
Bound with San Giorgio, Benvenuto da, conte (1450–1527). De origine Guelphorum, et Gibellinorum. Basel, Andreas Cratander, [January 1519] Bound with Buonaccorsi, Filippo, called Callimaco Esperiente (1437–1496). Historia de rege Vladislao, seu clade Varnensi. Augsburg, Sigismund Grimm & Marcus Wirsung, [30 May 1519] Bound with Basse, Heinrich (fl. 1519) Panegiricos genealogiarum illustrium principum domiorum de Anholt. Leipzig, Wolfgang Stöckel, 1519
A rare newsletter providing a day-to-day account of the visit of Charles V to London in June 1522, to confirm the recent alliance made between him and Henry VIII against Francis I of France.
(23 cm), xxiii (3), 346 (4) pp., frontispiece, [27] plates. Publisher’s cloth. - Memoirs of the society beauty Mary Theresa Olivia, née Cornwallis-West, consort of Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, châtelaine of Fürstenstein Castle and Pless Castle in Silesia. First edition. The American edition was entitled Better left unsaid (New York: Dutton, 1931). ¶ Front endpaper lightly offset from an insertion (since removed); inkstain in advertisements printed at end.
(24 cm), 232 pp., [4] leaves of plates. Publisher’s cloth, pictorial dust jacket. - Biography of the colourful rake, son of George II and father of George III. ¶ Small defects to dust jacket. Good, unmarked copy.
(22 cm), xii, 292 pp., frontispiece, [4] leaves of plates. Publisher’s cloth, dust jacket. - Biography of the consort of George I, King of Great Britain, 1666-1726. “The story of her life reads like a seventeenth-century scandal sheet” (publisher’s advertisement). ¶ Good, unmarked copy.
(30 cm), 308 pp., illustrations. Publisher’s cloth, pictorial dust jacket. - An immensely useful work presenting the heraldic shields as well as the genealogy of all the royal families of Europe, from the eleventh century to the present. Detailed family trees, country by country. Revised edition of a work first published in 1981. ¶ Fine copy.