Firsts 2026

In keeping with this year’s theme, Revolution, for Firsts: London's Rare Book Fair we are pleased to present a selection of seventy-five books on revolutionary women as well as revolutions in science and technology, religion and politics, and culture and the arts. Among them you will find works on tyranny, crucifixion, and against the torture of witches; a hat-merchant’s copy of Das Kapital; Machiavelli in English and a bilingual technological treatise with the earliest depiction of a bookwheel; the first work on electricity; lectures on climate change by John Ruskin and by William Burroughs; Wilde’s Salomé, both illustrated by Beardsley and performed in Tokyo; a psychedelic 1960s periodical and a pioneering work on mushrooms; works on female suffragists and cyclists; Victorian peepshows and children’s movables; and much more.

Click here to browse the catalogue as a PDF

55 items
  • ALMANACK Königl. Groß-Brittannischer und Churfürstl. Braunschweig-Lüneburgscher Staats-Kalender auf das Jahr 1798
    £1,500.00
    £1,500.00
  • ALTMANN, Roberto; Aude JESSEMIN; Roland SABATIER; Jacques SPACAGNA; Alain de LATOUR; Micheline HACHETTE; Alain SATIÉ. Lettries et Hypergraphies.
    £1,500.00
    £1,500.00
  • [AMERICAN REVOLUTION.] Preliminary Articles of Peace, between His Britannick Majesty, and the States General of the United Provinces. Signed at Paris, the 2d of September, 1783. Published by Authority.
    £950.00
    £950.00
  • BACON, Francis The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall
    £5,500.00
    £5,500.00
  • BERNARD, Suzanne. Un livre à inventer: la lecteur sujet du livre.
    £2,500.00
    £2,500.00
  • BRAU, Jean-Louis. Le Petit Livre Rouge de la Violence Révolutionnaire.
    £400.00
    £400.00
  • CAMPEN, Michael Johan van. Puellae monstrosae delineatio, quam annuente summo numine …
    £1,350.00
    £1,350.00
  • CARDANO, Girolamo. De subtilitate libri XXI. Nunc demum recogniti atq[ue] perfecti.
    £8,000.00
    £8,000.00
  • DAVID, Elizabeth; John MINTON ( illustrator ). French Country Cooking.
    £1,400.00
    £1,400.00
  • DAVID, Elizabeth; John MINTON ( illustrator ). A Book of Mediterranean Food
    £1,000.00
    £1,000.00
  • DU BARTAS, Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur . Bartas his deuine weekes & workes translated: & dedicated to the Kings most excellent Maiestie by Iosuah Syluester
    £2,250.00
    £2,250.00
  • [EDWARD VII.] Order of Proceedings to be Observed by the British Jewish Subjects in Jerusalem
    £1,850.00
    £1,850.00
  • ELIOT, T.S. After Strange Gods.
    £3,000.00
    £3,000.00
  • GALARDI, Ferdinand de. La tyrannie heureuse ou Cromwel politique.Aves ses artifices & intrigues dans rout le cours de sa conduite.
    £500.00
    £500.00
  • GILBERT, William. De magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure; Physiologia noua, plurimis & argumentis, & experimentis demonstrata.
    £35,000.00
    £35,000.00
  • [GINSBERG, Allen, Lawrence FERLINGHETTI, Kenneth PATCHEN, et al. ] The Pocket Poets Series. A run of the first 25 volumes.
    £15,000.00
    £15,000.00
  • [GRAHAM, Robert Blackall]. Photographic Illustrations, with a Description of Mandalay & Upper Burmah Expeditionary Force, 1886-87. By a Cavalry Officer.
    £4,500.00
    £4,500.00
  • GRAHAM, Winifred. The Enemy of Woman.
    £600.00
    £600.00
  • [HYMNAL; Johann Andreas CRAMER (editor).] Allgemeines Gesangbuch, auf königlichen allergnädigsten Befehl zum öffentlichen und häuslichen Gebrauche in den Gemeinen des Herzogthums Schleswig, des Herzogthums Hollstein, der Herrschaft Pinneberg, der Stadt A…
    £2,250.00
    £2,250.00
  • KHAN, Mohammad Ayub. Friends not Masters. A Political Autobiography.
    £600.00
    £600.00
  • LANG, Andrew ( translator ). Aucassin and Nicolette.
    £300.00
    £300.00
  • LE QUEUX, William. The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery.
    £250.00
    £250.00
  • LESSING, Doris The Golden Notebook.
    £600.00
    £600.00
  • LIPSIUS, Justus. De cruce libri tres ad sacram profanamque historiam utiles: unà cum notis.
    £1,850.00
    £1,850.00
  • MARX, Karl; Samuel MOORE and Edward AVELING ( translators ). Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production … Translated from the Third German Edition.
    £5,500.00
    £5,500.00
  • [BINDING.] [PRAYERS.] [Le tableau de la croix representé dans les ceremonies de la S.te messe.]
    £1,500.00
    £1,500.00
  • MILLER, Henry. Love between the Sexes.
    £250.00
    £250.00
  • MILTON, John. Pro populo anglicano defensio contra Claudii Anonymi, aliàs Salmasii, Defensionem regiam.
    £750.00
    £750.00
  • MOCH, Jules; Albert EINSTEIN ( preface ); Edward HYAMS ( translator ). Human Folly: To Disarm or Perish?
    £950.00
    £950.00
  • MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich. Voyages et découvertes faites par les Russes le long des côtes de la Mer Glaciale & sur l'Océan oriental, tant vers le Japon que vers l'Amérique. Traduit par C. G. F. Dumas.
    £1,200.00
    £1,200.00
  • NICOLAS, Augustin. Si la torture est un moyen seur a verifier les crimes secrets; dissertation morale et juridique, par laquelle il est amplement traité des abus qui se commettent par tout en l'instruction des procés criminels, ... ouvrage necessaire à t…
    £2,500.00
    £2,500.00
  • [OPPENHEIMER, J. Robert]. UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION. United States Atomic Energy Commission: In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of hearing before personnel security board.
    £750.00
    £750.00