Raphael (Robert Cross Smith) – A Manual of Astrology 1834 ASSOCIATION COPY

£500.00

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hb Raphael [= Smith, Robert Cross] A Manual of Astrology, or the Book of the Stars, being the Art of Foretelling Future Events By the influences of the Heavenly Bodies [2nd] Printed for Thomas Tegg and Son, 73, Cheapside, London 1834 £500 After the C. S. Arnold first edition of 1828, whose imprint is retained unaltered to the initial decorative title page in this edition ASSOCIATION COPY. Original full purple cloth (moderately rubbed at extremities of spine; sun-faded to spine; and lightly rubbed at outer corners and along front hinge of spine) with publisher’s original printed title label (somewhat scuffed, with partial fading of some lettering) still adhered to front board. Smallish early hand-inked title label adhered to upper part of spine. This copy with the illustrated bookplate of famous and controversial early-20th-century German astrologer Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorf to ffep, evidencing his former ownership of it. Additional pictorial bookplate of British expert electrical engineer Hugh Erat Harrison (1859-1909), Principal of the Electrical Standardizing, Testing and Training Institution, to front paste-down, which also bears a small, neat printed old address sticker of London-based bookseller George T. Juckes. Verso of ffep with inked signature of a later owner, dated 1946. This copy with all plates called for: coloured frontis. ‘An Hieroglyphic of the Signs of the Heavens’ (very slight scuffing to two parts of lowest few mm of image, covering only parts of the unimportant, more deeply shadowed areas of the grass foreground), coloured title page vignette of book with images of Sun, Moon and stars superimposed, and (uncoloured) Nativity of the King of England, which is bound in before p. 17. Printed pages are mostly free from deliberate previous-owner marks, although old black-inked marginal bracket spotted to p. 63, occasional minor small marginal ink dashes elsewhere, scattered accidental ink stains to tables of houses from pp. 110-117 (these seem to have been especially well-used), a few accidental marginal ink stains to pp. 172-3 (not touching text), and occasional very minor accidental ink stains elsewhere, not affecting reading of text. Occasional mostly minor foxing; occasional creases across upper outer corners. Tiny 2mm chip lost from outer edge of leaf comprising pp. 95-6. Old plain-pencilled price to rear paste-down. For its age, a very good copy in its original binding, which remains strong throughout, and made more significant by the evidence of its past ownership by Rudolf von Sebottendorf.

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Weight 0.415 kg

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