CROMARTY, George Mackenzie, Earl of.

An historical Account of the Conspiracies by the Earls of Gowry, and Robert Logan of Restalrig,...

First edition, dedicated to Queen Anne, ‘and to all the Princes who share in her royal blood’. The Vindication of Robert III was first published in 1695.

£150

[CURLL, Edmund, editor].

Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne, M.A. by several Hands.

London: Printed in the Year 1736.

First separate edition (based on John Bilstone’s hostile preface to Hearne’s Vindication of those who take the Oath of Allegiance, 1731, and first printed in this form as part of volume III of Curll’s edition of Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, 1735).

£450

D’ISRAELI, Isaac.

Romances …

London: Printed for Cadell and Davies … Murray and Highley … J. Harding … and J. Wright. 1799.

First edition, a collection of three prose tales by the father of the novelist and Prime Minister, with an introductory ‘Poetical Essay on Romance and Romancers’. The longest piece is ‘Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura’, which has echoes of Beckford and draws on the learned orientalism...

£950

D’URFEY, Thomas.

The Progress of Honesty: or, a View of a Court and City. A Pindarique Poem …

London: Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1681.

First edition of an allegorical poem inspired, like Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, by the Exclusion Crisis of 1681. ‘Honesty’ describes to ‘Error’, ‘Faction’ and ‘Beauty’ the court of Charles II (‘Titus the Second … the joy of human kind’), and the malign effects of Treason...

£300

[JUVENILE.] DAY, Thomas.

The History of Sandford and Merton, abridged from the Original. Embellished with elegant Plates … Third...

London:

Third edition of Richard Johnson’s abridgement of Day’s most famous and most enduring children’s book (1783, with sequels in 1786 and 1789), first published in this form in 1790. ESTC shows three copies of the first edition; five of the second; and BL and UCLA only of this third; Roscoe adds a...

£200

DENNIS, John.

The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain’d in some new Discoveries never made before, requisite for the Writing...

London, Printed for Geo. Strahan … and Bernard Lintott … 1704.

First edition. Published as a ‘preliminary’ to a proposed, but never completed, masterwork, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry comprises a Preface, Proposal and ‘Specimen’, the latter being an essay substantially on Milton, ‘one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d...

£1250

DIBDIN, C[harles], the younger.

Mirth and Metre: consisting of Poems, serious, humorous, and satirical; Songs, Sonnets, Ballads,...

London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe ... by W. Wilson. 1807

First edition of the first collection of verse by the manager of Sadler’s Wells, including a section of songs from his ‘most approved’ pantomimes and ‘scenic’ productions. The ticket of a Newark bookseller makes it likely that the stamp ‘Newstead’ refers to Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead...

£225

DICKENS, Charles.

Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.

Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.

First edition in Swedish, very rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.

£850

DILWORTH, W. H.

The History of the Conquest of Mexico, by the celebrated Hernan Cortes. Containing a faithful and entertaining...

London: Printed for William Anderson … 1759.

First edition, very scarce, of a history of the conquistadores for young readers, loosely derived from Antonio Solís de Ribadeneyra’s Historia de la Conquista de México.

£1850

[DISNEY, John].

Memoirs of Thomas Brand-Hollis Esq. ...

London: Printed by T. Gillet ... 1808.

First edition of a privately printed memoir of Thomas Brand of the Hyde, who assumed the name Brand-Hollis on inheriting the Dorset estates (and library and collection of sculpture) of his friend the ‘Republican’ Thomas Hollis, the Whig bibliophile. The author, John Disney, a close friend of Thomas...

£750

DRYDEN, John.

Eleonora: a Panegyrical Poem: dedicated to the Memory of the late Countess of Abingdon …

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1692.

First edition. The countess had died in May 1691, but ‘betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles’, publication of this eulogy was delayed until March 1692 (as the Lutrell copy is dated). The poem, commissioned by the Earl of Abingdon, praises the piety and charity of its subject, its somewhat...

£275

DUTENS, Louis.

An Inquiry into the Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns: wherein it is demonstrated, that our most...

London: Printed for W. Griffin … 1769.

First edition in English of Recherches sur l’origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes (Paris, 1766), an illuminating and voluminous study of how ‘in almost all truths of the greatest importance, the ancients preceded the moderns; or at least pointed out, or prepared the way, for their...

£300

EYRE, Henry.

A Brief Account of the Holt Waters, containing one Hundred and Twelve eminent Cures, perform’d by the Use of the...

London: Printed for J. Roberts … 1731.

First edition. The waters from Bath, Bristol and Holt, in Wiltshire, were the most popular English mineral waters of the eighteenth century, in no small part due to the activity of Henry Eyre, ‘Sworn Purveyor to Her Majesty [Queen Caroline, wife of George II] for all Mineral Waters’. Eyre ran a distribution...

£750

FIDDES, Richard.

A General Treatise of Morality, form’d upon the Principles of natural Reason only. With a Preface in Answer...

London: Printed for S. Billingsley … 1724.

First edition, the variant with the misprint ‘FIDDFS’ in the author’s name on the title. ‘Written against Shaftesbury’s Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, and displaying marked sympathy with the works of Malebranche and [John] Norris of Bemerton, this book was a...

£850

FIELDING, Henry.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling …

Paris: Printed by Fr. Amb. Didot the eldest, and sold by J. N. Pissot, and Barrois Junior … Booksellers. 1780.

The first French edition in English of Fielding’s masterpiece, only the second English edition to be printed abroad (after Dresden, 1774). Here the text benefits from critical attention by Didot, who collated Murphy’s edition of Fielding’s Works with the last separate English edition.

£425

[BYRON.] FINDEN, Edward.

[Landscape and Portrait Illustrations of Byron.]

[London, John Murray, 1833-4.]

Finden’s attractive engraved illustrations to the works of Byron, taken after drawings and paintings by Turner, Stanfield, Weston etc, and his portraits of the Romantics after paintings in the Murrays’ collection, were published in parts by John Murray in 1833-4. Here they have been assembled from...

£850

[FRYER, Michael, editor.]

The Trial and Life of Eugene Aram; several of his Letters and Poems; and his Plan and Specimens of an...

Richmond: Printed by and for M. Bell … 1832

First edition. The unfortunate Yorkshire schoolmaster Eugene Aram, implicated with the shoemaker Daniel Clark in fraud in 1745, and twelve years later accused of Clark’s murder, was convicted and hanged in 1759. While in prison in York, without books and papers, he produced the Plan and Specimens published...

£100

GAY, John.

The Distress’d Wife. A Comedy. By the late Mr. Gay, Author of the Beggar’s Opera.

London: Printed for Thomas Astley … 1743.

First edition, the issue with no press figures on pp. 8, 39, press figure p. 56: 3 (no priority). Gay’s comedy of the sexes revolves around Sir Thomas Willit’s attempts to inveigle his wife to leave London for the country, in order to reign-in her expenditure. Lady Willit abhors the idea, ‘Sure...

£350

GENUINE ACCOUNT (A)

of the Life and Actions of James Maclean, Highwayman, to the Time of his Trial and receiving Sentence at the...

London, W. Falstaff, [1750].

First edition, the scarcer of two contemporary pamphlet biographies of the ‘gentleman highwayman’ James Maclaine (1724-1750). The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Maclaine, having squandered an early inheritance and his wife’s money, joined up with a down-at-luck apothecary, William Plunkett,...

£1250

GLAISTER, Elizabeth.

The Perfect Path. A Novel … in two Volumes …

London, Smith, Elder, & Co. … 1884.

First and only edition, scarce. The novel opens among a group of English expatriates in Mentone on the French Riviera, where Colonel Ashby wastes money at Monte Carlo. His spirited, ‘slangy’ and distinctly wayward daughter, Cordelia, is invited to live with her aunt in rural England, where her greatest...

£450