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English Literature

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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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  1. [SWIFT, Jonathan.]

    Some Observations upon a Paper, call’d, the Report of the Committee of the most honourable Privy-Council in...

    Dublin, Printed by John Harding … [1724].

    First edition of the third of Swift’s Drapier’s letters, bound with other works including two further pamphlets on Wood’s coinage (Remarks upon Mr. Wood’s Coyn and Proceedings by Sir Michael Creagh, and A Word or two to the People of Ireland, concerning the Brass Money),...

    £12500

  2. SWIFT, Jonathan (attr.).

    The Life and genuine Character of Doctor Swift. Written by Himself.

    London: Printed for J. Roberts … and sold at the Pamphlet Shops … 1733.

    First edition. Authorship of this fine poem has long been debated. It was explicitly repudiated by Swift himself, though it has much in common with Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift and Faulkner printed it as genuine in 1746.

    £1000

  3. SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles.

    Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic, September 4th, 1870 ...

    London: F. S. Ellis ... 1870.

    First edition. On 4 Septemeber 1879, two days after the final capitulation of the French army at Sedan and the surrender of Napoleon III to the King of Prussia, the republican deputies at Paris proclaimed the end of the imperial dynasty and the foundation of the provisional government that was to become...

    £100

  4. TACITUS. 

    C. Cornelius Tacitus, cum optimis exemplaribus collatus. 

    Amsterdam, Daniel Elzevir, 1678. 

    A remarkably fresh set of the third and final Elzevir edition of this format, reprinted from the edition of 1665. 

    £275

  5. TACITUS, Publius Cornelius.

    The Annales … The Description of Germanie. [–The End of Nero and Beginning of Galba. Foure Bookes...

    [London, Arnold Hatfield for Bonham and John Norton,] 1612.

    Third collected edition of the Annals translated by Richard Grenewey, first published in 1598, and of The End of Nero, Histories and Agricola, translated by Henry Savile, first published in 1591; this is a paginary reprint, with the same unusual title-page, of the edition of 1604/5.

    £1500

  6. TACITUS, Publius Cornelius.

    The Works of Tacitus; volume I, containing the Annals, to which are prefixed political Discourses upon...

    London, Thomas Woodward and John Peele, 1728[–1731].

    First edition of this influential translation by the Scottish-born Thomas Gordon (d. 1750), dedicated to Robert Walpole and the Prince of Wales, each volume prefaced by a long political essay.

    £1500

  7. TASSO, Torquato.

    Il rogo di Corinna, et la fenice ...

    Venice, Evangelista Deuch[ino], 1621. [with:] [—.] Il Rinaldo ... Di nuovo riveduto, & con diligenza corretto ... Venice, Evangelista Deuchino,...

    A strikingly bound copy of Deuchino’s editions of four pastoral plays and epic poems by Tasso.

    £750

  8. ‘TELL’, pseud. [i.e. Jacob EPSTEIN].

    A rude Book.

    Hartford, Edwin Valentine Mitchell, 1926.

    First edition, one of 500 copies printed in the United States, of these satirical sketches of Churchill, Shaw, Beerbohm &c. by the celebrated sculptor Jacob Epstein, our copy owned by the political cartoonist Robert Osborn and accompanied by a scathing review written during his undergraduate years...

    £350

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.

    Ballads and other Poems.

    London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. … 1880.

    First edition. Wise, Tennyson 138; Tinker 2093.

    £75

  14. 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

  15. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.

    Locksley Hall Sixty Years after etc.

    London: Macmillan and Co. … 1886.

    First edition. Wise, Tennyson 156; Tinker 2098.

    £60

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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