Functional, Functioning books a group of heavily annotated books—scholastic compendia, pastoral manuals, humanist classics, and historical authorities—united less by genre than by function.
The copies that matter most are not always the cleanest ones. This mid-sixteenth-century Cologne edition of Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Epistolae ad familiares survives as a working book, densely annotated by an early modern reader who approached Cicero not as a... Continue Reading →
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A working blog by antiquarian bookseller James Gray, documenting the handling, study, and cataloguing of early printed books and manuscripts. Posts focus on provenance, annotations, bindings, and the material history of books as objects and ideas in use.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY WEEK ABAA Bibliography Week Booksellers ShowcaseJoin exhibitors offering books, maps, ephemera, and more for sale at the Bibliography Week Showcase. The Showcase takes place in conjunction with Bibliography Week at L’Alliance New York located at 22 East 60th Street,... Continue Reading →
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https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/27/diego-alvarez-de-paz-rector-of-jesuit-colleges-in-various-cities-e-g-quito-cuzco-in-the-andean-region/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/27/901j/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/13/les-oeuvres-of-madeleine-de-la-calprenede/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/20/897j-cicero-in-hungarian/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/25/ciceros-orations-published-for-jesuit-students/ https://jamesgray2.me/2024/08/07/a-most-interesting-lawyer-poet/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/23/jeanne-francoise-fremyot-de-chantal-saint/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/16/galileos-starry-messenger-and-keplers-dioptrice-two-of-the-most-important-books-in-early-observational-astronomy/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/09/11/natural-history-the-devils-arse-2/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/09/georgette-de-montenay-the-first-emblem-book-written-by-a-woman-2/ https://jamesgray2.me/2026/01/13/exploring-gabriel-naudes-iatro-philological-disputations/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/19/930j-natalis-adnotationes-et-meditationes/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/11/24/919j-ohussey-o-heoghusa-giolla-brighde-gaelic-type-1707/ https://jamesgray2.me/2026/01/15/poems-by-the-most-deservedly-admired-mrs-katherine-philips/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/10/14/philosophia-mentis-et-sensuum-1698-jesuit-aristotelianism-and-empirical-philosophy/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/19/experiments-on-diverse-natural-things-francesco-redi-1685/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/18/strimesiuss-somatologia-1697/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/16/the-history-of-the-royal-society-of-london-1667/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/16/943j-the-nunns-complaint-1676/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/12/09/1681-life-of-anne-de-xainctonge-founder-of-the-ursulines-of-the-franche-comte-first-edition-zug-2/ https://jamesgray2.me/2025/05/28/worthy-proverbs/ JAMESGRAY2@ME.COM
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955J Katherine Philips 1631-1664 Poems By the most deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda. To which is added Monsieur Corneilles Pompey & Horace,} Tragedies. With several other Translations out of French. London: Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman... Continue Reading →
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925J Gabriel Naudé Gabrielis Navdæi Parisini πentas Quæstionum Iatro-philologicarum. An magnum homini à venenis periculum? II. An vita hominum hodie quàm olim breuior? III. An matutina studia vespertinis salubriora? IV. An liceat Medico fallere ægrotum? V. De fato & fatali vitæ termino... Continue Reading →
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