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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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Tarr.
London, The Egoist Ltd., 1918.
First English edition, published in an edition of 1000 (of which 87 distributed gratis). T. S. Eliot thought the book ‘remarkable’. Set in pre-war Paris, Tarr pits its eponymous English artist (‘a caricatural self-portrait of sorts’) against Kreisler, a self-destructive German...
£300
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Wild Body.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1927.
First trade edition, first issue binding; there was also a special edition of 85 signed copies. A collection, in a much reworked form, of some early sketches written in Brittany, some of which had been published in 1909.
£250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Snooty Baronet.
London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1932.
First edition, first issue binding, the first of three books Lewis published with Cassell, and the first of his novels not to find an American publisher.
£400
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Revenge for Love.
London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., [1937].
First edition, very scarce in the dust-jacket, of ‘one of Lewis’s finest novels … a brilliant novel of character’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), set in pre-Civil War Spain and centred on an incident of Communist gun-running on the border. ‘Here for once, Communism is accepted as a...
£1250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Rotting Hill …
London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1951].
First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey / Benedictions / Wyndham Lewis’. Rotting Hill was a collection of stories, ‘no more political than “some of Charles Dickens’ books, and all by Mr. Shaw”’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), in that ‘today our lives are saturated by’ politics....
£750
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Unlucky for Pringle. Unpublished and other Stories … Edited and introduced by C. J. Fox and Robert Chapman.
[London,] Vision, [1973].
First edition, inscribed by the editor ‘To Geoffrey and Joyce Bridson with warmest good wishes Cy Fox’. Seven of the fifteen stories were first published here. Fox’s postcard thanks Bridson for a letter ‘which was terrifically gratifying – especially from one who did so much to get the...
£100
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Limited edition, no XXVII of XXX copies not for sale, signed by Mrs Wyndham Lewis, Michael Ayrton & Walter Allen, with a signed etching by Michael Ayrton. A further 100 numbered copies were for general sale at £30 each.
£500
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Human Age. Book Two, Monstre Gai. Book Three, Malign Fiesta. Illustrations by Michael Ayrton.
London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1955].
First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson – you who did so much to make the completion of this book possible, and who was chiefly responsible for its translation into Radio drama – I salute you. / Wyndham Lewis’.
£1750
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Vulgar Streak.
London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1941.
First edition, first impression, a scarce work because of wartime paper shortages and, possibly, the destruction of a portion of the first impression in the Blitz; certainly Robert Hale’s offices were bombed and the records destroyed, and the work was reprinted within a month.
£750
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Childermass … Section 1.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1928.
First edition, no. 74 of 225 copies of the special edition, signed by Lewis, additionally inscribed, in c. 1951, ‘To Geoffrey Bridson (through whom I am enabled to finish this book) – deepest thanks and friendliest greetings / Wyndham Lewis’.
£2500
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Red Priest.
London, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1956.
First edition, the last book published before Lewis’s death in March 1957. Bridson and Lewis had corresponded about a possible radio adaptation but Bridson had concluded it was over-episodic and would not translate well (letter of 6 March 1951).
£150
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Mrs Dukes’ Million.
Toronto, The Coach House Press, 1977.
First edition, Lewis’s first novel, written in 1908-10 but never before published.
£75
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
A Soldier of Humour and selected Writings. Edited with an introduction by Raymond Rosenthal.
New York & Toronto, A Signet Classic, 1966.
First edition, inscribed by the editor: ‘Geoffrey I thought you would be interested in this new anthology’.
£75
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Second (but first published) edition, regular copy.
£50
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LUCIAN, of Samosata.
Deorum dialogi... una cum interpretatione e regione latina nusquam antea impressi...
Strassbourg, Johannes Schott, 1515.
First edition edited and translated by the German humanist (and musician) Ottmar Nachtgall.
£2100
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MACDIARMID, Hugh [i.e. Christopher Grieve], and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.
A collection of 24 items, many signed or inscribed,...
1955-1978.
The poet and BBC broadcaster D. G. Bridson had been an avid reader of MacDiarmid since the ’30s, and organized a ‘comprehensive selection’ of his work for broadcast on 5 Feb 1951, followed by productions of In Memoriam James Joyce (31 May 1956) and Impavidi progrediamur (19 December...
£5400
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MADDEN, Dodgson Hamilton.
The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare & of Elizabethan Sport.
London, New York, & Bombay, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1897.
First edition of Madden’s reimagination of Elizabethan sport, derived from passages from Shakespeare. Though a legal writer and prominent jurist, being appointed attorney-general of Ireland in 1889, the best known publication of Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840–1928) remains the Diary of Master...
£120
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MANLEY, Delarivier.
The Power of Love: in seven Novels viz. I. The fair Hypocrite. II. The Physician’s Stratagem. III. The...
London, Printed for John Barber … and John Morphew … 1720.
First edition, apparently a presentation copy, of Delarivier Manley’s last work of prose, a collection of seven amorous novellas partly derived from William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566), ‘adding divers new Incidents’, and supplemented by several original compositions.
£2500
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MARINI, Giovanni Ambrogio.
The Desperadoes; an heroick History. Translated from the Italian of the celebrated Marini (the Original...
London: Printed by W. R. and sold by T. Asltey … J. Isted … and T. Worrall … 1733.
First and only edition in English of Le gare de’ disperati (1644), the second of three romances by Marini (1596-1668). Inevitably, ‘It was necessary to omit many Things that were contrary to our Morals; to Decency, and to the Purity of the English Tongue …’. But the general scheme of events...
£1000
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MARIVAUX, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de.
Le Paysan parvenu: or, the fortunate Peasant. Being Memoirs of the Life of Mr. ––––....
London: Printed for John Brindley … Charles Corbett … and Richard Wellington … 1735
First edition in English, originally published in French in the Hague in 1734-5. This is the second of the two important novels by Marivaux, which broke new ground in the art of writing fiction. ‘Where La Vie de Marianne belongs to the moralizing and sentimental romance tradition, Le Paysan...
£650