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

Thick quarto. Original binding. Page edges and endpapers marbled, gilt tooling to edges of boards. Slight wear to edges and corners. Slight scuffing to boards and spine. 1 pages with a wide crease near corner. Another page has 2 very small tears at foredge. 602 p. w/all plates , ads,and maps. An early classic war narrative of a major Confederate general officer, in very attractive condition with a more uncommon binding. Johnston's sometimes bitter reponse to his war critics and foes, notably Jefferson Davis. Tends to underestimate Confederate numbers and overestimate Union force figures. Howes J-167, Eicher 257. Dornbusch III 1399.

Narrative of Military Operations, Directed, During the Late War Between the States by Joseph E. Johnston.
Johnston, Joseph E.
New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company, 1874. Thick quarto. Original binding. Page edges and endpapers marbled, gilt tooling to edges of boards. Slight wear to edges and.. more
Price: $200.00

Insurance in Venice from the Origins to the End of the Serenissima. Documents Published for the 125th Anniversary of the Company, 1831-1956. Two Volumes.
Stefani, Giuseppe. Translated by Arturo Dawson Amoruso.
Trieste: 1958.. First translated edition. Two very good folio sized (oversized) hardcovers in biege cloth binding without dust jackets. Both volumes have.. more
Price: $140.00

Attempt to Investigate Some Obscure and Undecided Doctrines in Relation to Small-Pox [Smallpox], Varioloid and Vaccination.
Bell, Luther V.
Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1836. Fair octavo hardcover in brownish binding without dust jacket. Wear and rubbing to edges of boards with bumping to head.. more
Price: $150.00

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

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

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