Book Merchant Jenkins

The deluxe edition of Wasson’s famous work on Amanita muscaria as the divine mushroom. 680 numbered copies designed by Giovanni Mardersteig, in a larger paper format handmade by Fratelli Magnani and with two plates in pochoir by Daniel Jacomet. Ethno-mycological Studies No. 1. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book. This is number 538.

Preliminary observations of the sponges around Regensburg: made and explained with four copper plates of painted illustrations by Susanna Sophia Betzin. The first exclusively mycological book in the German language, the first with coloured plates, and the first illustrated by a woman. A preliminary study for Schaeffer’s main work. The beautiful hand coloured illustrations depict Macrolepiota procera. VOLBRACHT 1873.

The first edition of the ever mysterious Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist Luigi Serafini (1949-). Possibly an illustrated encyclopaedia of an alternate universe, Serafini has alluded that it is perhaps all just the thoughts of a cat passed through his hand. The Codex is written in an imaginary language and illustrated phantasmagorically throughout. This being the true first edition published in 2 volumes by Italian art publisher Franco Maria Ricci. This copy numbered 2295 and signed by Serafini to the colophon of volume 2, with the original trilingual letter from the editor laid in, together with a FMR catalogue, several photocopied Italian newspaper clippings related to the Codex, as well as the deluxe edition of the only published volume of literary criticism in English on the Codex Seraphinianus, Confronting Serafini by Jordan Hunter (2017), all housed in the original shipping cartons. Confronting Serafini is a 36 page book hand-bound with treated pages from the 2013 Rizzoli edition of the Codex, signed and numbered in a limited edition of 10, of which this is number 10.

An ecstatic journey of a boy transformed into a girl for one day only, and her erotic adventures in Amsterdam, magic centrum. A classic publication from the age of sexual liberation, The Virgin Sperm Dancer is an early photobook which illustrates the story of Joop, a young Dutch man who experiences a day transformed as Joopie, a sexually awakened woman.

A complete set of first editions in English of the novels and short stories of French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus (1913-1960), finely bound in uniform morocco leather.

The third and final revised edition of the major work by English physician Joseph Mason Cox (1763-1818). Cox was one of the first medical graduates to specialise in the treatment of the insane. Throughout his career he advocated for more humane treatment of lunatics and maniacs. In this work he introduces his swinging technique, based on a design by Erasmus Darwin, of spinning a patient’s body round a vertical axis in a specially designed chair which would produce nausea, vomiting, and convulsions, but would ultimately lead to a restful slumber, which he believed to be a positive outcome for the maniacal. This copy warmly inscribed by Cox.