Colonel Parsons (5 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good-. Old paneled calf, worn. PO name. Includes 2 small folding plates at front and rear, engraved 2nd title page and page following, and a full page perpetual almanack engraving, last page. ; 32mo 4" - 5" tall.

Paperback. Condition: Good. Prater, Ernest; Peddie, Tom; Soper, G.; Woodville, R. Caton; Wightman, W.E.; Potts, Leonard; Tayler, Laurie; Bestall, A.E. (illustrator). First Edition. Pages 170-252, plus 20 pages of wonderful vintage ads. Many black and white photos and illustrations. Contents include: The Warden of the Marches; Seeds of Fortune; An Elephant-Poacher's Odyssey; Through the Inner Deserts of Arabia - part 2; "Denied Admittance" - an Ellis Island Story; The Shrine or Ordam Padshah; The Two Portraits; A "New Chum" in New Zealand - part 2; The Isles of the Arafura; Cave-Hunting in New Mexico; A Rolling Stone. Bits of clear tape at each end of spine. Unmarked with average wear. Binding intact. A sound copy of this vintage issue.

Leather. Condition: Very Good. None (illustrator). A very scarce pocket sized reference work, providing useful historical information regarding the Popes, Emperors and Monarchs from the Nativity to the year 1726. In a beautiful paneled calf binding. With the bookplate of one James Allgood to the front pastedown. This selection of chronological tables provides the reader with information on the virtues, vices, good or ill successes and the manner and time of death of Popes, Emperors and monarchs from the nativity to 1726. This is the tenth impression of this scarce work. With a folding table to the front and rear of the work. A very smart and beautifully crafted pocket guide. In a full panelled calf binding. Externally, very smart with minor shelf wear to the extremities and to the head and tail of spine. Bookplate to the front pastedown, Ja's Allgood. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are bright with just the odd spots. Very Good. book.

Oblong 4to. (8 x 10 inches). First edition. *I-*IV [A4] B-M4 **I-IV. 56 ff. [1-112]. 112 pp. 56 copper engraved plates, 50 each with 12 cyphers; 6 other engraved plates with text in French and English. Coronets Frontispiece, Title, English Advertisement, French Advertisement, 50 Leaves of Cyphers. Frontispiece reads: "A book of cyphers composed by Col. Parsons. Imprimatur Carlisle. E. M. 1703." Priced bound at 12 shillings. 18 leaves with extensive contemporary ink manuscript penmanship editions on versos. Bound to style in quarter 18th-century morocco over 18th-century marble paper boards Extensively annotated first edition, Parsons's enigmatic cypher book draws on heraldy, cryptography, and typography, and led a craze for monogrammatic systems of which many imitators followed. "Such cyphers were extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For inspiration in preparing clients' personal designs, engravers typically relied on guides by designers, such as William Parsons's New Book of Cyphers." - DDW Parsons's New Book of Cyphers was at the forefront of a publishing craze for cyphers in the 1700s; it was the fourth such book to be printed and dozens of nearly identical ones followed. Samuel Sympson released books with the exact same title as the present in 1739 and 1750. Phillip Barraud, meanwhile, had the good taste in 1782 to change Parsons's title by one word to "A New Book of Single Cyphers." Cyphers were used to create heraldic devices and monogrammatic signatures, to embroider on clothing, use as trademarks or store signs, or to incorporate into bookplates, as many book collectors have and continue to do. Cyphers differ from monograms in that the individual aspects of a cypher system can be exchanged without affecting the overall system; the letterforms in monograms must be redesigned each time. The cypher system, with its internal algorithmic rules and capacity for change, can easily encrypt secret messages, and has done so from mysterious medieval codices like the Voynich Manuscript to the communiques of British generals during the American Revolution to the blockchain and "crypto" today. Cyphers were so faddish in the 1700s, that people kept albums full of printed cyphers they had collected from their family, friends, and celebrities of the period. Cyphers, in other words, were treated something like autographs, something like business cards, something like keepsakes, and they were devices people and their families identified with strongly. The 600 engraved cyphers across 56 plates in this first edition of Parson's book each show how to interlink two separate letters within Parsons's larger system of encipherment. Parsons gives instructions in both French and English on how to use them to compose longer texts. Parsons comments severely in his preliminary "Advertisement" preface that the earlier works on the subject contained only half the required number of cyphers necessary to complete their alphabets. By extrapolating from Parsons's text and his supplied two-letter cypher building-blocks, one could create cyphers of any length that would maintain a consistent, coherent design and be able to be deciphered if one knew the system. This book of cyphers seems oriented toward a striving merchant class, not an aristocracy born into their family's symbols from the beginning of their lives. Anyone with access to pen and paper could make a cypher of their initials using this book. This interpretation is bolstered by the early-19th century ink manuscript editions found in the book. Numerous pages of repetitive handwriting exercises express upright moral sentiments: "By a commendable deportment we gain reputation." "Compassionate men never prove extortioners." "A flattering companion is a dangerous enemy." "Brave spirits promote the public good." These didactic lines were copied out of Fisher's The American Instructor: or, Young Man's Best Companion . . . How to Qualify Any Person for Business, without the Help of a Master. More manuscript editions present includes numerous pages of budgetary ledgers for a construction worker or carpenter, an architectural sketch, calligraphic practice, lyrics from a song called "Mr. Clark and His Bacon" by G. Colman, and two poems: "The Essex Spark" and "The Model." Parsons was the younger son of a baronet and attended Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the army in 1682 and took part in the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Afterward, he turned to publishing, especially popular works of learning. His translation of Guillaume Marcel's Tablettes chronologiques (chronological tables listing the dates of Kings, Popes, and Emperors) ran through many editions. Parsons helped produce a new set of globes, but none survive. For the present work, Parsons commissioned Michel Tauvel, an engraver in the Strand, to work on his cypher designs in 1698. Permission to print the complete work was finally given in 1703. The finished book, engraved throughout, includes a fine frontispiece, engraved by Simon Gribelin to Parsons's design, and a title-page and text leaves by Joseph Nutting. Parsons's own cipher is visible in the bottom left-hand corner of each leaf. Berlin Katalog 5315. Collins, "The Modern Monogram," Print Magazine, 08.06.19. DDW, "No. 14 Waiter," in American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago, p.59. ESTC T116152. Francis Edwards Catalog No.800. Hale, Treasures from Lord Fairhaven's Library at Anglesey Abbey, cat.8, pp.58-9. O'Donoghue, "Nutting, Joseph," in DNB, 18885-1900, Vol.41.

LeatherBound. Condition: New. BOOKS ARE EXEMPT FROM IMPORT DUTIES AND TARIFFS; NO EXTRA CHARGES APPLY. Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden leaf printing on spine. Bound in genuine leather with Satin ribbon page markers and Spine with raised gilt bands. A perfect gift for your loved ones. Reprinted from 1921 edition. NO changes have been made to the original text. This is NOT a retyped or an ocr'd reprint. Illustrations, Index, if any, are included in black and white. Each page is checked manually before printing. As this print on demand book is reprinted from a very old book, there could be some missing or flawed pages, but we always try to make the book as complete as possible. Fold-outs, if any, are not part of the book. If the original book was published in multiple volumes then this reprint is of only one volume, not the whole set and contains approximately 42 pages. IF YOU WISH TO ORDER PARTICULAR VOLUME OR ALL THE VOLUMES YOU CAN CONTACT US. Resized as per current standards. Sewing binding for longer life, where the book block is actually sewn (smythe sewn/section sewn) with thread before binding which results in a more durable type of binding. Language: English.