[League of Arab States, Secretariat General]. Seventh Arab Petroleum Congress.Cairo, 1970.

Extraordinarily comprehensive run of papers from the 1970 Petroleum Congress, many issued by prominent oil companies, including Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company, General Petroleum Company, and American Independent Oil Company, commonly known as Aminoil. Discusses seismic and geological issues, the chemical composition of crude oil, the prospects of oil and gas production in Egypt, stratigraphic analyses, and the desulfurization process as used in the petroleum industry to reduce air pollution in compliance with international law. The plates and charts illustrate the distribution of sulfur in crude oil reserves, reproduce photographs of fault lines and nanofossils, and show the migration traces distribution of chloroform bitumen in the Shukheir Area.

This set comprises issues no. 34, 37, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60 (two copies), and 75. Issue no. 75 in English and Arabic.

A very well preserved set reflecting the 1970s' scientific background to oil production in the Arab World.

[League of Arab States, Secretariat General]. Fifth Arab Petroleum Congress.Cairo, 1965.

Extraordinarily comprehensive run of papers from the 1965 Petroleum Congress, many issued by prominent oil companies, including Aramco, Shell Qatar, the Standard Oil Company of California, Iraqi Oil Company, Phillips Petroleum Company, and one issued by OPEC. Discusses Arab oil policy, employee training procedures in refineries, corporate organization at Iraqi Petroleum Company in Kirkuk, the problem of the origin of petroleum, the economic consequences of substandard maintenance methods, the geology of the Gulf of Suez, Lebanon's petroleum potential, the use of additives to produce suitable diesel fuel, and discussing the critical offshore fields of Qatar, with notes on the new 1963 concessions, exploration drilling, geology, production rates. Includes a rare legal paper in Arabic on the nature of the petroleum concession contract as an administrative contract rather than a private law contract.

This set comprises issues no. 16 (two copies), 17, 20, 22, 29 (three copies, two in Arabic and one in English), 30 (two copies, in Arabic and English), 46, 53, 54, 62, 64 and three unnumbered papers. 10 issues in Arabic.

A very well preserved set reflecting the 1960s' scientific background to oil production in the Arab World.

Columna, Guido de. [Historia destructionis Troiae - German]. Die hystori Troyana.Augsburg, 1488.

Third edition of the German translation by Hans Mair, the 1474 editio princeps of which is the first printed edition of the "Tale of Troy" in any language. The Middle Ages knew Homer only by name and the Troy myth from Benoit Saint-Maure's "Roman de Troie". Guido de Collone's "Historia destructionis Troiae" is a condensed version of the latter and was widely translated throughout Europe. Until the 16th century the Troy Tales were taken as an established fact of world history, Troy marking the beginning of non-Biblical, secular history.

Ot the utmost rarity: only nine copies recorded, of which one is lost (Berlin) and four are incomplete: this includes the last copy seen in the trade (Antiquariat Günther, 55 frühe deutsche Drucke, No. 18, formerly the Donaueschingen Fürstenberg library). A single copy in America (Library of Congress).

Forkel, Johann Nikolaus. Life of John Sebastian Bach; With a Critical View of His Compositions.London, 1820.

First edition in English of Forkel's celebrated first Bach biography, originally published in 1802 as "Über Johann Sebastian Bach's Leben, Kunst and Kunstwerke". "His account of Bach as a performer and teacher is a vivid record of the life of the musician whom Forkel regarded as the highest representative of the art. Much of the information came directly from Bach's sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann. An English translation of the biography appeared in 1820, presumably the work of A. F. C. Kollmann" (New Grove). A new English translation would appear in 1920.

Regarded as the father of modern musicology, J. N. Forkel (1749-1818) was a pioneer in the study of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach.

[Autograph album]. Autograph album of Marie-Louise Schenker-Angerer with entries by Pablo …Brijuni, Vienna, Salzburg, London, and Paris, 1924-1972.

The present album was owned by Marie-Louise Schenker-Angerer ("Mausi", 1905-73), daughter of Leopold ("Lony") Kupelwieser and granddaughter of the industrialist Paul Kupelwieser, who had purchased the malaria-infested Brijuni archipelago in 1893. Early in the 20th century, Robert Koch succeeded in eradicating the disease-bearing mosquitos, and the islands off the Istrian coast quickly turned into a resort popular with the European aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie, with artists and businessmen. One of the latter was August Schenker-Angerer, a scion of the Schenker shipping dynasty. His son Gottfried was Mausi's brother-in-law, and Gottfried's wife, the soprano Margit ("Manci") (née Rupp), was her sister-in-law. On 10 July 1924 Marie-Louise married Gottfried's younger brother August ("Guggi", 1897-1979).

The album at hand reaches back as far as the 1920s; the earliest contribution, by Alfred Arbter, was entered on the day of Marie-Louise's wedding. Some entries are from Brijuni; many more undated ones were probably written in Vienna, where the family resided in Strohgasse. The latest entries, from the 1940s and beyond, are written in Paris. Among the most famous contributors are Wilhelm Backhaus (2), Alfred Brendel (2), Pablo Casals (autograph musical quotation signed), Jörg Demus (autograph musical quotation signed), George Gershwin (autograph musical quotation signed and 2 photographs), Friedrich Gulda (autograph musical quotation signed), Bronislaw Huberman (autograph entry signed with a photograph pasted in), Wilhelm Kempff (autograph musical quotation signed), Jan Kiepura (signature on a picture postcard), Guglielmo Marconi (2, one a signature on a picture postcard of his yacht "Elettra"), Sergei Rachmaninoff (eh. U.), Vladimir Sokoloff (autograph entry signed), and Paul Wittgenstein (autograph entry signed). Further, G. B. Shaw contributed a loosly inserted signature leaf (dated Brijuni, May 1929), a picture postcard (annoted on the verso"G. B. Shaws Ankunft in Brioni"), and two original photographs, one of which shows him with the heavyweight champion (1926-28) Gene Tunney, who popularised golfing on the islands in 1928/29. Additional entries are by Claude Anet, Mattia Battistini, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Richard Buhlig (2), Winifred Christie, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Otto Erich Deutsch, Severin Eisenberger, Fred Freed (2), Ignaz Friedman, Hedi Gigler-Dongas, Jan Kiepura, Germaine Leroux, Therese Leschetizky, Emanuel Moór, Boyd Neel, Max Reinhardt, Emil Sauer v. Aichried, Wilson Vance (2), Peter Wallfisch, Paul Weingarten, and Earl Wild.

The loosely inserted addenda include letters by Alfred Arbter, Alfred Brendel, Carl Goldmark, Hedwig Kanner-Rosenthal, Luzi Korngold, and Richards Strauss's son Franz, as well as two letters by Vladimir Sokoloff, who gives an enthusiastic report of Max Reinhardt's visit to New York in late 1927.

Little is known about Marie-Louise's later life other than that she published two books under the name "Marie-Louise Kupelwieser de Brioni" (cited below); a poignant account by Pierre Le-Tan suggests that she lost her family fortune and may have died in poverty.

Burroughs, William S[eward]. The Soft Machine.New York, 1967.

First Evergreen "Black Cat" (Grove) paperback printing, inscribed to the Colorado architect Edward D. White Jr. (1925-2017) by the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg: "For Ed White / This book follows / Naked Lunch / in chronology / Allen Ginsberg”.

Edward White had met Ginsberg in 1946 at Columbia University, where he had returned to complete his studies that had been interrupted by war service, soon forming a close relationship with fellow Beats William S. Burroughs and especially Jack Kerouac, who became a lifelong friend and correspondent; White appears as the character Tim Gray in Kerouac's "On the Road".

An intriguing association piece, given that it was the manuscript for "Interzone" that Ginsberg had retained from Burroughs that was added (along with other material) to what became the Grove edition of "Naked Lunch". The Grove edition was how most readers encountered the work, and with Ginsberg’s input it represented a very different and much improved text than the Olympia Press edition. While the "The Soft Machine" did follow "Naked Lunch", it is also the first book of Burroughs’ "Nova Trilogy" - a radical experiment in subverting usual narrative structures that influenced Bowie and Cyberpunk authors.

Qazvini, Sharaf al-Din Fazlullah. Kitab al-Mu'jam fi athar muluk al-ajam.Persia, 1847 CE.

A beautiful manuscript of this history of ancient, pre-Muslim Persia, decorated with an intricate gold and blue 'unwan headpiece and two pages of gold-decorated margins, once owned by a family friend of Oscar Wilde.

The famous chronicle was composed by Sharaf al-Din Qazvini (d. 1339 CE) for the ninth Atabak of Luristan, the Hazaraspid ruler Nusrat al-Din Ahmad (d. 1330 CE). Nusrat al-Din Ahmad is remembered as a prolific patron of Persian literature, and the "Kitab al-mu'jam" was one of two historical chronicles he commissioned during his reign. At the conclusion of this finely produced manuscript, its anonymous scribe recommends himself to the reader as "the smallest of [all] sayyids", who has copied it in haste, begs forgiveness for mistakes, and asks the readers to correct any mistakes they find.

Sixty-six years after the manuscript was completed, it acquired an interesting provenance: on the front free endpaper, an ownership inscription reads, in French, "À Sir Coleridge Kennard, en souvenir de G. Romonovsky, Teheran le 10 janvier 1913". Coleridge Kennard (1885-1948) was a British baronet who served in the British Diplomatic Service from 1908 to 1919, but who was more famous for his marital exploits, and his family's connections to Oscar Wilde. Shortly before his move to Tehran, Kennard had persuaded the wife of the Welsh owner of Castle Gorford to divorce her husband and marry him in Tehran in six months' time - there being a six month waiting period to remarry after a divorce under British law. Unfortunately for his fiancée, before the marriage could go through, Kennard had met and married the daughter of a British diplomat in Tehran, where he would remain for several years.

The identity of the gifter is less certain, but it is not impossible that this manuscript, gifted "in memory of" G. Romonovsky, was at some point owned by or associated with Prince Georgii Romanovsky of Russia (1852-1912), who often spent time abroad among European high society, and who had passed away the year before.

[Oman - silver cigar box]. MacDonald, George Grant (silversmith). [Engraved silver cigar box commissioned by the Assarain Group of Companies].London, 1990.

Beautifully engraved, heavy sterling silver cigar box, with a map of Oman and views of Fort Nizwa and Fort Bahla, two important historic sites in Oman, on the top. The box was made by the workship of master silver- and goldsmith George Grant MacDonald (1947), who also makes silverware for the British royal family. The work was commissioned by Assarain Group of Companies (est. 1975), one of the premier trading and investing organisations in Oman, and probably intended as a gift for a business partner. It appears to be one-of-a-kind, as we have not been able to trace another example on the market.

George Grant MacDonald became well-known internationally in the 1980s, producing work for luxurious retailers around the globe, especially in the Middle East. His craftmanship was royally recognised in 2015, when he received the Royal Warrant by King Charles III (1948, then Charles, Prince of Wales), which meant he was allowed to advertise the fact that he worked for the royal family.

[Persia - WWII]. Road strip maps Iran. Dizful-Kazvin (1-10), Hamadan-Khosrovi (11-16)."83 Rep Group. I.E.", July 1944.

Exceptionally rare collection of folded strip maps of roads in western Iran, very likely meant for military use during the Second World War. The inscription on the front wrapper possibly stands for "24th Brigade, branch transportation office", though it is unknown which 24th brigade this would have been. The maps were originally printed on quarter inch sheets in 1942 and have been significantly enlarged for this edition to a scale of 1 inch to 2 miles. We have not been able to trace any other copies of either the first or second edition of this work anywhere.

[Algiers - British Navy]. Plan of the Bay and City of Algiers.London?, 1816.

Contemporary hand-coloured lithographed plate with the plan for the Bombardment of Algiers in August 1816. The attack was instigated and won by Great Britain and the Netherlands, which was celebrated in London.

The Bombardment of Algiers was part of a European campaign to end piracy against Europeans by North African countries. The goal of this attack was to free Christian slaves in Algeria and stop Omar Agha (d. 1817), the of Dey of Algiers, from enslaving more Europeans. The attack was partly successful (Algeria freed around 3,000 Christian slaves after the battle), but did not stop the enslavement if Europeans until later in the 19th century.

The plan for the attack was made by Admiral Lord Exmouth, the commander of the fleet. The largest ships approached the harbour in a column, sailed to the zone where the Algerian guns could not reach them, and shelled the defences. Other ships blocked the harbour to attack the Algerian ships and prevent them from joining the battle. In the present illustration, each of the British ships is named and drawn in its planned position, thus giving an interesting visual insight into 19th century naval tactics.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes). [Tahafut al-Tahafut - latine: Destructiones destructionum philosophi Algazelis]. …Venice, ca. 1500.

One of the great classics of Muslim as well as of Western philosophy, demonstrating that rational thought and theology are not at odds with each other. In this, his possibly most famous work, Ibn Rushd reacted to al-Ghazali's "Tahafut al-Falasifa" ("The Incoherence of the Philosophers"), which had dominated Muslim philosophical thinking for the past decades: al-Ghazali's late 11-century treatise had denounced Ibn Sina and al-Farabi for their Greek-inflected metaphysics, which he had found contrary to Islam. Himself an avowed Aristotelian, Ibn Rushd refuted Al-Ghazali's book section by section, showing that there was in fact no conflict between Greek logic and the Qur'an.

Ibn Rushd's apology of Aristotelian philosophy, cleverly named "The Incoherence of the Incoherence", was translated from Arabic into Latin in the early 14th century by the Jewish philosopher Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, and the translation was first published in 1497 by Locatellus in Venice, as one of Kalonymus' only efforts to see print. This is the undated second issue of that publication, and much rarer that the first: only ten copies are known in libraries worldwide, one of which (in St Andrews) is severely incomplete, containing only the appendix ("De sensu agente" by Agostino Nifo, the editor, who also provides a lengthy commentary). No copies in America. Auction catalogues list a single, incomplete copy, lacking four leaves.

A landmark work of cross-cultural philosophy, reconciling theology and rationalism; of principal importance for sixteenth-century Aristotelian thought.

Heidegger, Martin. Hegel und die Griechen.Tübingen, 1960.

Sonderdruck aus "Die Gegenwart der Griechen im neueren Denken. Festschrift für Hans-Georg Gadamer zum 60. Geburtstag" mit eigenh. Widmung und U. des Verfassers: "Für Max Müller mit herzlichen Grüßen / Martin Heidegger / 24. Febr. 1960".

Max Müller hatte 1930 bei Martin Honecker und Heidegger promoviert und wurde 1946 Nachfolger Honeckers an der Universität Freiburg.

Goegg-Pouchoulin, Marie, Swiss feminist, abolitionist and pacifist activist, founder of the International Women's Association (1826-1899). 3 autograph letters signed and 2 fragments of autograph letters one of …Geneva, 5 May - 27 June 1881.

Historically important correspondence with the early pacifist Charles Lemonnier (1806-91) concerning the administration of the International League for Peace and Freedom, its official journal "Les États-Unis d'Europe", a possible new peace congress in Geneva in the context of the diplomatic crisis between France and Italy caused by the French conquest of Tunisia, and a monument to Victor Hugo.

Lemonnier took over the presidency of the International League for Peace and Freedom in 1871, when the Franco-Prussian War had almost led to the dissolution of the organization and left it greatly diminished and weakened. That Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin served as secretary to the League and effectively administered it at this difficult moment is all but forgotten today. The lasting negative impact of the Franco-Prussian War on the International League for Peace and Freedom is very much felt in the correspondence, for one in the admission of the decimation of membership and visibility, which, in Goegg's opinion, also casts doubt on the success of a potential peace conference: "Moreover, past and future events are not and will not be in our favour. Either there will be war, or there will be authoritarian pressure, which will fall especially on the small states, and in any case, there will be no sympathy for any conference, because we are so poorly known that some people almost take us for nihilists, and others for reactionaries [...]" [undated, May or June 1881].

The same letter shows the strong anti-Prussian and German sentiment that induces Goegg to blame on Bismarck the French conquest of Tunisia and thus the affront against Italy: "The Italians, who are all, without distinction of political party, so furious at France, do not realize either that it is Bismarck who pulls the strings that moves them. The attack of the Marmioutes [!] in the province of Oran seems to me to be a complication prepared in advance, like everything that is already happening in Tunisia". While it is true that Germany consented to the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunisia at the Berlin Conference of 1878, the subsequent French invasion under the pretense of military action against Algerian Kroumir rebels hiding in Tunisia can hardly be blamed on Bismarck.

Despite concerns about the relevance of a peace conference at this moment, the longest letter in the correspondence is dedicated to planning a conference on "International law and arbitration (the need for international jurisdiction to prevent war and bring about general disarmament)" [23 May 1881]. Among the fellow activists organizing the conference in Geneva were the Italian independence fighter and author of one of the first studies of the Italian mafia, Angelo Umiltà (1831-93), and the Swiss painter and educator Barthélemy Menn (1815-93). Institutional support was expected from the Grand Lodge Alpina of Switzerland, of which Umiltà and Menn were also members. Goegg advises Lemonnier not to publish anything about a dinner meeting in preparation of the conference, as it would "make the veil of our small number in Geneva so transparent that it will make us look ridiculous - and without any profit", jokingly adding: "despite all the inventions of science, we still have not managed to assemble in Geneva and dine in Paris on the same day". Among the items of business for the conference was a proposal to "include the League among the subscribers to the Victor Hugo statue", apparently supported by Lemonnier, to which Goegg adds a critical personal note: "I find it ridiculous, after all we already did for V. H. in February, to erect a statue of him during his lifetime. I shall not oppose your desire before the committee, but I would like to tell you that this Hugolatry is definitely going too far".

In a final letter, she discusses her family, her son's fragile health, and articles for the Bulletin of the League, including corrections she felt obliged to make to an article against the French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, a central actor in the conquest of Tunisia.

Includes a proof sheet with a few corrections, probably by Goegg, of a statement issued by the League and signed jointly by Goegg and Lemonnier, calling for unity between France and Italy despite the affront of the conquest of Tunisia and, curiously for peace activists, pointing to the "common enemies" Germany and Austria, specifically mentioning Alsace, Lorrain, Trieste and Trento. The fates of Ireland and Poland are also invoked, as well as the "living symbols" of the shared "destiny" Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Hugo.