English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees
British literature and history from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on poetry, fiction, and drama.
We usually have a selection of literary works from the STC and Wing period (i.e. before 1701), and a broad range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, particularly the Romantics. We also have a selection of historical manuscripts, prints and broadsides, and works in translation.
Among important works which have passed through our hands are the editor's presentation copy of Milton's Lycidas, Swift's Modest Proposal, the autograph draft of Byron's She walks in beauty, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen's only play Sir Charles Grandison, Dickens’s copy of Vanity Fair, Trollope's classical library, and, over the years, some fifty Shakespeare First Folios.
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POCKLINGTON, John.
Altare Christianum: or, the dead Vicar’s Plea. Wherein the Vicar of Gr. being dead, yet speaketh, and pleadeth...
London, Printed by Richard Badger. 1637.
First edition, from the library of Robert Southey, with an ownership inscription an eleven-line note in his distinctive diminutive hand.
£3750
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POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:
from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...
Printed in the Year 1702
Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...
£425
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[POETRY.]
‘Trattato della [poesia Toscana]’.
[Asti?, 1780-1782.]
A manuscript treatise on the method of composing poetry in Italian, with numerous examples from renowned authors and eight apparently unpublished poems about horse-racing, with references to Arabian, Sardinian, English, and African horses, as well as to a firework display.
£750
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POPE, Alexander.
The Rape of the Lock. An heroi-comical Poem. In five Canto’s … The second Edition.
London: Printed for Bernard Lintott ... 1714
Second edition of the final text, reset throughout and now with a headpiece to each canto. Griffith 34; Foxon P943. [Bound with:]
£1850
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[POPE, Alexander.]
The New Dunciad: As it was found in the Year MDCCXLI. With the Illustrations of Scriblerus and Notes Variorum.
London, T. Cooper, 1742.
Second edition (although not stated on title), published within a week of the first edition, with slight revisions to both poem and notes. A reissue in the same year with a cancel title-page acknowledges this printing as the second edition.
£350
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[POPE, Alexander].
The New Dunciad: as it was Found in the Year 1741. With the Illustrations of Scriblerus, and Notes Variorum.
London: Printed for T. Cooper ... 1742.
First edition. This is the first printing of Book IV of the Dunciad. Having carried satire to the brink of prosecution, Pope retired into four years of silence, broken in 1742. A reference to Colley Cibber in line 316 inaugurated Pope’s last literary quarrel, and led to the revision of the...
£750
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POPE, Alexander.
Of false Taste. An Epistle to the right honourable Richard Earl of Burlington. Occasion’d by his publishing...
London, L. Gilliver, 1731-1735.
1) Third edition of Of false Taste, published on 15 January 1732, adding Pope’s long letter to Burlington in reply to ‘the clamour rais’d about this epistle’. This is the first of three issues, with the misprint ‘Cielings’ on p. 11. Griffith 267; Foxon P912.
£850
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[POPE, Alexander.]
Sober Advice from Horace, to the young Gentleman about Town, As deliver’d in his second Sermon. Imitated in...
London: Printed for T. Boreman … and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, [1734].
First editions of Pope’s Sober Advice from Horace and Universal Prayer.
£650
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POPE, Alexander.
An Essay on Man, in four Epistles to Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke …
London: Printed for Robert Jennings … by James Moyes … 1819.
A very fine edition, one of two hundred copies according to Lowndes. The four plates in the text were engraved for a forthcoming parallel-text English–Portuguese edition published by Charles Whittington – the prints here being proofs before lettering. Their inclusion along with ‘the...
£450
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POPE, Alexander.
The Works … Vol. I [–VI]. With explanatory Notes and Additions never before printed.
London, Printed for B. Lintot, 1736 [Vol. II. Printed for L. Gilliver 1735; Vol. III. Printed for H. Lintot, 1736; Vol. IV. Printed...
A fine set of the bibliographically complicated small octavo Works, including the scarce supplementary Vol II. Part II.
£1750
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POPE, [Alexander].
Of the Use of Riches, an Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst.
London, J. Wright for Lawton Gilliver, 1732.
First edition, first issue, with p. 13 uncorrected and the erratum on p. 20.
£200
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POPE, Alexander.
Windsor-Forest. To the Right Honourable George Lord Lansdown …
London: Printed for Bernard Lintott … 1713.
First edition of Pope’s second separately published poem, preceded by An Essay on Criticism in 1711. Written in the tradition that young poets begin with pastoral verse, Windsor-Forest, with its epigraph from Virgil’s Eclogues, was the poem that first won Swift’s regard and...
£2750
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[POPE, Walter.]
The Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall: containing the history of his Life and Death. Whereunto are annexed his last...
London, Printed for Henry Brome … 1670.
First(?) edition of a partly fictitious and often satirical life of the highwayman Claude Duval, published shortly after his execution in 1670. This is the more substantial of two opportunistic biographies, between them the main sources of information about him, though by no means entirely trustworthy. ...
£750
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PORTER, Anna Maria.
The Village of Mariendorpt. A Tale … in four Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown … 1821
First edition of a rather melodramatic novel set in Bavaria towards the end of the Thirty Years War. It proved just what Longman was looking for, and a sequel, Roche-Blanche, followed in 1822.
£1200
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PORTER, Jane.
Duke Christian of Luneburg; or, Tradition from the Hartz … in three Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green … 1824.
First edition. One of the earliest exponents of the historical novel, Porter enjoyed enormous popularity during her lifetime. Duke Christian of Luneburg was her sixth book, which she modestly described as ‘a little traditionary [sic] sketch of an illustrious hero’. Set in sixteenth-century...
£650
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PORTER, Jane and Anna Maria.
Coming out; and the Field of Forty Footsteps … In three Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green … 1828.
First edition; the first two volumes comprise ‘Coming Out; a Tale of the nineteenth century’ by Anna Maria Porter, the final volume is her sister’s ‘Field of Forty Footsteps; a Tale of the seventeenth century’. ‘Either would have made a three-decker all by itself’ (Wolff).
£650
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POSTEL, Guillaume.
De originibus, seu, de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsyderata historia,...
Basel, Johannes Oporinus, [1553].
First edition of Postel’s investigations into the original language as a means to regain the primordial unity of mankind.
£3500
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[POUND.]
Ezra Pound at Seventy.
[New York, New Directions, 1955.]
A small celebratory booklet printing tributes by Auden, Cummings, Eliot, Hemingway (‘Will gladly pay tribute to Ezra but what I would like to do is get him the hell out of St. Elizabeth’s’), Archibald Macleish, Jose de Pina Martins, Marianne Moore, Norman Pearson, Spender, and Edith Sitwell.
£30
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POUND, Ezra.
How to Read …
London, Desmond Harmsworth, [1931].
First edition, a fine association copy. Agnes Bedford (1892-1969) was a lifelong friend of Pound (they first met in 1919 and corresponded until 1963 when he unexpectedly severed contact) and through him of Wyndham Lewis, with whom she had an affair in the 1920s. A vocal coach and accompanist,...
£750
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POUND, Ezra.
The Letters … 1907-1941. Edited by D. D. Paige
… London, Faber & Faber, [1951].
First English edition, an association copy.
£150