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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MÜNSTER, Sebastian.
[Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...
[Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.
First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...
£7000
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[MURDER.]
A Warning Piece against the Crime of Murder: or, an Account of many extraordinary and most providential Discoveries of...
[London,] Printed for Wiliam Owen … ; and R Goadby, in Sherborne. [1752.]
First edition, very scarce, a fascinating compendium of grim crimes both real and clearly fictional, many ‘providentially discovered’ in a dream, revealed by returning ghosts, or uncovered ‘after many years concealment’, published in the context of the Murder Act of 1752 which introduced...
£300
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MUSGRAVE, Samuel.
Two Dissertations. I. On the Graecian Mythology. II. An Examination of Sir Isaac Newton’s Objections to the...
London, Printed by J. Nichols. 1782.
First edition, published posthumously for the benefit of the author’s widow, with a generous list of subscribers thanks to the efforts of the editor, Thomas Tyrwhitt. In addition to Dr. Johnson other subscribers include Sir Joseph Banks, Edward Gibbon (two copies), David Hartley, Joshua Reynolds, Richard...
£450
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NABBES, Thomas.
Microcosmus. A Morall Maske, presented with generall liking, at the private House in Salisbury Court, and heere...
London, Printed by Richard Oulton for Charles Greene … 1637.
First edition of an allegorical morality play (the Elements, the Senses, Love, Fear, Hope, Melancholy, et al.) which ‘may be the first English masque presented in a theatre with moveable scenery’ (Pforzheimer Catalogue).
£5000
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[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.]
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale...
Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.
An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to the female players of tavolazzo – a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting – at the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri; the rules of the sport would be formally laid out in 1780.
£375
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[NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].
Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.
Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.
First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.
£750
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NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.
Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.
First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.
£850
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NICOLAI, [Christoph] Friedrich.
The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker. Translated from the German … by Thomas Dutton,...
London: Printed by C. Lowndes, and sold by H.D. Symonds, 1798.
First edition in English, very scarce, of Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–6), ‘probably the literary bestseller of the German Enlightenment’ (Selwyn), translated into many languages and much re-printed. It is sometimes considered...
£2750
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[NOVA SCOTIA.]
A Fair Representation of His Majesty’s Right to Nova-Scotia or Acadie. Briefly stated from the Memorials of the...
London: Printed by Edward Owen … 1756.
First edition. ‘Résumé très bien fait de toute la question des frontières de l’Acadie entre la France et l’Angleterre; mais écrit au point de vue de l’Angleterre seulement’ (Gagnon).
£750
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[NUPTIALIA.]
Per le Faustissime Nozze del Nobile Signor Bartolomeo Grillenzoni di Carpi colla Nobile Signora Contessa Luigia Giacobazzi...
Guastalla, ‘Nella Regio-Ducale Stamperia di Salvatore Costa e Comp.’, 1791.
Seemingly unrecorded, provincially printed sonnets written to mark the marriage of Bartolomeo Grillenzoni and Luigia Gioacobazzi, dedicated to the father of the groom.
£250
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[NUPTIALIA.]
Bartolomeo MOLAJONI. Alla neogama donzella Marianna Molajoni negli Sforza, Bartolomeo Molajoni germano dirigge il...
Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811.
Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed to the newlywed Marianna Molajoni by her brother Bartolomeo and dedicated to the sottoprefetto of Viterbo, Giulio Zelli Pazzaglia.
£275
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[O’BRIEN.] NA GOPALEEN, Myles. [Pseud.] Brian O’Nolan.
The Hard Life … An Exegesis of Squalor.
London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961.
First edition. A short comic novel described by O’Brien’s biographer Anthony Cronin as ‘a small masterpiece’, The Hard Life recounts the turn-of-the-century doings of a nameless narrator and the characters around him, with a remote, disdainful calmness and clarity. Set in the same turn-of-the-century...
£250
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[O’BRIEN.] NA GOPALEEN, Myles. [Pseud.] Brian O’Nolan.
The Best of Myles.
New York: Walker & Company, 1968.
First US edition, preceded by the London, MacGibbon & Kee edition of the same year.
£150
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[OCCUPIED FRANCE]
Finis les mauvais jours! Papa gagne de l’argent en Allemagne! [The bad days are over! Daddy is earning money...
[Paris], Office de Répartition de l´Affichage, 1943.
Rare, encouraging the voluntary relocation of French workers from impoverished and semi-starved France to Germany factories.
£300
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[OPTICAL PRINT.]
‘No. 5. Morgan’s improved protean scenery: Mount Vesuvius, as represented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens...
London, Published by W. Morgan, [c. 1837].
A remarkable metamorphic or ‘protean’ print depicting a dormant Vesuvius by day but, when held up to the light, showing a dramatic eruption in the night sky.
£675
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[ORDE, John Powlett.]
A collection of 111 original compositions in Latin (and occasionally Greek) verse and prose.
Eton, 1818–1820.
A delightful insight into classical education at Eton, where until the mid-nineteenth century Greek and Latin were the only official classroom subjects, and Latin composition was considered a key accomplishment. Subjects covered here include ‘The Pigeon’ (5 May 1818), ‘Instruction’ (21...
£1750
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[ORPHIC POEMS.]
Ορφεως αργοναυτικα υμνοι και περι λιθων. Orphei Argonautica hymni et de lapidibus...
Utrecht, Willem van de Water, 1689.
First Eschenbach edition, presenting the ‘Argonautica Orphica’, an anonymous fourth-century Greek epic probably based on the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, which had been rediscovered in the fifteenth century by Constantine Lascaris, alongside the Orphic Hymns and the Lithica,...
£325
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[OSBORNE, Francis.]
Historical memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and King James.
London: Printed by T. Grismond, and are to be sold by T. Robinson … in Oxon. 1658.
First edition of Osborne’s history of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI and I, two exemplary leaders of the Protestant English cause, with which Osborne was much taken in his works.
£475
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OSTROGORSKII, Aleksandr Iakovlevich.
Zhivoe slovo. Kniga dlia izucheniia rodnogo iazyka [Living word. A book for learning our...
New York, Association Press, 1920.
Stereotype (first American?) edition. First published in 1907, Ostrogorsky’s (1868–1908) Zhivoe slovo was a runaway success in Russia, where it was widely regarded as the best reader of its type. Such high regard for the book presumably made it an obvious choice for it to be republished for...
£150
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OVERBURY, Sir Thomas.
Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife. With Additions of new Characters, and many other Witty Conceits never before...
London, Printed by John Haviland, for A. Crooke … 1638.
Sixteenth edition of the most popular character book of the early seventeenth century.
£600