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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AIKEN, Conrad.
The Collected Novels … Introduction by R.P. Blackmur.
New York, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, [1964].
First edition, inscribed: ‘For Geoffrey and Joyce [Bridson] con amore but o at what a distance from Conrad 1964’.
£150
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[BECKFORD, William, and Samuel HENLEY, translator.]
An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished Manuscript. With Notes critical...
London, Printed for W. Clarke … 1809.
Scarce second edition – in fact a reissue comprising the remainder sheets of the first edition of 1786 with a cancel title-page (printed by S. Gosnell) – of Henley’s English translation of Beckford’s Gothic masterpiece, first published against the author’s wishes and predating publication...
£1500
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[BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.]
Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier de l’Inquisition...
Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus, 1754.
Second edition of this much expanded and altered translation of Berington’s celebrated utopian novel, Memoirs of Sigr Gaudentio di Lucca (1737).
£500
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BLANCHARD, Edward Litt Leman.
A Pipe of Tobacco: with Whiffs and Clouds … With Illustrations.
London: H. Beal … [1840s?].
First edition, by the editor and play- and pantomime-writer E.L. Blanchard, comprising three ‘whiffs’ and two ‘clouds’ on the subject of tobacco, aimed ‘at a niche in the waistcoast pocket, rather than a more presuming station on the library shelf’. Blanchard knew Dickens and was in...
£125
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BOUDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre-Joseph.
L’Andrometrie, ou examen philosophique de l’homme. Par Monsieur l’Abbé de Villemaire.
Paris, chez Brunet, 1753.
First editions of two scarce works by the philosopher, moralist and Parisian avocat Boudier de Villemert (1716–1801), best known as the author of L’Ami des Femmes.
£2500
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BROUGHAM, Henry, first Baron Brougham and Vaux.
Albert Lunel. A Novel ... In three Volumes ... London, Charles H.
Clarke ... [1872].
First edition, Sadleir’s ‘really scarce’ fourth state, of a touching memorial to the author’s daughter, with the undated Charles H. Clarke cancel titles.
£450
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[BURY, Charlotte, Lady.]
The Exclusives. In three Volumes ...
London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley ... 1830.
First edition of this celebrated society novel written after the enormous success of Marianne Spencer Stanhope’s Almack’s (1826), a roman à clef centred on the fashionable assembly rooms in St James’s.
£950
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CAMPBELL, Thomas.
Gertrude of Wyoming; a Pennsylvanian Tale. And other Poems.
London, T. Bensley, for the Author ... 1809.
First edition of Campbell’s most re-printed poem, based on a massacre of American patriots by British forces and their Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) allies in 1778. Its portrayal of ‘pastoral innocence evoked only to be destroyed by the savagery of war (embodied in this case by Mohawk allies of...
£650
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CRAWFORD, F. Marion.
Saracinesca ... in three Volumes ...
William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1887.
First edition. The prolific American novelist F. Marion Crawford, born in Italy and for most of his life resident in Rome, enjoyed a phenomenal success both in England and America. Saracinesca is the first novel of his Roman tetralogy (with Sant’ Ilario, Don Orsino, and Corleone: a Sicilian Story),...
£280
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[CUMBERLAND, Richard.]
Arundel. By the author of the Observer.
London, Printed for C. Dilly … 1789.
First edition. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) was the grandson of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and great-grandson of the Bishop of Peterborough; he had already made his name as a playwright in London, and was also the author of a periodical paper the Observer when he published this,...
£1500
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DE BEAUVOIR, Simone.
The Mandarins. A Novel …
Cleveland and New York, The World Publishing Company, [1956].
First edition in English, signed by De Beauvoir on the limitation leaf, one of 500 unnumbered copies, of which only 275 were for sale.
£750
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DESENFANS, Noel Joseph.
Les deux Hermites, dédié a mylord Lyttelton …
A Londres; chez R. Davis … J Ridley … W Owen … 1773.
First and only edition, uncommon, of an epistolary novel by the future art dealer Noel Joseph Desenfans. The scene is Paris in the 1680s, the theme is Enlightenment, and the author’s aim was to inspire ‘l’horreur de l’oppression, sentiment nécessaire à l’harmonie de la Société, & vertu...
£650
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DESFORGES, Pierre Choudard.
Tom Jones a Londres, Comédie en cinq actes et en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding … Réprésentée,...
Paris, Chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi … 1789.
Later edition, first published 1782. Desforges’s dramatic adaptation of Fielding’s novel was followed in 1788 by an apparently inferior sequel, Tom Jones et Fellamar.
£95
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DICKENS, Charles.
Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.
Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.
First edition in Swedish, very rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.
£850
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DICKENS, Charles.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club … with forty-three illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz.
London, Chapman & Hall, 1837.
First edition, first issue. The Pickwick Papers was serialised in twenty parts from April 1836, the novel reaching its conclusion in November 1837, when it was also released as a three-decker. It was both Dickens’s most popular work and the launch of his relationship with Hablot K. Browne...
£2000
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DICKENS, Charles.
Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.
Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.
First edition in Swedish, rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.
£350
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DICKENS, Charles.
The Personal History of David Copperfield … With Illustrations by H. K. Browne.
London, Bradbury & Evans, 1850.
First edition, an early issue, with both title-pages dated 1850, the corrected reading ‘screwed’ on p. 132, but otherwise first issue points as listed by Eckel and Smith.
£750
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DICKENS, Charles; Hablot Knight BROWNE and George CATTERMOLE, illustrators.
Master Humphrey’s Clock.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1840–41.
First edition in book form, of Charles Dickens’ weekly periodical, featuring a collection of short stories and his two novels The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.
£175
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D’ISRAELI, Isaac.
Romances …
London: Printed for Cadell and Davies … Murray and Highley … J. Harding … and J. Wright. 1799.
First edition, a collection of three prose tales by the father of the novelist and Prime Minister, with an introductory ‘Poetical Essay on Romance and Romancers’. The longest piece is ‘Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura’, which has echoes of Beckford and draws on the learned orientalism...
£950
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EDE.
A Story. Three Volumes ...
London: Remington & Co. Publishers ... 1889.
First edition. Stifled by her boring life as the pampered daughter of a rich Midlands banker, Edith runs away to the neighbouring Potteries. She uses skills acquired as an accomplished young lady of leisure to get a job in the local porcelain factory as painter on china. She soon finds herself promoted...
£450