1802. Two volumes, small 8vo; pp. xxiv, 383, [i] errata; vii, [i] blank, 370, [1] errata, [7] blank; some occasional light foxing and spotting, some minor ink staining along fore edges, but otherwise clean and crisp; First Spanish edition (first Italian 1796) of this scarce introduction to chemistry for ladies, by Guiseppe Compagnoni (1754-1833). The popularity of books such as Francesco Algarotti's ‘Newtonianismo per le dame’ spawned a genre of similar works of which the present work by Compagnoni is ‘an excellent textbook for women readers, based on the new chemistry of Lavoisier as enunciated in the Fondamenti della Scienza Fisico-Chimica of Vincenzo Dandolo. Presented in a series of 101 letters, this work covers the history of chemistry, elements and compounds, attraction, affinity, caloric, fire and light, the phlogistic versus the new chemistry, gases, combustion, acids and alkalis, salts, the old and new nomenclature, minerals etc. Pages 147-237 of Vol II entitled Lettere Aerologiche, discuses the physical and chemical properties of the atmosphere and various gases, with references to ballooning by the Montgolfier brothers’ (Neville I, p. 287). ‘Compagnoni created the last of a number of fictional women whose questions about scientific learning facilitated the popularization of new doctrines in the early modern period. His Chemistry for Ladies (1796), explicitly modelled upon Francesco Algarotti’s Newtonianism for Ladies (1737) rather than Marie Meurdrac’s Chemistry made easy for Ladies (1666), began as a series of letters between himself and Countess Marianna Rossi of Ferrara on the ideas of Lavoisier. Expressing scepticism over a woman’s desire to learn a subject as dry and difficult as chemistry, Compagnoni is reassured by the countess that she indeed wishes to be initiated into the mysteries of Lavoisier’s new language because chemistry ‘by now has become the fashionable science’ (Findlen, Translating the New Science).
Neville considers the first edition to be very rare, with Bolton’s first supplement p. 131 referring only to the second edition, and Duveen citing the present rare Spanish translation. Blake, 96; Cole 291 (first edition); Duveen 142 (this edition); Wellcome II, 379; Neville I, p. 287; OCLC: 17597388 locates only one US copy at Wisconsin, with three copies in Spain.

1870s.]. 16mo, plain notebook, ff. 51 leaves of which 32 have been used, leaves neatly ruled in pencil to form a table of 12 spaces, and containing 615 mounted examples neatly clipped from contemporary note-paper and stationery in various colours, some printed and some embossed, and neatly organised into groups, under florid manuscript headings; some leaves possibly excised; light marginal soiling and foxing throughout, otherwise clean and crisp; Quite an extensive and well-organised Victorian collection of arms, crests, monograms, flags, and pictograms, neatly clipped from contemporary stationery and mounted into an attractive bound volume. The anonymous compiler has divided them into groups, under florid ink manuscript headings: Arms of All Nations; Royal Arms; Archbishops 1070-1862; Dukes; Marquesses; the University of Oxford; the University of Cambridge; Army; Navy; Arms of Scottish Clans; and The Arms of the English Counties. Other untitled sections include a number of ensigns; the livery companies of London; other military regiments; and a further section of Oxbridge colleges. One of the blank leaves has a faint pencil heading ‘Counties’, though remains unused.
Whilst somewhat forgotten and overlooked today, during the Victorian era the collecting of arms, crests and monograms was a popular pastime, and indeed a number of leading publishing firms such as Marcus Ward & Co.; Stafford Smith & Co., William Lincoln (subsequently William Simpson Lincoln), and Stanley Gibbons & Co., produced dedicated crest albums to house Crested stationary made its appearance in England after the introduction of uniform penny postage in 1840, thus creating, in addition to waxed seals, two additional collectibles - postage stamps and crests embossed and printed on envelope flaps. These were soon to be found also on letterheads of gentlemen’s clubs, hotels, civic authorities, and commercial stationary. The earliest crest albums date from around 1862, and at the time sets of crests were also produced for collectors. The pastime appears to have been firmly centred upon the United Kingdom, although also found popularity in France and America. The hobby continued into the twentieth century, though appears to have more or less ceased with the First World War.

1845. 4to, pp. [ii] title-page, 329 - 398; with eight lithograph plates; somewhat browned and foxed throughout (including to some of the plates), with some dampstaining to lower margins, upper margins and fore-edges of final two leaves with later tape repairs, title-page and final leaf gutters repaired, with a number of further gutters strengthened; Offprint. An important, detailed, and well illustrated study on the pathology of cretinism, one of a number of works published on the subject during the first half of the nineteenth century. The noted psychiatrist Friedrich Karl Stahl (1811-1873) began his work in 1837 in Sulzheim near Schweinfurt, a region in which endemic cretinism was observed. This prompted him to undertake extensive studies on the disease, the results of which were first presented to the Academy in March 1843, and were then published in the Nova Acta Academiae in 1845. It gained him membership of the German Academy of Natural Sciences in 1844, with Stahl subsequently granted a generous travel grant by Ludwig II in 1846, allowing him to continue his research outside of Bavaria. He visited Vienna, Prague, Wurrtemberg, Salzburg, Styria and Switzerland, with the results of his further studies published in 1848 as Neue Beitrage zur Physiognomik und pathologischen Anatomie der Idiotia edemica. Stahl’s work and his references to individual suture growths occurring in the skulls of patients, subsequently influenced Rudolf Virchow’s doctrine of the developmental history of Cretinism and the skulls.
The eight lithographs by Henry & Cohen of Bonn are particularly striking - notably the four depicting specific case histories. Hirsch V, p. 503.

1901. 8vo, pp. xvi. 727, [1] blank, [4] advertisements; with a number of engravings and diagrams within the text; lightly browned throughout, with some occasional soiling and staining; one or two contemporary pencil calculations within margins; final advertisement leaf soiled and creased, and with tear at upper margin of final free endpaper with small loss; Uncommon second edition (first 1896) of this detailed and extensive text book, one of a series of works issued by James Cusack, and providing an insight into the provision of mathematical education at the turn of the century.
‘The present work is not intended as a first book on Arithmetic; it is intended for students already acquainted with methods, but who look for a rational explanation of those methods, and of the principles underlying them ... Throughout the work I have kept constantly before me the needs of the large number of young students scattered over the rural districts, who have little or no opportunity for receiving oral instruction in this important subject. Should any such student find any of my explanations insufficient, on receipt of a letter to that effect I shall be pleased to send whatever further explanation may be necessary’ (preface).
S. Blows in his 1890 ‘Cusack’s Principles of Logic, prepared expressly to meet the requirements of the syllabus for certificate students’ (second edition), describes Cusack as a London Professor, and we believe that for some time he ran a private school in the city. Indeed the preface is signed by Cusack at ‘Day Training College, Moorfields, London, E.C.’ He produced a series of textbooks, all published by the City of London Book Depot, together with a number of boxed education kits, to be used in conjunction with the accompanying text-book. He appears to have worked in collaboration with not only S. Blows, but with Henry Armstrong, who penned ‘Cusack’s Solid Geometry’, which was to be used alongside his ‘Geometrikon’ boxed set.
Other sets were produced to aid the teaching of drawing and shading models, with OCLC locating later 20th century publications on topics such as double-entry bookkeeping, (1911) and ‘the arithmetic of the decimal system’ (1920). OCLC locates copies of this second edition at the BL and Leicester only, with the first edition noted at Trinity College and the National Library of Scotland.

1920. Solid brass mould, inner plate 125 x 82mm, set within outer brass frame one side with two locking pins, the whole 160 x 93 x 25mm; signs of light wear and burnishing, though impressions barely warn and still clear and pronounced, upper surface with some abrasion; a heavy item weighing 2.5kg. Original brass mould with 42 impressions for incisor and canine teeth - seemingly for both both primary and secondary teeth. Sadly the manufacturer is anonymous, though we believe it to be English. The only identifying feature is the number 5, indicating this to be one of a series of similar plates.
The history of dentures and artificial teeth dates back to the Etruscans, and were traditionally made of wood, ivory, and indeed human teeth - a practice which lasted well into the 19th century. The 18th century saw the development of porcelain artificial teeth and dentures, though these were prone to chip and could be ‘noisy’. The nineteenth century saw significant improvements, thanks largely to the work of S.S. White in the US, and Claudius Ash in London. Porcelain was replaced by Vulcanite, with the 20th century eventually seeing this replaced by acrylic resin and other plastics.
Brass moulds came into common use during the 19th century, and were considered preferable to plaster of Paris moulds, being more durable and producing more uniform and better teeth. As Paul Goddard noted in his classic work of 1844 ‘The Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology of the Human Teeth’, it was important to ensure that the ‘cavities in which the teeth are to be moulded, must be one-fifth larger than the tooth wanted, as the body shrinks in that proportion in baking’ (p. 162). The moulds would oiled and then filled with the prepared paste. ‘The cavities are not only to be filled, but a redundancy is left projecting, which is to be squeezed out by putting the back of the mould on and squeezing it in a vice’ (ibid).

1937. 4to, pp. 36, with four leaves of coloured plates, together with numerous text illustrations; with errata note tipped at tail of p. 33, and with three revised notes tipped on to p. 35; p. 33 torn at gutter but not touching text; Uncommon manufacturer’s catalogue promoting a complete dental ‘unit’ for modern dental practitioners. The ‘Rathbone’ reclining dental chair together with attached spotlighting, small basins, and moveable apparatus trays, was ‘based on a thorough investigation of the needs of modern dentistry and a study of the possibilities and limitations of dental units generally. The layout is such that every piece of apparatus comes readily and naturally to hand. The position and movements of each component have been planned so that, when in use, the component can be brought to the most convenient position for the operator, and when not required, returned to a point where it will not impede him in any way’. OCLC locates one copy of the 1933 issue at the Wellcome.

2015. The Swedish Dental Society, founded in 1860, accumulated an important historical collection of over 850 odontological books, the majority printed before 1920, and which today forms one of the major special collections deposited in the Hagströmer Medico-Historical Library in Stockholm. The catalogue comprises 208 pages and 161 illustrations with descriptions of 65 books including the earliest printed works from the sixteenth century entirely devoted to dentistry, as well as on how to cure toothache, on extraction, and on the replacement of false teeth. The collections includes first editions of several odontological classics, from Eustachi's Libellus de dentibus (1583) through to Jackson's Orthodontia of 1904 on the regulation of teeth, and including the most famous of them all, Pierre Fauchard's Chirurgien Déntiste, Paris, 1728. Each item is given a bibliographical description and at least one page with a historical commentary on the author and the importance of his work.
**Temporarily out of stock - but more on order and will be available in due course.

1862. 8vo, pp. 162, [iii] index, [3] blank; with 35 lithograph plates and one large folding frontispiece plan, plates interleaved with a blank leaf; general clean and fresh, paper a little more browned from p. 126 onward seemingly due to varying paper stock; with small Madras booksellers stamp at tail of title-page; one of two of the plates rather weak impressions with slightly faint text; Fifth edition (first 1852?), of this detailed and well illustrated manual of civil engineering, providing a fascinating insight into the organisation and maintenance of public infrastructure projects in British Colonial India.
According to the preface, the present work is a compilation drawn from a number of sources including ‘“Jackson’s surveying,” “Simms on Mathematical Instruments,” “Millington’s Civil Engineering,” “Mahan’s Civil Engineering,” and “Gillespie on Roads.” The accounts of brick making and tile making as practised at Mercara were kindly furnished to the compiler. The rules for the repairs of Tanks and Channels were drawn up some years ago by the late Captain Best, and a few copies distributed, but they were never printed till they appeared in the first edition of this book. Some memoranda of the same officer have been inserted in the chapters on bridges and roads. The tables of Indian weights and measures and the fall of rain at Madras have been taken from the Madras New Almanac ... Though containing many extracts from other books, yet there will be found here much matter, relating to building processes peculiar to the country, which has not before been printed’ (preface). The number of plates included in the present edition has apparently also been increased.
The work is divided into eight chapters and an appendix, and deal in turn with surveying and levelling; materials used in building; masonry; foundations; roofs; bridges; roads; and works of irrigation. The appendix provides additional information on such matters as tables of rates of earth works; tables of cart hire; weights and measures; price list of labour, materials and work; and a glossary of Indian revenue and irrigation terms. All editions appear scarce: we have so far been unable to trace a copy of the first edition; second edition of 1852 at Michigan, UC Davis, Texas and the National Library of Scotland; present edition located at the British Library only which also hold copies of the 1855, 1856 an 1875 editions.

1873. 8vo, pp. 12, with double-page lithograph plate; An attractive presentation offprint of a lecture delivered before the Neuchâtel Society of Natural History on May 1st 1873. Desor, the noted geologist and professor at the Academy of Neuchâtel, here outlines a number of Bronze Age archaeological discoveries found in Siberia, many of which are depicted in the double-page plate, illustrating ‘objets préhistoriques en bronze des environs de Krasnojarsk sur le Jenisseï, Siberie’.
Provenance: Sven Lovén (1809–1895) was a pioneering marine biologist (founder of the Kristineberg marine station) and arctic explorer, professor of invertebrate zoology at the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska Riksmuséet) in Stockholm. Poggendorff III, p. 355; OCLC records no copies in North America, with only one copy at the Bibliotheque D’Art et D’Archeologie.

1825. Small folio; pp. [ii] original printed green paper wrapper to first fascicle bound in as general title, [64] of biographical text; with 32 lithograph portraits; somewhat foxed throughout, with the text leaves for Linné, Aldrovani, Celsus, Sydenham and Bartez rather browned, and those for Chaussier and Haller at the end of the work heavily browned; Rare. A complete set bound together of this most striking lithograph ‘gallery’ of some of the most notable figures in medical history.
The inspiration of the physician Guillaume Tell Doin (1794-1845), the lithographer Pierre Roche Vigneron (1789-1872), and the publisher G. Engelmann (1788-1839), according to a contemporary review in the ‘Archives générales de médecine; Journal publié par une société de médecins’ (Tome IX, p. 312, Sept 1825), the original intention was to produce one hundred portraits, the whole publication issued in a series of monthly fascicles containing four portraits together with accompanying biographical text. Normal copies on plain paper would cost 6fr, whilst more luxurious copies on China paper priced at 9fr. However, as later notices reveal, the plan was revised down to a proposed series of 10 fascicles - and indeed ultimately only eight were produced, with 32 fine lithograph portraits issued. No more were published, and being issued in individual fascicles, the plates more often than not, now appear individually. It is thus uncommon to find a bound copy of the complete series.
In the present copy beginning with Hippocrates, (the order of the copy found at Padova is different) Doin and Vigneron have concentrated upon Western luminaries both ancient and modern, and thus we find included Galen, Leonard Fuchs, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Albrecht von Haller, Philippe Pinel, Herman Boerhaave, Paul Joseph Barthez, and Edward Jenner. From the wider sphere, portraits of Carl Linnaeus and Nicolas Copernicus are also included, with the medieval Islamic polymath Averroes chosen as the sole representative from the Arabic world. Brunet II-789 (edition de 1825-1826); Pauly, Bibliographie des sciences medicales, I, p. 59 noting that only parts 1-8 published: OCLC locates copies at the New York Academy of Medicine, Syraceuse, Yale, the NLM and the Wellcome.

1848. Two volumes, 8vo text and 4to atlas; pp. [viii] including blank, 475, [1] blank; with attractive engraved frontispiece showing young ladies gardening, and numerous text wood engravings of which the majority are hand-coloured, gathering 19 misbound; atlas ff. [2], 124, comprising 15 divisional part-titles, [1] index (pp 123-4) and 107 hand-coloured engraved plates; title-page and frontispiece of text volume a little foxed and browned, with occasional light foxing and marginal browning, and two book-labels on front paste-down; atlas title page with appealing hand-coloured vignette, half title and index leaf somewhat browned, a little foxed and soiled throughout; An attractive, though mixed set of the third edition (first 1847) and first edition, of this charming work of instruction for young French women about the cultivation of herbs, and for the establishment and care of a garden. Both text and atlas are most attractively illustrated and hand-coloured, with textual engravings and plates by F. Leblanc from drawings by Belaife, illustrating flowers, leaves, fruits, berries, seeds and mushrooms. The text volume was first published in 1847 and went through nine editions over twenty years. The much rarer atlas volume was separately issued first in 1850, and followed only by an undated 1865 edition. This separate issue and sale of both text and atlas has led to an inevitable scarcity of complete sets. Pritzel 283; Nissen BBI supp. 54n; Plesch p. 130; BMC NH, p. 71 (text vol.); see Gumunchian 395-398 for earlier editions; OCLC locates copies at Arizona and the Lloyd Library for this edition of the text, with seemingly only one copy of the atlas at Bern.

1885.]. 8vo, pp. viii, 122; with engraved frontispiece and numerous text engravings throughout; lightly browned throughout with some occasional minor spotting, otherwise clean and crisp; First edition(?), of this attractive elementary work for children, and according to his preface a continuation on from his previously published ‘Lessons on the human body’ (c. 1883). ‘Last, but by no means least, to his fellow-teachers, and to school officers in many States, the author expresses his gratitude for the kind reception given his former work, “Lessons on the Human Body,” and trusts that they may find this still more easy book worthy of continued favor’ (preface).
‘Brands was a school principal in Paterson, N.J. when this first edition of his school physiology ‘Lessons on the human body’ was published (1883). It is the earliest of several contributions that Brands made to juvenile health literature’ (Atwater 400). Copies located at Harvard, New York State, Yale, Rochester, the NLM, Library of Congress, Illinois,

1879. 8vo, pp. x, [ii], 108; with four full page steel engraving plates (two highlighted in red and two described as being ‘from photograph’), and a number of smaller text illustrations; a little browned throughout with some occasional minor spotting and soiling, gutters exposed in a couple of plates; with two loosely inserted later recipes for barley water and some contemporary marginal annotations; Fourth edition (same year as the first) of this later Victorian introduction to home economics, one of a number of instructional works intended for the specific use of working class women and children and written by the leading Yorkshire social reformer and philanthropist Catherine M. Buckton (1827-1904).
A founder member of the Ladies’ Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education, and the only ‘lady member of the Leeds School Board’, Catherine Buckton was a Unitarian and the wife of a local wool merchant and manufacturer. She had been delivering lecture courses for her fellow townswomen and ‘working sisters’ on a variety of health and sanitary topics for several years, including warning against the dangers of alcoholism, and advocating the benefits of vaccination. In 1875 some of these were published as ‘Health in the House. Twenty Five lectures on elementary physiology’, a work which was to prove immensely popular, going through several editions and subsequently being printed in Toronto. Clearly a passionate and indomitable woman, she here turns her attention to providing a ‘scheme of cookery’ in the hope of inducing in her young female charges ‘a love of cleanliness, personal neatness, and order; to give practical instruction; and to offer every aid to the girls and their parents to practise the lessons thus taught them in their own home’ (p. v).
The lessons were given fortnightly and lasted for an hour and a half. Printed recipes were provided to the girls, which could then be taken home and repeated. A founder of the Yorkshire School of Cookery, she states that eight cookery centres had been established in Leeds to provide instruction, though all based in simple classrooms, rather than specialised kitchens. Bearing in mind that the girls would most likely be living in one room with a large family, the need to teach the principles of neatness and order when cooking in a small space was considered a virtue. Indeed several clever space-saving devices are illustrated - including the cookery cupboard housing the stove, and all necessary utensils - the doors of which were designed to be removed and then used as a work surface for food preparation. The work is divided into nineteen lessons, including chapters on bread making, roasting, cooking for the sick and invalids, on soups and stocks, the end of each ‘lesson’ concluding with a series of questions to be answered at home as well as a recipe. The four full-page engravings, two of which are ‘from photographs’ depict the girls at their studies, a typical kitchen grate, and the adaptable storage cupboard.
At the same time, Buckton was also encouraging the girls to develop an interest in horticulture, and published ‘Town and Window Gardening’ (1879), once again based upon a series of lectures given to the children. Such was the success of the scheme that the School Board arranged for a Flower Show to be held, in which more than a thousand children competed. Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey, p. 57.

1875. 8vo, pp. [ii] blank, xxii, 247, [1] blank; with 41 small engraved illustrations; lightly browned throughout, with some marginal soiling in places, upper margin of p. 57 torn with slight loss of headline and page number; with publisher’s blindstamp ‘F. F. Balliere, Publisher, Melbourne’ on free endpapers; Scarce first edition of this popular work, one of a number of instructional guides intended for the specific use of working class women and children and written by the leading Yorkshire social reformer and philanthropist Catherine M. Buckton (1827-1904).
A founder member of the Ladies’ Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education, and the only ‘lady member of the Leeds School Board’, Catherine Buckton was a Unitarian and the wife of a local wool merchant and manufacturer. She had been delivering lecture courses for her fellow townswomen and ‘working sisters’ on a variety of health and sanitary topics for several years, including warning against the dangers of alcoholism, and advocating the benefits of vaccination. In 1875 some of these were published as ‘Health in the House. Twenty Five lectures on elementary physiology’, and which was to prove immensely popular, going through several editions and subsequently being printed in Toronto. Indeed the present copy eventually made its way to Melbourne, Australia.
Clearly a passionate and indomitable woman, Buckton subsequently wrote ‘Food and Home Cookery’ (1879) and ‘Town and Window Gardening’ (also 1879), both again based upon lecture series delivered by Buckton, who was a founder of the Yorkshire School of Cookery. All editions appear uncommon with only a handful of the four editions issued in 1875 located on OCLC, and this first edition at the NLM, Trinity College Dublin, Cambridge, the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.

1853. 12mo, pp. 188; with 42 small text engravings, and engraved tail-pieces; lightly browned and foxed throughout; without the final free endpaper; with library stamp of the ‘Sunday School of Olney St Church, Providence, R.I.’ on title-page and sporadically throughout; contemporary inscription on front free endpaper; Uncommon second expanded American edition (first American, 1851 as ‘Every-day wonders; or facts in physiology’), of this appealing work for children, which, although anonymous, we believe to be the work of the English authoress, Anne Bullar (1813-1856).
According to Atwater the first American edition was published in Boston in 1851 by Phillips, Sampson & Co., and was a reprint from the London 1850. We believe that that 1850 edition was one of a number of instructional works for children written anonymously by Bullar and published by John van Voorst. A publisher’s advertisement for Voorst found in Paley’s 1858 second edition of ‘A Manual of Gothic Mouldings’, ascribes the work to her, together with ‘Domestic Scenes in Greenland and Iceland’ (1844), ‘England before the Norman Conquest’ (1851), and ‘Sunday Book for the Young’ (1855) - none of which are ascribed to her by either OCLC or COPAC. The preface to the present work is almost identical to that of the 1850 work, although a paragraph has been added at the end to say that ‘nearly one-third of the matter of the present edition of this popular volume has been contributed by a distinguished member of the medical profession in the United States, and the whole work has been carefully revised for permanent usefulness’. Three chapters have been added, but by and large the work is largely the same.
It proved popular, and a third edition was published in England in 1862, though under the variant title ‘Every-day wonders of bodily life’ and now ascribed to Bullar. Aside from the Voorst advertisement, we have so far found no other source acknowledging her role as author for the work. Atwater 1095 (first American edition of 1851); copies located at the Library Company of Philadelphia, Harvard, Yale, Rochester, UCSF, Oklahoma, and Houston.

1862. 8vo, pp. [iv], 203, [1]; with 12 chromolithograph plates (including frontispiece), all retaining the original tissue guards, together with numerous engraved text vignettes; a little foxed and browned throughout, more prominent in one or two places; First edition of this appealing work for children, both an introduction to geography as well as a book of costume. It was one of a number of works published as part of the series ‘Bibliotheque de la Jeunesse’. M. Castillon, a professor at the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris, one of the oldest Colleges in the city, was the author of a number of educational and recreational works of scientific interest for a younger audience. These texts were often chosen by schools to be given as prizes in recognition of academic success.
The attractive lithographs are the work of either Hippolyte Louis Emile Pauquet (b. 1797) or Polydor Jean Charles Pauquet (b 1800) is responsible for the illustrations. Both brothers, from the publishing house of Pauquet Frères, were engravers, painters & illustrators during the mid 19th century.

1879. 8vo, pp. 30, [2]; a little spotted and browned throughout, with some marginal soiling, final verso more prominently soiled, with a few small marginal nicks and tears; evidence of previous vertical fold throughout, small library date stamp at tail of title-page verso; First separate edition, of this short essay first read before the Leigh Literary Society, effectively a fund-raising appeal to raise funds to preserve and grow the collection, and providing a rare insight into an established provincial school library. ‘The collection of books, about six score in number, forming the Library of the Grammar School in Leigh - the only relic of this kind in Lancashire - is interesting, not only on account of the comparative rarity of the volumes, but also from the many local reminiscences which are centred in them as being once owned, according to the inscriptions in them, by the benefactors, the masters, or scholars of the school. The books are also of value because they present a view of the kind of literature that served two hundred years ago to form part of a schoolmaster’s library, and likewise the common schoolbooks of the boys’ (p. 5).
The earliest Grammar schools were founded in the 16th century with the specific aim of teaching and instructing the children of the poor. One of the earliest was Manchester Grammar school, established in 1519. The North-west of England, in particular, benefited from the spread of ‘new learning’, with Dr Thomas Linacre, physician to Henry VII and an associate and contemporary of Thomas More and Erasmus, helping to reform education practices in nearly Wigan - only a few miles from Leigh, and where the present Grammar School was founded towards the end of the 16th century, although the exact date is unknown.
As the present essay reveals, the school benefited from the gift of a number of book collections during the 17th century, with an emphasis upon Latin and Greek classical texts, and upon theology. One former master, Ralph Pilling, is identified as being a principle benefactor, and who was also responsible for the erection of the present schoolhouse. Very much a working collection, Bailey notes that the 120 mainly 8vo volumes are ‘more or less in a defective condition’ having been traced and scribbled upon, lacking covers, and generally ‘ill-used by the boys’.
He highlights a number of what he considers to be the high-spots, including a 1652 edition of Record’s arithmetic unknown to Professor de Morgan; a copy of the Colloquies of Corderius; a 1612 Venice printing of ‘the Enchiridon Methodicon of Nicephorous ... an interesting specimen of Greek printing’; an edition of ‘Ethics or Moral Discipline’ by Eustachius (1573-1640); and a 1645 Amsterdam edition of Erasmus’s De Copia Verborum ac Rerum.
No doubt the ‘gem of the collection’, however, is a copy of Melanchthons’ Proverbs of Solomon from 1525, and bearing the Episcopal signature of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, of Canterbury. How the copy ended up in ‘this obscure corner of England’ may never been ascertained, Bailey notes, but his books were dispersed when he was committed to the Tower by Queen Mary.
Bailey concludes is erudite essay with a plea to his audience, the Literary Society of Leigh, to honour the foundations laid by Ralph Pilling and to continue to ‘cultivate and disseminate a taste for reading and study - to enter into the spirit of his good deeds by rebuilding his old school, and by using what remains of his books to form the nucleus of a library for the schoolboys and for the town’ (p. 30). OCLC locates copies at Chicago, the New York Public Library, Manchester and the British Library.

1873.]. Set of ten large, thick card tablets, 480 x 320 x 5mm; each with mounted printed sheet, with engraved vignette either at head or centrally, sheets all a little browned with some staining, soiling and scuffing or creasing in places, plain blue paper on verso, boards 1- 7 with the original green mottled paper edging (somewhat chipped and worn), boards 8 & 9 with later green cloth edging, and final board with no edging remaining and exposing the inner board; though extremities all somewhat rubbed, worn and a little dog-eared, otherwise a striking and rare survivor of an ephemeral teaching aid. A wonderfully striking and extremely scarce set of this didactic French ‘ABC’. The ‘Cours Désir’ was a private quasi-religious Catholic educational establishment set up by the Adeline Désir (1819-1875) in 1853. In particular it welcomed girls from the Parisian upper middle class, and its specific aim was to produce ‘cultured women’, with a focus upon religious education, and the arts, although Désir did place importance upon the role of science in the education of young women. The school took in full-and half boards, as well as some day pupils, from primary stage through to the baccalaureate, and also included a school for the training of women teachers. As the famous alumnus, Simone de Beauvoir, recounted in her ‘Memoirs of a Young Girl’, the school took care to distinguish itself from similar secular establishments, with the young girls enlisted into a ‘Eucharistic crusade’ as soon as they arrived. The number of hours of teaching a week did not exceed 12, and annual retreats were an important part of the school calendar. Students of the school were instantly recognisable by the manner of their bow: ‘un coup de pied droit en arrière avec un léger fléchissement de la jambe gauche’.
The series of ten printed teaching aids, introduce the young child to the basic principles of the ‘Abécdaire français’, through a series of engraved images with accompanying moralistic printed text or verse, starting with the nativity, the farm, ‘Creator God’, a nest, the tale of the ‘Good little Marie’, ‘the two Ceciles’, the good brother, and the Innocent Saints, together with the remaining two boards giving an overview of the linguistic principles so far introduced. See Butsch, Une éducatrice d’avant-garde, Adeline Désir 1819-1875, 1956; OCLC locates only a set of the first six boards at the BnF, and which have a variant imprint of "Paris imp. A. Dutemple" as opposed to "Bourges, Imp. Ve Tardy-Pigelet and son".

1870. Single sheet, 330 x 425; neat manuscript seemingly in a single hand, mathematical table on recto only within double ruled and hand-coloured border, with attractive and decorative calligraphic title and compass at head, and with contemporary name (presumably that of creator) in manuscript within a red ruled rectangular box at tail; a number of previous horizontal and vertical folds visible, with some slightly staining along left margin, four neat tape repairs to verso, evidence that perhaps once folded and mounted within a bound volume perhaps. A rare survivor, and most appealing example of this famous educational aid - a multiplication table or ‘table of Pythagorus’. Attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician, the table appears to have been first brought to public attention by the Greco-Roman mathematician Nichomachus in his first century work ‘Introduction to Arithmetic’ (Introducio arithmeticae), though earlier Greek and Babylonian examples exist on wax tablets. This striking example in manuscript appears to be the work of Jules Guibourgeaud, presumably a teacher, and no doubt for use in a classroom.

1889.]. Octagonal composite pendant made from brass, copper, lead and nickel-plated iron, 49 × 40 × 1.5mm, inscribed and with central image of Hippocrates; sold seperately and without any accompanying explanatory leaflets, and no longer retaining the original box; pendant somewhat soiled and burnished, with wear to central image of Hippocrates on one side. A scarce medical curiosity - a French galvanic brooch or pendant from the turn of the century, made from brass, copper, lead and nickel-plated iron, patented and made by E. Osselin. Different metals are known to generate small electric currents when brought together, and this was thought to confer healing properties when held against the skin and such pendants were widely marketed as electrotherapeutic devices.
The bust of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, forms the central panel of the pendant, around which the four different metals are set, and which are inscribed the words ‘Medaille Electro Medicale - purifie le sang – assainit la bile – guerit les douleurs et les reumatismes. La sante pour tout’.
The present example sadly no longer retains its original case or accompanying leaflet, though a previous example held revealed that the pendant was exhibited and available to purchase for 4 francs at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, and could cure a myriad of complaints, including migraine, lumbago, haemorrhoids, diabetes, cholera, sciatica, croup, liver disease, etc.
The pendant is discussed by Robert Lehmann & Raf van Laere in their article ‘Twice fooled: a metallotherapeutic and galvanotherapeutic medal analyzed’ in the Revue Belge de Numismatique et de Sigillographie in 2012 (http://www.numisbel.be/2012_M.pdf, ff. 303), who note that ‘the central part consists of an octagonal disc ... made from an unusual combination in which an iron disc was heavily coated with tin before being plated with nickel. To improve the cohesion between the tin and the outer nickel layer, the tin was first coppered, a practice still in use nowadays. The border consists of a brass (80% copper, 20% zinc) grid with inserts of copper and zinc. The pieces of zinc are protected by a thick varnish’. The article further notes that E. Osselin at the time was accused by a rival firm, Ferdinand de Boyères, of having copied his electrotherapeutic device, and so had been forced to change the type of metal used. Little further appears to be known about Osselin, other than that he produced various electro-magnetic devices, including bracelets, necklaces, belts, armbands, galvanic chains, and electro-magnetic bandages, at ‘3, rue de Maine, Asnières’ in Paris during the 1880s. According to the leaftlet he was the only authorized manufacturer of therapeutic jewelery for doctors V. Burq and Moricourt.
A similar example can be seen in the National Science Museum (http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display?id=5067).