Welcome to Motte & Bailey Booksellers


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We are a used and rare bookshop in Ann Arbor Michigan, with both more common and antiquarian books.  We focus on American and European history, Books About Books, children's books, and scholarly titles. We have 8500 books in all subjects, with over 2,700 catalogued on our site in over 50 catalogs. New arrivals are always listed here before we post them to the internet bookselling sites.

To keep our stock interesting and growing, we buy individual books or entire libraries across our region. Also, when you visit our shop and choose 2 of our books, you get a 3rd book priced $12 of less free, each and every day, any quantity.

We are one of the few remaining booksellers in our area who perform appraisals for estate, donation, or insurance purposes. See links to to your left for more information.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if are looking for a hard to find book. If you prefer to call, our phone number is 734.669.0451. Our hours are Mon -Sat 10-7 p.m., closed Sundays. However, you may call for an appointment. 

Featured Items

Weight Training for Championship Judo.
Draeger, Donn F. and Isao Inokuma.
Tokyo and Palo Alto: Kodansha International, 1966. Quarto (oversized). With original labelled cardboard slipcase and spine protector. Slight wear to edges of dj and boards. 1 small.. more
Price: $175.00
Duodecimo. 2 complementary works bound in one volume. Contemporary vellum over boards. Slight wear to edges and corners. Many pages have foxing, more so in the pages of the Axiomata. A few pages have very slight tears at foredge. A small rectangle has been cut from the lower corner of the first free endpaper. Binding has a small nick at foredge of back board. Vellum slightly scuffed. with light soiling. [24]154 [10], [182] p. Large printer's device on last page. Many simple geometrical woodcut illustrations, primarily of triangles. Contains the first 2 parts of Stevin's work on trigonometry translated into German from the original Dutch, with 4 axioms (Pitisci Axiomata) from Bartolomeo Pitiscus added by Schwenters in his forward. The second part of the book is a work consisting of tables for sine, tangent and secant added by Schwenters. The work does not include the 3rd part of Stevin's Trigonometry, which covered spherical triangles - indeed, Schwenters states Stevin did no writing in this area, which is incorrect. The original edition of this work is titled "Driehouckhandel". The translator for this work is unknown and was perhaps Schwenter himself, but appears not have had access to a complete copy. (Struick, Principle Works of Simon Stevin, II B p. 755). Less desirable than Dutch editions but still a scarce work on Trigonometry by one of the more important mathematicians of the early Dutch independence period. Simon Stevin (1548-1640) was a Dutch bookkeeper, mathematician, engineer, and science advisor to Maurits (Maurice) of Nassau, stadholder of the United Provinces. Stevin helped set up an engineering school and advised in a number of major nautical related projects. Steven in most well known for introducing decimal fractions to Europe in 1585, though his original arcane notation was abandoned shortly thereafter. He is also known for creating a "land yacht", powered by sails that could move before the wind faster than a horse. On at least one instance he, Maurits, and over 20 others put it to entertaining use on a beach. In all a lovely copy of the book. [ TRIGONOMETRY ] Kurzer doch gründlicher Bericht/ von Calculation der Tabularum Sinuum, Tangentium vnd Secantium. Sampt deroselben gebrauch/ in Solvierung oder aussrechnung aller flachen Triangel: in zweyen Theilen begriffen: ... auss dem Niderländischen
Stevini, Simonis [ Simon Stevin ]. Danielis Schwenters, editor and contributor.
Nürnberg: Simon Halbmayer, 1628. Duodecimo. 2 complementary works bound in one volume. Contemporary vellum over boards. Slight wear to edges and corners. Many pages.. more
Price: $2,550.00
Ancient Warriors of the North Pacific : the Haidas, Their Laws, Customs and Legends, with Some Historical Account of the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Harrison, Charles.
London: H.F. & G. Witherby,, 1925. Very good octavo in red cloth with black lettering and totem on spine. Some shelf wear to edges and corners... more
Price: $250.00
First (and only) edition. Very good in floral grey-blue cloth with medium brown floral designs, bound in the Japanese style with purple cloth ribbon, tied in 3 knots each. Title in Japanese on cover. Printed in double leaves, oriental style. Gold and silver flecked white endpapers. Small faded spot on upper left corner of back board, and a small brown spot on top page edges, affecting only the edges of 4 double leaves. 88 leaves, 44 photographs of Noh Masks, and one of the creators. Text in English and Japanese. A very scarce and lovely book, detailing the masks created by Kiyoshi (Yuisei) and his wife Hidemi (Yuishu) Mori, both members of the Nippon Noh Masks Association. The book was created to commemorate an April 1984 exhibition of their masks in New York. One of the most attractive book we have. 2 copies held in US libraries, including one in the Smithsonian. Mugen-no-Michi (Art Unattainable) [ Noh Masks ].
Yuisei and Yuishu Mori. photos by Fumio Dodo, edited by Toru Ishikawa, introduction by Masaharu Gotoda, Chief of Cabinet Secretariat.
[probably Japan, ca. 1984 or 1985]. First (and only) edition. Very good in floral grey-blue cloth with medium brown floral designs, bound in the Japanese style.. more
Price: $350.00
After the first edition of 1839 and the second of 1841, enlarged in size and content. Good folio volumes in quarter red leather and red cloth. Edges and corners have some wear, with a small nick at the mid-spine of vol. 1 and a bit more wear at the heel of vol. 1 as well. All plates still have original tissues, though some tissues show a bit of soiling. V. 1 has all 47 portrait plates, while Vol. 2 has 45 of 47 listed. However, after checking against 5 other copies of this set in various libraries, all copies checked were missing the same 2 plates - those of Viscountess Jocelyn and Countess Malmsbury. Each plate should have been accompanied by text. This too was missing from the 2 entries. Our presumption is that the plates were not bound in with the book, else (less likely) there existed a very thorough, focused, and mobile thief in the past. Additionally, some women listed in the table of contents are noted as pointers to other entries, and do not have portraits under those names, though the portraits are present. A lovely set, with external wear, of the leading artistocratic women of early Victorian England, with the frontispiece being of the Queen herself at a young age. Many examples of Victorian fashion, and some jewelry. There is some variation in paper and style of the engravings, but all are sharp and attractive, like many of the women they portray. 8 copies in the US, 2 more worldwide according to Worldcat. Portraits of the Female Aristocracy of the Court of Queen Victoria. 2 vols.
Finden, William.
London: J. Hogarth, 1849. After the first edition of 1839 and the second of 1841, enlarged in size and content. Good folio volumes in.. more
Price: $550.00
Imperial octavo (oversized). Boards are 117/8" by 8 1/2", paper is 11"x 7 1/2" with wide margins. Lovely marbeled endpapers, with 2 new blank preliminary leaves in both volumes. Original half-titles in both volumes. Plate and specimen leaf (p. 166) present in vol. 1. Some foxing to first and last few original pages, diminishing quickly. Light fingermarks on upper corners of some pages. vol. 1 xiii, 562 p. vol. 2 579 p. w/ 1 p. corrigenda. Large paper copies limited to 250 (Dibdin's Reminscences, p. 213). Considered the best of the editions of this work, adding the best of both Hebrew bBbles and editions of the early church fathers. An attractive set. An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics Together With an Account of Polyglot Bibles, Polyglot Psalters, Hebrew Bibles, Greek Bibles and Greek Testaments; the Greek Fathers, and the Latin Fathers. 4th
Dibdin, Reverend Thomas Frognall, D.D., F.R.S.
London: Printed for Harding and Lepard, Pall-Mall East; and G.B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, 1827. Imperial octavo (oversized). Boards are 117/8" by 8 1/2", paper is 11"x 7 1/2" with wide margins. Lovely marbeled endpapers,.. more
Price: $1,650.00
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