Thomas Elyot and others | Instructional texts for princes and aristocrats, 4 volumes in all

Instructional texts for princes and aristocrats, comprising:

(1) Thomas Elyot. The Boke, named The Governour devised by sir Thomas Elyot, Knight. London: Thomas East, 1580. 8vo (137 x 93 mm), gothic type, title-page with decorative woodcut border, some woodcut initials, nineteenth-century brown morocco, red edges, some slight marginal dampstaining, joints starting, extremities slightly rubbed [USTC 509010; ESTC S100451; STC 7642]

First published in 1531, Elyot's seminal educational treatise went through seven editions between 1531 and 1580. Ex-library copy (see provenance).

(2) [Antonio de Guevara, translated by John Bourchier]. The Golden Booke Of Marcus Aurelius, Emperour, and eloquent Oratour. London: Thomas East, 1586. 8vo (139 x 94 mm), gothic type, title-page within decorative woodcut border, woodcut printer's device, final leaf blank, nineteenth-century calf, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, lacking 2m2-8 and 2n7-8 (final leaf bearing a printer's mark, followed by a blank leaf), 2n5-6 slightly torn at upper margin with minor loss of text [USTC 510535 (listing ten institutional copies); ESTC S103529; STC 12447]

Early printing of the first translation into English of de Guevara's Libro aureo, a collection of incidents and letters from the life of Marcus Aurelius. RARE AT AUCTION.

(3) The pilgrimage of Princes, penned out of sundry Greeke and Latine authours, by Lodowicke Lloid Gent. London: William Jones, [1573]. Small 4to (175 x 128 mm), gothic type, title-page with decorative woodcut border, modern calf, tooled in blind, 1 page nineteenth-century manuscript index bound in at end, *2 and 3I3-3K4 supplied in facsimile, a few marginal repairs (with minor loss) [USTC 507662; ESTC S108781; STC 16624 (conjecturing publication date and publishers' names)]

(4) Bartolomeu Filippe, John Thorie (translator). The Counseller a Treatise of Counsels and Counsellers of Princes, written in Spanish by Bartholomew Phillip, Doctor of the Civill and cannon lawe. Englished by I.T. Graduate in Oxford. London: John Wolfe, 1589. Small 8vo (211 x 157 mm), gothic type, title-page with woodcut device, housed in modern red cloth case, lacking B1-4 and C1, leaves frayed at margins (with slight loss to upper margin of A2) [ESTC 2101905; STC 10753]

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Bartolomeu's Tractado del consejo y de los consejeros de los principes, translated by the linguist John Thorius, also known for contributing verses to John Florio's Queen Anna's New World of Words (1611). VERY RARE AT AUCTION, with only 2 other copies offered since 1951, according to Rare Book Hub..

PROVENANCE:

(1) B. Portlock: ownership inscription to title-page; Hampstead Public Libraries: library stamp to recto of final text leaf; (3) William Cole: early modern ownership inscription to title-page; (4) "[?] Th. Forvany": ownership inscription to title-page and occasional marginalia