DAVID MASON BOOKS

BAYLE, Peter. The Dictionary Historical and Critical Of Mr. Peter Bayle. The Second Edition, Carefully collated with the Several Editions of the Original; in which many Passages are restored, and the whole greatly augmented, particularly with a Translation of the Quotations from eminent Writers in various Languages. To which is prefixed, The Life Of The Author, Revised, Corrected and Enlarged by Mr. Des Maizeaux.......
London: Printed for J.J. and P. Knapton..., 1734-1738. In five volumes. The Second and best edition. With an engraved frontispiece portrait of Bayle in volume one. Folio, full contemporary calf, raised bands, leather spine labels. With the titlepages printed in black and red.

Bookplates, this set has been professionally rebacked with the spines laid down. There is a 2 1/2 inch crack in the upper hinge of volume five, a piece chipped out of the head of the spine of volume two and some slight wear but this still very nice, clean, near fine set.

Pierre Bayle [1647-1706] born in France, son of a Calvinist minister. In 1671 to avoid persecution he fled to Geneva and in 1675 was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Protestant university of Sedan. In 1681 Bayle was appointed professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam. In 1682 he published his Pensees diverses sur la comete de 1680 and his critique of Maimbourg's work on Calvinism. In 1684 he began the publication of Nouvelles de la republique des lettres, a journal of literary criticism. His masterpiece was however, the above title, The Dictionary. "Although its articles about obscure ancient and modern figures sometimes contain little information of direct interest, Bayle used them as starting points for a complex series of endnotes, sidenotes and footnotes in which he addressed contemporary philosophical and theological concerns." The reaction to the Dictionary was instantaneous; Bayle was both famous and infamous. The work was placed on the Index by the Roman Catholic Church and condemned by the Dutch Reformed Church. It became, in the words of one critic, "the Bible of the eighteenth century." "Bayle's erudition seems to have been considerable. As a critic he was second to none in his own time, and even yet one can admire the delicacy and the skill with which he handles his subject." (Ency Brit).
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$3000.00 (CAD)

(ELIOT, George). STRAUSS, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by... Translated from the Fourth German Edition.
London: Chapman, Brothers, 1846. In three volumes. First edition in English. Translated by Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot). Tall 8vo., original dark grayish green vertical ribbed cloth, boards blocked in blind with a decorative border, and within it, an irregular oval design, with an oval element within it, xix, (xx blank), 423, (424) blank, with 16pp catalogue in volume one; vii, (viii -blank), 454; viii, 446pp. With the half-titles.

Some wear to the foot of the spines, head of the spine of volume one has small split with a touch of wear, spines very slightly faded, a couple of small marks on the upper cover of volume three but in fact a near fine set in the original cloth. Scarce in original cloth and scarce in nice condition. The Jarndyce Catalogue - George Eliot in the Original Cloth (1988) offered a rebound copy thus; "very scarce rebound, even more so in cloth". Jarndyce goes on to say the only copy they had seen in original cloth was catalogued by Ximenes, described as in green cloth (as is ours). Parrish's "Victorian Lady Novelists" describes two bindings giving precedence to this green binding with the catalogue.

This work, first published in German in 1835 aroused a great deal of interest and went through four editions before 1840. Joseph Parkes, the radical politician and his friends sponsored the cost of publication and translation, first undertaken by Elizabeth Rebecca Brabant in 1843. By 1844 she decided that the task was too difficult and offered it to Mary Anne Evans who took two and a half years to complete the translation. "It proved indeed difficult with densely textured German interspersed with quotations in Latin, Greek and Hebrew."

This was Eliot's first published work, Baker & Ross A1.1. Not in Sadleir or Wolff, neither of whom bought the non-fiction of their authors.

$11000.00 (CAD)

YEATS, E. C. A Broadside. Dublin: Dun Emer Press/Cuala Press, June 1908-May 1911.
36 broadsides of 4pp. each (1 page folded).

Each broadside has two coloured and one black and white woodcut illustrations by Jack Yeats. Small 4to., enclosed in the publishers blue cloth portfolio with ties (one missing), small pictorial panel on the upper portion of the portfolio. This is the first 3 years; with 12 broadsides issued per year "300 copies only". The broadsides are fine, the publishers case is somewhat rubbed with one tie missing.

An uncommon item published by this important Irish press, best know for publishing work by writers associated with the Irish Literary Revival.

$8000.00 (CAD)

NOW AVAILABLE!
OUT IN PAPERBACK. A Visual History of Gay Pulps by Ian Young. A fascinating history of the code words and images used in early paperback publications so gay people especially young ones living in isolated communities could discover literature relating to their own sensibilities. Ian Young, a poet and long time gay activist, has published widely on many aspects of gay culture; he is the compilier of the standard bibliography "The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography", Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982.
Price $29.95

NOW AVAILABLE!
THE RESCUER by Harold Troper.
Originally published in 1999 as "The Ransomed of God" and quickly sold out this new edition contains a new preface by the author. In the new preface the author recounts a talk he gave on the hero of the book Judy Feld Carr on its original publication after which a member of the audience asked him to explain which parts of the story were true and which his invention. The man, on being told every word was true, shook his head in disbelief and walked away. A reading of the book shows how easily one could come to this conclusion. The story is incredible. A Canadian housewife responsible for smuggling some 3000 Jews out of one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East seems hardly credible but the documented evidence is all here.
Harold Troper is a Professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, (University of Toronto) and the author of "None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe" and others.
Price $24.95