Rare contemporary Portuguese account of the Dutch conquest in May 1624 of the principal Brazilian city, Salvador da Bahia, a brief victory that was reversed less than a year later by the largest armada ever sent to the Americas. This Dutch attempt to establish a colony in Brazil was the..... More

The title in Asher’s English translation is: Considerations and reasons of the noble Directors of the Chartered West-India Company, delivered in the assembly of their High Might. the States General of these Free United Netherlands, on the present deliberations on a Truce with the King of Spain. With Conscientious Reflections..... More

Rare first French edition (original Spanish 1585) of Diego de Torres's history of north Africa, a detailed account of the on-going conflict between the Xarifes (the Saadian dynasty), the king of Fez, and the Turks, augmented with his own first-hand observations. Following the expulsion of the Moors from Europe..... More

First French edition of this first-hand account of 17th-century Vietnam (first Italian ed. 1650), which played an important role in fostering French interest in the region. Rhodes, who earned the favorable opinion of Louis XIV, is often heralded as the founder of Vietnamese Christianity, and remembered for his important dictionary..... More

First edition in English, first issue, of the most famous biography in the Portuguese language. D. João de Castro (b. 1500, Lisbon) was a sailor, soldier, scientist and cartographer. At an early age he became a brilliant humanist, studying mathematics under Pedro Núñez. After fighting at Tangiers and Tunis, he..... More

First edition of a rare and fundamental handbook for seventeenth-century missionaries to Indochina.  The volume is a formative document by François Pallu (d. 1684) and Pierre Lambert de la Motte (d. 1679), founding members of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris and driving forces behind the establishment in 1665..... More

Scarce first French edition (expanded from the 1673 English original) of an early illustrated British travelogue to southeastern Europe and Greece. "This account is full of acute observations and judgments; of particular importance is the information he provides on mines and mining techniques" (Leonora Navari, Blackmer Catalogue 43). Embarking on..... More

Very rare first edition of the Jesuit scientist Ignace-Gaston Pardies’ (1636-73) beautifully engraved folio celestial atlas, here in a deluxe copy with its 6 double-page charts in fine contemporary hand-color and its some 1500 stars, nebulae and comets individually illuminated in gold. Examples of the atlas typically consist of only..... More

Extremely rare first edition of this ephemeral pamphlet documenting the royal audience of the Siamese embassy to France in 1686/7. The arrival of three Siamese ambassadors in northern France in the summer of 1686 caused a great deal of consternation in the popular sphere: illustrations of the embassy were frequently..... More

First Dutch edition of the “first and most important” of Hennepin’s writings (Howes), translated from the 1683 French original, Description de la Louisiane, and here augmented by Denys’ description of New France, BOTH ILLUSTRATED WITH NEW PLATES. This, Hennepin’s first published work, is notable for being the earliest printed account..... More

Very rare, with one recorded copy (in Bordeaux), of a detailed and lively account of this French expedition against Jamaica during the Nine Years War, comprising a string of brutal attacks over the summer of 1694 led by Jean-Baptiste Du Casse. Appointed Governor of Saint-Domingue in 1691, Du Casse had..... More

Very rare first edition of this account of Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho’s 1717-1718 journey from Goa to Macao. Part I describes his circuitous route to Johore (in modern-day Malaysia); Part II, his six-month stay in the province—and unforeseen involvement in the coup that allowed the Sumatran adventurer Raja Kechil to..... More

First edition of this classic of American hagiography, the life of the most celebrated and prolific New England pastor, Cotton Mather, written by his son Samuel. The biography of a “star” clergyman written soon after his death became a well-established genre in colonial America and found a wide audience. As..... More