handsel

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

Come hither and handsel him self-doom for thy fool’s onset!’

From The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale by William Morris

The disguised ladies take the handsel from them, without knowing that they are bound by it, until the sheriff arrives to confirm the bargain.

From The Standard Operaglass Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas by Charles Annesley

Delia: A little handsel to myself would do the both of you no harm at all.

From New Irish Comedies by Lady Gregory

Then on the 2'd of January 1671 being hansell   Monday I gave my wife to give out to people   who expected handsel, 4 dollars.

From Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36 Journals of Sir John Lauder Lord Fountainhall with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665-1676 by Lord John Lauder Fountainhall

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

The full moon handselled with the stars the teeth, like grains of      pearl, That on the laughing face of wine now dance, now      stirless lie.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume III by John Payne

She handselled it, and hastening where he lay, cried in furious fashion, "You are unbound already."

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France

When anything is used for the first time it is handselled.

From Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District by Charles Dack

Then he made peace between them and clad them all in sumptuous dresses of honour and handselled them with precious jewels of land and sea.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume IV by John Payne

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

From The House of Atreus by E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson) Morshead

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by William Morris

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb