English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees or Zach Larsen
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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GALLICO, Paul.
An archive of thirty-four scrapbooks compiled by Gallico.
1928–1972.
A lovingly and meticulously compiled archive of the writing career of the novelist Paul Gallico. The scrapbooks are arranged chronologically and by book/film with letters, telegrams, publicity materials, photographs and ephemera neatly intermingled with copies of reviews and reactions from local,...
£5500
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GAMON, Christophe de.
La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
[Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.
Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.
£950
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GARDINER, John Smallman.
The Art and the Pleasures of Hare-Hunting. In six Letters to a Person of Quality …
London: Printed by R. Griffith … 1750.
First edition, scarce, of this eloquent and amusing account of hare-hunting, the first monograph on the subject in English, comprising letters on the superiority of hare-hunting to fox-hunting (less dangerous, less laborious), on the best types of dogs, of trailing and starting hares, &c. Gardiner’s...
£1250
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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
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GAY, John, and Gordon ROSS (illustrator).
Rural Sports, together with the Birth of the Squire and the Hound and the...
New York, William Edwin Rudge, 1930.
Limited edition, numbered 94 of 200 copies for sale, signed by the artist. A handsome edition with hand-coloured illustrations by the sporting watercolourist Gordon Ross (1873–1946).
£160
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GAZA, Theodorus.
Grammatica introductiva; De mensibus; Apollonius Dyscolus: De constructione; Herodianus: De numeris.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus Manutius, 25 December 1495.]
A beautiful example of early Greek printing, containing the editio princeps of the grammar of Theodorus Gaza, and one of the first texts to be printed entirely in Greek.
£45000
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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
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[GEOGRAPHY.]
Primi principi di geografia ad uso de’ fanciulli.
[(Colophon:) Bergamo, Pietro Lancellotti, 1753].
Extremely rare second edition (first 1745) of this Bergamo-printed geographic catechism for young children.
£375
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GIBBON, Edward.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
London, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1776–88.
First editions of all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style’ (PMM). The first volume here is of the second variant (of two), with the errata corrected as far as p. 183 and X4 and a4 so signed. The first edition of volume I (1000 copies, published...
£14000
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GIGLI, Mariano.
Esperimento del nobile giovinetto Francesco Piazzi d’anni dieci non compiuti sulle sette lingue italiana, francese,...
Milan, Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1818.
First and only edition, rare, of a series of 450 translation exercises in French, Spanish, English, German, Latin, Greek, and Italian, posed to the ten-year-old linguistic prodigy Francesco Piazzi by his tutor as the culmination of his highly experimental method of linguistic instruction.
£1250
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GIOVIO, Paolo.
Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita. Quae in musaeo Ioviano Comi spectantur. Addita in calce...
Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1546.
First edition of Giovio’s biographies of illustrious men, with several marginal corrections, remarks, and comments by a contemporary reader, whose knowledge of biographies of the past encompassed several authors, including Erasmus.
£3000
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GIOVIO, Paolo.
Historiarum sui temporis. Tomus primus … ex Italico Latinus factus …
Lyon, heirs of Sébastien Gryphe, 1561.
The first Lyon pocket edition of Giovio’s history of his own time, in a charming gilt limp vellum binding.
£350
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GISSING, George.
The Unclassed, A Novel … in three Volumes.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1884.
First edition of Gissing’s second novel – and Bernard Shaw’s favourite of his novels – in the single-volume remaindered issue in red cloth.
£950
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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
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GODWIN, William.
Fleetwood: or, the new Man of Feeling … In three Volumes …
London: Printed for Richard Phillips … 1805.
First edition of Godwin’s third novel, like Caleb Williams a psychological and philosophical tale intended in some measure as a criticism of Rousseau. Casimir Fleetwood announces at the outset: ‘The proper topic of the narrative I am writing is the record of my errors. To write it, is the act of...
£650
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[GOETHE.]
REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich. Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt. Erste...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11].
Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time.
£6500
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GOLDSMITH, Oliver.
Essays … Collecta revirescunt.
London: Printed for W. Griffin … 1765.
First edition, a collection of twenty-seven essays. The other edition of 1765, more cheaply printed and with a letterpress title-page, is given priority by Temple Scott, but Rothschild suggests it is a piracy or a cheap edition printed to meet extra demand – it is certainly less generously imposed,...
£500
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[GOLDSMITH, Oliver.]
The Vicar of Wakefield: a Tale. Supposed to be written by himself … The second Edition. Vol. I. [–II].
London, Printed for F. Newbery … 1766.
Second edition, published two months after the first, printed by William Strahan in 1000 sets, and revised throughout by Goldsmith, with more than 450 new substantive readings, nearly all of them accepted by Arthur Friedman as authorial and admitted into the definitive Oxford text (Collected Works,...
£850
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GOODWIN, Thomas.
Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities wherein many Roman and English...
London, R.W. for Peter Parker, 1661.
A wholly unsophisticated Restoration sammelband of three popular seventeenth-century schoolbooks.
£850
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GOODWIN, Thomas.
Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities, wherein many Roman & English...
Oxford, Leonard Lichfield for Henry Cripps, 1638.
Early editions of these two popular schoolbooks on antiquities, often found bound together – a compendium of Roman antiquities and a study of the customs and religious rites of the ancient Jews, originally published in 1614 and 1625 respectively – by the headmaster and scholar Thomas Goodwin (1587–1642)....
£1600