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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TEMPLE, Sir William.
An Introduction to the History of England …
London, Printed for Richard Simpson … and Ralph Simpson … 1695
First edition. Newly arrived in England from Trinity College, Dublin, Swift in 1689 entered upon a ten-year period as secretary to Sir William Temple at Moor Park near Farnham in Surrey. ‘Partly thanks to Swift’s support several of Temple’s important works were published in the 1690s, notably the...
£450
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TENNYSON, Alfred, and Eleanor FORTESCUE-BRICKDALE, illustrator.
The Idylls of the King … Illustrated in Colour...
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1911].
Deluxe edition of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King illustrated by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872–1945), no. 124 of 250 copies signed by the artist.
£600
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TENNYSON, Alfred, [later Lord]; A. L. BOND, illustrator.
The Miller’s Daughter …
London, Published by W. Kent & Co late David Bogue … [1858].
A handsome edition of The Miller’s Daughter, attractively illustrated by Anne Lydia Bond (1822–1881).
£120
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Maud, and other Poems …
London: Edward Moxon … 1855.
First edition, containing the first appearance in book form of ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. The poem was originally printed in The Examiner in December 1854.
£150
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Ballads and other Poems.
London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. … 1880.
First edition. Wise, Tennyson 138; Tinker 2093.
£75
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
The Cup and the Falcon.
London: Macmillan and Co. 1884.
First published edition, preceded by a ‘trial’ edition of 1882 recorded by Wise as surviving in one known copy – in his own collection. The Cup was first performed in 1881 with Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Wise, Tennyson 146; Tinker 2096.
£75
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Locksley Hall Sixty Years after etc.
London: Macmillan and Co. … 1886.
First edition. Wise, Tennyson 156; Tinker 2098.
£60
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TENNYSON, Alfred Lord.
The Princess: a Medley … Fourth edition.
London: Edward Moxon … 1851.
Fourth edition, with ‘changes of very considerable importance’ (Wise), written when Tennyson was honeymooning with the Marshalls in 1850. The Princess (first 1847) is the only volume of poetry that Tennyson was to publish in the later 1840s, while finishing In Memoriam (1850). The poem...
£275
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
In Memoriam.
London, Edward Moxon … 1850.
First edition, first issue, with the misprints on page 2 (‘the sullen tree’ for ‘thee sullen tree’) and page 198 (‘baseness’ for ‘bareness’).
£950
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
A Welcome …
London: Edward Moxon & Co. … 1863.
Second edition, distinguished from the first by the hollow diamond at the centre of the French rule beneath the title.
£40
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington…
London: Edward Moxon … 1852.
First edition of Tennyson's ode to the Duke of Wellington; one of his earliest Laureate poems, it was, of course, a patriotic piece, but also, as a Horatian ode in English, a notable technical achievement.
£100
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Enoch Arden, etc. …
London, [Bradbury & Evans for] Edward Moxon & Co., 1864.
First edition, an association copy belonging to James Aubrey Garth Marshall and given by him to his daughter Julia Mary Garth Marshall (later O’Brien).
£175
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TERENCE.
P. Terentii Afri comoediae.
London, [Charles Whittingham], 1854.
First edition thus, edited by the new headmaster of Eton, Charles Old Goodford (1812–1884), and printed for presentation as a gift to leaving sixth-formers; the printed presentation leaf is here duly completed in manuscript, making it out to Francis William Garden-Campbell (1840–1895), who went on...
£150
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TERENCE.
Les comedies … avec la traduction et les remarques de Madame Dacier ….
Rotterdam, Gaspar Fritsch, 1717.
A fine edition of Anne Dacier’s French Terence (first published 1688), the translation here revised by her, and the notes expanded, with delightful illustrations by Picart.
£850
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THACKERAY, William Makepeace.
The Virginians, a tale of the last century.
London, Bradbury & Evans, November 1857 [– October 1859].
First edition in the original monthly parts of Thackeray’s American sequel to Henry Esmond.
£600
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THEOCRITUS et al.
Θεοκριτου, Μοσκου, Βιονις, Σιμμιου, τα ευρισκομενα. Theocriti, Moschi,...
[Heidelberg,] Commelin, 1604.
Second Heinsius edition of the works of Theocritus, paired as often with the poems of Moschus, Bion, and Simmias of Rhodes. It is ‘preferable’ to the first edition of 1603, which Heinsius tried to suppress, and is ‘in fact, a very excellent edition’, with ‘learned, sagacious, and ingenious’...
£850
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TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND,
who are in Place to do Justice, and to break the Bonds of the oppressed. A Narrative of the cruel,...
London, Printed for Thomas Simmons …, 1659.
First edition, rare, a list of Quaker victims of persecution in Ireland with details of their sufferings. The pamphlet was published and undersigned by a group of the victims including the country’s reputed first Quaker, William Edmondson, and Thomas Holme, who went on to publish A Brief...
£300
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TO THE REVEREND
and merry Answerer of Vox Cleri. To be left at Mr. Brabazon Aylmer’s at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill. With a Bundle.
[London, s.n., 1690.]
First and only edition. Attempts to revise the Book of Common Prayer in the wake of the 1689 Toleration Act found opposition in, among others, the Exeter clergyman Thomas Long. His Vox cleri, or, The Sense of the Clergy, concerning the making of Alterations in the established Liturgy (1690)...
£150
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THOMAS, Dylan.
Under Milk Wood. A Play for Voices …
London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1954.
First edition, first impression, our copy from the library of BBC radio producer D.G. Bridson, with a loosely inserted stereotype letter from the poet John Berryman about the last days and the death of Dylan Thomas.
£1500
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THOMAS, Dylan, and Sir Peter Blake, illustrator.
Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices.
London: Apple Litho (Bristol) Ltd. for Enitharmon Editions and Queen Anne Press, 2013.
De Luxe edition, number 61 of 100 copies with a signed print by Blake. This finely-produced edition was published to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas’s birth and celebrates the culmination of over twenty-five years of work by Peter Blake, one of the founding fathers of British Pop Art. The...
£975