English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees or Ted Hofmann
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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THORNBURY, Walter and Edward WALFORD.
Old and New London. A narrative of its history, its people, and its places. London, Cassell...
[with] Greater London… London, Cassell and Company, Ltd. 1898.
The definitive guide to London’s history from the Roman era to the modern day. Covering all the major localities of the Capital, the work addresses the evolution, and occasional demolition, of various areas and buildings, along with the personal touch through accounts of significant occasions, riots,...
£300
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THUCYDIDES.
ΘΟΥΚΥΔΙΔΗΣ. THVCYDIDES.
(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus, May 1502.
A handsome copy of the first edition of the Greek text of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War, printed by the great Aldus Manutius, with an interesting provenance.
£25000
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TOMKINS, John, John FIELD and John BELL.
Piety Promoted, ou, la Pieté promuë, ou avancée: contenant un Recueil de derniéres...
A Londres: se vend chez la Veuve Hinde … 1770.
First edition, the first French translation of Piety Promoted, a compilation of the ‘dying words’ of notable Quakers, many from North America, originally published in three parts by John Tomkins (1701-6; ‘the first and a very influential example of an important Quaker form’, Oxford...
£250
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TOMPSON, John, editor.
English Miscellanies consisting of various Pieces of Divinity, Morals, Politicks, Philosophy and History;...
Gottingen by Abram. Vandenhoeck, Printer and Bookseller to the University 1746.
Second edition, revised, of John Tompson’s important English Miscellanies, expanded to almost twice the size of the first edition, including up-to-date content published since 1737.
£800
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TOOKE, John Horne.
Two pairs of portraits, presented to all the unbiassed electors of Great-Britain, and especially the electors...
London, J. Johnson and J. Stockdale, 1788.
First edition of this celebrated comparison of two generations of Pitts and Foxes, by the clergyman and political radical John Horne Tooke. Although one might have thought him more naturally a Foxite, Tooke never got on with Fox, and here lays out, side by side, the ways in which Pitt father and son...
£250
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[TORBUCK, John].
A Collection of Welsh Travels and Memoirs of Wales. Containing I. The Briton Describ’d, or a Journey thro’...
London: Printed for and sold by J. Torbuck … 1738.
First edition of this compilation of whimsical works about Wales, reissued and published as though under the auspices of Swift.
£1100
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[TOWER OF LONDON.]
View of the awful conflagration at the Tower of London, October 31st 1841, and immense loss of national property.
London, J. Fairburn, [1841].
An uncommon broadside, with a striking hand-coloured woodcut, recording the devastating fire which consumed the Grand Storehouse at the Tower of London in October 1841, an event also sketched in watercolour by J.M.W. Turner.
£600
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[TRADE CARD.]
John Blundell, Engraver.
In Honey-Suckle Court, Grubb-Street, London. 1742.
A fine and rare trade card for the jobbing engraver John Blundell, the engraved text (in several different hands to demonstrate skill at lettering) surrounded by an ornate border of angels, putti and tools (compasses, palette, easels, busts, burins, sketches, and a map at the head).
£600
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TRUBETZKOY, Nikolai Sergeevich.
Das morphonologische System der russischen Sprache.
Prague, Jednota československých matematiků a fysiků, 1934.
First edition, published as the second part of Description phonologique du russe moderne; the first part, Roman Jakobson’s ‘Phonologie général du mot’, was published later.
£350
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TUNBRIDGE WELLS.
The Tunbridge Wells Guide; or an Account of the ancient and present State of the Place, to which is added a particular...
Tunbridge Wells, Printed and sold by J. Sprange, at his Circulating Library. Sold also in London, by Rivington Booksellers … ‘1786’...
The Tunbridge Wells Guide apparently first appeared in 1780; reissues and/or new editions, partly from standing type, with variously erratic pagination and a steady accretion of content, appeared throughout the 1780s and 1790s. ‘The hurry in putting this to the press,’ an ingenuous Preface...
£500
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[TWISS, Horace].
Posthumous Parodies and other Pieces, composed by several of our most celebrated Poets, but not published in any...
London: Printed for John Miller. 1814.
First edition. Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Johnson are among the poets parodied.
£150
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TYRTAEUS and CALLINUS.
Les chants...traduits en vers par Firmin Didot.
Paris, Firmin Didot, pere et fils, 1827.
One of only 100 copies - all hors de commerce - of this deluxe folio Didot edition of some of the oldest martial elegy verses of the Western tradition: the surviving works of the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus and the Ephesian poet Callinus (7th-6th century BC). The text is preceded by an engraved Lettre...
£4000
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VERLAINE, Paul, and Léon LEBÈGUE (illustrator).
Fêtes gallantes.
Paris, F. Ferroud for the Librairie des Amateurs, 30 July 1913.
Limited edition on vélin teinté d’Arches, numbered 430 of 500 copies, with etchings by Lebègue. First published in 1869, Verlaine’s Fêtes gallantes are here exquisitely printed and illustrated by Léon Lebègue (1863 – 1944) and finely bound by Flammarion.
£750
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[WAGNER, Richard.]
Wagner Festival. Royal Albert Hall, May 1877. Selections from the German texts of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Rienzi,...
London: [The Elzevir Press for] Hodge and Essex, [but 1877].
First edition, very rare, an attractive volume collecting the separately-issued programmes for the initial run of six concerts during the first Wagner Festival at the Royal Albert Hall in May 1877, with a general title-page. The texts are printed in German and English in parallel – the first...
£2500
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WALFORD, L[ucy] B[ethia].
The Mischief of Monica … in three Volumes …
London, Longmans, Green, & Co. … 1891.
First edition. Born in Edinburgh in 1845, Walford began writing secretly soon after her marriage, contributing stories to Blackwood’s and other periodicals. Her family voiced serious disapproval upon the publication of her first novel, Mr Smith: A Part of his Life, in 1874; it was, however,...
£425
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WALKER, John.
Hints for Improvement in the Art of Reading ...
London: Printed for the Author, and sold by T. Cadell ... G. Robinson ... and T. Becket ... 1783
First edition. The future lexicographer John Walker (1732-1807) left grammar school and then absconded from an apprenticeship to join a succession of provincial theatre companies. Garrick hired him in 1754 and for the next four years he performed a number of mainly minor parts at Drury Lane. In 1758...
£650
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WALLER, Edmund.
Poems, &c. written upon several Occasions, and to several Persons ... Never till now corrected and published with...
London, Printed for Henry Herringman ... 1664.
The first authorised edition, which repudiates in its preface all of the 1645 printings (‘When the Author of these verses ... returned from abroad some years since, He was troubled to find his name in print, but somewhat satisfied to see his lines so ill rendred that he might justly disown them, and...
£500
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WALLER, Edmund.
Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing. All the lyrick Poems in...
London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645.
Second, first licensed, edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to the derogation...£850
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WALTON, Izaac.
The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert … to which are added some Letters...
London, printed by Tho. Newcomb for Richard Marriott … 1670.
First collected edition of Walton’s celebrated lives of poets and divines. ‘If its rarity was as great as its merit it would be one of the most coveted books of the period’ (Pforzheimer). The biography of Wotton was published as part of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651); Walton’s life of Donne first...
£850
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WALTON, Izaak.
The Life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln ... to which is added, some short Tracts or Cases of Conscience,...
London, Printed for Richard Marriott. 1678.
First edition, the last of Walton’s five celebrated Lives.
£400