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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[WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.]
The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...
6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?].
Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’.
£450
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[WASHINGTON, George.] PAINE, Thomas.
An Eulogy on the Life of General George Washington, who died at Mount Vernon, December 14th,...
Newburyport, Edmund M. Blunt, 1800.
First edition of this eulogy on Washington, ‘the saviour of your country’ and ‘father of his people’. This is the issue with urn woodcut on the final verso. Thomas Paine (1773–1811, not to be confused with the author of Common Sense) later changed his name to that of his father,...
£250
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WATSON, Sheila.
‘The Great War, Wyndham Lewis and the Underground Press’, a special issue of artscanada, November 1967, issue...
The recordings included are three sections from One-Way Song, made at Harvard in 1940 alongside his lecture, and ‘Marshall McLuhan recalls Lewis’.
£50
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[WEDDING POETRY.]
Applausi alli felicissimi sponsali dell’illustrissimo Sig. Cavaliere Deifebo Perini Brancadori, con l’illustrissima...
Siena, Stamperia del Pubblico, 1699.
Seemingly unrecorded collection of sonnets written to mark the marriage of two Sienese nobles, Deifebo Perini Brancadori and Ottavia Orlandini. The fourteen sonnets, whose authorship remains unknown, take inspiration from the family name of the groom and aspects of the arms of both families, with...
£350
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[WESTMINSTER ELECTION.]
A True and impartial Collection of Pieces, in Prose and Verse, which have been written and published on...
London: Printed for W. Owen … 1749.
First edition of a compilation of open letters to the electorate of Westminster, written during the violent 1749 election campaign.
£750
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WETZELL, Madame.
Les Matinées de la poupée, ou récréations d’une petite fille.
Paris, J. Langlumé, [1844?].
First and only edition, very rare, of a delightful illustrated account of a girl’s doll. Brillantine, a doll, is given to Célénie for company while her elder sister Alméa is in Africa; the book recounts in detail their relationship over the course of a week, from Brillantine’s arrival with...
£275
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WHITEHEAD, William.
Plays and Poems … in two Volumes …
London, Printed for J. Dodsley … 1774.
First and only edition of the collected works of William Whitehead, a protégé of Alexander Pope and poet laureate from 1757-85.
£350
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[WHITEHEAD, William.]
Variety. A tale, for married people.
London, for J. Dodsley, 1776.
First edition of this verse fable on married life by William Whitehead (1715-85), the son of a Cambridge baker who rose to become fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a successful playwright, and poet laureate in succession to Colley Cibber.
£100
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WHITMAN, Walt, and Antonio FRASCONI (illustrator).
A Whitman Portrait.
[New York, Spiral Press, 1960.]
First edition, comprising extracts from Leaves of Grass, facsimile letters and a selection of woodcut ‘portraits’ by Frasconi. Numbered 149 of 525 copies signed by Frasconi, printed on Japanese Goyu paper.
£250
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[WILLIAMS, John.]
The History of the Gunpowder-Treason, collected from approved Authors, as well popish as protestant.
London, Richard Chiswel, 1678.
First edition of an anti-popish history of the Gunpowder Plot. A well informed account drawing on both Anglican and Catholic sources, The History of the Gunpowder-Treason was published anonymously by John Williams (1633/6–1709), later Bishop of Chichester, amid renewed interest in the subject during...
£750
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WILLICH, Anthony Florian Madinger.
Lectures on Diet and Regimen: being a systematic Inquiry into the most rational Means of preserving...
London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees … 1799.
Second edition, much revised and expanded, printed in the same year as the first: ‘Many important and useful articles have been added, especially in the fifth Chapter, “Of Food and Drink.”’ Willich’s very popular manual was based on a series of lecture given by the eminent physician at Bath...
£375
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WISE, Francis.
A Letter to Dr Mead concerning some Antiquities in Berkshire, particularly shewing that the White Horse, which gives...
Oxford, Printed for Thomas Wood … 1738
First editions. A Letter to Dr Mead was the first serious archaeological study of the Uffington White Horse. Francis Wise, Keeper of the Archives at Oxford University and later a friend of Samuel Johnson, contends that the horse, which he eulogises as a work of art, had Saxon origins, because...
£350
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[WISHART, George.]
I. G. de rebus auspiciis serenssimi, & potentissimi Caroli Dei gratia Magnae Brittanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae...
[Amsterdam or The Hague,] 1647.
First edition, rare, a fine paper copy in a handsome binding, of an account of the campaign of James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, against the Covenanters in 1644−46.
£1750
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WITHER, George.
Speculum Speculativum: or, a Considering-Glasse; being an Inspection into the present and late sad Condition of...
London, Written June XIII. MDCLX. and there Imprinted the same year [1660].
The third of three editions in the same year, from an entirely new setting of type, with ‘Glasse’ rather than ‘Glass’ on the title-page, the errata formerly printed on L8 corrected, and the errors corrected in the caption title on p. 1
£525
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WOOLLEY, C. Leonard and Thomas Edward LAWRENCE.
The Wilderness of Zin ... With a Chapter on the Greek Inscriptions by M.N. Tod....
London: The Alden Press for Jonathan Cape, 1936.
Second English edition. The Wilderness of Zin originally appeared as the Palestine Exploration Fund Annual for 1914-1915, and was the first work by Lawrence to appear in book form. However, it was included in the P.E.F. series on somewhat disingenuous grounds: ‘During January and February 1914,...
£150
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WYCHERLEY, William.
The Posthumous Works … in Prose and Verse. Faithfully publish’d from his original Manuscripts, by Mr. Theobald....
London: Printed for A. Bettesworth, J. Osborn, W. Mears, W. and J. Innys, J. Peele, T. Woodward; and F. Clay. 1728.
First edition of an important collection, comprising 308 maxims, one short essay and a large number of previously unpublished poems (the third paginated sequence), based on manuscripts acquired from Captain Thomas Shrimpton, Wycherley’s sole executor.
£850
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XENOPHON.
De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.
Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.
First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...
£875
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YEATS, William Butler.
The Poems …
London, Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1949.
No. 191 of 375 copies, signed, of which 25 were for private distribution. At the time of publication this was the definitive collected edition of Yeats’s poetry. Yeats had prepared the proofs and signed the limitation leaves before his death in 1939, but final publication was delayed by the war.
£2750
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YRVEN, Marcelle.
La comédienne et le féminisme.
Paris, L. Pichon, 1914.
First edition of this feminist work on the necessity of a thorough literary and cultural education for women in theatre, by the celebrated actress Marcelle Yrven, presented to the editor-in-chief of Le Figaro’s literary supplement.
£250
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ZANCHI, Basilio.
Dictionarium poeticum, et epitheta veterum poetarum … nunc secondo trans Alpes editum.
Mons, Luca Rivius, 1612.
Scarce Mons-printed edition of Zanchi’s classical onomasticon from A to Z, providing a comprehensive list of deities, notable figures, and locations from the works of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Propertius.
£375